Weekending

Picnics at Churchman's Brook.

Floating paper boats down the stream

Bushwalks with me walking into 3 GIANT spiderwebs (seriously they were as tall as me and I'm 5ft11!!)

Being silly at the top of the dam wall.

Movie nights using Mummy as a couch.

Morning tea with fresh baked Date Shortcake Slice and homemade coffee.

The little (fluffy) things

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Home-baked sourdough fresh from the oven.

Photo bombers at pick your filling lunch.

Afternoon bike rides on "Big Girl Bikes".

Pretty flowers found in the bush.

Quick trip to Spotlight and Bunnings with a quick look in the pet store.

How was your weekend?

Strawberry Fields Dress (geez I'm original...)

This is the next thing I made up in my winter sewing. I did up a little long sleeve peasant dress in a thick cotton drill that I picked up as a remnant for $2!

I used another tutorial from Prudent Baby for this one. The instructions said it was a 2T and it fits my almost 3 year old perfectly. She's super skinny but also really tall so I did lengthen it a bit. I've made A LOT of peasant tops/dresses and the measurements on this were just right! I always have to do a fair bit of faffing (is that a word?) with the widths and lengths but this one was so good!

I really love peasant style tops and dresses. They are perfect for little girls, really easy to wear. I think they are really worth the fiddling around!

Still one more thing that I've done for Eva's winter wardrobe, I just need to get some decent shots of her in it.....

Love/Hate Relationship

So I REEEEALLY want to sew right now. I have oodles of half finished projects as well as a bazillion more floating around in my head and on the various bits of paper almost covering my desk. There is, however, a problem. Not a big problem, just one that is enough of a problem that I can't sew right now. This "problem" can be the most useful of all my sewing paraphernalia, but right now it is about as useful as teeth on a duck. It is folks, my over-locker (or serger depending where you hail from).

It is currently sitting on my sewing desk taunting me with it's variety of un-threaded needles.I think I've re-threaded it 6 times...today...and it's only 2pm. You see this particular over-locker is literally as old as I am. My mum used it to make clothes for my sister and I on it when we were kids. Then my husband, bless him, got it serviced and gave it to me for my birthday a few years ago (with my mum's permission of course!). And I. Loved. It. I could sew with stretch fabrics without the stitching snapping as soon as it was pulled over someones head. I could finish off the edges in my cotton fabrics with that oh so professional look. And I still love it, it's awesome! It's pre-loved, it has meaning, but when that sucker comes un-threaded, well then you can damn that thing to the pits of Tartarus! (yup I'm a bit of a greek mythology geek ;)

You see for some reason unbeknownst to all of humankind you can't re-thread this machine without taking the whole thing apart! Seriously you need, tweezers, pliers and a screwdriver! Well not a screwdriver anymore because the screw snapped so I need to use the pliers to unscrew it. And I swear the eye is the smallest eye...ever. So, I re-thread the stupid thing, do a test run then start to sew.....threads all snap. Repeat process....snap....repeat process.....SNAP! So right now I give up (this is day 3 of "repeat process"). It just will not co-operate!

That pile of to dos will just have to stay undone for a little bit longer...

Princess Peplum

This is the next of my "head start sewing'!
I am so in love with this fabric! I found a couple of fat quarters of Lizzy House Castle Peeps at Big W (I know! crazy!) a while ago. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, especially as they were fat quarters. So into my (extensive) fat quarter stash they went.

Then I came across this tutorial over at Max California, and fell in love! So I drafted my own top in a similar way to Max. The Peplum isn't at fluffy and the sleeves just came out as sleeveless but I still kinda love it!

I lined it in a pale yellow and white stripe. I'm yet to perfect my lined work. I'm slowly getting better though! Practice, practice, practice! Not to mention my gathering :/

I'm totally loving the huge buttons on the back. I'm thinking it will be great from now through winter with a long sleeve tee, leggings and boots. Then through to spring again with a pair of shorts!

Will Eva go for it? Coz it is a dress...right??

Winter Wardrobe Part 1

My youngest loves dresses. She also likes skirts, and she likes pink. If you pick out her clothes for the day and the outfit isn't all of those things she. is. not. happy. So I thought I'd get a head start on sewing up some long sleeve dresses in more winter friendly fabrics so as to avoid arguments in the coming cooler months.(not that we need it 33C today! sheesh!)

This is the first of my head start sewing!! I grabbed a couple of cheap fleecy sweaters to make a sweater dress using the tutorial over at Prudent Baby. I changed it up a bit using kid sized sweaters instead of an oversize adult one.
Then I used some polar fleece for the pockets. It turned out pretty cute, but was missing something. So I used a heart foam sticker stamp (a foam sticker stuck to a milk bottle lid) and some fabric paint to print a design across the top part of the dress. After I made this one the ladies at Prudent Baby also put up a tutorial specifically to make these for kids!

Because I'd made one for my eldest too I decided to make some track pants with the leftover sleeves and some scrap jersey fabric I had. Hopefully I can convince her to wear them when it's really cold :/

Have you done any sewing or buying for winter yet? The weather Australia wide doesn't seem to know what it's doing at the moment though!

Switching Gears

Autumn, such a beautiful time of the year. Days get shorter, morning sunlight changes to that beautiful golden colour, leaves change, fruit and vegetable ripen. It becomes cool enough to go for picnics, bush walks and to wander through all of the markets and fairs that seem to pop up this time of the year. Not to mention Easter! All of that beautiful baking, crafting and chocolate making! I just love it!

It's a time to slow down and appreciate life just that little bit more. We've definitely been switching gears around here. Evening walks after dinner have started back up after a looong hoooot summer with maximums being reached at around 5-6pm! Today we visited a local school fete and purchased some second hand books for the girls and My Little Ponies.

One of the best thing about this time of the year is the abundance of fruits! The other weekend we went and picked a bucket full of olives from a grove of trees on the side of the road. They currently reside on my kitchen bench soaking in salty water waiting to be put into jars for our pizza nights. I did a bit of googling on preserving olives and this is the "recipe" I decided to follow using an accumulation of what I found.

Preserved Olives

bucket of olives
salt
water

Fill a bucket of olives with water. I put enough to cover the olives but not too much that it spills every time I move it. Add 1 cup of cooking salt. Change the salty water daily for at least a week. Bite test and if still bitter keep soaking in salty water until they reach your desired taste, be it salty or still a little bitter. Put into clean sterilised jars and fill with salty water to cover. From what I can gather these should last for a few months, but I'll let you know how we go! I'm sure you could do it with a smaller container as long as the olives are immersed in the water and just adjust the amount of salt you use :)

Another fruit that is perfect at this time of year is lillie pillies! I think they may also be called chinese apples?? I'm not sure...maybe it's just an Australian thing?

Either way my Mum and Dad have a tree FULL of them so during the week while Chloe was at school Eva and I popped down for a coffee and picking session! My Dad got out his ladder and we filled a bucket.

Eva ate a decent amount too! I decided to turn them into jam using a jam sugar. It is absolutely delicious but we aren't particularly jam people so I'll be gifting a lot to my Dad I think! Mind you it'll go well with the fresh sour dough that's rising in the sunshine at the moment! I'll do a post on my sourdough soon too when I discover if it's worked or not! Off to do some eating now I think!










What's your favorite thing about this time of the year? Autumn or Spring depending on the hemisphere you live in!! :)

Luck of the Irish!

I don't know about you but I love to celebrate holidays! Anything and everything! Christmas, Easter, Valentines, Chinese New Year, Talk Like a Pirate Day, Solstice, Equinox, Birthdays, May the fourth be with you, St Patrick's Day! Any excuse to do fun activities with my girls. And this year St Patrick's Day was no exception.

We had some fun craft in the morning, which was scrunching up some green tissue paper to glue on a shamrock. As well as some leprechaun puzzles and writing.

I quickly whipped up some sparkly felt shamrock clips for the girls to wear too! Super easy hearts cut from felt and hot glue gunned to a clip with a sequin to finish off! Chloe wore a rainbow dress and Eva a green dress and we headed up into Perth on the train to check out the Perth Homegrown Market.

It was such a nice morning. We had coffee, checked out the market stalls, bought some AWESOME organic sourdough bread, tasted and then bought a raw chocolate ball kit from moderndayhippie.com.au. By then it was getting pretty hot so we all had a play in the new water labyrinth. Have you been there? If you live in the area definitely go check it out! It was heaps of fun not to mention hilarious watching Chloe try to get out  only for a wall of water to appear in front of her!

After the train ride home we had a quick lunch with the sourdough bread before a rest in the afternoon. The city was full of green colorful people and we all had a ball!

How do you celebrate St Patrick's Day? A pint of Guinness? Some green food? I'd love to know :)