Ready Set Go

I made time in between things last week to make this year's Christmas cards. It was deep satisfaction sitting at the sewing machine and doing some actual craft - it's been a while! The idea is blatantly ripped off from a lovely Pea who in turn ripped it from somewhere else. Bless the internets!

And yesterday an early Christmas present arrived for me.


It was part of the Chutney Club swap. It's from the very lovely Dinny from (the map of) Tassie (sorry I crack myself up).


Jealous? You should be - it really is delicious on cheese sandwiches. And she printed that fabric herself. Shame Auspost couldn't resist stepping on it in transit and bending the lid ever so slightly enough to allow some relish wastage onto the pretty fabric.

I made Chilli Jam for my part of the swap. I'll share the recipe some time cause, really, if I do say so myself it's bloody good.

Tuesdays

Tuesdays are a little bit shit. I work from home, so I have met the new meaning of juggling. The Smurf is a trooper but quite frankly by the end of the day I'm frazzed and everyone presents themselves as a pest.

So, here's a happy thought, I made something recently. It's for the Smurf to cart his medicines to child care after our hospital adventure'.


Just incase you don't believe me and think it's just a blog-ready appliqued piece of fabric, it is in fact a zippered pouch (and it's lined but you'll have to take my word on that one).


Funny, I had this cut out a couple of weeks before the craft weekend and managed about 1 letter of machine applique a week. Then Christie posted a much classier version of the same concept (and even managed to apply more appropriate colour) and I was spurred on to finish - albeit at the same sewing rate.

So, The Smurf's medication now travels in style, and I have to say it's bloody handy. Coming attractions include one replica for the nappy bag, the handbag, the glove box and who knows where else. They probably won't need all that lettering though.

So as you can see it's baby craft steps round here people, teeny tiny baby steps. One stitch can be considered a big achievement here right now.

Project # something

I whipped this up (using the Softies book) this week as a present for the horses birthday approach to birthday celebrations at mothers group ie one first bday [party and present] for all the kids. Despite my excitement about the unveiling, it went down a bit like a lead balloon amongst all the piles of plastic fantastic fisher price crap. Oh well, like I said.

Anyway enough about that. About the pattern. I picked it because it was quite simple and I had no time. I approached a couple of parts of the pattern slightly differently for the sake of simplicity; I didn't pre-cut the legs or the wings. Instead I sandwiched the uncut pieces and sewed around the cut out pattern piece and then trimmed. Same for the wings. Makes softie making quicker and easier. I tried with the face and body piece but discovered through trial and error that those pieces are best cut before sewing.

Anyway, I loved the finished little bee and the Smurf cracked the biggest smile when I did my market research.

Now, look at this bottle brush tree.

Makes me feel happy when I spy it through the kitchen window. Although it freaked me out when I took the photo of the softie bee above. I could hear this really loud buzzing sound. When I looked up it was swarming with hungry bees. I didn't stick around to see if the softie cut it with the real gang.

Whoops

Whoops I lost the phone cable for uploading photos and on top of that I couldn't be arsed charging the camera batteries. Both photo outputting sources not outputting.

So here's a couple of the craft-related happenings that occurred during the time lost since I lost the cable/battery charging motivation.


Mr S+L, the knitting and I went for an outing to the tattoo shop. We stalked Sydney's best Sailor Jerry tattooist for weeks to work out when we could get in to see him. Don't freak, that one you see in the flash book above is not the one purchased. Oh and this time round it was his turn, not mine.

There was more first bday party action. The quilt top magically turned into an actual, real, no-fooling quilt (with the aid of a very late night, several beers and some last minute stitching while burning down the highway). Due to the stitching while burning down the highway, finished product photo opportunities were limited. So some evidence of the quilting (by machine) and the binding (my first ever proper binding, cause I've been a cheater till now):


The backing fabric (love this), oh and my hips (oolala) and the morning coffee


And a bit of the hand stitching to cover that fark up I was talking about (3 solid pieces all sewn up next to each other, despite endless testing of layouts on the floor)


OK, now I promise to be less half arsed about charging the batteries etc for a while at least.

PS I'm in a glam rock band!

And so I threw a part-ay

The Smurf thanks you for all his sweet birthday wishes. He was quite taken with the whole centre of attention thing.

And so there was a happy birthday party for the two men of Casa Sadieandlance (if I'd made time to finish writing the birth story you'd already know that The Smurf and Mr S+L almost share a birthday). It was one of those crazy 'really for the parents' parties as all 1st birthdays are and I reveled in the invite list of (no kidding) 100+ people. We tacked on a homemade naming ceremony just so we didn't feel like complete self indulgent idiots, I mean shit who invites 100 people to a first birthday? A naming ceremony however, that passes.

Anyway it was about 70 people in the end and I catered the thing. I was in-my-element. I love this kinda stuff. I had a to do list for the week leading up to it and a running list for the actual day (thankfully no GANTT chart Hoppo cause that would be crazy). Even forecasted thunderstorms couldn't deter me - although they did mightily piss me off making me find a last minute wet weather venue.

There was time to squeeze in a little party related crafting - a happy birthday banner, non specific so it can be applied to other future birthday events - NONE of which will EVER have an invite list even close to 100.


The cake bible was consulted and with two boys needing cakes I kept it simple. Banana for the Smurf and very basic chocolate for the Man. Although perhaps I should have made that GANTT chart because I somehow forgot to take the birthday candles. Luckily the nephew is adept at the world of make believe and did a mighty job of imagining the lit candle. The spitting/blowing was real.


The Smurf partook in some cake eating smooshing into the floor and amidst the grand unveiling of the presents (read: rip shit tear by all available ankle biters) retired under a nearby table to quietly be with his cake and eat his shoe.

I contemplated crawling in there with him at one point - that present mayhem was nuts!

Overall there was much joy, plenty of face stuffing, a couple of tears, one vomit, general mayhem and presents to boot (although I have my distinct favourites -you know who you are. ...see drum in the under table shot above).

Present: handpainted blocks! Woo Hoo! There were more favs than this, it's just these ones that were photographed.

And thank fark there was a thunderstorm after the informal formalities to justify the hire of the community centre.

Right so that's done. Now who's writing the thank you cards?

Random

The Smurf turns one on Saturday. I feel the cliche is warranted here - boy the time flies when you have a baby. Can't remember who said it to me, Di maybe, but especially in the early days the days are so slow but the weeks so so fast.


I just joined FBI. When we moved, leaving RRR behind was one of my (many) great sadnesses. However, I'm loving FBI and way way more than I did before we moved to Melbourne. I never got round to showing RRR my love by subscribing, so I'm pleased to have shown my love to FBI today. (I do still stream some of my fav RRR shows tho, thank you internets!)

The Smurf has a cold. A miserable, snotty, whingey, whiney cold. He refuses to eat and will only drink breastmilk, fresh squeezed orange juice and drink water from the 600ml pump bottle. Great. I managed to sneak a cheese roll on him this morning after seeing the Dr though and he obliged, much to the delight of everyone in Coles as there was much exclaiming of 'you're really enjoying that aren't you' as old ladies and geezers peered into the stroller at him.

I also resorted to using a hot chip as a spoon to sneak some pumpkin dhal into the Smurf at lunchtime. He fell for it, for the littlest while.

I've finished another first birthday quilt top. Can you spot the fark up?
Can someone please clean the bathroom? Please? I really don't want to do it. I hate cleaning the bathroom. Worst chore ever.

I'm really inexperienced at roasting chicken. There are 2 sitting in the kitchen awaiting my return after I post this.

I'm really pleased with myself for submitting to Mixtape Zine. My first ever craft related submission anywhere. Holy crap I love this zine.

My to-do list is scaring me this week. It's not the number of things it's the ridiculous details I've gone into...is it a little OTT to have a running list for a 1 year olds bday party? I think the inner-career woman in me is telling me to get back to the working world.

I'm very pleased to be the third ever Curly Pops customer. I'm shitty at my Mothers Group though - no one noticed my sweet new badge when I wore it there last week! In their defense overall they don't seem to be the craft appreciating types. My Melbourne Mum's Group on the other hand, now there's a Mum's Group.

It's really hard to take a photo of your new Curly Pops badge/brooch while wearing it.

I can't wait for Chutney Club! If you'd like to join I'll leave it open for another couple of days.
How can you say no to a couple of jars of homemade chutney/relish?

Organising your buttons is fun!


Some people are amazingly generous and will happily pay to send you half a kilo of fabric they picked up for a steal. It's for The Toy Society.


This time last year (in about 17 hours or so) my waters broke prematurely at 35 and a bit weeks. Predictably I didn't see it coming. I think it's time to write the birth story?

Edited to add: Has anyone been watching Breaking Bad? Americans you're probably episodes ahead of us, here we're just on Ep 2. It's pretty confronting but wow it is so good.

Winners are Grinners and stuff

That friendly random number generator told me that Michelle won my favourite buttons. But I'm suspicious that Michelle might be moonlighting as a computer programmer specialising in "random" number generators seeing as she won my last giveaway. Hmmm so I think it's reasonable to appoint a second winner and that is Handmaiden as she was the second "random" number. Michelle no need to send your postal details I've got em already.

Up there? That's a finished Tea Cosy, that one I started a while ago. Gifted to Mum as she was using a massive cosy on her teeny tea pot. I couldn't figure out why she wouldn't swap the cosy to the big tea pot. So I made her a small one to fit the small pot so the big pot could have the big tea cosy. Makes sense right? Yah I thought so too.

That's it for now. I had written a thousand or so brilliant posts in my head today (I know you do it too) but they're gone now. I might be back soon with some Pay it Forward, or a birth story or maybe even some craft? Huzzah craft on a craft blog, imagine that.

Don't tell

A sneak peak of a little dress I made recently for a little someone. Can't say who, yet.

I drafted up the pattern myself. I had no idea of sizing so I used one of the Smurf's 00 singlets as a starting guide. I hope it fits in all the right places.

More soon.

The yellow quilt is off the stash!

Yes, yipee, finally the yellow quilt is properly finished and gifted to a little Popstar. At the last minute I remembered to take photos, sorry the lighting was crap so lets pretend it's art blurr, okay?






I did decide as I bundled and wrapped the little quilt up that I would like to stitch in a blue border around the edge of it like I did with Jake's. But too late, not enough minutes before gifting time so it was gifted as-is.

Oh and PS I totally forgot to mention I met this rockin' lady while in the nation's capital. I experienced that weird "I only just met you in person but feel like we're life long friends" thing again. Well we have been blog friends for a long time. Oh and I got to squeeze her cute little paddy cake (scroll down) too! Wee hee.

PPS I can assure you the Smurf's legs are not hairy...yet.

Happy Birthday parties... did I tell you the party is for twins?

It's raining birthday parties this week, little girl birthday parties. I thought some Black Apple action would be in order for the one year old and the 2 year old. The parties were today back to back and on opposite sides of the city.

Present making was all on track, fabric cut, stuffing ready to go, machine plugged in. Roll clock forward through dinner, a couple of sneaky beers, some feet up time on the couch to 9.30pm when Mr S+L has a brain wave. I think the 2 year old is actually twins. What the fark I say? Twins? You forgot to tell me? Now I need to make 3 dolls?! Geez I was about to go to bed. So I drag him upstairs thrust the scissors in his hand and demand: "CUT" "HURRRRRRRRRRRY!". And finally we got to bed ready with three dolls ready to be stuffed and finished in the morning after breakkie.





I allocated the travel time to the twins' party across the city for final sewing together of gaps and stitching on the faces. But um I forgot to account for time to get car sick. Blag. Imagine that, getting car sick for the first time in your life because you're desperately trying to finish off the last minute hand made pressies for the twins you thought were only one child just a matter of hours before. Arrggg.

I had to contemplate arriving without a present(s) to a lovely party in a wonderfully warm welcoming house full of people I'd never met before (Mr S+L's work friend) - the sheer embarrassment. Lucky I found a quiet 5 minutes to make a phone call escape to the car to finish and wrap before we had to leave.

And we made it to the second party back on the original side of the city, albeit 10 minutes before the finish time. But for obvious reasons I have no finished doll photos to show.

The Smurf couldn't have cared less about the present debacle and thoroughly enjoyed himself at both dos, laughing, making friends with a 6 week old staffy puppy (oh and other kids), eating tiny morsels of bday cake and doing some context appropriate clapping at the clown.


And so begins our new life on the kids birthday party circuit. And I'll forever more check and double check the number of children celebrating at each event.

PS We bagged the lolly bags. Sweet.

Slowly slowly slowly said the sloth

I had every intention of finishing this cardy by the time my nephew was born.

I didn't finish by the time I originally hoped but I am pleased to tell you that I finished almost exactly 9 months before his first birthday. Yay me.

Details

Pattern: from an old Women's Weekly baby knitting book given to me last year by Ingrid. I can't show you it or tell you the name because I copied the pattern into my notebook and then packed the book away into storage. It's a great book full of nice knits made with bad eighties colours and yarns.

Yarn: Naturally Haven. 4 ply 100% NZ Merino. 2 and a tiny bit balls. I had to dial into Clegs to get me another ball to finish the hood. I contemplated many avoidance tactics (hello AADC!) in lieu of buying another ball of wool...smaller hood, no hood, give up etc...but in the end I bit the bullet and bought the extra ball.

Sticks: My favouritest of favourite sticks. Sadie's Mum's tortoiseshell sticks. I deliberately seek out patterns that require these sticks just so I can knit with them.

Time: Umm I already told you that, don't embarrass me by making me say it again!

What I learnt:
- Some people are excellent assistant button selectors.
- I should just suck it and get on with knitting when I'm working on these projects.
- I can finish a knitted garment AND give it as a gift. (This is the very first knitted garment I have finished and actually been happy enough with to give it away. I have, despite my ADC tendencies, finished other garments but have always felt they were too inferior to gift. I also usually then find them in amongst the stash months later and wonder what the hell I was thinking)

Hot Wheels

Who would steal a stroller? Well maybe you might if you walked by these hotted up wheels? Now not that I want my stroller stolen but if Ali's got some hot wheels then surely the Smurf should too?

Hot Wheels!

It's raining fabric

Not heavy fabric rain , just a trickle. Courtesy of the Amitie blog VIP and a lovely friend. And I've actually been able to use some of Corrie's fabric already to finally have a go at those fabric shoes that have been doing the rounds.




And here's the Smurf's pair in action.


I lined them with flannelette and used 2 layers of flannelette on the sole of one pair and interfaced some flannelette for the other 2 pairs. Both work just fine, but I think I prefer the double flannelette layer.

This is a fabulous little pattern. Quick, easy and good for using small bits of fabric. And now that I love this pattern I just need to re size it so I can make some more for Big Foot Smurf. Who knows I could even churn some out for me but I'm thinking they may not be quite as cute.

There's been some other Smurf related sewing too. Hint.

Feeling the lerv

I know I know it's so very 2001 to use the word lerv but I can't help myself cause it surely was flowing freely in response to my last post about the Toy Society. Thanks for all the positive feedback I am floating about the place full to the brim with ideas and excitement for the project. I'll post answers to all the questions in the coming week...after the next drop. Yep this weekend. But I'll be posting most Toy Society info over on that blog including details on how you can get involved.

my pet ghost

Speaking of lerv there was also lots of lerv felt at a certain Newtown Thai restaurant last night too. Craft love that is. There was another meet up. It was great, lots of good conversation, excellent (and very cheap) food and crafty gifts. Woo Hoo. I unashamedly announced that the presents were the thing I missed most when I missed our last meet up. But um it's true. This is a talented group of girls and the quality of gifts is high.

This time I made a fabric scarf. (We Are Spiralling if you're still out there I owe you one from last year!!).






And my gift is from the lovely Jade of My Art is My Outlet. Beautiful fabric supplies and she says there's a crafted something or other to come too. Lucky me! I hope I remembered to say thanks last night Jade and that I didn't just drool or get all vague cause it was after 10pm?

Anyway if you're a crafty Mum in Sydney and want to join in the present fest meet up go visit Belinda and let her know you want in.

In the bag

My handbag is a nappy bag, obviously. On the odd occasion when I find myself out without the Smurf as my date I often end up carrying one of those ugly 'green bags'. I try to be cool and all 'I'm making a statement 'and use my Macro one, but I can't always lay my hands on it. So I used some of the Nun's fabric and whipped this high fashion item up.

Hello 1980's.

When I say whipped I do mean it. Quick and simple, down and dirty. But I tried a couple of new things courtesy of this lady. Like the lining sitting lower inside the bag:


And a different way of attaching the handles.


And I'm digging on my new style.

Watashi no puresento

My Presents! Cause it's good to spoil yourself and sew a present for you for once instead of the Monkey Union




And to splurge a mere 25 bucks on yourself for one of these babies


Maybe your family can be as happy as this one if you too have your very own Gocco?

What a lark! A family that Gocco's together stays together - or at the very least smiles cheesily together.

It's all justfiable because it's perfectly OK to sew yourself a Mother's Day Present and buying yourself a cheap second hand Gocco will make you think happy thoughts even when you're walking like a broken old lady with a carrot up her arse (hello google weirdos) thanks to your sore back.

PS The Monkey Union isn't exclusively Monkeys, incase you were wondering? The membership is quite diverse, but it belongs to Mr S+L and Miss Priss up there is living on my side of the bedroom. Just incase you needed to know?

I'm finished

Yep that's right, me finished something! All from start to finish, all me.


Granted I cut some corners, like not binding it:


But I hand stitched it and I'm satisfied with that.


I had my usual AADC issues and also my usual moments of 'this handcrafted gift is a piece o' shit, I better just put it back in the old to do pile where I can forget about it for a few years'. But lucky I've got a personal cheer squad who reminds me that it's 'not as bad as I think and just bloody well get on with it OK'.

And then I wrapped it and off we went to the partay where I placed it amongst the birthday booty

and when it was opened there were squeaks of delight (from Mum and other party guests - bday boy was busy getting happy with the envelopes). It was declared that I should have another kid cause I've got too much time on my hands if I can manage to make something like that. Har, I didn't tell them about all my corner cutting nor that I was up till after 1am that morning finishing off the hand stitching. But whatever I felt smug.