Testing

I've been making a heap of leggings for Matilda. As a tall lady she is already confronted with the problem I've been dealing with since infancy too - short pants. All her pants are too short and ride up too. I've been trying to perfect her leggings, they need to be roomy, stretchy but not loose, and long enough, plus quite warm for winter. And cute. I made some from Merino too.

Matilda decided to help out by chewing on a Simplicity pattern. 

As much as I've decided to write more on the blog I just can't seem to get to it. I'm so tired, and so...well... BORING.

I have a baby - ta da! That's the gist of it these days.

I do however have a worm farm which I'm sure you can NOT WAIT to read about soon.

Stay tuned for that riveting piece of information!

new friend

look who i rescued from the oppy. 

i bought him a new cushion and upholstered it with some fabric from my "little problem" (our family name for my stash) and look! it's a brand new lease of life for a previously male armchair, clearly now a girl. 

i really have a problem with armchairs in that i can never resist them and pick them up from the side of the road and op shops all the time. just remember the coffee sack chair

and then there was the drama of the egg chair which we got for Big M's birthday.

there was also the rescued Mad Men chair which still smells kinda funky.

If you have any old chairs lying around, you know where to find me.

judgy wudgy was a bear

i recently read a blog post about women who plan their post pregnancy workouts before they even get pregnant. it raised a very old question for me: WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE? i know that loads of women breastfeed well into the baby's post-graduation years to lose weight, but before you even sprog one out, please, all you got to think about is chocolate and more chocolate.

my body is very different now. my girrrls are now most useful when i need something to point me in the direction of my toes, my skin looks like a spotty cowhide, and hormones have made me grow hair. on my FACE. word to your mother, Matilda.

how ever much women whinge about the pressure put on mums these days, i think we are our worst enemies. sure i bitch and crap on about how much i hate those magazine shots of celebrities stepping out post-partum as if they've just victoriously emerged from a fat farm stay, but somewhere inside there's always that little voice that tells me that i, compared to everyone else, am a big, huge, freakily shaped cow. i really don't need to be doing that to myself. but it's hard. as much as i wax lyrically about the beauty of a female body that's grown and nurtured a child, there's nothing remotely soulful and inspiring about shopping for size 16 jeans in Target, lemme tell ya. I wish I could be a bit kinder, wiser and stronger to myself and for myself.

Keeping Up with the CraftCamparshians

Behold! Unartistic Iphone Shots of Craft Camp.

Although I must say if I'd blurred the background of the last shot it could have been a craft shot winner!

So much to write about a great weekend. My first night away from my little M, and Big M's first gig of solo parenting. He did a magically good job. 

I did a good job leaving even though I felt a bit tearful. I thought I'd be squealing with excitement on the drive to Alexandra, all the way in the hills behind Healesville. Not the case, the second I left the driveway I was hit with a deep and drowsy sense of fatigue and exhaustion. I guess being around my baby I am constantly on call. Remove the 24 hour round the clock on call thing and bam, exhaustion strikes. I pondered all these wise things on my drive, and I also pondered if I could ever actually have a wise thought again not relating to babies. I severely doubt it.

The weekend was wonderful, and featured in no alphabetical order

• tea
• cake
• pyjamas
• tea
• tea
• cake cake cake
• salted caramel sauce
• lovely chats
• excellent company
• cake
• a savage act of stealing (hello old flour tins in old rubbish bag in front of op shop)
• parmas, including but not limited to the Obama Parma, the Parmarama, and Khalisi Parma 
• possibly the longest wait for a meal ever
• oh and some sewing and crocheting went on. I finished another Tova, by now sent off to my sister for her birthday, and cut out a Colette dress too.

And here I could wax lyrically about feeling lucky to be included in such a blabla community bla.

But you knew that anyway, so really all I want to say is, I want to go again, as soon as possible.

I have a cold. And now I must nap. See you laters.

i miss words

Been spending a lot of time on pinterest and twitter recently. and looking at my blog reader, i realised that blogs are turning into a mish-mash of the two - short snappy sentences and lots of lots of (lovely) pictures, or links to said pictures. and as i brushed my teeth yesterday (this is the only 2 minutes twice a day i actually get to think), i realised, my blog is pretty much pictures now too. but i miss the words since they got me into blogging - even if they're just small words here and there about a beanie or controversial words on breastfeeding or happy words about eggplants. all my favourite blogs i used to read daily have/had heaps of words. some less so, now.

i miss the quiet time i spent reading blogs. i miss the diary quality they had and how i used to document little things on here, just for myself, and the few people that read my rantings. because pictures are another quick thing in my jam-packed-full-of-quick-things-day, i just flick through them on my screen or get overwhelmed by them on pinterest. and can't help but feeling pressured by all the pretty things out there, in terms of feeling i need to buy more pretty, or make more pretty. not so. since i neither have time or money available. so i want to return to the thing with the words and the words-in-sentences-doing-thing. macro-blogging!! yeah.  anyone else?

PS: Made another Tova. Obsessed. Here's a weird space picture I took today as I posed awkwardly in the carpark while the baby was screaming through her bedroom window.

Family Table

End of April

Got sick of eating eggplant

Discovered Jells Park with Katie and Matilda's feet discovered grass

Kind of got the point of Instagram

Cried reading this book and marvelled at the recipes and the writing

Read the chapter on her dad dying and promptly had nightmares about digging up coffins and woke drenched in sweat

Impressed by the kale 

Disappointed by the zucchini 

...and telling it so every day. Black sheep of the family.

Matilda says dadadada and pulls angry faces and has the impressive eyebrow skills of her father.

First of Many Tovas

Look: awkward photos!

I love this pattern. It's brilliant. It took me just a few hours to sew this together. The instructions are good.
I just need to lengthen it, and I'd like it to be a bit flowy-er, so I shall widen it too. Everywhere else it fits perfectly. I made in in a soft corduroy. And I buggered up the plackets and neckline, but I don't care at all!

Outtake Shot: Look how naturally I can pose, just hanging out in my broccoli seedlings! 

Kmart Hack

I struggle to find jackets that fit me because of my height. They usually end somewhere at my bellybutton and are cut in a way that highlights everything I don't want to highlight. This autumn due to limited time to shop, lack of money and no time to source anything from op shops I bought this very plain army jacket from the mens section at KMART. SHOCK HORROR. I just couldn't justify spending a lot of money on a new jacket because I'm still not quite back to my normal size and I won't get much wear out of anything I buy now.

So I took the scissors and merrily chopped bits and pieces of this jacket sitting outside in the sunshine. Then I spent about an hour adding some Japanese cotton lawn fabric to create an extra collar, shortened the sleeves, and used some stripey jersey to add cuffs and a little pocket on the chest, and voila, it's a girly army jacket for 25 bucks. Win. Excuse the shocking Iphone photos...

New Things!

My friend Laura took these photos of some things soon to land in my online shop and a few stockists too! Love how these turned out. Matilda was in a happy mood for exactly two shots until she cracked it and no amount of rattling, singing and whistling could make her smile. 

Milo Triangled

My first ever venture into the frightening world of fairisling and it's turned out so well!

Milo is such a brilliant pattern. I loved knitting this up over the Easter break.

Matilda has to grow into it - it's a little on the big side.

The wool is glorious Rowan's. 

Ravelled here.

I can write up a tute on how to work the triangle pattern if anyone's interested. 

Let me know!