My Sewing and Painting Spot... Or My Cocoon

This is my friend who is also my Brother.

These are the half finished moments that keep me company.

And now I can sit on this when I am busy with the making of things.

Dress Making - A New Skirt

This is an extremely fast post before I pick Archie up. I had the first day to myself since I can't remember when and made myself a skirt. I was really inspired by one of Anna-Marie Horner's patterns in her book 'Seams to Me' but unfortunately it was for little girls. So I took out my trusty set square and measured one up in my size. Tonight I will hopefully do a collage of how it was made.

Wild Flowers

An unexpected moment of beauty from the dishwasher.

Tuberose season again. Can you smell them?

I just wrote a highly intelligent and hilarious post but then lost it when our computer went haywire. So now I will have to make do with the memories of what I first said as I am too tired to think of something highly original again... At least it all seemed interesting at the time. So happy to have school back again. I celebrated by finishing some old paintings and starting a new one (pictured above). I still have to cut another two balls of liberty fabric out for it and do a bit of touching up. Anyway, dishes are calling.

Oilcloth Lunch Bags

I found this great tutorial on skip to my lou for making lunch bags. I am fed up with plastic lunch boxes breaking and soft pack versions being difficult to wash and easy to tear. These can be completely wiped clean or thrown into the washing machine. With Archie starting school tomorrow I put my foot down on the peddle and sewed them up in about half an hour. Hopefully it will help me feel enthusiastic about making sandwiches (possibly one of my least favourite jobs, particularly at 7.30 in the morning). Thank goodness Archie really likes them, he thinks they should be filled with popcorn.

A Bush Walk

This morning started out hot, the way the last day of summer holidays is inclined so we headed up to some nearby bush and had a tramp. The air was so crisp and fresh we changed into much better versions of ourselves. The sort of people who give lengthy explanations to small children's questions and identify native species willy-nilly. Afterwards we went and let our toes swim in the cold creek, our leg bones aching from the freezing water and watched as the boys made bridges, rock to rock, oblivious of the icy temperature.

10 Minute Bag

It feels like an old friend is reaching out to take my hand as I venture back into the world of sewing. I burnt out after stitching 789kms a few years ago and felt head-achy every time I even glanced in the direction of the sewing machine. And then one day like a new Spring, I walked by the sewing table and instead felt little shoots of green, grassy hope pulling me towards new possibilities.

And so tonight I whipped up a 10 minute bag. I began with a big rectangle of sample fabric that my brother's girlfriend gave me. It was already over-locked so I hemmed the top with bias binding, folded it in half and stitched it on two sides and then added some webbing tape (ribbon stuff) for handles. It took less time than this post........

Dress Making

I have been consumed by a dress making urge for a little while now and suddenly yesterday it all burst out. I didn't have a pattern so instead used a few pieces of newspaper taped together and did lots of guessing. Elastic carefully placed did the trick of fitting it to the body. I think a skirt will be my next project and maybe some sailor shorts for the boys.