Matching Pegs

I wish I could show you a picture of Amelia in her royal finery, as I finished the costume last night, but it was finished after Amelia was in bed. This morning it had to be packed up and sent to school. I will show you all when I can, I am very pleased with it. Instead (as my contribution for the Friday Archive) I will show you a couple of costumes that I made back in February 2007, for a Rock ‘n’ Roll evening at the school.

I made these matching circle skirts, complete with stiff calico petticoats to make them stand out. This was so much fun, and so easy, and didn’t the girls look adorable.

Amelia was 6 and a half, and Michaela was only 19 months old.

We had a really fun night.

The school had spent the day with an invited rock ‘n’ roll band teaching each year level a dance, which they performed that evening on the outside basketball courts. Families were encouraged to join in with the dancing afterwards, and everyone brought along their picnic dinners.

In the interest of family harmony, here is a photo of Rory on the occasion. He did not wear a costume, but had had yellow day at kinder, so is wearing a yellow t-shirt that was not usually one of his. Rory was 4 and a half.

It was a perfect summer evening, and lots of fun. The kids still talk about it.

For some weeks now we have been aware that Amelia was to play “a Queen” in the upcoming Grade-Two production “Fossil Rock”, and that she would need a nice skirt and shirt, but the school would provide a cape and crown.

While I did wonder what a queen would be doing in a play about dinosaurs, I thought I had it covered. We found a slightly large white lacy shirt that had been handed down to Amelia from a friend, and we pulled out the long pink skirt that I had made Amelia for last year’s trip to an old time settlement.

The other day we received the list of costume requirements, and I discovered that she was actually playing this great lady…………..

………………………………..Queen Victoria.

Queen Victoria knighted Sir Richard Owen (the man who coined the term “Dinosaur”) in 1884 - and this will be commemorated in the play.

A pink skirt wasn’t really going too cut it. Queen Vic spent the last 40 years of her reign wearing black, in mourning for her husband. In other words, she was in mourning when she knighted the Dinosaur man.

After a trip to Lincraft, which did not have much is the way of affordable, suitable costume options, I settled on a piece of grey drill, figuring I didn’t need to be too literal with the black. The only black they had that was cheap enough was Poly-cotton, which I loath, everything else was about $8 a m or more (It was for a one wear costume after all). At least grey was more stately. I also got some lace trim to tie it in with the lacy shirt.

Not having the skill or budget to recreate the Queen’s voluminous look, I hunted around for some other looks of the period (1880s).

I thought a slimmer silhouette, and just a little bit of trim, similar to this look.

I really like this image, and even the colour was similar to my fabric find - grey with a hint of blue or purple.

So this afternoon I sat in the sun at the kitchen table and applied the lacy trim to the bottom of the skirt. I plan to make an elastic waist, and then make a wide separate “belt” to tie over it (at the back) to give the illusion of a high waist. I will need Amelia home for that part though.  The lacy white shirt will froth over the top, and this will hopefully go well with the cape and crown.

The Autumn sun today was so glorious, it was the kind of day where you are just glad to be alive, drinking in the sunlight.  While I had a nice hot cuppa, I enjoyed the sight of a line full of washing, lazily flapping in the warm air, and the knowledge that there will be no damp washing cluttering up the place tonight.

These are the first of my Narcissus Erlicheer (pronounced Early Cheer) to flower.  I don’t really understand if they are Jonquils (as I thought they were) or Daffodils, but what ever they are, they smell divine.

The only problem is that they should flower in late Winter, or early Spring (hence the name).  This sort of thing just scares me I must admit.  We seem to get more proof of the whole climate change thing every day.  But then I start to get confused as well.  When exactly did they come out last year?  I’m not sure.

Perhaps I will just have to make sure to enjoy them, and not look a gift horse in the mouth.

Can you guess which one is me? (Hint, I am not the one holding the babies)

This photo may give you a clue (I just wanted an excuse to show it)….. In both photos, I am the little one on the left. The other little one is my twin brother Julian. Since I had my own children, I have (or course) an new respect for the amount of work it must have been to care for twins. When I think of the profound learning curve that you travel with your first baby, I am amazed that my parents survived bringing home two. Especially Mum. Dad has always been a very hard worker, which meant Mum putting in long hours at home alone with little people. I know this is not easy at all. Thank you Mum, I love you. Happy Mothers’ Day.

This is what I was given after I was roused late by three apron bedecked children. Of couse they did not cook this on their own (thank you Luke). After this, the cooks went on to make a Chocolate cake and some Honey Joys, to take to afternoon tea at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. So I lapped up being a Mum and seeing my Mum. All in all it was a wonderful day.

From the title it may sound as if I am incredibly fatigued, but no, in fact, I am very frustrated.

My little girl is not getting enough sleep - of the daytime variety. She has given up on her nap.

This doesn’t bother her much (until about 5:30pm when she crashes) but it has completely robbed me of time on my own to sew, or blog, or get things done around the house without interruptions. Sigh.

I have tried getting her to have quiet time in her room, but she is a social little creature, and likes to be with me. I have even tried the appeal of new sheets - with hearts on them (we needed some flannelette sheets anyway) but they only worked for one day. My fallback is now a drive in the car on one of those days where she is desperately tired and will not lie down, it works every time. I guess I will have to get used to having company for every minute of the day, except for the one morning when she is at occasional care.

So moving right along. Here is a look at Brittany’s finished fairy, Ta Da!

I had a lot of fun making her, and Amelia tells me that my fairies are improving.

This is one of the fairies (there are 5) on a wall hanging I made Amelia a few years ago.

I purposely drew her with the proportions of a child rather than a grown-up, (Brittany’s fairy is more like a grown up).

She is also a lot more static, which is probably less enchanting.

I rather like this colour combination though, she looks like a fairy who likes water to me.

I think Amelia will be ordering a new fairy any day now.

Things are going along swimmingly with my little fairy (actually Brittany’s little fairy), and my arm is holding up well, as long as I pace myself. This means putting down the needle before I am really ready. My internal dialogue has changed from “only one more piece and I will have finished the dress” to ” only one more piece and I better put it away for the night”. In everything, moderation, seems to be working. I am up to sewing on the dark purple “petals” around the neckline, and then the fairy hair, so I am close to finishing the applique - Woo Hoo.

As the weather gets colder, I am finding it harder to take nice photos for the blog. I am pretty determined to have an image for each post, but I think I will have seize every opportunity to take photos when the sun has come out to play.

Not all of my creating has been sewing/craft related lately. As I have mentioned before, our church is having a wedding gown parade. I have been busy designing interesting flyer’s, tickets and now a board (sponsored by the local real estate agent) to go out the front of our church to advertise the event. A little bit of graphic design has been fun. I used lovely old illustrations of lace garments on the brochure and tickets (from the 1770’s) which were designed to be printed in black and white. The board needed to be a little more eye catching. I found this lovely image on istock photo, and today I saw the board up outside the church.

I don’t kid myself that I am particularily gifted at this, but at least I am not too bad, and I am having fun, while supporting a good cause. It was also exciting to see someting I had done, printed this large.

I had barely sat down to write this post when an almighty noise started.  Very heavy hail.  We are in the midst of Autumn now, and the weather has really turned.   As a Melbournian, I am not going to complain about anything wet falling from the sky.  The truth is that I don’t really mind the cooler weather, as long as we get some sun here and there.  But the first really cold days always come as a bit of a shock to the system.

Here is a promised photo of the fairy I am going to start stitching - if my arm allows it.  This is the first layer, the legs and the bottom wings, as well as Brittany’s Name.  It is the front of a library bag.

The fairy will be needle turn, but I have used fusible web for Brittany’s name, which I will blanket stitch around.  I can’t wait to pick up the needle and thread in front of the telly tonight.

I am going to jump on the bandwagon with a meme that Claire at Loobylu has started called “The Friday Archive”.  Below is a look at a tiny wall hanging quilt I made a few years ago out of a little pack of charm squares that my lovely fellow stitcher friend Kylie gave to me.  Each square is only 1 inch.  It was made by sewing strips then cross cutting and rearranging them.  It ties in with some emails I have been having with Lily.  We have both admitted that the actual quilting part of a quilt is not our favourite part of the process.

Because this one is so small, quilting it was actually fun, it was easy to move under the needle.  It was my first go at free motion embroidery (if you don’t count experiments on scraps), after purchasing a suitable foot.  I did circular roses formed by swirling the quilt in little circles.

I really like the effect, in spite of the fact that the stitch length varies a lot which is certainly not the done thing.  This little piece of work brightens up the smallest room in the house.

This little cat and I had a lovely day at Brooke’s 4th birthday party.

I was particularly happy with the gift that we got her. Not having time to make something, I was keen to get a creative gift. I found these great paper cut-outs of people that you can decorate. Put together with some googly eyes and some “Twistable” crayons, just right for a busy 4 year old.

Speaking of presents, here is a little something from Aunty Cookie’s etsy shop that I picked up for my lovely husband to mark our anniversary. I finally picked up a custom cut mount to frame it. This beautiful, whimsical print on linen is called “In the Garden” and not only did I love it, but it also was symbolic of us.

For as long as we have had our own yard, we have had our own veggie plot. Sometimes it only has herbs in it, but we have grown lots of different veggies over the years.

Finally here is a present that I got for myself. The local craft store had DMC floss on sale for only 59cents, so I picked up some colours that I thought would fill the gaps in my colour range as I pictured it in my head. Not a bad haul really.

I did get a chance today to do some sewing preperation - I cut out the intricate applique pieces for my little fairy that you can see in my sketch here, but it was too dark to show you a picture on this post.

Lastly, have a look here at the funniest teatowel I have ever seen.

Can anyone beat that?

As the kids had a curriculum day today (no school, teachers plan the curriculum) we stayed in the country for a long weekend. We enjoyed the slower pace, the space, as well as catching up with family, and catching the local footy (Aussie Rules of course - this is Victoria).

Of course I took along the camera and took more photos of the area where my husband grew up.

on the left are some Peppercorns and on the right is a magnificent eucalyptus.

Here is a view of his home town, which is in the north of Victoria.

And, because I can’t help myself, here is another sunset.

Hopefully my next post will be some sewing/creating.

They shall grow not old,
As we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them,
Nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun,
And in the morning
We will remember them. Lest we Forget

This is the verse of the ode that is said during the minutes of silence on Anzac Day.

For the sacrifices that have been made, and those that continue to be made, by the men and women that serve their country, and the families that they leave behind, we are grateful.