Matching Pegs

Saturday found us at an enormous play centre, celebrating Rory’s birthday with his friends.

The party was a great success, and Rory was particularly impressed with the cake.

Of course, It had to be baked in someone else’s oven (thanks Leigh!), but it was the Hawks decoration that Luke put on the top that won Rory’s praise.

As Amelia put it, “That was so good of you Daddy, to make a Hawthorn Cake, when your team is Carlton“.*

Sunday was quieter, but no less busy.

We spent quite a bit of time in the garden, planting my birthday plants, pruning, and enjoying the plants that we already have. Michaela was busy pulling the buds off the Camellias, and wanted to make sure I got a picture of her treasurers

In the photo above, you might be able to see a peek of another flower, of the felt variety, that I made this weekend.

These clips were heavily inspired by a motif that is often seen on Asian textiles, the cherry blossom. I made one in a coral colour and another in purple.

This one is actually a little present for a birthday girl - I am looking forward to seeing what it looks like in her hair.

Finally, some late afternoon sewing - an unfinished project. Can you guess what I am making?

*These teams are Australian Rules Football teams, for those of you who have never heard of the Hawks or the Blues.

It’s my birthday today

I’m older than yesterday

All my friends are coming over to play

And they’ll all sing Happy Birthday

From Justine Clarke’s “I Like to Sing”

This song is mandatory listening on any-one’s birthday in the Matching Peg’s Household, and I have to go on record to say that this is a wonderful kids CD, and I love it.

So I did wear my new birthday outfit today, and enjoyed feeling dressed up for once, and what a lovely day it was.

So my day started with being woken up by the kids (of course) with a brown paper package, tied up with string.

And inside was this…….

So my husband was actually listening to me the other day, and I scored a proper artists set of watercolours, Woo Hoo!

Some of my lovely friends held a morning tea for me (thanks for your wonderful hospitality Debbie) and gave me some beautiful gifts. The beautiful Gerberas are from Leigh, along with a very lovely card. Debbie had been crafting up a storm with some sun printed fabric she made (seen below) as well as a fabric postcard (bottom left) and a most exquisite scarf that she felted herself (above right). I was truly overwhelmed.

My mother took both Michaela and I out for lunch at a nursery not far from us that has a cafe, gift shop and duck pond amongst the plans for sale. We had a very scrumptious lunch and I couldn’t help but purchase a few small plants to put in our garden. I snagged a couple of pots of hardy French Lavender, as well as 3 pots of a very tolerant native daisy that is also a lavender colour. Mum had already given me some pots of Lambs Ears which I am looking forward to planting, and I couldn’t resist a pot of pansy’s in a lovely antique colour. Michaela was thrilled with the fact that one of the ducks tried to nibble my finger when I wasn’t forthcoming enough with the duck food, (it didn’t hurt) it was the highlight of her day.

Tonight we had a lovely dinner together and another Pavlova “birthday cake” thanks to our non-functional oven (to be fixed on Monday). So overall I had a wonderful day, and feel like such a lucky person, if this is what 34 feels like, than I think I like it!

It has been a busy few days here in the Matching Pegs household, and I have nothing to show you. Instead I thought I would give some of the spotlight over to the kids’ creative endeavours.

This is a picture that Rory created this morning, of a dragon and some knights. He has been spending lots of time lately creating enormous posters, made of 6 or 8 pieces of A4 which he has drawn on and taped together. They are all wonderful creations, but a little difficult to store.

I think it has really shown us that his concentration span is improving, as he has been sitting and drawing for much longer than he ever has before.

He enlisted Amelia’s help for this drawing - asking her to draw a dragon that he could copy. Hers is the blue version.

The kids also spent quite some time this morning “driving to the snow”. This involved lining all the chairs up in a row, like a bus, and wearing all the warm hats, scarfs and gloves they could find. Here is Michaela on the bus, wearing Amelia’s oversized beret.

On Friday night I appeared in the Wedding Dress Parade that i have been mentioning lately. I wore a wedding dress from the same year that I got married, 1998 (Not mine) and the bridesmaid dress I wore to my sisters wedding back in March. It was a lot of fun, and I am hoping that someone I know took photos. It was very strange to see my wedding dress on someone else, especially as the model had very dark brown hair, her colouring was quite different to mine. It was really nice to get it out again. The last parade was 13 years ago, and my Grandmother’s dress was in it. Since then, the moths have gotten to it, and it has been thrown out. This certainly makes a case for letting the world see them while the dresses are in tact. The money raised for the Migori Orphanage in South Western Kenya was over $2,200 AUD, so it was a very successful night.

I have spent the last few weeks working on a secret project that I can’t show you until December. It is very exciting, and has been taking up all of my creative time. In December I promise to show it to everyone!

Last Thurday we had a charming little visitor.

Michaela was the first to notice the Homing Pigeon on the garage roof, in the shelter of a short brick ledge that tops it. She could see him out our kitchen window, and said “look Mummy, a white birdie”. Being dusk, it was hard to get a photo, but with the naked eye we could see its little tags around its legs. She/He stayed for the night, and I saw him/her again in the front garden the following afternoon.

By the time we walked back from school, it was gone, and all that was left was a collection of 5 white feathers on the lawn. I am sincerely hoping that they fell out as the pigeon was walking around out there, and not as a result of the intervention on a neighbourhood cat. You can just see one of the feathers in the background of this photo, so it is possible that the feathers were ready to come out. Hopefully the little white birdie is winging its way home or already there. That is all my news, but here is a picture that I couldn’t help taking of a forlorn little leaf on our magnolia tree. You can just make out some of the buds that will be amazing flowers in a month or two. What’s growing in your garden?

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.

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.

(instead of a Fairy in the garden).

I have finally done something with the little doll that was going to be a fairy, she morphed into a ballerina - lets call her Belle.

Her skirt was really easy to make, I just looped lengths of ribbon around a short circle of elastic to put around her waist. Her hair was a little trickier. I wound tapestry wool around a business card (along the longer length) and then stitched through it, 1/4 inch in from the end. I managed to break a needle doing this, so it may not have been the best way.

I left the tails of thread (where I started and finished stitching) quite long and used them to sew the hair to Belle’s head, stitching along the line of machine stitching, in a “crown”around her head. I then tied the thread off, after passing them through her head to a spot that will be hidden after the hair is arranged. Finally I wound the long hair into a large bun and tied them with a ribbon. It feels good to have actually finished something for a change.

After a suggestion from my friend Rebecca, who is not well today (we were commiserating on the difficulty of producing dinners on such nights), I thought I would post my advice for a healthy, quick meal on those nights when everything is all too much*.

I have discovered frozen fish fillets in the supermarket that are just fish - not crumbed or sauced, just plain fish. All you have to do is steam the fillets in the microwave, they only take a few minutes. My kids love Smoked Cape Cod fillets. To go with this I cook potatoes in their jackets, also in the microwave. While these are not really quite as nice as roasted jacket potatoes, they become slightly more tasty with a little butter on them. Lots of microwaves have a button “jacket potatoes” or similar that you just have to push once for each potato, just make sure to poke a fork in them first or they might explode! I round this meal off with whatever other veggies I have, steamed again in the microwave.

This meal induces far less guilt than take away, but is about as easy as a trip up the street with three kids.

* Cooking is by no means my forte, I would much rather sew - but I do like healthy, easy food where possible for dinner - lots of veggies especially.

**While i was writing this post this afternoon, I thought that Michaela was in her bedroom, next door to her father, who was in our room. We should have realised that it was too quiet…….

This is what 5 shades of lipsticks, smooshed together looks like. Arrrrghh.

No more applying a quick slick of lipstick at the red lights. Now I will have to carefully apply my lipstick with a brush before I leave the house (after sticking the brush up into the lids where all my lipstick now resides).

Much of the last week has been very wet here in Melbourne - a sentence I was not sure I would ever type. The kids have been cooped up inside for the first week of the school holidays as the rain has been pretty steady - not intermittent as it usually is. The nights are colder, the pilot light on the heater has been lit and I used the electric blanket this past week.

There are quite a few dependable flowers in my garden that are still hanging in there, especially my beloved geraniums. These are Ivy Leafed Geraniums (above) that we have cascading out of 3 faux terracotta pots attached to the garage wall. The flowers are tiny, these are taken with the macro setting on the camera.

These Geraniums are going almost all year, and I have professed my love for them before.

This little guy was hiding out in the garden and I spotted him when I crouched down to take a different shot. He was pretty hard to focus on, but I have included this photo because we don’t see a lot of dragonflies here at our place.

Last, but not least, here is proof that autumn is here. This is our little Scarlet Oak that we planted a couple of years ago. You can see the tinge in the leaves as they start to change colour.

…In Our Front Garden Bed*.

These are just beginning to come out, in the garden bed against the house. I think that they are Salvias, but I am not sure, they were grown from a cutting I was given.

I just love the colour of them up against our Terracotta bricks.

They are coming in to bloom to replace the Hydrangeas which occupy the same bed, that have browned off in the heat of summer and been pruned back.

The last time they looked any good was New Years Eve, when I cut most of the blooms off before the mercury hit 42 degrees C (107.6 degrees F). The hydrangeas get the first lot of water from the shower, (that cold stuff that comes out while you wait for the water to warm up) almost every morning, except when it rains.

* Purple patch seems to mean different things in different countries. I have always understood it to mean a period of excellent performance, where nearly everything seems to go right, work properly, and contrasting with a more general lower level of performance, but to some it means period of ostentatiously erratic or bad behaviour.