Matching Pegs

Amelia’s Capital A is finished!  We both had a lot of fun making this, and I think it is a really great birthday present.  I had a look around and you can buy them here.

Amelia did get her ears pierced the other day, and she was so brave, not a tear.  I was so impressed.

Doesn’t she look grown up.

Today I mocked up the bottom half of my mug bag design with a scrap of calico that I had lying around.  It already had some pellon ironed on to it, and I wanted to test out how large I needed to make the size of the base area.

I also wanted to test out how appliqueing onto a backing, with batting adhered to it already, would look.  This little flower was just the quickest thing I could whip up, because of course, there will be a teapot.   I am still thinking through the design, but I know that the base I planned with take a range of mug sizes.

We are going into the second week of the school holidays, so I am not sure how much crafting will be going on, but there will definitely be lots of park visiting and drawing and lego and trampolining.

I have a small collection of teapots on my kitchen windowsill.  There are 3 (I said it was small).  I have been drawing them for my mug-bag design, and now I am drawing them up neatly in Illustrator, so much fun, (the pencil part more than the computer part).

The design is most likely to feature this bamboo handled one, as well as one of my butterflies and a cherry blossom.  I think I will start cutting out paper copies of these drawings at different scales to work out where I am going with this.  I just wish I had a super-teacher to teach me how to use the parts of Illustrator that I need to use.  I keep thinking in a tech drawing, auto cad kind of way when I am using it, and it is the wrong way to approach it.

Here are adorable photos of two of my kids.  It’s my blog, and I like to admire my handiwork - I just gave them both a haircut.

Michaela is going through a skirts and dresses phase, hense the skirt and pants look.  I cut her hair to angle in at the back.

I am no hairdresser, but I think I did OK.

Rory told me a minute before I took that shot that he would only pose if he didn’t have to smile.

I love my son so much that I took both he and Amelia to see Star Wars, The Clone Wars this afternoon.  I almost fell asleep.  Next week we are going to see Wall-E, which I am really looking forward to.  Tomorrow I am taking Amelia to have her ears pierced - so I will probably be posting her new look tomorrow.

After Wednesday’s events, we have had lots of school holiday family time - just what the doctor ordered!

On Thursday the kids were busy in the kitchen making dough creations, that we “fired” in the oven and then painted.

This weekend there was a great deal of construction going on in the back yard.

It went from this, which was built last weekend,………………. to this…………

And finally this. So far it is an elevated platform, which will have rails added around the sides, and a nice wide step and eventually half of it will have a roof. The kids are very happy with Luke’s log constructions.

Meanwhile inside I was working on a log construction of my own.

It went from this, to this below.

It is one of several cushion covers in the works that I have finally gotten around to. I just have to finish sewing on the binding. Stay tuned for more construction efforts

Happy 6th Birthday Rory, our big school boy.

You are our clever boy, who likes to know how things work. You are independent and determined.

You have the widest smile in the family, and the cheekiest giggle.

Dad and I are so proud of how well you are doing at school, and at your swimming lessons; trying your best.

We love the amazing drawings and collages that you do, especially your Star Wars picture that you spent so much time on.

No matter what, remember that we love you, always. We are so lucky to be your Mum and Dad.

Rory at Eight months

My favourite pictue of your Rory, my precious son (February 2006, when you were 3 and a half).

Sure Can! While I cooked dinner tonight, the girls were playing with the play dough. Michaela made the little “Pool” at the top of the photo, while Amelia made the elaborate one at the front

To have the kids playing happily together during the arsenic hour……………………………………………..priceless.

For those of you that like to ponder the big questions in life, have a look at MetroDad’s current post.

When I wanted to teach the kids how to sew, I decided to start with back stitch. I figured that it was the easiest stitch to follow along a line. One of the main things I learnt was to give them shapes to stitch that didn’t require any backtracking, (ie. letters s or o or l are good but t or a or x are tricky, as you need to stop and start again in different places). The above Heart and Teddy shapes are both simple outlines made by single lines that begin and end in the same place. I borrowed them from the design of this quilt. The kids did all the hand stitching except for the faces, and I did the machine sewing.

Amelia stitched this in two days when she was five and a half. Rory wanted to join in too, but found it a little harder at three and a half (which was no surprise to me, but he loved to do whatever Amelia was doing).

Rory picked it up again over a year later and finished it, and only now have I taken the time to put borders on it and bind it (the pins are still in binding at the back, which is why it looks a little wonky. I am going to hang it under Amelia’s one, but can no longer get the dear little hangers, (unless anyone out there can point me in the right direction) so I will have to think of something else.

I have been turning the kids’ drawings into stitcheries on things for years. Here are two of my favourites, taken from drawings that Amelia did when she was younger that I have stitched onto clothing. The first was done when she was about five, and is on a windcheater.

This second one is a portrait of her father that she drew when she was four and a half. I put it on a top for Luke for that Christmas. I recreated Amelia’s lines exactly, but just changed the colour of her black lines to white. I love the big eyelashes.

Both of these required quite a complicated method to mark them out, as even a light box was not going to work. I used coloured pencils, unwaxed baking paper, ordinary sewing thread and finally the stranded embroidery thread that you see here now. One of these days I will have to make a tutorial, as it takes quite a few steps to mark out this way. How do you mark out designs on black or very thick fabric?

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?

Mum, can you please put a photo of my play-dough face on your website?

Sure!

Recipe for Homemade Playdough (or as Amelia called it when she was about 2 - Squish-Squish).

1 Cup Plain Flour

1 Cup Warm Water

2 Teaspoons Cream of Tartar

1 Teaspoon of Vegetable Oil

1/4 Cup Salt

Food Colouring

*Add a few drops of food colouring to the water, then mix all ingredients together in a large saucepan.

*Stir over a medium heat until the mixture changes from liquid to solid.

*Remove from the saucepan and knead until it is blended smooth

*Store in an airtight container in the fridge.

Have Fun.

Finally the temperature in Melbourne has dropped, sweet relief.

Due to the heat and several other situations, an old injury in my wrist, fingers and forearm of my left hand has flared up. My problem was diagnosed by a GP 8 years ago as Carpal tunnel syndrome, but the symptoms never quite fitted. After a date with Google the other morning, when my symptoms were driving me crazy, I have found the culprit, which fits the symptoms a whole lot better - Cubital Tunnel Syndrome. This is similar to Carpel Tunnel, but has slightly different triggers, and one of the articles suggested it has an association with Guitarists (in their hand that plays the frets, usually left). Bending the elbow and wrist at the same time is a big problem, so there will be no hand sewing for me for a while. I am right handed, but hold my sewing in my left hand, exactly as I should not while this is going on. At least I now know what to avoid, and know that ice at the elbow helps when I am in pain.

Fortunately, drawing with my right hand is no problem at all.

Yesterday Michaela asked me to draw us and cut us out. She played with the Paper Mummy and Paper Michaela all afternoon, hence the crumpled appearance. Amelia has put in an order for a Paper Amelia, Daddy and Rory, and has declared that after school she will make them a house. These took about 5 minutes to produce, but as they say “provided hours of fun for the whole family”. They are not exactly the pinnacle of drawing, and proportionally not good, but it was fun; especially drawing us in what we were wearing at the time.

Drawing family members is probably the most common subject matter of kids drawings I would guess. Here is a couple of beauties from Amelia.

Here is “The Matching Pegs Famaly (sic) Rock” which is our family as a rock band. I love our hair styles (or in the case of Luke, his absence of hair).

This one is “The Matching Pegs Kingdom”. Regal aren’t we.

She has also drawn us as Trees (I was a magnolia, my favourite) and as Monsters. These pictures adorn our kitchen door, and whenever I stop to look at them, I smile at Amelia’s wonderful imagination.

These are the beautiful plates that Amelia and Rory made at Preschool over several years. There is one for each member of the family.

Amelia’s first one was made when she was not quite 4. 2 years later she made a family one for me (the blue one) when we got a free plate, (I organised the fundraiser) but we only had one special marker left. I like the monochrome effect. I love the fact that each family member is on there (I am the enormous one) even though she made it a month or so before Michaela was born. Unfortunately Rory’s from that year broke.

The following year Rory made another one for himself and the red and orange one for his father, also with each family member. Amelia made one for Michaela who was too young to participate at the time.

We use them almost every day. I feel the need to record the plates for posterity in case one breaks again.

In case you are wondering about the artful smudges on them, they were not produced by the kids, but I smudged out our surname and location. No offence blogosphere, but I would like to preserve some privacy for the Matching pegs household.