Matching Pegs

It feels like Spring is here in Melbourne, and some of my favourite Camellias are now in bloom.  This is a little variegated one that we have in the backyard.  I love not only the colour, but the shape of the flowers as well.  The only one on the property ( out of 8 ) that I planted, has the same form, and it just started flowering.  It is called Black Tie (It is the only one that I have a name for) and it looks like this, just beautiful……

Last night I was out babysitting at my friend Debbie’s house.  Her boys were so well behaved, and best of all, Debbie had her sewing machine set up on the table for me to use in the peace and quiet.  I turned this series of numbered piles of fabric……..

into this….. slightly less piles of fabric, and four rows out of 11 sewn up.  This was the Layer Cake of Chez Moi Charisma that I purchased at the Craft and Quilt Fair last month.

It is the only sewing I have done on the machine in ages, perhaps I will have to babysit for Debbie more often ;-).  I have progressed on the first of The Wish Quilt stitcheries by Bronwyn Hayes.  I am really happy with the variegated thread, except perhaps for the beard on Father Christmas (he is always Father Christmas to me, not Santa) which turned out to be the brightest red (you can’t really tell in this photo how bright it is, compared to the other stitching around it).  Perhaps, like all unexpected outcomes, it will grow on me.

These sweet little beads are some I picked up last weekend at this charming venue, where we had Amelia’s birthday party.  I think they are called lamp work beads.

The plan had been to have a sewing party at home, but we decided to change that plan a few weeks ago.  Amelia’s best friend at school left at the end of last term, and she has been resettling into a new larger group of friends.  We would not have been able to accommodate the 9 friends she eventually invited, at a party in our little house.  The party was a great hit, and beading was a creative, fun activity, which also sent the kids home with some really cool things to keep.  We will save the sewing party idea for next year with a smaller guest list.

So back to the beads above.  I asked the ladies in the shop to add the pin through the middle of the beads, with the loop at the top, while the party was underway.  For a very minimal cost, I now have three sets of danglies to hang off my sleeper earrings.  This is what my sleepers used to look like.

And now they look like this….

I am really pleased with them.

Here is somehing else I am really pleased with, this is something I am really looking forward to making.

This is the pattern I ordered to make up an apron using the fabulous fabric from Lily.  I have found some fabric in my stash to go with it, but I am not sure yet if I have enough.  The pattern calls for more, but I think with some creative cutting, I may be able to eek out enough to get by.

I was on a roll.  Here is the cake of the day, a pink Ladybird as requested.

I guess you could say that I have been mostly missing in action this week.  I am finally feeling a lot better and getting back on the blogging horse, but I still owe a lot of emails - apologies if you have not had a reply from me.  I was really excited to have all the comments on my logos, I will be sure to keep you up to date when the committee chooses one for me to finesse, next month.

Thursday found me on my own for the afternoon (finally no sick children at home), and I managed to get my hair cut.  I am pretty pleased with the result.

This is the shortest it has been in quite a while, (see here for a “before” from earlier in the year) and I am enjoying feeling lighter and bouncier!

This morning we had Amelia’s birthday party with her friends, which is a whole other post, but while on the topic of hair you have to check out this groovy do…..

Amelia has wanted a cake like this for a few years, and I think ours turned out even better than the Women’s Weekly Kid’s Cakes version.

Ours was certainly a team effort. I made the cake. Luke applied the skin, the collar and the eyebrow ring.  I sculpted the facial features and all three kids applied the hair.

She was quite popular at the party, so hopefully I am on a roll, because this evening I will be icing a ladybird.  Under strict instructions from tomorrow’s birthday girl (Michaela) I am going to make this ladybird pink, not red.  I will be sure to post photos.  After Michaela’s 3rd birthday tomorrow, life might return to some semblance of normal.  Bring on Spring.

Yesterday, after an invitation from Debbie and Noah, Michaela and I (along with Leigh and Madison) ventured across to the other side of town to visit “Scienceworks“.  The three of us Mums have each got a son in Prep this year, and a younger sibling of around 3 years old (I’m the only one with a third child).  The three littlies had a wonderful time in the Nitty Gritty Super City, which is designed for 3 - 8 year olds.  Michaela looks particularly tiny perched on the top of the Penny Farthing bike, with her two little friends in the background.

I was extremely pleased to get out, after having a sick child at home for days (thanks Ladies).  Today I had another sick child at home, Amelia.  She lay on the couch and watched “The Princess Bride” this morning (a wonderful movie for the whole family) followed by her first viewing of “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe”.  I had not seen it, and thought it was a good opportunity for her to watch it without younger siblings in case it was a bit scary.  I loved every one of the Narnia Chronicles as a kid, which she is yet to read ( I purchased a thick volume of them all recently)  but found the movie a bit slow.  She has not been as sick as Rory, and we are hoping she will be back to normal tomorrow for her birthday - please send healthy thoughts our way.

On the weekend, Luke and I actually shared a little home improvement project, that we managed to start and finish in a day.  We were trying to eek out some more storage space in our bedroom.

Our bedroom has an old fashioned built in robe, that has 2 narrow full length hanging cupboards (one at either end) with a big gap in the middle for a mirrored “dressing table” with drawers below.  This gives Luke and I a grand total of 71 cm width of hanging space each.  We were sick of our clothes being crushed, so decided to make use of the mirrored cavity in the middle.

Luke added a hanging rail, and I made a cute little curtain, which we hung on one of those stretchy covered spring things attached inside the top of the space.  Now we have a place (75 more cm to share) to hang some of our shirts, that don’t need the full length space to hang.

I am quite pleased with how this project turned out, not only because of the extra space, but because I like the fabric.  It also makes me smile, because it looks like we have a little puppet theatre in our bedroom.  Does that make us weird?

There has been quite a bit going on this week, which has resulted in the general lack of posting.  The main thing is that we are in the middle of 2 weeks of school holidays, but we also had a very big day on Wednesday, from which I am still recovering.  WARNING: for those that are here to see craft only, skip the next section and scroll down to the crafty photos

Essentially, Michaela had a funny turn just after getting up that morning.  She turned a funny colour, went all floppy in my arms, was spaced out, and clammy - she did respond to me talking to her, but her responses were delayed.  I laid her on the couch and called “Nurse on Call” to ask if I should be calling an ambulance (if “Nurse on Call” was not an option, I definitely would have called a ambulance first) and they got me to answer lots of questions, and get Michaela to do certain things - she passed their tests, so I was advised to take her to the GP rather than the hospital.  By this stage Michaela had improved a lot, she was no longer floppy, but she was still spaced out.  The doctor saw us straight away, and found no signs of infection/temperature etc, but also thought that Michaela was altered - she was still listless and spaced out. She managed to take Michaela’s blood pressure and heart rate etc, which she recorded and sent us off with a letter to take to the children’s hospital for further investigation.  She was thinking Absent seizures or Cardiac problems.

You see, back around the time that Michaela swallowed the crystal, she also had several episodes of fainting (a few days prior to swallowing the treasure), and was investigated for serious heart problems.  The Cardiology Department at the Childrens’ were very thorough, and found no signs of a problem - they felt that the fainting was extremely likely to be harmless , but as she hadn’t had an episode while wearing a monitor (even after a 24 hour stint in one) they were not sure of their origin, and were going to keep a close eye on her until she was old enough to do a stress ECG - the only test they were unable to perform.  The wanted to see her again if anything strange happened - this definitely qualified.

I dropped the other two kids at a friends (eternal thanks Silvana) and went, with my wonderful Mother as support, to the Childrens’ Hospital, where we were seen very quickly.

About 4 hours and many tests later we were sent home.  The diagnosis was a near faint (pre-syncope) of the Vasovagal syncope variety, triggered by sitting on the toilet trying to poo (a common trigger)!  This was really good news, as other diagnoses on the cards were very serious.  The heart rate recorded by the GP was low for a child Michaela’s age (but normal for an older person,so it didn’t particularly alarm the GP), and was probably even lower when she was floppy at home.  This all casts a more positive light on her previous fainting, which was triggered on at least two occasions by being tickled (unfortunately, we don’t really tickle her anymore).  Even though Wednesday was a traumatic, scary day (which I don’t want to repeat) the upside is that it reinforces the suspicions of the Cardiologists that her fainting was benign.  We are to go back soon to see a paediatrician at the hospital, to talk about this some more - I have quite a few questions about managing this tendency of Michaela’s - but overall the outcome puts many more serious worries of mine to rest.

Here is my contribution from the archive this week - A Peony I made for my Mum’s Birthday a few years ago. The design is based on an ancient Japanese Family Crest and is taken from this lovely book.

The author adapted them for Applique designs, and here is a photo of her design made in colours that have particular significance and meaning. I find it a little busy myself.

There has been some more crafting going on here yesterday, but as this is such a long and eventful post, I will save details for another time.  Hope life is more uneventful for all of you, my lovely readers.

While here in the Matching Pegs household, we try to run a pretty tight ship, consumption wise, I don’t think anyone would single us out as a green, green household. Our family of five, according to the little info box on our water bill, uses the amount of water of an efficient 3 person family with a large garden (although we never water our garden). We pay a relatively small amount for our heating, because our house is so small. I use very little in actual cleaning products (although I have some that I use occasionally), with the exception of washing up detergent, and washing powder for the clothes.

I have just tried going one step further - a step that many might consider a bit unusual.

After toying with the idea for quite some time I have decided to try making a change that will be better for my hip pocket, the environment and hopefully my hair! I’m going to try ditching store bought shampoo and conditioners in favour of a couple of home made versions.

Why - mainly to avoid ingredients like Dimethicone * and it’s relatives. I’m talking about an ingredient that (as I understand it) even 10 years ago was only in a couple of brands of conditioners. Now it is in every conditioner sold in my supermarket, and most of the shampoos as well. It makes your hair shinier and slippery, by coating the hair strands, but unfortunately it keeps building up in your hair, and the build up can make your hair look even more dull and limp in the long run. A couple of hairdressers have indicated that it might be the culprit that is making Amelia’s hair so knotty - her hair is that way inclined and this product might be making it worse.

Of course, these hairdressers want to sell me salon brand products that do not have this ingredient, but that cost about $20 a bottle. I can’t quite justify spending that amount on hair products. If I could just buy products with 10 year old formulations, I would happily do that, but there are none readily available.

So I am going to try this - Going Shampoo Free.

So far I have washed my hair twice this week with the Soda Bicarb. (shampoo) and Apple Cider Vinegar (conditioner) concoctions. It feels clean, has no vinegary smell about it and was easy. Last night I washed all three kids with the stuff. No drama, and their hair looks clean and shiny. I am going to try this for a couple of weeks and then reassess. So far the only thing I miss is the lovely smell released when you lather up with normal supermarket shampoo and conditioner (also there is no lather at all with Soda Bicarb.).

Oh and By the Way - that lovely, thick glass in the photo, that has the tortoiseshell appearance, is my new “Mug” for my daily cups of tea. I couldn’t resist it, and it was on sale. Perhaps I need another one - it also looks like it would make a nice vase.

* Synonyms for Dimethicone that you might find listed on your products…

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), Dimethicone, Cyclomethicone, Cetyl dimethicone, Cyclopentasiloxane, Silicone oil

I was getting so carried away sewing my butterflies that I overdid it yesterday, and needed to give my arm a rest tonight. So here is a real butterfly to enjoy. Now you may think that this is one of those cheesy happy photos that come with your computer as wall paper, but no - you need to be very impressed. This is a photo that I took last year in the gardens of Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA - Enjoy! However this photo has no relevance to the rest of the post - I just can’t bear to write anything and dish it up without a photo.

So instead of sewing, here is a great, new sew, fabric decorating idea that I found on ohdeedoh (Apartment Therapy’s Kid and Baby Site) - Fabric Wall silhouettes (using liquid starch). This is a great idea, another one to add to the giant list of stuff I want to try.

While I was there I also followed a link to this great mini article about how to raise kids with an attitude of gratitude. This is something I think about quite a lot. The generation of kids that my generation is raising has a lot of challenges. I particularly liked this line: “The piece that seems to be missing in the gratitude story is the longing. Children don’t long for things anymore. And longing is tremendously powerful stuff. It motivates.”

Food for thought.

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.