Before

After.

Look who I found soaking up a little bit of winter sun in my garden yesterday.  Like any other cat, this one looks quite comfortable perched in an unusual place - the handle of my rotary clothes line.  This little aqua cat just needs a name, any suggestions?

It was quite a busy weekend here, among other things Michaela had her first swimming lesson.  She was a star, and was smiling whenever she didn’t have a concentration face on.  Some of the other little people in the tiny pool with her cried and cried, which was distressing for everyone, but didn’t seem to get to Michaela.  Of course I would love to share how adorable she looked in her new speedos and goggles, but apart from potentially attracting creepies, I didn’t want to take a camera along to a kids’ swimming lesson.

On Sunday, while I took Rory to a gymnastics birthday party, (what a fabulous idea, Rory loved it) Luke opened up a craft box we have had for a while, and made some soap with the girls.  It is still not dry, but the lavender in it smells wonderful.

Finally, have a look at this, the first of our Magnolia buds is starting to open.  In no time the tree will look spectacular.

Don’t forget to leave a comment to help me name the cat, who now has a little heart on his/her chest like the bunny rabbit.

This is Mr Chocolate. I made him 4 years ago for a close friend. This little chap was actually the logo of Rebecca’s Online Children’s Clothing Store, which is currently inactive - having your fifth child will do that to you :-).

I finished Michaela’s Bamboo/Cotton scarf. It is tiny, but perfectly proportioned for her.

She has worn it quite a bit lately, as it has been quite icy.

We have a jam packed weekend, so the post ends here

Here is a funny little bunny I finished making last night.  She is made of Flea Market Fancy fabric, which is actually a map of Paris, so she is called Jeannot Lapin (Bunny Rabbit in French).  Michaela has been playing with her this afternoon, in the cubby.  This is actually Lapin deux, the first was smaller, and the ears became just that bit too small to turn out the right way, but I like the position of them better.

Amelia has ordered a Teddy in a purple fabric and Michaela has ordered a Cat in Blue.  Rory, as usual, just wants “something more scary”.

Yesterday was my Mother’s 60th Birthday (Happy Birthday Mum).

We had quite a subdued lunch, as that morning a family friend had passed away.  Our Friend Helen died after several weeks in intensive care.  She was a wonderful dynamo of a person, who never let her ill health hold her back from what she wanted to do.  Her sheer force of will was amazing.  She had a very strong sense of justice and actively campaigned for many causes.  She was a retired Uniting Church Minister who baptised both of our daughters.  She will be missed by many, many, people.

My Mother is another very strong women.  She has had to deal with a lot in her life time, and through the course of her life she has gathered lots of very practical wisdom.  I talk through the minutia of my life, and hers with her, almost daily.  Who would I be without her?

Don’t worry Mum, we will celebrate in suitable style at a later date, you sure deserve a proper party.

On Saturday, another Mum from school (Hi Debbie) and I travelled to the outskirts, of the other side of Melbourne, for a quilt show.  On arrival we discovered that we had turned up for a “Quilt In” rather than a quilt show.  Not having any sewing of our own to work on, we browsed through the small stalls that some local shops had set up, and decided to move on to a spot of local quilt shopping.

I had not been planning to purchase any more than a few bits and pieces, but had a magazine with me with a beautiful project in it that was calling me; “The Wish Quilt” by Bronwyn Hayes in the current issue of Homespun Magazine.  I ended up going to town on Reds and Creams, as well as buttons and threads.  I have chosen to stitch the red-work in a variegated red thread, that goes from an almost watermelon colour to a dark browny garnet colour.  I am really looking forward to stitching it, but realistically I will not be making it for this Christmas, but the following one - there are too many projects I have on the boil that I want to do first.  Instead I may make just one of the blocks to hang up for this year.

So apart from picking up all these red and cream beauties, I picked up a few other things as well.

I picked up these two pieces from the “Morning Glory” by Robyn Pandolph range, the colour was a bit hard to capture in today’s light, but the gold roses are on a pale greyish lavender colour that is quite sophisticated.  I am thinking that these will be a fully lined handbag.

One thing I discovered in my purchasing spree, was just how sentimental I am.  I bought several fabrics purely because I have had them before, or they reminded me of special people in my life.  The stylised roses above (on the right) are the same as the fabric my mother has used for a cushion on a family heirloom chair, in another colourway.  The birds fabric below is my daughter Amelia’s favourite fabric, that we have used on several projects for her.  I had used up my last scrap, and the store I bought it from has closed, so I was thrilled to find some more.  My late Grandmother had a silk suit made with fabric with a marbelled pattern very similar to the one on the fat quarters below.  She wore that suit to my wedding.  Get the picture, I’m sentimental.

So enough boring you with my purchases, on to the purple in the title.

No this is not just another excuse to show you my Happy Wanderer, I wanted to share with you some details of a purple charm square “tree”.  It is a little like a swap, but more complex.

I had been given a little letter and a couple of 6 inch squares of purple fabric, inviting me to join in, in the quilt tree.  All that is involved, is that I send 2 purple, 100% cotton, 6 inch charm squares to the person at the top of the list, cross them off and send the letter and 2 more squares each, on to 4 more people who are interested in joining in (after adding my name to the bottom).  According to the letter, once your name has moved up a couple of spaces, you should receive 72 squares in return, before you are crossed off.  Confused?  I am not too sure about the maths of this one, but can see that theoretically, I should receive some purple charm squares in return if I play.  It will only cost me 10 charm squares, and some postage.

One thing I don’t want to do is send this to anyone who does not want to take this on. So do any of you out there want to play?

Below are a couple of the purple fabrics that I have to send on, together with the two squares that I was sent with the letter I received.

Let me know if you are interested in the Purple Charm Square Quilt Tree in the comments, and I will send you an email to let you know more.

We had a beautiful sunset tonight and I could not resist sharing it with you.  This is the view across the top of the neighbouring houses.  As a family we all went to see Kung Fu Panda this afternoon, which was actually not bad as far as school holiday movies go.  It was Michaela’s first movie and apart from moving between Luke at one end of our 5 seats, and myself at the other, she made it through the whole movie without making lots of noise.

Here is an update on the fort/lookout/cubby in the backyard.

This was Luke working out how high the step needed to be, so that Michaela could climb up.

She was a real little Tradey, helping out Daddy.

As regular readers know, Friday is the day to dip into the past, but today I am going to show you a piece of design that is not my work, but is from our family photo archive.  A few people I know have just had, or are going to have babies.  This is the best piece of baby related gear that we purchased, hands down, so we now have three!  It is a fabulous piece of design.

This is our eldest daughter Amelia, at 5 1/2 months in January 2001, sitting in the Tripp Trapp highchair by Stokke, a firm from the Netherlands, (the second link takes you to the USA/Canadian site, as it is in English, but the first link shows the chair as it is sold here even though the text is Dutch.  There seems to be a different baby rail sold in the US, which is not as elegant).  Back when we purchased this, they were not sold in Australia, and I think it was my first ever Internet purchase, through a New Zealand importing firm.  A very dear friend had one that her in laws had purchased in Europe, and I thought it was worth tracking down.

As you can see, unlike other Highchairs, the Tripp Trapp adjusts from being suitable for a baby right through to an adult.  What you can’t see in this picture is that the baby rail at the front comes off, and the chair seat interchanges with one that does not have a strap.  For an adult, the larger footrest becomes the seat.  At almost 8, Amelia still benefits from that little bit of extra height to sit comfortably at the table.

Now here is what I was doing (with the kids) yesterday.

I was actually drawing Teddy bears, when Amelia got our her drawings of possible doll faces.  We were talking about proportion again, and how eyes are actually across the middle of a face, and not near the top.  Before I knew it, look who had appeared. Along with various stylized Michaela’s along the bottom, there is one of each of us, (I had to get out a photo to add Luke and I).

Here is a page of Teddies.

Here is another current project in the works, yet another scarf.

This one is quite narrow as it is to adorn a pretty little neck - Michaela’s.  It is made with Bamboozle yarn which is 70% Bamboo and 30% Cotton, so it is super soft and light.  As usual, it was the colour that caught my eye, yet another variegated yarn, in such beautiful fruity tones.  I also have some put aside for me :-).

Lastly this is Michaela’s handiwork.  Inspired by a large creation the bigger kids made, she presented this to me - her first castle - and asked me to take a picture.

Have great weekend everyone, more regular posting will resume again next week when term starts again.

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

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