Nanna knitting bug

Ha, my dear friend tells me I have the Nanna knitting bug.... he he.


I was inspired recently to have a go at crochet.
My nanna did teach me years and years (ok about 25 years) ago. The old granny round the square kind of blanket crochet....
SO I headed to spotlight, bought a book, 'Learn to crochet".
I already had the beanie pattern and I thought I'll give it a go... Well now I am doing double, treble, halftreble and even had a go at this yummy flower!!!. I managed to finish a whole beanie in about 4 hours.. This was fun and very relaxing.. not to mention space friendly too..

Snowy Sunday

Who doesn't have to drink coffee while sewing?? I do, litres of the stuff. I had a lovely day completing a project that I have been trying to finish for weeks, a baby blanket for the little man featured here....

I have had a great weekend. Friday and Saturday where great sewing days and I got quite a bit of sorting out done..

First I needed to have a cleanup, dear husband bought me a little gift.. I had been complaining for a while (not like me! - ha ha) about the lack of drawer space, so he got me a little trolley and it is fabulous, I feel like a hairdresser, it has all my vitals and I can have it beside me no matter which machine I am using.... Love it....

So onto the blanket for little Rory. I chose the brown birdsfeather and then which check??? Oh go I procrastinate.... I went for the bottom one in the end..

First I digitised his name into an applique and got that bit on the go..

Then a bit of a squareup. and start on the edging.

Fold over the edges and mitre the corners, then stitch down ..

Today is another story. It is freezing. There is no other description than wintry. I am trying to decide on some designs to make up for summer and I just cant wrap my head around the whole concept. So onto Plan B. The kids are driving me insane. They are sick of being indoors, so a quick phone call to the tourist information centre and ask if it had been snowing up in the Grampians. The answer was a delightful 'YES, It still is!!!".

That was it, dish up the homemade soup, scoff down a banana each, Hubby grabbed a cooler bag full of snacks, I grabbed the coats and the girls got their gloves. Off we went in search of "very rare snow" as Miss 6.5 pointed out.

The ambient temp on the car said 3 degrees as we made the 10km climb to the car park.

We were passing cars coming down covered in snow, then it began snowing on the car as we drove.. Awesome!!!

The kids were so excited they would hardly wait to put on the winter woollies. It was amazing.

Miss P was so thrilled to have the biggest snowball, she waited just for the right moment and planted it on dad when he wasn't looking!!! Cheeky bugger..

We didn't stay long as it was bloody freezing.....

Vera Jean here I come

I have finally done it, I have chosen a name for my wares.
After having lists of names hanging around for months now.
I have tried to combine, search for opposites, synonyms, foreign languages,You name it.
I have gone completely left of field and chosen something completely unlikely and have decided to register the name "Vera Jean". Plus it wasn't taken like many others I liked...

It is a combination of my two grandmothers. They are/were both extremely talented crafters. I still have my Nanna Jean. She still sews today in her late 80's. My Nanna Vera passed away a week before my wedding, (10 years ago). She and my Pop lived straight over the back fence of our first home (yeah we lived in sin for a while)... Vera was an obsessed historian and had books on everything. I can clearly remember playing scrabble at the card table in front of the heater if we were fortunate enough to stay for a visit. She always kept an enormous dictionary beside her recliner to settle any arguments. She was a very clever lady, somehow she had trained my Poppy and he did all the washing ironing and even dishes and vacuuming.. Way to go lady.
I had sewing group last night and took along a stack of items that just needed buttonholes and buttons. I hate buttonholes...and sewing on buttons.
I have been very absent over the past months , and for very good reason. I am the fundraising coordinator at my daughters kinder and have spent the last many months organising a fundraising dinner auction. It has been a lot of hard and thankless work but it has all paid off. The auction was a huge success and we raised over $9,000.00 . So now I have trodden that path I am more than pleased to have my spare time and life back. SO here I come. watch out,....

Peace and tranquility nearly..

Its back to school and kinder and i am wandering around like a lost sheep, no arguments to moderate, No constant requests for food and drinks (Mister 2 helps himself to the bananas).. It is that long since I felt any kind of creative urge, I think it might have up and moved out!!

The only crafty thing I have done in the last fortnight is I have made a series of canvas paintings for Miss 4.5. I used to pictures from her doona and made 3 small paintings to hang on her wall.

The inspiration came from her bed linen. We have a princess, a unicorn and a castle.

I sat last night glued to the couch while watching Project Runway Australia. I love this show.. The judges got it so wrong last night. I mean who in their right mind would wear boardshorts and a mesh top to a bar??? Not sure why you would wear a trenchcoat to the beach either??? And the frocker sure did make a shocker.. I cant wait until they get a chance to shine in their chosen style, Ooh I love it...

A little tiny visitor!!!

During the week we had a visitor, I tiny little visitor ( His mum came too, I'm totally dry!)
4 weeks old and only just 7lb... Oh how nice to have cuddles without the sleepless nights that go with ownership... It has lead to many questions since. "Where does the baby come out?? Does it hurt?" My reply. The doctor helps, You dont need to worry about that until you get married sweetie!!!

Back in the land of sewing`

Oh it feels like forever, I think I had inherited someone elses tumbleweed... This space has been well and truly deserted for some time now... Tsk tsk..

I have been sewing but havent found time to report it.. so here is a really quick catch up.

I have just finished adding the pictures to my last post ( a month old), after waiting for the pictures to upload, now I understand why I never have time to do this....

After a small amount of stitching thismorning, I have the enthusiasm to upload some more pictures.

My friend who came for a hat making sewathon this morning had made a gorgeous skirt for her daughter and my girls loved it. So as I approved of the cutesy fabric (It is brown!!! whats not to love!!!) I headed off and bought the fabric and tackled one for Miss4.5... I used embroidery thread in the loopers of the overlocker to give the edge a nice sheen... I like it.

I also added a layer at the bottom to give it some weight and a bit of a contrast.

She has worn it quite a few times and had lots of compliments too.. That's always a great reward. A happy child in a project that didn't take long..

It does help when there is very little procrastinating over what fabrics to use...

Another reason I think I have been missing in blogland is that I am totally addicted to Project Runway.. I love it, I could watch it every day. It is just the ulitmate for a garment sewer like me.. The Australian version starts next week and I cannot wait.

Found my Mojo

I have finally polished and cleaned enough to earn a sewing day. My sewing group got together yesterday and we all had a great time, sewing, drafting, cutting and embroidering (and scoffing buns and scones)....I drafted off a pattern from my newest Japanese Pattern book and even took some shots while packing up last night. My husband giving me the big hmph when glancing at the sewing stuff that had migrated from my sewing room onto the kitchen table... Hey, how unsociable to sew in a different room from my friends???

I made a blouse from my newest and absolute favourite Japanese pattern book. I used a nice lilac hailspot type fine cotton (as miss 6 loves purple) Despite the intricate appearance of the front, it went together suprisingly easy. Now I just have to sew the button holes and buttons on (that may take another 6 months to get to!!)

I altered the collar to have a curved edge instead of square. I think it softens it off a bit..

The Watson Dress

I have finally finished the Chocolate Linen Dress which I have labelled the Watson Dress on the pattern pieces.. Partly because if I wrote Brown dress, I would not know which one.... Watson was my grandmother's maiden name...

It was hard to photograph and It looks a completely different colour in each photo, I will need to get my little model in a good mood so that we can have a smiley face with the dress..But I am happy with the way it turned out, I wonder wether it would be something I could perhaps make to order???Would it look any good in Pale Pink?? or does it not work with the organic look..

Mothers day morning, the sweet little girls both presented me with their special gifts from Kinder and school and they were very cute...After that it went rather downhill. No special breakfast and certainly no fairies appeared to do the ironing..Maybe I will practise teaching them "Mummy loves Cool Water " or perhaps "Mummy really needs a special treat from Ella Bache!" I might practise that for Christmas even, couldnt hurt surely... Best move on to the next project and aim at getting my creative bum into gear, thanks for the words of wisdom EmmaRose, I think I will use that theory when my MIL calls in....