Two surprises!

I think it is our maternal duty to believe that our children are the smartest, brightest, most beautiful. Having said that, Willow did two things recently which surprised even me.

First one – we had been for a walk and I was wearing a puma t-shirt which has a puma on it (obviously). She pointed to it and said ‘cat!’. Now, I wouldn’t think that the puma logo is really that recognisable, but I asked her later what it was and she said ‘cat!’ again.

Second one – Yesterday morning she woke me up by pinching my upper arm and saying ‘baby bitey mummy’. I’ve been teaching her that pins, needles, seam rippers, scissors are all bitey. I do this by stabbing myself and going ‘Ow!’ I don’t think it is terribly successful since she still likes playing with them when she can get her hands on them…

Daddy

A is such a wonderful father, I mean, we all have our bad days, but for the most part he is really patient and loving with Willow. We have formed a parenting philosophy together that leans towards attachment parenting and I'm glad that there has been little to no conflict about things like breastfeeding, co-sleeping and gentle parenting in general.

He does complain about getting pushed out of bed though! But he is the first one to respond when W cries, happy to spend time with her, put her to bed, clean her up after meals, change her nappies, etc.

Last night he went down to the bedroom and W had stirred a bit so he was lying there patting her, in the soft light it was a beautiful scene.

Paula's questions

Paula asked me a couple of questions, so I thought I'd do a special post for her, lol!

The lettuce leaf hem was kind of an experiment. I think the trick is the kind of fabric you are using. I made the tshirt from quite stretchy interlock so all I had to do was set a zigzag stitch to 2, I think, then stitched the egde, letting the stich fall over. I stretched the material just a bit, I imagine that if the material was stretched more then the leaf would be curlier.

Paula and Andrea both asked how I did the bit behind the button on the punk pants. I think it is called a yo-yo. I saw some instructions for it somewhere... Found them! Here. Heather Bailey is an inspiration to me.

sooore...

With the sewing I was doing last week, I didn't end up going to the gym. Now I am regretting it, my back is so sore. I just did some Pilates stretches on the floor but I think I'll need more than that!

This coming week, Willow will be in FDC and CC, so I will be doing more sewing, but I will go to the gym! The week after that, I will be back at work, so I will have to make an effort to go to the gym. Not sure when... Weekends, Thursday morning (I don't work Thursdays), nights?

Fruits of my labour

I didn't get quite as much done today as I thought I would have, but I'm still pretty happy with what the results:


I asked on the sewing group about organising my patterns awhile ago and eventually came up with this solution. The boxes can hold the Ottobre magazine, pattern sheets and traced patterns.


This is a quick t-shirt I made from the 2/2005 Ottobre magazine. I didn't use ribbing, but I went for a lettuce leaf hem on the neck, sleeves and waist. Love the combination of pale khaki and pink.




I got this material from Lincraft the other day. I call them her plaid punk pants! I think the ribbon detail and button flower might be a bit delicate for toddler pants, but we'll see how they go.




I also made some newborn pants for the shop from the same material but didn't put any decorations on them. Bit too fussy for a newborn, I reckon.



This is one of the covered buttons I made the other day. The hat they are to go on has been cut out, but that's as far as I have got with it!



I saw this idea for a ribbon belt in a book I saw in Borders the other day. It called for wide grosgrain ribbon, but I found this pink and green ribbon in Spotlight which was much cuter.



This is what I'm really proud of - the three pants I made out of the pillow cases. I made them to custom order so I REALLY hope they fit!

From this:

To this:

tagged!

I've been tagged by Leah!

1. What is your current pet peeve?
Never having enough time to sew! (Same as Leah)

2. Would you rather be annoyed or bored?
I'd rather be bored, I can do something about that. It's a bit harder to do something about being annoyed.

3. When did you last drink champagne?
Struggling to remember... I had a nice sparkling wine when we went out to celebrate my new job...

4. Who sleeps in your bed?
A and I. Willow usually creeps in from her cot, which is set up sidecar to our bed.

5. What TV hunk can come knock at your door?
Jason Lee. I love him

6. Do you wear perfume?
Sometimes, it is not good for my asthma! A bought me Lovely by SJP for my birthday.

7.If you wrote a book what type would it be?
A practical but encouragin book about sewing for beginners.

8. When did you last go to the dentist?
Too long ago...

9.Ooops, you've just had boy/girl twins- what are they called?
I dunno... Would have to be something that goes with Willow. Sequoia and Cedar, lol!

10.How do you get your news- TV/Internet/paper?
TV and internet, we don't get the paper.

11.Do you believe the story that Naomi Robson was going to save a boy from cannibals?
Nope... Do I believe that it is all about ratings? Yup!

12. If you could go back in history where do you want to visit?
The Renaissance.

13.I am having a fancy dress party. What are you dressed as?
CatWoman

working 9 to 5!

I'm so glad that you guys took the post the way it was intended. I have nothing against SAHMs, but the ones who think EVERY mother should stay at home irritate me. Shows a very narrow minded point of view.

Helen and Karen, what kind of work do you do?

W has developed the habit of taking her socks, off her feet, out of her drawer, off the clothes horse and leaving them all over the house. Yesterday morning I think I found at least one in every room except the toilet which is always shut off anyway.

Just before she picked up one of her books about dogs, sat down next to Harley the cat and started saying "doggie" to her, as if she was reading her the book. Too cute.

I have a lot of sewing to do this weekend, so I'd better get stuck into it!

Hopefully I'll be back later to show the fruits of my labour!

child care bag

This is a little drawsting backpack that I made for Willow for ChildCare. We have a big nappy bag, but it is a bit too big. It was incredibly fiddly as I had neither a pattern nor enough material. I used a dark denim for the outer, plain pink for the lid, little strawberry material for the inside and bit strawberry material for the base.

It has a little zippered pouch inside to hold bits and pieces, it can be press studded into place.

I will be going back to work 4 days a week from the 3rd of October. On the paperwork I got sent, it said I was at a much lower level than I'd previously been employed! Today I finally got a call back to say that it was a mistake and I would actually be employed at the next step up the payscale (from when I was last employed by them in November 2005) to reflect my experience. Very happy about that!

I can't describe how stressful it has been without my wage. The effect that it has had on my health, my relationship with A and Willow is not something I want to go into here.

Pious SAHMs who don't understand what it is like to go out to work, and denigrate mothers (never the father of course, they are meant to be out there, slogging their guts out with no reprieve) who do, really frustrate me. They have no idea about people's individual situations and the conflicting demands on a WOHM's time.

Willow is already in childcare, even though I'm not working. It is hearbreaking to leave her, but it has to be done. On the bright side, I'm getting quite a bit of sewing done at home without her under my feet. Technically, I'm being a WAHM there, lol!

op-shop finds!

I hadn't been to the big Salvo's near us for awhile, so I popped in after I dropped Willow off at child care this morning.

This is what I got:


Top Row: Purple panne velvet, no idea what to do with it, some pants perhaps? Purple organza, a scarf. 3 vintage pillow cases, pants.
Middle Row: A Skipping Girl Beanie, I was going to put it on eBay, but since it is coming up to winter, I'm not sure how well it would go. An almost full pad of watercolour paper, good for printing business cards. Three paper patterns, two to keep and one to send to a friend.
Bottom Row: The contents of their button basket, I joked that I wanted to make an offer on it and the lady behind the counter took me seriously. There are some gorgeous bits and pieces in there. Four Get Creative Magazines and one Top Kids magazine, it is a bit early 90's but it has some great basic patterns.

Tagged!

I have been tagged by the lovely Ingrid.


The rules of the tag are: List 5 weird things about yourself or your pets. Tag 5 friends and list them. Then, those people need to write on their blogs about 5 weird things, and state the rules, and tag 5 more people. Dont forget to let the people you tag know by posting a comment on their blog!

I'm having trouble here... Oh good, we can use our pets!

1) Our British Blue, Harley likes to give our JR Kelpie cross a bath. She sits there and licks him. Can't imagine that he tastes any good! He quite likes it and sits there lapping up the attention -he sometimes gets a bit annoyed with her and starts a playfight.

2) I am a bit OCD in some respects, not so much that it affects my life. Just having to do certain things a certain number of times, using certain colours.

3) I used to be really, really shy. I have had to make a conscious effort to learn how to interact with people. For example, I learnt that if I said 'X' to people, they didn't like it, so I didn't say 'X' again.

4) I am always interested in learning more, particularly about human behaviour. Why do people do and say what they do? I think this is why I love forums such as EB - there are so many interesting people out there. I love the internet because if I want to know something, I can just look it up.

5) When the season changes, it takes me a little while to adjust to wearing more or less clothes, kind of a tactile issue. This one, plus number 2, 3 and 4 make me think I am further down one end of the autism spectrum than most people.

I think everyone I know has already been tagged! If you would like me to tag you, let me know!

I am going to come back later and update my blog with what I've been doing.

new sewing

More sewing stuff:

This is the wrap around pad I made the other day. I wasn't sure about the design, I thought it would be a bit bulky, but it is slimmer than some of my wingless pads.




Another pair of Ingrid's easy pants. I used the same material to make my friend a pair of pants for her three year old son.




I have scrapbooking tonight, so I want to do some sewing on paper for that...

nappy time!

This was my first attempt at sewing a cloth nappy. I made a few mistakes, but they are ones that I will certainly be able to sort out next time.

playing ball

Willow loves throwing balls to the cats and dogs. In particular, she likes throwing a jingle ball to Harley. They both have so much fun doing this and it is hilarious to watch. This morning, Harley picked up the jingle ball in her mouth and dropped it at Willow's feet when she was playing with something else. A commented that it looks like the cat is playing with Willow, not the other way around!