CHEESE

Saturday I went to a cheese making course at the McCarthur Sustainability centre. I learnt to make feta and ricotta cheese. Who would have thought ricotta took half an hour to make, heat the milk slowly, pour in some vinegar and presto there it is! feta took a bit longer but gosh it was worth it. I am now looking into other cheeses and courses, it is a great way to use up un-wanted milk!

I quilted and bound my quilt. I think next time I might hand sew it for a better result. I will post it as soon as I have finished the hand decorating of rhyme and pattern. I am already starting to think about another baby's quilt/toy bag.

Beautifaul Day
It has been raining here, our tank overflowing with jets of water, the grass growing so fast I am mowing every week because it is ankle deep. There are brief mornings of sunshine where I can dry our clothes - we are trying not to make a dryer necessary as this would be un-ecological, so it sometimes looks like a Chinese laundry with wet washing hanging on coat hangers from the door moldings. But the great news is that El Nino has reversed and our drought may have actually started to break. The weather is starting to cool down thankfully, I love the cool wet smell of the bushland that surrounds our house, especially the acacias and the gums.

I have been making a quilt - my first. Red and cream from Amy Butler fabric. Not knowing the sex of the child I felt this was colour way was relatively safe. It is not perfect but it is my first qyuit. I have been inspired by Denyse Schmidt and her beautiful book I recently bought. The quilt is going to have the owl and the pussy cat nonsensical rhyme around the red boarder, the idea coming from the quilt pieced animals from Denyse's book. I have edited the pattern (- when don't I?) so that the tummies of the cat and owl are a little different and I have made some baby shoes from Heather's page in the same wool and and lined them with the Amy butler fabric (- flower print) to match, when I have the finished touches on all these I will show you. I love making up sets or packages.
My very beautiful sister made Sweatpea a gorgeous doll, which my daughter named My-Me at age 1. Poor My-me only had one outfit and so off we went to the sewing machine making copies of Sweatpeas clothes I had made and this is what resulted (the last being the first set of clothes My-me arrived in):

These are some of Sweat peas skirts I made for her, some are made from furnishing fabrics, they are great for preschool and wash, wear and scrub up really well. I made the skirt pattern from a rectangular loop of fabric, pleated and sewed down the tucks on the outside, rolled the top over and popped elastic in the back. The top is just a little peasant top I made, it also has a matching skirt made from the pink bird fabric on the top, similar to these skirts but the image seems to have floated away.


This skirt is cut on the cross, a sort of copy I made up of my skirts (see previous post).

I love to make useful things, that are beautiful and for other people. It gives me a purpose and a warm fuzzy feeling, especially when Sweatpea is so excited that she comes running out of her room asking for them because they are in the washing basket needing an iron or a quick flick! Who says everything must be ironed when they go straight down the back to be played on swings or with our girls the chooks. Yes we have chooks, 6 of them and they have finally backed off on their laying. We have had 6 eggs a day for the last 3 weeks and I have been running around giving eggs away. The kids have been training the chooks or girls as I call them, they are use to being picked up and come and talk to me - usually if they want some water or let back into the chook palace to lay some precious eggs. The girls arrived when they were 3 weeks old. Pets with benefits. We use a lot of eggs as my two children have issues with attention if they consume preservatives, flavors, natural and synthetic colours. They are quite normal kids if we avoid these foods so I cook a lot. We eat organics as their health and behavior is much better (a lot less snotty noses). Our house is also a allergen free house, floor boards & rugs no carpet, no mould and lots of fresh air. Life is good and aw-natural here, visiting children sometimes think we eat weird when everything doesn't come out of plastic packaging or is exactly perfect in shape and size. That soon dissapears when their taste buds kick in.

SATURDAY
Went to Prints Charming at Lillyfield on Saturday. The girls there had a book launch for the Blog book - Crafters Companion. The book is so much more than directions on craft, it has some wonderful insights into these wonderful ladies from around the world and their lives, their approach to handmade and the projects are great too! I met Alison from 6.5 stitches briefly and she had some wonderful words to say about the blog/craft/handmade community. I also saw some of her work first hand, it was great and very well executed. I bought a whole pile of fabrics from the Prints Charming girls for Sweatpeas and Rocketmans new quilts. As I had no children I also popped over to Tesutti for some great notions (buttons, elastic etc) and some lovely cottons for shirting for me!
INSERT PICTURE HERE OF GREAT NOTIONS - sorry yet to come
Here are some skirts I made before Christmas for myself. Cut on the Bias they fit like a glove and are very slimming. The fabrics are from IKEA, Prints Charming, Material Obsessions, Bargain upholstery fabrics (it has a strip of brown fabric that was cut on the bias and has two different thread thickness and colour that unravel giving a different effect every wash).

This is my sons tooth monster, the tooth fairy came to our house a couple of weeks ago for the first time, a little disconcerting for Rocketman at the time. Rocketman didn't want a simple pillow, so I came up with something from Zaka meets the creatures from 'Where The Wild Things Are'- one of our favourite books. The tooth goes in his little bag. We discovered he has a counter effect in scaring under the bed monsters away. The fabric is the same from the IKEA skirt above and the rest was from many sketches and pattern drafts.

INSPRATION
I have finally found the images from the camera of a few sewing projects that I have drawn inspiration from the blogs, articles etc I have seen over the past few months. There will be more to come soon.

These two Santa sacks I made for my two children 'Sweetpea' and 'Rocketman' just before Christmas. I made a trip to Lillyfield to the Prints Charming girls and bought some fab fabrics, should have bought more as I didn't consider lining the sacks for contrast at the time, although the local store had something I could manage with. They are 55 x 100 cm and edged with a wide binding at the top (Rocketmans is green, but you can't see it - the photo was taken late on Christmas eve hence the quality), I made my first squares and appliquéd them on. I don't like the commercial Christmas. Why is Santa's coat red? It was a marketing ploy that worked too well be a soft drink company many years ago. Living in Australia where it is summer for Christmas I find the traditional Northern hemisphere experience very inappropriate, especially in 35 degree heat, so I opted for a summery blast of colour, light and fun.

Debut

Welcome to my very first post. I am a mother of two, living in the beautiful lower Blue Mountains, an hour out of Sydney. I have been peeping for the last couple of months at other blog sites (thanks to my sister who introduced me to this world) - feeling the warmth of the community and the inspiration flow. It has been a wonderful experience and I thank you all. I thought I should finally enter into the light, hopefully sharing and inspiring others as I have been.