Doona 1# covered.

Hello!

What's cooking good looking??

I'm good. I've spent so much of the weekend sewing. I've finished the bedding for the bottom most bunk bed in the caravan.

One pillow case, one fitted sheet and the mixiest-matchiest doona cover.

Many, many 22cm squares of vintage sheeting, measured, cut, ironed, over-locked and sewn together. Basically, lots of sheets cut up to make more sheets.

More than once I wondered what I was doing and why was I doing it. We all have perfectly good doona covers already. Why was I letting my gang trash my house, cook up all sorts of wild and wonderful snacks and change clothes about a hundred times, so I could sew? Why was I rushing through meals, being impatient with phone conversations and Jazzy's friend's parents, just to sew more squares together?

I guess I knew I couldn't leave it unfinished or I'd never get back to it.

So I sewed and sewed and sewed and sewed.

But then when I finally finished and laid it out on the bed and stood back and saw the bigger picture, I understood. It's bright. It's colourful. It makes me happy. If I am to live in a caravan for up to six months, it may as well be styled to make me happy.

Ok, now that's done I'd better go and hang out the washing, clean up the bomb site that is my house, be friendly Mum to Miss Jazzy's friends and their parents when they arrive, relight the fire, bake something for lunchboxes tomorrow, think about dinner, and then maybe I can pull out some sheets for Miss Jazzy's doona cover. Bigger squares this time I think.

I guess I can no longer tease my quilting friends about cutting up fabric to sew it back together again.

Have you had a great weekend?

Hope so.

Bye now. xx

Sheet!

I'm afraid there's not much of a creative space here at Foxs Lane today.

What there is is maths!!!! And numbers and measuring and a ruler. If only Mr O'Brien could see me now.

And there's also lots and lots of sewing around a rectangle. Straight lines and then stretchy elastic lines.

One of the first things we did when we brought our new/old caravan home, was to chuck out anything fabric. The curtains, the couches and the mattresses. When we went to buy new mattresses the other day we discovered that the sizes we were after didn't exist. So we got some slabs of high density foam cut. Perfect.

Today I'm sewing custom made fitted sheets.

I'm using this pattern but I'm stretching the elastic around the hem.

The little girlies and us are having floral vintage sheets. Miss Indi doesn't like such things so I made her a sheet from an old plain blue flat sheet. It's probably a good thing to have a bit of plain in this mixy-matchy-patchy van.

What are you up to?

See ya. x

Catch up.

Hooking: An enormous flower. Two strands of eight ply held together, a six mm hook and a very sore elbow. Loving the chunky factor though.

Eating: Coriander on everything. Fresh out of the kitchen garden.

All my life I hated the stuff. Except for the nine months of each pregnancy when I loved it. For some reason after Miss Pepper was born I was surprised to find that I still love it. LOVE it!

So at the moment I'm making up for lost time and eating it on everything. Oh my that smell, that taste. YUM!

Sewing: I'm starting to cut big squares out of old sheets to sew together and make new sheets for the caravan. It's going to be one mixy-matchy patchy van, that's for sure.

Singing and dancing and walking and playing: We are loving our bush kinder morning so much. We had a ball this morning in the Autumn sunshine but we loved it last week in the rain too.

Squealing with delight: I was going to say squealing at the best present ever from Bren's Mum, but of course she already gave me that about 15 years ago.

I have been researching which interchangeable knitting needles to buy for months now but have been overwhelmed and unable to decide. Can you imagine how thrilled I was the other day when she sent these home for me.

Thanks so much Rene!

Knitting: Another Farmer Boy beanie.

Cooking: Apple leather, tofu schnitzels and pear crumble.

Also knitting: A sleeve. Three plains, two purls, three plains, two purls, three plains....

Reading: This book. Holey Moley.

Loving: Miss Jazzy's huge smile while singing at assembly this morning, positive reports from my Dad's heart surgeon, Pepper's caravan obsession, coffee, my Farmer Boy, the thought that there is only just over a month left of this routine, the new Indi, sunny days, neat stacks of split fire wood...

So that's me. Well the part of it I feel like talking about here anyway.

What are you up to?

Ciao. x

On a Thursday...

To be completely honest with you, over the past few days waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much of my creative space has been spent staring at this pile of deliciousness. I love, love, love this little rainbow of linen I bought from Leah's gorgeous little shop.

Now I have to decide: a quilt, a couple of little dresses or maybe they just have to sit on the side board for a little bit longer as eye candy.

I've been knitting little bits of a cardi for Miss Pepper.

I have knitted this pattern before. Last year when I was first learning to knit garments. It took so long that time and I undid bits and googled how to do the stitches the entire time. This time I feel like I know a bit more about what's going on. Its a great confidence booster.

I must admit though that I'm not entirely thrilled with the mess of colour. When I bought the yarn, the skeins looked like the colours were broken up into chunks of solid bits. I guess that's just another knitting lesson I've now learnt.

I am crocheting granny slippers. Well, granny slipper anyway. Another one of Michelle's wonderful patterns.

I am cutting and over locking and pinning and sewing little dresses.

And I am spending most of my time over a hot cauldron stirring sweet, sticky quince jelly.

I hope your Thursday is a creative one.

We are off to creative dance and then story time.

See ya. X

The jumping dress.

Happy Sunday!

What are you up to today?

My parents have come up for a few days and are teaching a cooking course at our local neighbourhood house today. Indi and my cousin Romy are going to the course. Bren is going to a bio dynamics field day and Jazzy, Pepper and I are heading into town to go on the tourist railway.

I sewed the final seams on these dresses this morning and when I took the girls outside to get some photos they couldn't stop jumping in them. I guess some dresses twirl, some skip and these jump.

And yes, they are still wearing their jammies underneath and have holiday hair.

I made the dresses from the picture on the front of the Sandi Henderson Claire dress pattern. Next time I think I'll make some room and open the enormous pattern sheet and trace the pattern pieces.

I love the way these dresses look so summery and happy and girly. I love the mixy matchy vintage floral sheet prints and I love that my girls are so excited with them and love them so much.

And allow me to introduce you to my new nephew puppy, Zero. I bet you can almost hear my girls squealing from your house. I tell you I am so tempted to knit that puppy a bonnet.

I hope today is a wonderful day for you and yours.

Oh and I almost forgot, Bradbill from The Plaster Fun House In Ballarat has updated his magazines to include some women's mags from last month!! I think we'll be heading back there before the holidays are over.

Love Kate

/foxslane.blogspot.com/

The patchwork dress.

I guess I've had the idea of making a quilt kicking around in the back of my head for a while now. I've got lots of bits of gorgeous vintage sheet fabric and more than enough inspiring bloggy photos. So yesterday afternoon, when I had a few hours to sew I thought it was time to get started.

I ripped (sorry) up lots of 2.5 inch strips, over locked the sides and then spent AGES sewing them back together again.

Oh my goodness you quilters are a patient lot.

At this stage it was time to pick up the girls, do dinner and bath time and bed.

This morning I looked at it and knew that it was meant to be a dress. A mixy-matchy, patchwork dress. The quilt would have to wait.

I think it is about a size 5/6.

I was planning on selling it in my online store/market stall but to be honest, the skirt took HOURS and I have no idea how much I would charge.

And oops, I sewed the Everything But The Thread bit upside down.

Thanks to Candace for the vintage bits of fabric.

Thanks to Fii for the zip.

Thanks to Gina for the doily.

Thanks to Lizzie's Mum for the pink bit of fabric.

Thanks to the op shop fairies for the bias binding and the little girl pillow case.

Oh and if by chance you wanted to have a go at my crochet ric-rac tutorial but only speak French, you'll be happy to know that Christine has translated it. Click over here for French ric-rac.

Have a happy weekend y'all. XX

My creative space.

There's a bit of this and a bit of that going on in my creative space this morning.

I've been going back to crochet basics trying to work out how to hook a rectangle. A granny rectangle. It doesn't quite have the same ring to its name as the granny square but it has so many possibilities. I'm a bit excited. Its the small things...

I must say, it felt great to be hooking again after all this time.

And I've been making a lap top cozy for Miss Mary Mac who has a bit of travel in her near future.

I've used some old woollen blanket and based it on a picture I saw a while back in a book in a shop in Woodend. Why oh why didn't I buy that book? I've been dreaming about all the gorgeous pictures inside it ever since.

Here's a peek at the vintage sheet lining and all the unsnipped threads.

I crocheted a trim for the flap to be tucked into but then sewed it to the wrong side. Oops!

So right now, after I press publish and admire Pepper's block tower, I'm going to continue crocheting this trim which I will make much wider and longer than the last. This one will be stitched to the back of the bag and have room at the front for the flap to tuck in and secure.

Maybe I'll do a button or velcro closure too.

So what's going on in your space today?

I'm heading to Kirsty's to see.

Have a creative Thursday y'all. XX

My creative space.

My creative space this week is dedicated to and comes with a humongous thanks to my farmer boy.

Late yesterday afternoon, he returned from a trip to Ballarat to find me losing my marbles and barely holding it together. I had had a horrible morning. I was sick of the cold, the rain, the grey, the fog, the wet, the screaming two year old, the fire mess, the dirty house, the what's for dinner, the hungry but not hungry for that two year old, the orange cake that didn't cook in the middle, the overflowing laundry, the washing hanging up to dry all over the house, the defiant two year old, bla bla bla.

My farmer boy took one look at me, tried unsuccessfully to have a conversation with me and them took himself off and cancelled his appointments for the rest of the day. He then sent me into my sewing room to sew and helped with the after school pick ups and drops off, gave them dinner, played with them and got them into bed.

And I sewed summery, flowery, happy things.

My grey mood ensured there were a few sewing disasters, the bobbins kept jumping out of my hands and rolling across the room, I snapped a few needles and sewed over some pins and the skirt above started as a dress but after I sewed the front of the bodice to the back and then tore the fabric when attempting to pull it apart, it became a skirt.

Miss Jazzy was disappointed in the skirt not dress so I started this cheery yellow one. If I can sew on a few more ruffled layers without a disaster she said she'll love me forever.

And a half made A line dress to try and work out Miss Pepper's size.

So thank you for my sanity (?) my farmer boy. We may live in the coldest and greyest and wetest part of the whole world but at least we can dress a bit springtimey.

Over to Kirsty's now to check out what the other creative peeps are up to.

Happy Thursday. X

Stuff & the Porn Star giveaway!

Miss Pepper and I went on a road trip this morning.

We hit the highway and went to visit Knitter Sue. While Pepper ate her body weight in chocolate biscuits (sorry Isabelle), I got to see up close and personal some of the gorgeous socks, jumpers and toys Sue has been busy making. I tried not to be too obviously excited by Sue's massive wool stash and got some fantastic tips for using Ravelry and looked at some of Sue's knitting and crochet books.

When we were leaving, Sue presented us with a huge garbage bag full of cottons to take home.

Thank you so much Sue! I was and still am completely over whelmed. Hopefully you'll recognise some of your cottons in my knitting really soon. It was wonderful to meet you and learn more about you and add another dimension to the whole blog experience.

Thank you all so much for your vegetarian dinner suggestions. I am about to prepare some type of rotating meal plan for our family and your suggestions will be hugely helpful.

And the winner is Lola Nova!!

Yay and congratulations to you! I'll email you for your postal deets shortly and get your fabric in the mail.

(Can anybody out there explain to me how to get that random thingy onto my blog without it messing up all the html?)

And now for the porn start bit. I had such fun hosting that giveaway that I want to do another one straight away.

What: Make by Cath Kidson. Its a book full of Cath Kidson projects and even includes a plain tote bag, some embroidery floss and a Cath Kidson pencil. You know you want it.

How: I want to know your porn star name. You work this out by using the name of the first pet you ever had as your first name and the name of the first street you lived in as a child as your second name.

Mine's Pixie Park.

When: I'll randomly draw a porn star's name on Saturday.

You: I'll post anywhere.

Let the games begin.

Happy Thursday y'all. XX