This time.

Yesterday afternoon, just after I made this dress and took these photos, we got a call about a bushfire that was burning seven kilometers away and threatening to head in our direction.

All of a sudden the last three years and one day disappeared and I felt exactly like I did last time we had a bushfire here. And then I looked around and realised everything was the same. This time, like last time, I had a pot of jam on the stove and lots of fruit in crates all over the floor. This time, like last time, I knew I had to get the washing off the line immediately so Bren could start the fire sprinklers. This time, like last time, I looked around at our home completely surrounded by forest and wondered who in their right mind would live somewhere like this? This time, like last time, I grabbed long clothes, sensible shoes, computers, cameras, chargers and baskets of crochet and kissed Bren goodbye and drove off to get the girls from school. This time, like last time, there was the familiar look of panic in some people's faces, the oblivious couples sipping wine outside cafes, the sound of sirens from every direction and the looooooooong queues at the petrol station. This time like last time I bought strange and random things from the petrol station after filling up. And this time like last time I tried to stay calm while answering a bazillion little kid questions while keeping an ear on the fire wireless and an eye on the CFA website.

BUT last time I didn't write a blog, I wasn't on the twitter or instagram or ravelry.

This time my afternoon was filled with emails and texts and tweets and ravmails and instagram messages. It sounds mushy but this time I totally felt comfort in my part of the online community. People were watching and cared.

I often wonder about my need to write a blog. I wonder why I feel the need to write about what I make and think rather than just going about my business of doing it.

Yesterday reminded me of the social in social media. Of the community. Of the feeling that we are all in this together.

Thank you.

Luckily yesterday's fire was contained after a few hours. In the heat and gusty winds of the next few days we are crossing our fingers and wishing for a safe and boring weekend.

Who would have ever thought safe and boring sounded so good?

So have you had a moment when you felt the social in social media? The community in the online community?
Do you find it comforting?
Do you remember why you blog?

Do you like my new dress? I made it from a piece of fabric Michelle sent me and some vintage lace scraps I hoard. After I finished it and tried it on I discovered it is see-through but luckily it fits and looks good with a black slip underneath.

Have a safe and boring weekend out there.

Bye! xx

Dress making.

My house looks like a jam factory.
There are crates of fruit, jars, clips, rubber bands, and lids everywhere you look.
There are cauldrons and preservers bubbling away.
The air is sticky.

And it is Friday and my kids are tired and cranky.
I am too.
This school business is exhausting. Draining.

Last night when everyone had finally gone to bed and the house was quiet I almost succumbed to a bit of a tantrum myself. But luckily I stopped myself and thought instead about happiness. What could turn that impending meltdown around and make me feel good? It had to be something just for me. Something good. Something that would almost certainly work.

Another dress!

Something plainish this time.

Some op-shopped denim.

The same tried and tested and fail safe pattern but with a lower neckline.

I considered some ruffles.

But ended up with vintage lace.

It worked too.
A few hours later I went to bed happy.

I can highly recommend dress making as therapy over a tantrum.

There is so much less drama and emotion involved.
It is easier physically.
It is kinder on everyone you live with.
AND you might even have a new dress to wear the next day.
Yay!

How are things at your place?
Are you all tired and ready for the weekend?
Are you cooking? Sewing? Making?
Is it hot or cold where you are?
What do you do to turn tantrum into terrific?

OK, I'm off to scrub bottles and stir pots.

I hope your weekend is sweeeeeeeeeeeet.
xx

ps. From now on I'll be answering questions in the comments section.
So if you ask me something, please come back and check for your answer.

Creatively speaking...

I am carrying this basket of yarny rainbows where ever I go.

I am hooking grannies.

I am trying to be good and sew in the ends as I go.
But not always succeeding.

I am playing with our farmers' market stall. 

Think mixy-matchy table-cloths and rushed single layer unhemmed bunting.

I am playing around with my second quilt.
A mini, yellow, quarter version of Kate's pattern.
I think it might become a cushion cover.

We are shopping for paint to paint the whole house white.
Except the girls' bed rooms which they want blue.
I still would love a yellow kitchen but the farmer boy wont budge.

I am celebrating op shop treasures by draping them over everything that stands still for long enough.

One dollar for these two rolls of old lace! Can you believe!

And I am trying to style a few lovely corners of my home to make me feel better about the vast majority which looks like a bomb has gone off in it. Ahhhh school holidays. Love em.

What about you?
What have you been up to creatively?

Bye! x

Three dress challenges.

I've had a few sewing disasters lately. A couple of sewing mess ups that have had me avoiding my machine and even my sewing room all together.

First there was a knit dress for me that I could hardly get over my head, let alone squeeze the rest of me into. How on earth did I measure that so wrong??

Then I measured again and sewed another dress only to discover that I looked like Kermit the Frog when I tried it on. Waaaaaay too green!!!

So after a week away from the machine, it was time to return. But how??

I decided that what I needed was some design and sewing challenges.

Challenge one: Pull five bits of vintage sheeting out of my stash without thinking or planning. Do not pause to consider how they will look together, just yank and sew.

The result is The Green Sleeve Dress.

It's in my shop.

I added some lace around the hem and a napkin pocket, but other than that I played by the rules and I think it worked.

Challenge two: Make a dress from all the bits and pieces lying around on my desk. Do not pull fabric or trims from the shelves, make do with what's there.

The result is The Bits and Bobs dress. The process was scary at times but a lot of fun and not like any dress I've made in ages.

It's in my shop.

Challenge three: Finish one of the dresses in my works in progress pile.

The result is The Little Tree Dress. I have absolutely no idea when I started this one. Perhaps it was as a gift for a new baby. In any case I am happy to have finished it and popped it in my shop. I'm guessing its about a size 0-1 but I'd err on the smaller size to be sure.

So that's where I'm up to. Who knows where I'm going next. Do you have to trick yourself into doing things sometimes?

I hope your Monday is a fun-day.

Ciao. xx

Treasures.

Yesterday I felt so miserable and crappy that my bones ached. Too much bad news. The weight of the world and all that.

Today I feel sooooo different. I feel optimistic and sunny and good.

The sun is out, the girls are happily playing with a friend (a boy), and I'm about to pack a picnic for a fortieth birthday party.

And as well as the usual health and family and friends type of grateful stuff, on this Saturday I am also grateful for other people's trash. Trash that enables me to recycle rather than buy new, trash that inspires me and keeps my Everything but The Thread little business going and trash that is often so much more my style than the same thing in the modern version.

I am grateful magateful for market treasures like this jar of antique lace destined to grace the hems of pretty dresses and skirts and tops.

I am grateful for garage sale loot. Towels for the caravan, tea towels, table clothes and pillow cases for clothes making, pot holders for the wall and wool for some future fun project.

And I am grateful for generous and kind and gorgeous bloggers who send me their treasures out of the goodness of their hearts. I know you didn't do it for an official thank you Cherie but you are just too gorgeous! Thank you!

I hope you have the most wonderful weekend and have so much to be grateful for yourself.

Big love. X

Rainbow Sunday.

Hello! How are you?

I'm good. I'm happy. I'm having a lovely day.

My folks have been staying here for a couple of days. After breakfast this morning, we rolled out the surveyed map of their block of land and talked about it. What's going to go where and how and when.

We often dream excitedly about what it will be like when they live across the lane from us, but its has been a long time since we've lived near by and I can't really imagine it. Shared meals, a break in their fence for my girls to ride their bikes up, company, extra hands, extra ears, extra drivers, extra cuddles, sheep, a place to run away to...it all feels so exciting.

After they left Farmer Bren went off to be a farmer and I took the girlies to the Sunday market. I'm on the hunt for floral china crockery for the caravan.

Soon after we got there Miss Pepper met a friend and went off for a play at her house. I think this might be the first time she has ever done such a thing. She must be feeling so grown up and independent right now. We feel a bit strange without her.

We shared some little pancakes, chatted with friends, I bought a jar of antique lace scraps and three china plates for a dollar and then we came home.

On the way home from the market we stopped and took some pictures with my new Grandma's Rainbow cushion. Its Michelle's latest pattern.

I finished it last night and realised I didn't have an insert for it. So I walked through the house pulling all the inserts out of other, shop bought cushions. I felt a bit like Goldilocks: this one's too big, this one's too lumpy, this one's too round. Eventually I made one myself and stuffed it with some quilt wadding. I'm still not thrilled with it but it'll do for now.

Grandma's Rainbow Cushion details here.

So now we're home. The big girls are making robots on the craft table, Bren is reading the paper on his ipad on the couch, Miss Pepper is still at her friends' house, I'm about to hit publish and then decide what to do with the enormous crate of pears my Farmer Boy just brought in and then maybe do a few rows of my knitting on the couch. Its cold, wet and windy outside. Perfect baking and knitting weather.

What are you up to?

Have fun out there.

XX

10 things about pants.

1) I wear pants every day. I always wear a dress or skirt over the top though to cover my bum. Sometimes I wear tights but I don't love tights because they remind me of the itchy ones I used to have to wear to school.

2) I hate trying on pants in shops. I don't even look at pants in shops. The pants that end up living in my wardrobe/floordrobe have been handed down to me, I have had for ever and ever or are one of the two pairs of jeans I have bought in the last five years.

3) The other day a man popped in to buy eggs. It was the weekend and I was home alone with the girls and I went out to the cool room in the shed and got him his eggs. Later on I was told that I had a big hole in the bum of my jammie pants and he would have seen that I had black knickers on.

4) My sewing idol and friend Kath says that her favourite thing to sew is pants.

5) I dress my girls (well the ones that let me choose their clothes) in pants and skirts and dresses every day. I love this look on kids and it is so practical too.

6) I made these pants this morning to use up some of the smaller scraps in my basket and to try to make some bottoms as fun as the tops and dresses I've been sewing. I think they'd look great with a dress over the top. Something colourful or even a denim pini.

7) I don't like any of the words that mean pants. I don't like the word trousers, or slacks or pantaloons or bottoms.

8) I will never make or buy a pair of day time pants without a pocket or something on the bum. Except leggings. Leggings are ok without bum pockets. But whatever you do, please don't get me started on jeggings.

9) Part of the reason for making these pants today was to use up some of the smaller pieces of Michelle's scraps. Check out her blog to see what she made from the fabric before it became my scraps.

10) I loved making these pants but the fit was a bit of a question mark. I have made lots of dresses and skirts and can pretty easily work out how to size them, but pants are a bit of an unknown. In the end I made some and had to wait until the girls got home from school to see who they fitted. Jazzy! Size 6/7.

I hope you've got some fancy pants to wear this weekend and somewhere fun to wear them to.

See ya. ♥♥♥♥

ps. They're in my shop.

pp. 10 beanie things here.

Making me smile...

...a new haircut, a pile of old table cloths and a bag of bias binding scraps from the church fete, sunshine, love, giving somebody exactly what they have been looking for for ages...

...the most wonderful cushion as a surprise in the mail, (thank you so much Jenni, you have no idea how in love with her I am!) time to sew, the thought of how happy Indi will be when I tell her I've remembered to book her a haircut for this afternoon...

...three skeins of wool that Bren's parents bought me from a market just because, the sale of one of our Maremma puppies to a twelve year old boy setting up his own egg business, bargaining Indi down from seven girls to sleep over to three girls to sleep over...

...my Farmer Boy cutting a bucket full of my favourite food from just outside the front door, rocket and feta salad for lunch, a new crochet pattern to test...

...a new dress for my shop, finding out that every other child is allowed does not actually mean every other child is allowed, bumping into and chatting with lots of lovely girlies on a Friday morning, an email about a surprise pregnancy...

...other people knowing me so well and cutting the lace off their Mum's doona before chucking it out (thanks Rifka), long weekends, listening to the farmer boys chatting over their lunch in the other room, Miss Pepper promising me that she will never grow up and become a pre-teen...

...buzzy bees in the ballerina trees, our town being filled with rainbows for this weekend's ChillOut festival, lovely emails, Jazzy's new friend coming for a sleep over...

I hope your weekend brings with it so many things to smile about.

Love Kate XX

Creative stuff...

My creative space this week seems as scattered as my mind is. I am making all the time. Little bits here and little bits there. But I don't think I've completed anything for ages.

I am crocheting little colourful flowers to brighten up dresses on grey days like today.

I am sewing in pocket linings and darning in the ends of a gorgeous test knit for a designer in Colorado.

I am experimenting with layers of torn cotton, lace and other ruffly stuff.

I am cutting and over locking old table clothes for dresses and trying to make sure the see through bits happen in places where it is OK for see through bits to be.

And I am playing hide and seek with Miss Pepper.

Now I wonder where she could possibly be....

Peek-a-boo!!!!

Have a fabulous Thursday!

We are off to dancing class and then to a community garden opening where I am to be the official photographer. Cross your fingers for the rain to stay away.

See ya. XX