top ten...

My top ten reasons that go to prove that I am losing it.

1) This morning I sat in my car outside the post office and sobbed. Who does that?? I had just opened a package from Jennie with her Kate dolly complete with vintage sheet bunting and she was so perfectly me it was overwhelming. Thank you so, so much Jennie, I love her.

2) Deciding that if it came down to space, I would leave behind my favourite boots if it meant I could bring Kate dolly along on the caravan adventure.

3) Spending hours crocheting trims to tie back the curtains in the caravan. Yes, I know a few meters of ribbon would do the same job, but crochet lacy trim is so much prettier. Oh my goodness, I just saw the mistake...eeeek, does it make me even crazier if I undo it and start again?

4) Being asked by a daughter why farmer Bren and I have to make and do everything for ourselves and why we don't pay other people to do things like lay the floor or make the curtains. Until then it had never occurred to me.

5) Turning up to a birthday party at the finish time rather than the start time.

6) Getting a phone call from the girls' school telling me I was three quarters of an hour

late to pick up the girls from school on the last day of term. How was I to know they finished

an hour early?

7) Finding myself speaking to inanimate objects aloud. Thank you ruffling foot for saving me so much time today. I know you are so tired and need a service Ms Nina Bernina but it wont be long now and you are doing the most wonderful job. Please, please Mr Bobbin, just last one more seam and I'll love you forever...

8) Being waaay more worried about running out of cream coloured sewing cotton than toilet paper.

9) Finding myself sewing cozies for the computers out of our childhood sleeping bags.

10) Spending hours sewing gifted hexagons (thanks Mel!) onto the back of blankets to line the curtains. I know this one must be mad because my farmer boy keeps telling me so.

So there you have it, one crazy crafter. Let's just hope I can last another week until lift off...

See ya. x

My creative space.

In my creative space today I am binding,

overlocking and gathering,

crocheting a trim,

and putting together surprising colour combinations.

I cannot believe that I am considering sewing with this orange trimmed table cloth but somehow this combination looks summery and fun to me today despite my dislike of the colour.

Oh, and I'm also still hooking away at my Softie for Mirabel, knitting my Tea Leaves cardi and my test for Tikki but I haven't got any recent photos of these. I also have a whole pile of projects that will realistically never be finished so I'm not even going there.

I know I should probably stop starting new projects until I finish some of these but that wouldn't be fun now would it?

Over to Kirsty's for some more creativity.

Happy Thursday y'all. XX

The Flutterby Skipping Dress.

This is dress number two in my Everything But The Thread range.

I started this dress a few days ago. It started out as an a-line dress made from the tablecloth fabric at the bottom.

As is usually the case with me, I made some of it, got interrupted and then hung it on a hanger on a hook in the kitchen so I could look at it as I went about the rest of my day.

The more I looked at it the more I didn't think it worked.

So the next chance I got, I cut it up and made it into a completely different dress. A three tiered Skipping Dress.

One of the first skirts I ever made for Indi when she was about four, was a three tiered skirt and she called it her Skipping Skirt. From then on, all tiered skirts/dresses have been called Skipping Skirts/Dresses in our house.

This dress has op shopped denim, sheet, table cloth, lace, bias binding and a zipper. The corduroy is from my scraps drawer. I think it is a size 5/6.

I hope you are enjoying your Sunday. Its the first one we've had off in six months (apart from the farm chores that still need doing). I'm about to make some toasted sandwiches for lunch and then head into town for Indi's singing concert.

Have fun out there. X

My creative space.

Soon after we moved here nine years ago, we bought a couple of rolls of woollen blanket from Creswick Woollen Mills and Bren's Nana and Mum came up and we had a curtain-a-thon. Woollen blanket is non flammable and we live in a high risk bush fire area.

Last week I was complaining about how non creative my wardrobe is, so this week I made a skirt out of some leftovers of that woollen blanket.

No pattern. I cut around another skirt, put a zip in the side and when it was a bit falley downy, I added two darts in the back.

And then I stitched on the lace trim I crocheted.

I am loving the wool and crocheted cotton combination at the moment and have a gazillion ideas running through my mind about where to take it next.

I am wearing and loving my Leonie/Michelle wrap even though it is still about four rows too short and I haven't darned the ends in. Who knows when I'll ever get to the wool shop in Ballarat again.

Bren likes the lining side of the skirt. Its a vintage sheet. I'll have to do something about the zip this way though. There must be such thing as a reversible zip out there somewhere.

Its been a crazy, intense week of looking after a sick two year old who wouldn't let me out of her sight. But its been cold and wintery outside and its been kind of nice to be stuck inside cuddling and crocheting on the couch.

Happy Thursday y'all.

Check out the rest at Kirsty's.

My creative space.

In my creative space this week I am working on my name tag for the big swaperama. Once it is finished covering up my partner's name, I think the crocheted ric rac will go around the inside of the ruffle to cover the stitching.

We are painting eggs with the local school holiday program.

I have just cut out the pieces and started stitching together a pair of pants for Miss Jazzy. These two bits go from the waist (under the waist band), to just above the knee. The pink sheety bits peeking out are the pockets.

I am sewing grey borders onto my grannies.

I am considering this as the start of the back of the cushion. I am not convinced though.

And I am crocheting this fancy trim to be sewn on the pants above.

So what are you working on today?

Why don't you head on over to Kootoyoo and pop in your link.

The first tree dress.

I was meant to plant lettuces out all day yesterday but it poured with rain so I had to stay indoors and sew instead. Yippee!!

I made a dress for Pepper from one of the tree prints that I did the other day.

I sewed some ric rac I crocheted from this pattern onto the bottom hem.

I feel like this dress is a mixture of all the ideas I have been working on over the last few months; crocheted trims, screen printing and sewing clothes from vintage sheets.

I'm really quite pleased with the result.

I love playing around with mismatched panels and binding and patterns and colours.

It feels playful and fun.

I think I'm ready to make some bigger ones now.

I hope you have a great weekend what ever you are up to.

My creative space.

In my creative space this week I am trying to remember the fine art of lino cutting and printing.

When Indi's class were lino cutting in art class late last year, I made a note to try it again before too long myself. The other day I asked the art teacher to borrow the tools and a few scraps of lino and here we are.

I haven't been near the tools or the lino since I was at school, but the smell of the stuff and the feel of the cutter gliding through the lino take me right back there.

The plan is to jazz up some of the bed linens that I have been sewing with that have seen better days. While I have some bright colourful sheets, many of the sheets I have been finding in op shops are faded and worn and need a bit of a new life.

Its very early days still and I am in desperate need of a roller to apply the paint and a way to hold the lino so it doesn't smudge as it prints, but I am a bit excited at the possibilities.

Pepper is creating her own master pieces next to me.

Of course, I have been crocheting a trim or two along the way too.

I hope you are having a creative Thursday. To see some other creative spaces or perhaps play along too, click on over to Kirsty's.

My creative space.

In my creative space this week I have been crocheting colourful trims.

I'm loving the long rows of repetitive stitches and how meditative this sort of crochet is in the hectic world I've been living in lately.

I started off creating them for the sole purpose of decorating and adding detail to the dresses I have been sewing lately. But as my fingers have been creating the stitches, I have been dreaming up all sorts of different and exciting uses.

I could wrap presents with them, add details to cushions, stitch them to booties or bibs, tie them as hair ribbons, sew them on the cuffs of cardigans and pants and in the layers of a ruffled skirt. Indi thinks the purple would look good as a spider web in a Halloween costume.

To be honest, part of me doesn't even care if they get used in a project or not, I have just been enjoying making them so much.

To check out the other creative spaces or to play along, click on over to Kirsty's.

Some solutions.

Thanks so much for your empathy and advice yesterday. It all helps. The knowing that I am not alone and that so many of us are struggling to get on top of things and your words of wisdom.

Like Fruitful Fusion pointed out in her comment yesterday, 'sometimes we find ourselves being blown along with the whirl wind', but there's no reason why we can't enjoy the ride. We shouldn't have to wait for a health scare or a breakdown to appreciate the everyday, even the routine.

This morning I baked banana bread for lunch boxes and afternoon teas. Nothing like the smell of fresh baking to make you feel on top of things.

When I mentioned to Bren the trouble I was having trying to keep track of everyone he raced off to the shed and brought back some blackboard paint and a roller. This little bit of wall is next to the front door and will hopefully be the last thing we look at when we leave the house.

And I finally decided on the sleeves.

I think it probably needs a bit of crochet along the top of the hem ruffle to balance the crochet out. It is a few sizes too big for Pepper so there is no rush.

And the last thing is a reminder to myself not to drink more than two coffees a day. Even if the most gorgeous farmer boy in Daylesford meets me as I'm walking out of my pilates class and offers to buy me a cup. Drink water!! The extra energy that caffeine might bring will not be productive energy but manic, out of control energy which is NEVER fun.

I hope you are finding some solutions over at yours. XX

Monday mayhem.

So here we are, week three of the school year and I feel like its all getting on top of me.

It doesn't help that we work weekends. We leave for Melbourne when the girls finish school on Fridays, do farmers' markets and deliveries on Saturdays, drive home, go to bed, wake up Sundays and spend the day working in the farm shop.

Monday mornings we wake up to find school bags full of wet bathers and towels and uniforms, lunchboxes full of soggy, stale lunch left overs and tired, grumpy kids.

We'll get into a routine soon, but at the moment I feel like I'm constantly running trying to catch up. Who has swimming this week? What day is calisthenics? What colour leotard for what age? What song does who need on a cd for singing lessons?

So that being said there's not much time for making things at the moment. The crocheted trim in the above photo was crocheted in the car when Bren ran vegies into inner Melbourne restaurant kitchens and in between customers at the farm stall yesterday. Hopefully one day it will go on the neckline of a dress.

And this doily I crocheted last week isn't speaking to me as loudly as I'd hoped. Or possibly, I'm just not standing still long enough to hear.

I tried sewing the dress up to help but I'm still not sure.

Possibly sleeves,

or a collar, or maybe I'll just stitch it on whole.

I hope things are calmer and less soggy at your place and that your Monday is a funday. XX