Pin cushion stuff.

So there's three days to go til the end of the mega pin cushion swaperama.

120 pin cushions are wizzing their way across the globe.

Have you sent yours off yet?

Have you put some photos on the flickr page?

Have you received yours in the mail?

Have you posted it on your blog?

Are you using it?

Do you love it?

Please tell me I'm dying to know.

How divine is this pin cushion that Sarah made for me?!!

She made it out of the goodness of her heart, I'm not even in the swap.

How ace is she!

Thanks so much Sarah, you have made my day.

I love, love, love love it.

I hope you love the pin cushion you receive as much as I love Sarah's.

Happy swapping. XX

Grateful.

This morning I woke up with a decision to be grateful and to leave the grumpiness behind. To look at all that I have and how wonderful it is, rather than get bogged down in the first day back at school crap.

So I have decided that since I shared the bad with you yesterday, today I will share my top 4 reasons to be grateful today.

1) My family.

This photo is of farmer Bren sharing his enthusiasm for heirloom vegies with the crowds at the Home Ideas Show on the weekend. I could go on and on and get all mushy about Bren but today is my grateful day and I don't want to cry. All I'll say, is that yesterday when I was the grumpy queen, Bren suggested that Jazzy's lack of school pants was a priority and that I'd better go into the sewing room and make her some. Forget the mess and the laundry and the dinner, I had to sew Jazzy some pants. LOVE him!

Of course my gorgeous girls who delight me, inspire me, make me laugh, make me want to tear my hair out and who I adore.

2) Our farm.

Farming is crazy hard 24/7 days work don't get me wrong, but I am so proud to be part of the wonderful, sustainable, creative organic vision that is Daylesford Organics. From the very beginning we wanted to grow great food with integrity and love and I believe we are succeeding.

3)Crochet & Sewing.

I think about them all the time. I make plans, I have ideas, I am always in the middle of 10 projects, some get finished, some get forgotten. Is it love? Is it obsession? I don't know but I do know that I am grateful for the ability to have these hobbies that bring me constant joy and satisfaction.

4)Blogging & bloggers.

Thank you!

Thank you for the inspiration, the feedback, the wonderful packages in the mail (I won the amazing prize above over at Ideyspidey. Thanks Sarah Jo I love it all!), the comments, the way you make me feel normal and the way you share your knowledge and your stories with me.

So that's my top 4 reasons to be grateful.

If you feel like putting your top 4 on your blog or in the comments of this post I'd love to read them. Leave me a comment and let me know and I'll come and read yours.

Believe me you'll feel so much better.

I do. XX

Grumpy bum.

I'm grumpy!!

You'd better not ask me a question or I might snap at you.

We've just come back home after a huge weekend in Melbourne and I feel like I can't deal with my real life anymore today.

Deliveries to the airport and restaurants on Friday night til late, early morning wake up and a farmers' market on Saturday, two hours off and then back into the city again for Bren's talk at the Home Ideas show, late to bed and early to rise this morning and the drive home to then be on call at the farm stall all day.

It feels like there's no space in my head or my life. Someone is always crying or fighting or demanding or needing or interrupting me.

A while back I was sitting with my girls and Bren at a cafe when a bunch of girls came in. They were in their late teens or early twenties and gorgeous. They came in wearing big sunglasses and tight jeans and placed their bags that matched their shoes on the table. They were chatting excitedly and I couldn't help but stare at them as they looked like they were from a different planet to me. Me, who sat at the colouring in book and babccino table.

Bren noticed me staring and asked if I wanted to be one of them.

I contemplated it for a bit and then said no. Although they looked like they were all glamorous and like they were having such fun, in a way I am who they want to be when they grow up. Well not me exactly but what I represent.

I have the wonderful husband, the three lovely (well maybe not today) girls, the mortgage, the business... I have my happily ever after.

So, although today I'd give everything to sit at their table and not have to wipe bums and noses and worry about lice and dinner and school winter uniforms, those girls are probably hoping to have all this when they grow up.

So it is this thought and this lovely Holly Hobbie picture that I found in an op shop a few weeks ago, that are making me feel a bit better about my life today.

For some reason Holly Hobbie makes me happy, a sort of youthful, simple happy. And this gorgeous, framed picture that someone has spent hours and hours stitching, is following me around the house before she finds a wall to be hung on. This picture was one of those finds that made my heart skip a beat when I came across it.

The stitched Holly Hobbie, but not the grumpiness, is my entry in this week's Flea Market Finds over at Sophie's blog.

I hope you have a great week this week, I'm off to find my happy space. XX

My creative space.

If this post were called 'their creative space', I would fill it with photos and stories of plaster casting, painting, lotion and potion creating, baking, egg blowing, bus and robot making, play dough making and playing, hand stitching, drawing and lots more school holiday crafts that have been filling this house lately.

My creative space this week has been late at night when everyone is asleep and the house is quiet but for the hum of my machine or the snipping of my scissors. My creative space this week has been my haven and has kept me patient all through the next day. Because of my late night creative space I am exhausted during the days but I am satisfied.

I made this dress late last night after an all day adventure in Ballarat.

I didn't follow any pattern, but I followed lots of the rules I have learnt from following patterns lately. I used three scraps of cord for the three body pieces, mixy matchy binding for the neck and arm holes, some motifs I crocheted at an indoor play center earlier in the week and some ric rac I crocheted at the farm stall the other day.

I hope things are creative in your space this week.

Check out some more creative spaces over at Kirsty's.

Just like that.

Sometimes it happens so quickly, things change, move on.

One minute the leaves are luscious and green on the trees, the next minute they are turning red and falling to the ground.

One minute I'm rushing to the sewing machine every spare second I get.

I'm dreaming up fabric and crochet combinations and planning a Julie and Julia type exploration of the Sewing Clothes Kids Love book. I had plans of going through the book from front to back and sewing each pattern three times, once for each of my girls.

I've made three garments from this book so far and I love the results.

I'm confident I can follow the patterns...perhaps too confident.

This Imke shirt was meant to be for Indi.

She chose all the fabrics from my stash and told me which bit was meant to go where.

I quickly cut out all the pieces and started sewing.

I stitched together the front and back, the hood and one arm before I realised I was heading for a Silly Billy Dress type disaster.

The shirt doesn't fit over Indi's head, or Jazzy's head and after watching all the goings on, Pepper ran the other way when I looked towards her.

It seems I was in such a rush to get started that I didn't see that the fabric requirements are for knit fabrics or those with a stretchy aspect.

Oops!

So now the book is back on the shelf and I have started a new crochet project, a newborn cardigan.

Just like that.

Out with the sewing, in with the crochet.

Crochet is so wonderful and portable and perfect for afternoons spent at the farm stall. Just like my new BYO coffee cup that I won over at What's For Tea. Thanks Anthea, I LOVE it.

I hope you are working on a project you love at the moment.

I wonder if you stick to it even when it doesn't work the first time.

Have fun out there. XX

Easter Sunday.

As a family we don't celebrate Easter. But there is a tradition around here, that every Easter Sunday all the neighbours and friends gather at Annabel's house for an egg decorate/roll/hunt followed by a feast.

We donated 30 dozen too dirty to sell eggs.

That were then painted.

The decorating of the eggs is always very serious business with discussions about aerodynamics and weather or not the colour red will make an egg roll faster.

Then we all gather at the top of the hill and roll/whack/kick those eggs all the way to the bottom. Anyone who gets their egg to the bottom in one piece feels pretty proud of themselves.

After that the kids run wild,

and the rest of us eat the feast.

Its always such a great day.

I hope you are having a great weekend too. XX

Jazzy's Dortjes.

Last night I stayed up way too late sewing these Dortje pants.

Everyone was asleep and it was so quiet and after cutting them out last Thursday, I was itching to finish them already.

I did have one disaster when I tried to rip a seam apart (I've lost my quick-unpick), and ripped right up one whole leg front. But other than that it went pretty smoothly.

I'm loving sewing the patterns from Sewing Clothes Kids Love but I'm still irritated by the annoying tissue thin/enormous pattern pages.

I do love the little details on this pattern that look a bit fancy, like the fake fly and the pockets in the front you can fit your whole hand in.

At one stage right at the end, I held the newly sewn pants up against another pair of Jazzy's pants and they looked too wide. So I turned them back inside out and cut a few inches off the outside pant legs. I think they are possibly a bit narrow now but the girl lives in leggings and hates baggy jeans so I think they'll pass.

She tried them on this morning so I could test the length and waist measurements and now wont take them off for me to finish them so they must be ok.

Funny how things change so quickly sometimes. About a month ago I would have sworn that I was a pattern maker uperer and couldn't bear to make other people's patterns but now I can't seem to stop. And I'm learning so much along the way, so when I do get back to drafting my own patterns, I'll know so many more tricks.

I hope you are enjoying the weekend where ever you are, whatever you are doing. XX

Oh and one last thing, does anybody know what dortjes actually means?