Questions from the peanut gallery

I was showing our wedding album to the 4 year old today, and the conversation went something like this:

Boy Genius: Mum, why did Dad choose you to be married to?
Me: Hmmm, that's an interesting question...
Boy Genius: I know! It's because you're the best cook!
Me: Hmm, maybe...
Boy Genius: You are the best cook Mum. You really are.


Thank you my darling.

Things I have learned today...

• my foot is not fractured (hurrah!);
• Cheeseboy dances for cheesecake too;
• my car, which was damaged in the hailstorm in March, will be repaired (yes, it has actually taken the insurance company 5 months and 4 assessments to decide this). When it will actually be repaired is anyone's guess;
• Patons Wilderness, although very attractive and perfect for the Granny Shrug, is apparently more suited to people who can actually crochet. It does not lend itself to being unravelled and re-crocheted numerous times. After the second time, one needs to use scissors and start again;
• that I can actually take the hip (19") and outside leg (21") measurements of the Boy Genius' whilst he's asleep, without disturbing him at all.
• that there are simply not enough hours in my day. Even with this.

Feeling much better

Thank you for the lovely messages about my unfortunate accident (and resulting Dedicated Crafter Award).

So now an update. Since neither the doctor's office or the hospital has called me with any results from my x-rays, I am presuming that my foot is not actually fractured. Or possibly this is simply our overworked and underfunded public health system at its finest. Do you think either Julia or Tony are at all interested in my x-rays? Either way, my foot seems to be improving (coincidentally, my disposition seems also somewhat improved after two days of lying about on the couch watching bad daytime tv and eating Tim Tams).

I am afraid I have been failing miserably at keeping my blog up to date, so will endeavour to bring you up to speed with all the latest goings on here at D4C during the next few days.

I have a few lovely balls of Patons Wilderness and a 15mm hook in hand to finally have a crack at Kirsty's Granny Shrug. Hope you too are enjoying a cosy winter's evening by the fire, maybe with some handcraft to keep you company.

Now that's dedication...

A funny thing happened on my way to the Craft Fair.

Okay, actually it wasn't so funny, it was quite painful.

You see, I was on my way yesterday from Father Bob's celebration to the Craft and Quilt Fair when I had a little stumble on an uneven footpath and rolled my foot. It was immediately clear to me that the situation was dire, and an ambulance was needed to rush me to hospital for emergency orthopedic surgery, when suddenly, I remembered...two dear, sweet, innocent little 8 year old Crafters were looking at me with huge disappointed puppy-dog eyes. They had waited their entire crafty little lives for this one day at the Craft Fair. Not to mention some other crafty peeps who were awaiting my arrival at the show! Who was I to let them down? So I pulled myself together, swallowed my pain and soldiered on, all the way to Jeff's Shed.

Okay, so that's not exactly how it happened. But...I did roll my foot very painfully, gave it a few minutes to see if there was any damage and when it appeared all was fine I continued on to the Craft Fair, with the Junior Crafter and her Sidekick in tow.

However, after a few hours of wandering the Fair, it became painfully apparent that I had actually done some damage to my foot, and by the time I got home last night I could barely walk. I popped in to see my doctor this afternoon and he sent me off for x-rays, concerned about a possible fracture.

I'm still awaiting the results, but if I find that I spent yesterday afternoon walking every aisle at the Craft and Quilt Fair with a broken foot, then surely I must qualify for some kind of Dedicated Crafter Award?

More about what we got up to at the show (and pictures of loot) to follow soon, I promise.

In Bob we trust

Image from here

Yesterday we celebrated Father Bob Maguire's 50th Anniversary as a Catholic Priest. If you live in Melbourne, you probably know of Father Bob, he's somewhat of a celebrity these days, appearing on television, radio, Twitter, Podcasts and even has his own Wiki entry. Bob's commitment to humanitarian and charity work through the Father Bob Foundation is long standing and well known.

But Father Bob is more to us than priest, community leader and charity worker. He is also The Bloke's Great Uncle, and so we proudly joined a huge family contingent at Sts Peter and Pauls in South Melbourne yesterday for a special Mass celebrating Bob's 50 years in the priesthood. This is the same beautiful church where The Bloke and I were married, by Father Bob, more than 11 years ago.

I love this photo of Bob with my little Cheeseboy, taken at a family wedding a few months ago.

It was a wonderful celebration, which Bob took in his stride although he did seem a bit bemused about 'all the fuss'. At one point during the service he said he hoped the Church police weren't here because they would lock him up and throw away the key if they saw this Altar Cloth made for him by members of the parish:

Congratulations Bob, on 50 years of service to the community and generally being an all round caring and compassionate man. We love you.

Questions from the peanut gallery

Mum, what's the opposite of middle sized?


Boy Genius: 1
Me: nil

The one in which Tinniegirl makes an appearance

Cathy. Tinniegirl. She paints, she laughs, she cooks, she debates, she's opinionated, she cares, she writes, she's funny, she's warm, she stitches, she sings, she blogs, she drinks, she's strong, she crochets, she's thoughtful, she shares, she's supportive, she's a little crazy, and even though she's strangely obsessed with rabbitholes and 3D experiential art, I think she's one amazing woman.

Artist at work

The delicious dinner Cathy cooked for us at Sewjourn, lamb tagine with all the trimmings

We each received a vintage collectible teaspoon with a note reading: "Bring me to dinner on Saturday night" and a Tinniegirl Affirmation Card

And here's what we needed the spoon for

Oh. My. God.

Cathy crocheted a gorgeous scarf for the stork (ibis?) to go with the striped legwarmers Tania made.

And finally, I thought you might like to see just how much fun our Cathy can be, especially when she's modelling some kind of strange urn cover, or testing out a cape for potential super powers (The pic in the middle is her serious artist-at-work type alter-ego!)

I *heart* Tinniegirl.

Cathy's first Art Exhibition opens this Thursday night, details are here. I'll see you there.

Here's the story...

of a lovely lady,
who was sewing clothes each and every day,
all of them had bust adjustments, and other changes,
but there were no berets.

Here's the story, of a great designer,
who was busy making patterns of her own,
all of them were bags or hats or even dresses,
but they were all alone.

Til the one day when this lady met this designer,
and they knew that it was much more than a dream,
that they would somehow help each other,
and that's the way that they became the beret team.

And here's the beret Liesl whipped up at Sewjourn from Nikki's new pattern, modelled by (clockwise from top left) Liesl, Cathy, Caitlin, Bec, Alice (who seems to have lost her beret), Melanie, me and Cam, and Nikki wearing her own beret.

You can buy the pattern for this fab beret in Nikki's shop.

You can read Liesl's beret review here.

For more on what we got up to at Sewjourn last weekend, click here.

Sewjourn

Last weekend Liesl, Cathy, Bec, Melanie, Caitlin, day tripper Cam and I went to Sewjourn.

There was lots of sewing and making, a bit of painting, loads of wonderful food, a little wine of course, and lots and lots of talking, getting to know new friends, and catching up with wonderful creative peeps I don't get to see enough of in the real world.

Apologies in advance for the photo heavy post, but I was the (un)official photographer for the weekend.

Tinniegirl art in progress

Caitlin and some of her stunning Pippijoe fabrics

Many hands make light work - basting Liesl's quilt.

More stunning Pippijoe fabrics

Caitlin's paper flowers, an elegant addition to the dining table

My quilt, started at Sew It Together in May, still a work in progress!

Melanie's gorgeous quilt top (particularly nice sashing there Mel!)

The view from Sewjourn - what's not to love?

Thanks girls for a beautiful weekend.

Happy Birthday to...

my dear, sweet, kind, generous, thoughtful and all round wonderful friend Liesl.

Image credit

 I'm sorry I didn't have time to make you a cake m'dear, but I did find you this amazing sewing machine cake (yes, that's really a cake!) to drool over!

You can wish Liesl a Happy Birthday too: liesl [at] hoppobumpo [dot] com In case you were wondering, Liesl is of course turning 21.

Hope you have a perfect day HB.

80s Movie of the Week Roadhouse

Week 3

His Choice: Roadhouse, 1989

What's it all about: A tough bouncer is hired to tame a dirty bar. And it stars the late great Patrick Swayze - need I say more?

Who's in it: Patrick Swayze, Kelly Lynch, Sam Elliot, Jeff Healy

The Upshot: It was awesome. Totally awesome. One of my favourite 80s flicks ever! I loved it every time I watched it in the 80s and it has only got better with age. It has a bit of everything, action, drama, romance, Patrick Swayze almost naked, philosophy, a happy ending, did I mention Patrick Swayze au natural?

Love it, love it, love it. Might watch it again. If you haven't seen it, you totally should.

His Rating: 9/10 Violet Crumbles

Her Rating: 9/10 West Coast Coolers

ps. I thought you'd be bigger...

TGI Friday!

It's Friday.

It's been a long week.

It's been a busy school holidays.

I'll be here for the weekend.

Stitching.

 image from here

Enjoying. 

image from here

Relaxing.

 image from here

  See you Monday.

Out of the mouth of Cheeseboy

Cheeseboy and I were waiting for my flat tyre to be repaired at the tyre store this morning when Cheeseboy's dear little face suddenly lit up with joy and he called out rather loudly "Dadda!"

I turned in surprise. I was sure The Bloke Who Lives At My Place was at the office today.

Alas, it wasn't his 'Dadda' Cheeseboy had spied. It was this poster. Oh dear!

Image from here

I bet The Bloke is ever so glad he's been getting up at 5.30am to go to the gym...

80s Movie of The Week - The Breakfast Club

Week 2

The Bloke bought us a couple of trendy drinks to bring us right back to 1985, so we could sit back and enjoy:

Her Choice: The Breakfast Club, 1985

What's it all about: Five high school students, all different stereotypes, meet in detention, where they pour their hearts out to each other, and discover how they have a lot more in common than they thought.

Who's in it: Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheady

The Upshot: The cast is a who's who of the 80s, and The Breakfast Club is one of the quintessential films of the decade. I found the film a lot more believable when I watch it as a teenager, and I remember clearly being shocked at bad boy John Bender getting together with prim and proper Claire at the end of the film. This time round I can't believe how naive I was back then not to see something so predictable happening!

Also notable for fans of The Simpsons and Futurama, this movie contains the line "Eat my shorts!" delivered by bad boy John Bender. Coincidence? Nope. Matt Groening has admitted in an official US Playstation Magazine that he named the robot 'Bender' in Futurama after The Breakfast Club character John Bender, and the movie is almost certainly where he got Bart Simpson's "Eat my shorts" catchphrase from.

I loved the film, but not as much as the first time around.

His Rating: 9/10 Violet Crumbles

Her Rating: 7/10 West Coast Coolers

Have you seen it? Did you love it?

Baking...and more baking

We have been very busy in the kitchen of late, although at the moment I'm baking in an old fashioned metal tin - at least I'm certain metal can go in the oven!)

Caramel Slice

The Junior crafter baked a delicious chocolate cake with pink icing and sprinkles (of course).

(She takes icing her cakes very seriously!)

And a banana cake using this recipe which was soooo yummy!

A Snappy Solution (this one's for you Cam)

Last week I had a lovely visit at Karen's place. Karen made us a yummy soup for lunch, the kids played and danced and dressed up, and Karen and I made wedding plans for them took them out for a walk. It was a fab day, and Karen has blogged some great pics here showing just some of the children's excellent fashion sense.

Not surprisingly, with 5 children under 5 years between us we didn't get any sewing done, but we did manage to have a play with Karen's snap press. It's awesome, I definitely need to buy one!

And Cam, you'll be pleased to hear, we replaced the broken snap on your pinny - hurrah!

 

So it's ready to be delivered to Spotlight with the other 20 or so dresses and 8 pairs of  shorts which have been sent to me by so many wonderful crafty peeps.

Completed - The Panel Bag

I've been doing a spot of pattern testing, and...

Ta-Daaaa!

 When it comes to bags I am a complete beginner. In fact, when it comes to sewing, I'm still a novice.  I have never made a bag before and would never have attempted one with a lining and a base! I have only ever sewn pleats once (and I'm not sure little ones on a pocket really count), I have never inserted a zip pocket or compartment pockets in a bag lining before, I have never used O-rings. And, I have never used one of Nikki's patterns before. I was more than a little apprehensive.

But look:

 Pleats!

O-Rings!

Zipped pocket!

Compartment pocket!

I made the bag completely from my stash, using a pretty bird fabric from Ikea, some black embroidered suede left over from my first attempt at a skirt (what was I thinking?), and some pretty paisley polycotton  I don't even remember buying!

I can't say enough great things about Nikki's pattern and instructions. The level of detail in the pattern made it possible for me to do some scary things I've never done before, simply by following Nikki's well written instructions.

Of course, no matter how fabulously well put together a pattern is, we all still love a good sewing mishap now, don't we? 

Can you spot what's wrong with this picture?

No? Can't see the problem? 

Does this help? 

Yes, it's always a good tip to have the O-Ring inside the tab before stitching the tab closed. Doh!

I can't wait to try another of Nikki's patterns, and if you haven't tried one, give it a go, I bet you'll love it!

Completed - Reversible Winter Pinafore

Buttonholed. Buttoned. Taken in a little. Unpicked. Restitched, taking care to line up the seams properly this time. Hemmed. Wrapped. Delivered to the birthday girl. Well received. Yay!

Pleated pockets made using this tutorial

Heart shaped pocket all my idea!

Vintage self cover buttons from the Op Shop.

My Creative Space

In my Creative Space this week I'm getting back to nature, playing with some flora...

and fauna...

(I'll show you when it's finished...which was supposed to be yesterday...but I keep getting interrupted when I'm trying to sew!

Click here to visit some more lovely Creative Spaces. As always, thanks to Kirsty for hosting My Creative Space.