band camp for grown ups

I guess that's sort of what you call a band reunion, what 15 years (???) after they split up.

So this weekend we've played host to the reunion of Andy's band Ice Has No Germs, who haven't played together for quite some time after one of them had a bit of a melt down, as muso are inclined to. They were a 90s Ballarat band at a time when independent music was huge in the Rat, we used to spend our nights at the Bridge Mall Inn and the Camp Hotel *ah sigh* fond memories. They never really amounted to much, they were only just really getting it together and mastering their thing when Jos's ego took off taking his body with it. Their acclaim: hmm, flooding Redwood studios and possibly doing damage to the career of Dennis Walter, playing with The Dead Salesmen (still one of my all time favourite bands ever), supporting Weddings Parties Anything and Nick Barker, and a Live to the Wireless on 3BBB.

Andy, Kenny and Tim are still the only ones really pursuing their music. Kenny is now a really accomplished guitarist and a dab hand with editing and electronica musiccy stuff(you can tell I know all the technical terms, huh) Tim still plays drums and also is supremo on the violin. And Andy, well he loves his bass and garage band and is now bugging me to buy some Mbox thingy. Andy has a myspace page with his solo stuff on it but I don't know the address *oops*

Anyway, this meant we had an extra three men and one teenage boy in our house, so my sewing room became a sleeping room. I did do some procrastinating over my poncho, which is in the sin bin until my Knitpicks arrive, knitted Tully's Piggle up to where I need to swap to dpns (which are otherwise engaged on a pair of socks) and knitted about 30 rows of a lace mohair scarf.

Lily and I did make some awesome biscuits and a brown cake (not chocolate according to Lily) which was apparently a birthday cake for Angel, one of her Little People.

Here the gorgeous one is with Daddy's "piano ears" on. She's a beautiful singer apparently, well that's what she told me anyway.

Strange syncronicity

So this probably isn't going to seem that out there or weird to anyone but me, but heck thought I'd share it anyway. When I take photos I like to put other little things in them, not sure why, I just do, it's part of my creative *blah blah blah* whatever... anyway, something about it appeals to me. In the past I've put wands, goggles and fins, cartons of cream, toys, puppets, etc. Something like these two pics from my last stocking. See the Lyra pencils and the pearls and the building blocks in the second pic. I used those building blocks in the Isla pinnie shot too for a p and a t for pikki tint. Have a look.

So now look at this latest Peter Alexander catalogue that arrived this week in the mail. Strange syncronicity or what???? By the way, I don't mind having creative syncronicity with someone like Peter, I do own quite a few pairs of his PJS LOL

Stash busting and yarn subbing

I'm trying to do a bit of stash busting and knit exclusively from my stash. I recently documented just what my stash contains and it was a little scary so I'm embarking on a further effort to knit it up and reduce it.

This current project should put a bit of a dent in it as it's a chunky yarn. Guilty admission: it is a wool acrylic blend but it is actually nice and soft. I have 11 100g balls of it in this beige. I bought it to knit a cardigan for Andy, obviously it was on special, but not sure why I thought Andy would wear a beige and red college style cardigan (the yarn has been sitting there for maybe 7 or so years) I also have 2 100g balls of it in red.

Anyway, I'm knitting this poncho which comes from the Jo Sharp Contemporary Knitting 2 book. It would be very lush in the JS Silkroad Ultra but it's still turning out quite nicely in the sub and it only took me a couple of nights to knit half it. Only problem is that it's not wide enough :( I got approximate gauge with this yarn on the suggested needles for it; 6mm. But the approximate is not quite approximate enough. :(

SO my options are: frog it back to before the short rows that create the shaping at the front and add in some extra width. Or frog the lot and knit it up on 6.5mm or 7mm needles ~ although I'm not sure if I'd like the looser weave on the bigger needles and it might make it stretch too much. The length is pretty good as it is but it would be fine longer too.

What to do????

Isla's on her way

It is hard saying goodbye to pieces like this.

I adore this dress and must say it's one of the most awesome things Megsie and I have created. We were pretty stoked with the response to it too, I must say :D But it has been time to say goodbye to it this week, I couldn't just wrap it up and send it though. It needed a special wrapping. sooooo......

I made this little bag to put the dress in. It's new owner will hopefully like it too and get lots of use out of it. It's lined with the same denim as the pinnie is made of. The top of the bag is slightly elasticised to make it sit nicer.

Bye bye Isla!

It has been soooo cold here..

so very very cold... the coldest winter I remember since we moved here. So cold I could hardly bear to be in my sewing room, I've been huddled in front of the fire with Lily. Consequently, little has been achieved on the sewing front. Infact only three totally essential pieces.

First up, my sponsor piece for the Great Down Under Nappy Hunt which is on again this August. I love the GDUNH, it's heaps of fun. It is basically an internet scavenger hunt complete with clues and the idea is that you have to find the icon on each of the websites. You get to check out lots of new websites and products connected with cloth nappies, but it's not just nappies, there are also clothes, mama pads, fabrics, yarns, jewellery and other fab WAHM made stuff. Many sites also offer discounts so you can also grab some excellent bargains.

Click the link here to find out more and register

Anyway, I made a a pair of size one red velour polar fleece longies with dark purple, white and blue stars appliqued onto them. I've called them "Hunting Superstar". I think they're pretty gender neutral so will suit either a boy or girl.

Second, my poor little Lily has outgrown all her fleece longies and now that she's not in nappies the rise on them is way too big anyway. Thought it was time I got around to making her a new pair. She chose red as the colour and I chose the rainbow winged dragonfly as the applique. She was pretty stoked with them but thought it was far more fun to run around the house while I was trying to take her photo than it was to stand still.

Ooh, she's also wearing the tee that I made out of the fabric that the lovely Demonic Fi sent for Lily. I cut up an old chenille skirt (that had strangely never been worn) to make the pink background. She has a matching pair of hemp wide leg pants and a chenille hair bow to complete the outfit BUT everytime she wears it she manages to get either the top or pants wet or grubby before I get a chance to take a photo.

With this very cold and wet weather it has been a nightmare getting things dry. I'm still catching up on washing after coming back from our trip to Adelaide. Lily had run out of PJs so I thought it was time to make her some more, I used this cute spotted quilters flannelette and her favourite dolly Jemima even scored a matching pair.

The most interesting thing I have learnt this week

is that Holly Hobbie is a real person. I found this great little story about Holly Hobbie on this lovely little crafty blog Getting Stitched on the Farm . And here is the real Holly now

http://www.hollyhobbieworld.com/ And how far out is this site with all the HH paraphernalia .

a morning's baking..

Lily and I had a baking morning; somewhere along the way I mentioned that we'd bake some cookies today and so of course, it couldn't be put off until this afternoon, it had to be done this morning. I'd love to be one of those people who can effortly whip up some baked goodies, but I'm not which is why you see two plates of cookies here.
Lily thought we might make some whale and bambi shaped cookie. Luckily I found an appropriate recipe in the marie claire cooking book for vanilla sugar biscuits but I muffed up mixing the mixture (basically I threw every thing in at once instead of doing the sugar, butter and vanilla first) so wasn't quite sure how it would turn out. So while that mixture was in the refridgerator doing whatever it is that it does in there for half an hour, we whipped up some choc chip cookies (also from mc cooking) ~ yummy and almost failsafe LOL
The other mixture was saved with a liberal dash of water and kneading into more of a dough than it's probably meant to be. But they must be nice as Lily ate four and she's not a sweet tooth at all!!!

The state of the kitchen however, was quite dismal. Coconut, flour and licked and squashed uncooked cookies is not a pretty sight. It's scary what a two year can do to a bit of mixture she's meant to be making into a cookie; pretty sure it spent quite a bit of time in her mouth. Needless to say, that one didn't get baked.

Some very special fabric

Yummo!!! Fabrics don't come much better than these hand printed beauties. I have been stalking a couple of Aussie fabric designers for quite some while and finally managed to score myself these very special pieces of Kristen Doran fabric. The little owls is for Tully, for a special little dress. I need to sit and gaze at it for awhile before I work out exactly what I am going to do with it. The piece is 56 x 45 cm. I have a few ideas brewing here, probably going to use the right hand side for the front of a short little pinnie style dress and then do the back in a chocolate. Add a little pocket of owls on the back of the dress and also add them as pockets to a pair of pants to go with it. The big owls could then go on the front of a bag I can pack the whole outfit in which she can then use as a library bag.

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Kristen was so lovely to deal with, she even sent me a second of her Mollybirds fabric as she forgot to send out my order. How awesome is that!!!! This one is going to be for something for me, and may even possibly grace some black hemp denim in an adult size pinnie ... for me. I've been meaning to make my pinnie design in adult size.....

And in other blog catch up (which is what I feel like I'm doing at the moment LOL) just before we went to Adelaide I received these gorgeous knitted wash clothes from a very lovely friend. They are knitted from an organic cotton and are just lush ~ too nice to use really... but I will:D SO a huge thanks to Ali, they are just beautiful and I love them, I've wanted to try some for a long time but never got around to knitting some for myself and I don't think mine would have been as special as these ones are!

and some longies for Lily

Finished these while we were in Adelaide too, Lily's first pair of nappy free longies (if you don't count the pair I accidentally shrunk in the washing machine when they snuck in with the nappies *00ps*) I knitted the last of the legs on the way over and completed the black cuffs there. Such long legs ~ 32cm!!!!!

This yarn is the most luscious and soft Four Bags Full Merino and it was custom dyed by Rach from Stitch Sista sometime last year. I decided to save it for longies for this winter and I'm glad I did; even though I didn't acually envisage that Lily would be totally out of nappies by 26 months.

The dye job on this yarn is just gorgeous, it's hard to pick up the beautiful variations in the colour from these photos, but it is stunning. I shall take some close up photos in better light tomorrow. I love the way this yarn knits, it has such beautiful stitch definition and just glides off the needles. I used the Perfection Pants pattern but with just some increases at the back as per the Picky Pants pattern (although in hindsight these probably weren't necessary) No short rows, stocking stitch gusset, and straight legs until the knees where they begin to flare out, finished with black cuffs and waistband, cuffs in moss stitch. They are a very funky pair of longies and the perfect fit :D Lily says they're "gorgeous trousers". Ah she knows how to make her mummy very happy.

Adelaide knits.

Holidays are for knitting. And these are some of what I worked on on our stay in Adelaide.

This sock is ironically called the Rainy Day sock as that was what the weather was like the whole time we were there apart from the day we left. I started it on the way back in the car to see if I could knit the whole thing between Adelaide and here and may possibly have done so if it hadn't turned dark; I don't trust myself to knit a lace pattern in the dark. It's knit in 8ply, I love this colourway it's so in your face and bright! I almost managed to knit it entirely on a pair of 30cm circs, but couldn't really do the end of the toe. Luckily by pure coincidence I found a pair of lovely blue vintage dpns in the size I needed at the op shop yesterday so I finally finished this this morning. It was a really easy knit. Now I just have to knit the other one.



This little headband, Nakiska, is a quick, easy and very gratifying knit. Unfortunately, ehile knitting it my brain suffered a momentary lapse of reason and I used the wrong size needles and didn't bother to swatch up so it didn't fit the intended recipient, me. In fact, the only member of the family it initially did fit was Lily's baby doll. A little wash and a stretch and it now fits Lily...just. She really doesn't have enough hair, however, to justify a headband. Next one will be in black and the right size.



This little hat, Piggle, is for Tully, the green strands of yarn are the waste yarn for where there will be little holes in her hat to poke her pigtails through. Lily had to model this one too seen as I made her model the last hat.

the dress formerly known as $%##&*

is know affectionately known to its new owner as The Rocking Horse dress. An extra pocket and you'd never know it had a run in with a rogue overlocker. I'm glad Lily got to have this dress as it really really suits her :D
And this is what you get if you ask for too many cheeses; spit bubbles!!!LOL

home again

We spent last week in Adelaide visiting Megsie, Lachie, Tully and Asher. It was very wet and cold; I don't know what it is with Adelaide but every time we're there the weather is extreme; hot, cold or wet. But regardless, we had a terrific time the girls had an absolute ball playing together and Lily is really missing her "best friend" Tully. They really are such good little mates, it's fantastic.

We visited the farm barn for a little pre birthday celebration for Tully which the girls just loved. Lily was very fond of the kangaroos and discovered a new game not dissimilar to cow tipping, which involved her trying to get the kangaroos to jump ~ very naughty!!! Tully got to feed a lamb a bottle which was a bit special!!

Caught up with some of the fabulous Adelaide NC girls and our visit happily coincided with a visit south from the lovely Lesley from Cherubs Kiss.

I've been straight back into the sewing and managed to finish another pikki tint collaboration that has been hanging over my head. This is a long length pinnie for the bigger girls, today's dark and rainy weather was not at all conducive for photography so at this stage all there is are sneak peek pics. But I must say it is pretty damn cute!!!! Hopefully I will be able to update the pics tomorrow.

I also fixed and finished Lily's oops dress (see previous post) ~ it's also very cute and I shall take some pics of it tomorrow when she tries it on. She's a bit stoked that the rocking horse dress did, in fact, turn out to be hers.

oops..

Reminder to self:

CONCENTRATE!!!

This is what happens when you're trying to get too many things done at once *sob* What has happened here is as I've been overlocking the frill to the main body of the dress the main body has got caught up in the overlocking ~ all due to a lack of concentration. And after I unpicked it I was left with this hole. *sob*

Fate really, as Lily told me this dress was for her (which it wasn't) but now it will be after some clever repairs ~ stay tuned!!!

some fleece longie customs

have been very busy working on some fleece longie customs, that combined with a toddler who is an extreme night owl, has meant no sewing for the store. oh well,

anyway, here are some pics of the customs

Brandon's Stars

Meghan's Butterflies


Jackson's Elf


Mila's Lollipops