Auckland crafting day

Stacey at Polka Dot Daze has organised a crafty day for Auckland which sounds like a lot of fun and I've just emailed her to say I'd love to come - although why is it when I sound so definite I feel like I should throw in a small caveat along the lines of "if I can, barring any disasters or illness"?  I guess it comes with being a mum.  Heh.  So if you're in the vicinity and it sounds good, email her and come along.  It's going to be an adventure for me, driving across Auckland to totally unknown territory, and in Mat's big, grubby, work station wagon too, just to make it extra exciting.  It'll totally ruin my self-image of course, I'm so used to our zippy little red Golf.  I'd have never thought I'd feel a car reflected my personality, or even care too much what I drove as long as it was reliable, but somehow I've discovered I do!  Geez, next thing I'll be getting some lame-o personalised plates or something (never!!!) ;)

Skating

I used to do a lot of skating, both figure and dance, and I miss it a lot.  There are rinks here but I've never felt that inclined to go for fear of a crap experience and getting put off it entirely.  Today we went with my friend Steph and her two kids and it was so much fun!  Hazel took to it like a duck to water (or a Canadian to ice?) and had a grin plastered on her face the whole time.  I was a bit wobbly, and had to exchange my hockey-style skates for figure skates after the first turn around the rink, and the blades were freshly sharpened which made for some fun, but by the end I was moving around much more easily and getting some of my confidence back.  I managed to keep two little girls upright for one lap, and then just Hazel, so I'm obviously fairly steady.  Boy I'd like to have my own skates here!  I do have some back in Edmonton but I doubt they'd fit me anymore.  But I might look into picking some up when we're back for Christmas.  The funny thing about being in the arena is that it was pretty much just like an arena in Edmonton, and Steph tells me just like the ones in Edinburgh.  I guess there's only so many ways you can build an arena!  Hazel's desperate to go back and I think I am too - though I think I might have a hot bath tonight to try and stave off a bit of the stiffness I'm sure I'll have tomorrow :)

Look at me! look at me! I'm going backwards!

You have called my bluff!

Alrighty, thanks to Ms Stitchbird, I now have 200 followers and I did say I'd celebrate didn't I! Truth-be-told I'm a bit stumped, I don't want to do a bog-standard give-away but on the other hand they're good fun. A sew-along was suggested and I was all keen on that but then I couldn't think what I could do and frankly I can never get my ass in gear to do one, and while I expect my readers are a lot more proactive than me, I'd have lingering doubts anyone was actually sewing. Anna suggested blog candy - now I'm not sure what that entails exactly, but it caught my imagination and I'm mulling over a couple ideas and I'll get back to you all soon I hope!

On Monday a very good friend I hadn't seen in ages came to visit so with the Design*Sponge guide to Auckland in hand we headed out and oh what a fine time we had! The first stop was the Lucy-Mae Sparkle Boutique in Grey Lynn. I used to go by that spot on the bus every day but haven't for ages so it was nice to find something new and exciting in such a familiar spot. It was seriously fabulous - from the steps that were sprinkled with glitter and loose buttons (so glad Hazel wasn't with us, I'd have had to bodily carry her past those or she'd have picked them all up!) to the masses of jars, bags and tins of buttons, the trim, the vintage fabric, the embroidered and crocheted doilies and goodness knows what else we missed! There's also a great selection of funky clothes and accessories made from the vintage goodies. I particularly liked the circle skirts made from old tablecloths! I found Hazel a lovely old wicker sewing basket for her birthday, I'm going to clean it up, replace some of the lining, and fill it with little goodies. It came loaded with bits 'n bobs but as Mat said, lots of them were sharp :) I was going to make a sewing box with Chez Beeper Bebe's tutorial, so I think I'll just adapt the ideas to this pre-existing box as best I can. No photos of it because I haven't had a chance to photograph it while Hazel's not around. I also picked up some lovely embroidered linen napkins and a cool old doily. The doily may or may not be salvageble as it's obviously been sitting in one spot for ages so has a pale circle in the middle where something was on it and the rest has gone sort of brown from age and light exposure. The fabric is in good nick though, so I'll be searching the internet for ideas on how to approach it - if anyone has suggestions I'd be most grateful. I also found a length of a very cute orange floral fabric that I'm going to make a dress for Hazel from. I know there's a term for the fabric, it has lines of puckering running along it - seersucker? Anyways, it's cute.

We also went to Salvage in Mt. Eden, which is along similar lines but is closing down at the end of next month! Sure, I finally get there and it's leaving. Accordingly she doesn't have a lot of stock but it was still wonderful. I almost got there a couple years ago but it was closed when I went past so missed out. I've always been a bit nervous of going in in case I spent too much money, and looking at the photos from the shop pre-moving I think I may have been wise in that regard! I bought the lovely pink flannel in the photo above to make some pjs for Hazel, and a couple of kitschy kid's hankies so she can blow her nose just like daddy.

Of course, being in the locale I had to go into Global Fabrics and found some Donna Karan fabric to make a shirt for Mat. I got him some fabric he liked for his birthday but wanted to test out the pattern (yes it's Kwik Sew!) before I cut into it. This one also meets his approval so he's now pestering me to make two shirts instead of just one :P

I also got a couple of panels of a rather Marimekko style fabric to make a skirt. I took a photo of it today but realised when I put it on my computer that the reds and oranges have totally blown out and you can't see the difference between them so I'll have to try and re-photograph it. The lozenges have orange and red circles in them and there are orange and red stripes at the bottom. But boy you wouldn't know it from this photo!

It's interesting that this has happened because Pioneer Woman did a great post last week about it happening in her photos and there were some very useful tips in the comments on how to avoid it or at least minimise it, I must go and read them again.

Sewing Haiku

Or is that haikus? No, must be haiku plural.  All I know is that I suck at them. But the Selfish Seamstress doesn't!  I've only recently discovered her blog and really love it, though I don't love how she's all petite and can wear clothes I can't. Don't love that at all! :)  But for a petite person she writes a mean haiku and she writes them about sewing!  AND you can get them on tshirts and mugs etc.  I felt moved to post about them after her latest one about bobbins.  As they used to say about Seinfeld "it's funny because it's true".

200!

200

As a friend pointed out, I'm heading towards 200 followers - or as I obviously like to term it 200 people of taste and discretion.  She wondered if I was going to have a party.  So maybe I should - what do you guys think? What should I do? Suggestions please!

Speaking of parties, have a look at this very funny post over Suburban Snapshots entitled Why having a toddler is like being at a frat party. Hilarious and the comments are brilliant!  Via Oliver + S's tweet.

Jump Rope Dress

Can I admit that this dress has taken nigh-on a month to finish up? It was part of the 'Kid's Clothes Week Challenge' but didn't quite get done in that week. All it needed were buttons but to do that I had to remember to get thread for the buttonholes and get some matching buttons. It's the little things that slow me up!

This is the Jump Rope Dress from Oliver + S. I've had the fabric languishing in my stash for over a year, meaning to make something for Hazel and I thought it would really suit the dress. In the end though, I'm not so sure. It looks nice but the fabric is a very high-quality cotton and it's actually quite stiff. Hazel complained about it the first time she tried it on and I'm not sure that I blame her to be honest. The fact that she complained means this may be as close to it as she ever gets

Oh well, I've learned my lesson when it comes to clothes she's iffy about and I'm not asking her to wear it, or making a big deal out of it. It's a bit too big which means that she's got plenty of time to come around to it! I made Dress A with the long sleeves from Dress B, so if she gets interested by the time summer rolls around I can always turn the sleeves into the short version of A. The dress went together well, although the belt loops were crazy long and the markings on the pattern for where to put them were just plain bizarre - I must check the errata and see if there was some issue. Or I may have just completely lost the plot in regards to the pattern/instructions. I got them right the second time around with alterations. The collar ended up being too stiff with the addition of interfacing, if I made it from this fabric again (which I wouldn't) I wouldn't put in the interfacing, the collar needs to be fairly soft to fold correctly.

Doughy pawprints and the mysterious box!

When I make quiche I don't do the pastry myself, I just buy it from the store (oh the shame, the shame!)  I left a couple sheets out to defrost this morning and came out into the kitchen to find this

Lucy had obviously jumped up on to the bench to see if these things were edible and probably got an unpleasant surprise. I can imagine that pastry dough probably doesn't feel all that great under paw.  Although the pastry sheet was completely ruined* who could be mad at such cute pawprints?

*In the interests of honesty I did very briefly wonder if the pastry was still edible but the dirt left behind disabused me of that notion very quickly, considering what Lucy does out in the garden... and ewww, she was up on the bench!  Good for the immune system right? right?  I refuse to be drawn into the mad fantasies of the advertisers who want us all to be terrified of germs on all our household surfaces and to spray their horrible products liberally on everything - nothing makes me talk back to the TV more than one of those stupid ads.  See even now I'm having to resist the urge to launch into a tirade against them.

The mystery of the box around the text in my blog has been solved - it was simply that my version of Firefox was about 2 years old. For some reason it hadn't been updating itself automatically like I thought it was.  So that's fixed and now I can see the box darn it!