excited

A dozen fertile Wyandotte eggs for our 'Broody Trudy'. She looked so very delighted, if ever a chicken did! We are so excited to be hatching another brood as we did last year.

And just one photo from Clem's birthday party, showing the cake. For the third time I made him a Miffy cake, by his request, except this time he wanted chocolate cake with chocolate icing and the boys all decided it was Miffy's friend Aggie, the brown rabbit, instead.

Hooray for the beautiful simplicity of Dick Bruna drawings.

And, watch this space for fluffy chick pics in less than three weeks, eek!

- Jane x

KCWC - tee two with tie

Clem is having his birthday party at home tomorrow so I thought he would like a new t-shirt to wear. And because I bought a bunch of these coordinating Farbenmix knits (partly with a voucher I won from Crafty Mamas, lucky me), it's clearly in the same 'family' as Jasper's tee from yesterday.

Before I could take some decent photos of it there was food down the front but I don't think you can really pick it in these trampoline action photos, where Clem was willingly letting Jasper bounce right over the top of him, even though it was clearly unnerving.

(covered as usual in bandaids and temporary tattoos)

Pattern: Ottobre Best T-shirts, with bands added on the sleeves, calculated at .85 x circumference of sleeve ends so they pulled in a bit

Fabric: Farbenmix cotton/elastane jersey from Crafty Mamas (I cut the neck and sleeve bands from the wide stripe version of the red/turquoise knit)

Iron-on: another from Crafty Mamas

Tie tee is in the wash as I write, ready for party duty tomorrow!

- Jane x

KCWC - beetle tee

I really wanted to take part in the Kids Clothes Week Challenge this time. I didn't sign up last time and then I felt a bit left out when I saw the awesomeness everyone else was posting on their blogs.
This time, when I tried to put the KCWC button on my blog it wouldn't fit on the sidebar. Maybe I should have taken that as an omen. As I previously posted, it's been quite a week here. The hour-a-day of sewing thing hasn't been happening.
But today I managed this:

Pattern: Ottobre Best T-Shirts (skinny version)

Fabric: Farbenmix cotton/elastane jersey from Crafty Mamas

Beetle: iron-on velour from Crafty Mamas

Am I still allowed to call this a KCWC achievement if I haven't adhered to the rules? It was certainly inspired by KCWC. The volume and quality of garments being sewn out there is simply incredible.

How cool is that iron-on beetle? And it's fuzzy!

Okay so enough of the cool cropped photo stuff, let's see this kid enjoying his new t-shirt.

That's more like it.

- Jane x

a tribute on the smallest's 5th birthday

Whew, it's only Tuesday and it's been quite a week already.
Daylight saving began on Sunday.
Monday was Clem's first ever day at school, so we not only had to get everyone up, organised and out, it was also an hour earlier.
He had a great day.
Today he is five. At 5.38am this morning he shouted "birthday!" in delight.
Despite the early awakening we still managed to be a little late for school.
Everyone has a bit of adjusting to do with this new routine and nerves will be (have been) a little frayed.
But I would like to repeat the wisdom of my wonderful, patient, clever, dear husband, uttered at just the right moment this morning:
"Life's a pain in the ass, but I wouldn't want to be doing it with anyone but you."

Back at ya, babe.

- Jane x

this moment

Inspired by Soule Mama: "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

Actually, one word: dandelion.

- Jane x

Spring Sunday

Sunday of a long weekend was spent at my parents' bush block in the hills.

Spring wildflowers are out, mostly tiny little lovelies that you need to look for close to the ground. My absolute favourites are these climbing sundews (carnivorous plants), here amongst some blue orchids.

 Bush 'art' by my Dad.

 Evidence of echidnas.

 Piling up old logs to make habitat for lizards, birds, and um, probably snakes.

 Native cherry. Edible but would be a bit difficult to survive on.

 More spring wildflowers.

 'Running Postman' which likes to spring up in areas where we've had a bonfire.

Smoke in our hair, smoke in our clothes.

Loving the season before the (very necessary) total fire ban kicks in.

I hope your week is a happy one!

- Jane x

plans to reality

There's been a lot of making going on so far these school holidays!

We watched a fabulous documentary called 'Being Elmo', about Kevin Clash who is Elmo's, you know, very close friend. He was devoted to puppetry from a young age and eventually went to work with his hero Jim Henson.

Charlie and Jasper were inspired to make their own puppets. Charlie's fox was 99.9% made by himself. I helped him unpick something at one point and he said to me "don't do too much!" so I made sure to step back and let him go!

While Jasper needed a bit more help, I prodded him to just give it a try and he gained more confidence. As I write, one octopus leg has just fallen off, so he's learning more about patience and hand sewing technique right now, heheh.

It's exciting watching them now at an age when they have accomplished basic skills and can now use them to make their visions come to life.

Hmm, what with all this facilitation of boy-creativity, there hasn't been a lot of room for my own. I did make some shorts for Jasper though. To my scaled-up Oliver + S Sketchbook Shorts pattern, in hemp & organic cotton left over from my Poppy Tunic, with a bit of topstitching interest.

Oh yes and here's another little puppet Jasper made before the more ambitious ones began. It's a dragon called Alistair:

Those little sticks to work his arms are sparklers! I'm not too sure about the toxicity of handling those a lot. Hmm.

One week of school holidays down, one to go. Then I will have three boys at school!

- Jane x