Does my butt look tall in this?

Oh yes, you can bet I've had that post title in mind since before I even cut into this fabric. (Surely I am not the only person who composes blog posts in my head during the making process?)

I'm not normally an animal print person but giraffe print? I don't know, there was just something silly about it that I couldn't resist. I'm really hoping it says 'this is a fun skirt that is not taking itself at all seriously' rather than 'I'm trying to make some sort of animal print/sexy beast connection'. Plus, it's really lovely mid-weight cotton by Sevenberry of Japan, and it charmingly said 'Made by Japan' on the selvedge. Thank you, Japan!

This is, of course, another Grainline Moss skirt. I had put the fabric aside a while back with the idea of making shorts for one of my boys. However neither of the big boys seemed too keen and Clem, at the time, had plenty of shorts. And so it sat... until after I'd made my woodgrain Moss and had worn it so much I felt there was room in my wardrobe for one more.

A friend bought some of this fabric some months back and told me she'd made herself a skirt from it so there are two giraffe skirts 'in the wild' in Adelaide. Yay! I hope she doesn't mind me being a bit of a copycat.

Once again, love this pattern, hate the process of putting in the zip fly. Still. Managed it all fine this time except for the last part of attaching the facing/guard thingummy, which has the overlocked edge facing outwards instead of the neat-looking folded edge. I didn't realise this until I had the waistband on and it was all too late. It's totally hidden from the outside of the garment so only bothers me. But I later noticed that the diagram in the instructions has it shown around this (incorrect) way, although the written instructions say the right thing. I don't know if this has been corrected in the pattern since.

Nevertheless, I'm quite delighted with this and it is joining my other two Moss skirts on high rotation.

- Jane x

My spidey senses are tingling

I sense a crime... against aesthetic sensibilities everywhere... LOOK OUT!

 Here comes the Spiderman.

Ooh, and he's looking around the corner at you. BOO!

Relax. It's only a muslin. But to my total amusement, this muslin (Grainline Moss Skirt, in case the hideous fabric had blinded you from that detail) fits perfectly. Like, could not be better. Like, is so comfy and just the right height at the back and the exact fit at low waist (or lack thereof) and hips, like ... like ... unprecedented perfect fit.

Crap.

Does that mean I should find some crapulous occasion to wear it? Look, Spidey is peeking out of my crotch. Hellooo!

Do you have fun with icky fabrics that have happened into your posession, when making muslins? It certainly takes some of the drudgery out of the task.

- Jane x

PS real version in plain dark denim (phew) almost finished.

Agh, Blogger ate my almost-finished post, stuff that, I'm going to bake a cake.

And there was a sloth in my post, people, a sloth! It will have to wait. Meantime, here is a picture of a happy face I found in my gin and tonic a week or so ago. That makes me feel better.

- Jane x

PJs, shorts and another apron

Hmm, mysterious post title that, I wonder what I'm going to show you?

Clem has a habit of begging me to make him things out of such ridiculously adorable fabric that I am powerless to refuse. Check out those little lions. On Japanese cotton lawn. Oh, I suppose a second pair of summer PJ pants won't go astray.

And then, the Heather Ross Briar Rose frog pond shorts. It wasn't until I looked at this photo that I began to question the placement of that log on the front. It's just a log, and I will think no more of it.

Both PJs and shorts were made with my go-to pattern for Clem-pants, from Japanese Pochee magazine. Alas, he's now in the biggest size!

Styled with his pyjama top this morning, and a froggy hop.

 And he wanted me to take a photo of him wearing Dadda's childhood fire hat. It's made from that really sturdy seventies plastic and is in amazingly good shape.

Lastly, here's an apron I whipped up this morning as a gift for my boss at the job I recently left. Australian readers will probably be familiar with the 'map of Tassie' reference and corresponding placement on the apron. Let's just say it suited my boss's sense of humour very much. Inspired by the Sew Liberated Gathering Apron (in this post), I made it with a great big kangaroo-style pocket so it should actually be quite useful for her, as well as silly. Maybe good for gardening.

The apron is made from a souvenir linen tablecloth I've been hoarding for a few years (plus a bit of plain natural linen). I've been tempted to make myself a skirt from it but I'm not sure I could exactly, you know, wear it with pride. Apron - much better idea. And hard as it can be to make the initial cut into prized fabric like this, I'm always happier to see it put to good use rather than languishing in my cupboard. Yay for stash-busting gifts!

- Jane x

What's my coffee, bitch?

this morning
Clem: "What's my coffee, bitch?" 
Me: "Ah, what was that?" 
Clem: "What's my coffee, bitch?" 
Me (struggling not to laugh, Andy almost crying across the room): "What do you mean by that?" 
Clem: "Is it a face, or a bird, what is it?" 
Phew... as I thought, he was mucking around with the word 'picture' i.e. what did his coffee froth look like. 
And um, he likes a decaf. Bitch.

- Jane x

glorious mud

Playing with mud is generally awesome and to be encouraged.

Going back and playing with mud after cleaning up and changing into fresh white taekwondo uniforms just before a grading (test for new belt level), not so awesome.

- Jane x

things he said

Our littlest one is getting bigger and I think I'm okay with it. The 'last time' things were hard: last day of Kindy, last day of childcare, last regular Thursday morning with Grandma. School? He's loving it and he has his big brothers there to take care of him. I've been really busy. I'm far more positive about it all than I predicted I would be.

I've been keeping a record of the funny little things Clem has said. The following is the contents of a document that's been sitting on my computer desktop and added to for a while now. I don't wish he'd stay little forever but I sure do want to preserve the memories of his littleness.

gingerbread cook

“My tiny ear is very dead.”

"hometel" (what 3y.o. Clem called our hotel base on holiday in Sydney)

“Mama can eyebrows grow?” (Yes) “Mama I guess we’ll have to cut my eyebrows when they get longer and longer and longer until they get down to my tummy.”

“I keep trying to swallow that slug thing down but it comes back up. In my throat. Mama it’s slimy. Do you have one?”

idly singing: “tiny kangaroo bounce… tiny kangaroo bounce… tiny kangaroo bounce” (for Tie Me Kangaroo Down)

“Mama did you have teeth when I came out of your mouth?”

birthday schoolboy

Seeing Georgie Parker on Better Homes & Gardens: “Mama, how did she get there? Did she just crash out of the walls from Play School and just drive there?”

“I’m not four years old. I’m four years new!”

Clem, feeling his chest: “Mama, is your heart hard?” Me “Well it’s a very strong muscle, but it’s not hard like bones.” “Well can it get… can it be broken?”

turning five is exhausting

Long day, Andy out at a meeting, giving cranky Clem a Yakult as dessert and as I popped the straw in he said "is that the last straw?" ... I had to laugh.

Clem: “Mama and Dada, look, I made a butterfly!” (making a shape with his feet) Us: “Oh that’s beautiful darling!”  Clem: “And now…” (changing the shape) “… a dead one.”

“Dada, did you know your hair is part of your eyebrows, because it’s almost starting to touch it.”

don't be fooled by the sweetness

About Justine Clarke, children’s singer: “Mama, Justine doesn’t fart, never ever. And she never ever goes to toilets.”

Clem on the toilet: “Owowowowow it’s a spiky one… it’s a puffer fish kind of one…” (I collapse laughing) “Mama it’s not funny… well it’s a tiny bit funny.”

“Mama is as beautiful as a bird.”

Me to Charlie, about a small school t-shirt: “It’s not the end of the world.” Clem: “Mama, when is it the end of the world?”

Clem, looking at the clothes I chose for him for kindy: "Mama, they won't like that, or that." Me: "Who won't?" Clem: "The girls!"

just hanging

Clem went on an excursion today: "There was an explorsion at kindy this day and we saw a worldpool. And the person talked about the Aborniginal stuff."

I took Clem to visit his baby cousin and afterwards he asked me "How did they know his name is Curtis?”

Doing a wee at the same time as Andy: “You’ve got a giant willy. It’s got smoke coming off it.” (er, it was a cold night)

"Mama, one day I would like to grow some snapping plants. But when they get too old, can you put a string around they mouths so they can’t bite you? Make it very strong?"

"They’re not called women. They’re called womans!"

saying goodbye on his last day of childcare

"Mama, because you eat caffeine coffees, that’s why you’ve stopped growing. But I don’t want to stop growing."

Clem: "Mama, what's at the end of the rainbow?"   Me: "A pot of gold!"   Clem: "No."   Me: "Oh, what then?"  Clem: "Purple!"

reluctant to leave his last day of childcare, doing an endless puzzle

(discussing the goldfish in the pond outside and why they hadn’t reproduced) “We had a daddy fish and he laid some eggs and maybe when he was sitting on them they got too hot so they didn’t hatch. And he died because he got too hot as well.”

"Mama, ‘bye’ in French is ‘konichitty – bood – yeah’."

"I don’t have very listening ears because they’re blocked."

I commented that the piece of wood he was holding had been eaten by termites.

“Termites? Hahaha! It’s ter-na-mites! Not termites. Haha!”

"I’m five and I’m completely five and I go to school!"

all dressed up on his first morning of school

family of five with the newly minted five-year-old

(By the way, a few days later, I cut their hair. All of those mopheads. Not too much, but this was getting ridiculous.)

I do hope that's not quite the end of the 'funny Clem words' document. But he is bursting with pride about his growing up and for the most part, so am I.

- Jane x

so we've reached that stage

Tonight the big boys attended a two-part information session at school: part one was "How We Began" and part two was "Puberty Clues". You get the picture.

Charlie was typically quiet about the idea of going. Jasper stood in the kitchen bouncing a rubber ball filled with a 3D underwater scene and said "I think they have these every year and last year it was about S - E - X!" (Nervous giggle.) "What's a pubicle?"

Ah, wouldn't you love to have overheard the schoolyard chatter which led to that?

I would have liked to have gone but we had no babysitter.

Andy went into the fray and Clem and I stayed home and made cupcakes.

The session was apparently excellent, pitched just perfectly for the upper primary audience. The big boys were bouncing off the walls when they got home. It certainly seemed to have snapped the eleven year old out of a silent afternoon funk. I almost expected them to come home changed somehow but they were still just my boys.

Phew. Well, that's done. And I'm still giggling like a silly schoolkid at pubicle.

- Jane x

squashed flowers

Tonight Clem asked me to go outside in the cold and dark with him and a torch, to "look for flowers to squash". Sometimes it's actually easier to be the good creative parent who says yes than convince a four year old of all the reasons this isn't such a good idea. So we went, and found a surprising variety of flowers for the end of winter.

We took them to the "flower squashing book" which is a Webster's Twentieth Century Dictionary that belonged to my Granny. Clem laid the flowers between sheets of paper (after unceremoniously shaking off the previous squashed flowers that were in there) and duly squashed the flower sandwich with all his might. Checked them - no not ready yet - so I suggested we turn the book upside-down so its weight was all on the flowers, and leave it on the shelf for a couple of weeks.

He was happy.

Not such a bad idea after all.

In another episode of "why not?" parenting, I helped Charlie make chocolate eclairs on the weekend. He wanted to cook something he'd never made before and I let him choose from a book of sweet treats. Of course he chose what was probably the most complex recipe in the book and something I'd never attempted. But we had all the ingredients and, deep breath, oh heck, why not?

Splodge. They were small and misshapen, the pastry cream curdled slightly and the icing never achieved the desired state of molten glossiness. But they were pretty tasty! And we learnt a bit. For one, we need a more accurate set of kitchen scales. Cooking like this can be as much chemistry as art, can't it?

In more successful cooking, Jasper had a couple of friends for his rescheduled birthday sleepover (postponed due to flu). Andy made pasta with all the boys and demonstrated patience in the extreme with this many helping hands.

Wow, we look like we're all about facilitating children's creativity here at the moment, don't we? Did I mention the number of times we had to say "no!" to Jasper's requests to play more Skylanders on Wii with his sleepover friends?

So now. To finish off a fairly random post, how about some silliness from the big boys?

(No children were harmed in the making of this blog post.)

- Jane x

random things you find around the house that make it all worthwhile

(unmistakably the work of Jasper)

- Jane x

snotgate

Who sneezed on our gate?

Nah, it's just me indulging Clem's whim to paint our rusty front gate yellow.
I didn't want to squash his vision but I didn't want to end up with permanent paint all over him, the gate and the driveway.

Enter cornflour paint: about a tablespoon of cornflour heated with about a cup of water plus food colouring. Very gloopy, and providing pleasingly sustained entertainment to the four year old.

I suspect I may have some regrets over this activity after it has dried and subsequently gooeys (sure that's a real word) up again when it rains. Eh, whatever. Snot a problem, heheh.

- Jane x

this is not a shipwreck

Last weekend we visited the glorious Port Willunga beach.
I had brought the boys here last year when Andy was overseas and we read the sign about a ship wrecked in 1888. So we paddled about near the big wooden posts you see above, gathering shells and stones and discussing shipwrecks and pirates and I answered a billion questions about who was on the ship and where they were now and what were their names and making lots up as I went along.
So yeah, last Sunday we went back to see the shipwreck again and muse about the weathering of the timber and talk about pirates and so on. Beautiful day.
Lying in bed that night Andy said to me "you know that's not the shipwreck".
Which is bleedin' obvious now I look at it. Clearly the remains of a jetty/pier and not from 1888. The shipwreck is out a bit further, all underwater. And made of metal.
Oops.

- Jane x

woolly

Well I finished up this excuse to crochet really useful blanket. It's yummy and springy and soft and warm. Wool is Freedom by Twilleys of Stamford, UK. Slight guilt for not using Australian wool but the choice of chunky yarns in 100% wool was not vast, and I was supporting my local yarn shop. I feel very lucky to be able to use the phrase 'local yarn shop'.

When I finished this I threw it at Andy and then he suggested I toss it on the floor to see what it looked like, since that's how it will be now for most of its existence.

My kids tend to all stand up from the couch and whatever they were snuggled under or sitting on ends up on the floor without a backwards glance. I'm forever nagging them to pick up blankets and cushions. Anyway, here it is on the floor before crumbs and hair and spilt tea and cat fur and so forth become part of its very fibres.

And a little neater. I guess the stretched out ends are what the mysterious thing known as 'blocking' might fix, but I think this has been sucked into the couch vortex already.

Just the thing to snuggle under with a morning cup of coffee.

Why is it my attempts at coffee froth art always end up looking... unappetising?

Jasper laughed and said "yes, it's very Andy Griffiths".

- Jane x

chalk

I won't pretend that my kids don't play quite a lot of Wii (reserved in our house for the 'wii-kends') and watch their fair share of telly. But I do love it when they get outside and become absorbed in an activity. Even if it involves taking a ladder out onto the footpath. Erm, it's a small, quiet street!

They were starting to draw an enormous tongue that went right across the road and I did put an end to that for safety's sake. Cool idea though. Charlie and Jasper were drawing on the driveway when their friend Sam came over and the drawing just sort of expanded.

These power line poles the boys are decorating are known in Adelaide (and nowhere else, I think) as stobie poles.

We have vast amounts of chalk at our house because Andy worked on an event last year that was sponsored by Ikea, who donated boxes and boxes of the stuff. We've given some to childcare and kindy and neighbours and still have a drawer full at home. A nice thing to have an excess of.

I love it when cats, who think they're so dignified, unknowingly have something comical like spiderwebs or pink chalk on them. Sorry, Elodie.

- Jane x