Why?

If I get asked that question one more time today I will explode.

Golden hammer

We don't have many traditions in our little family. A few years ago the Mr and I decided to do away with all the tacko meaningless christmas decs and instead each of us bought one decoration that we really loved or meant something to us. Over the years we've continued to do this and as our family has grown, so has the decoration box. There are only two rules to follow:
1. each person has to contribute something to the tree
2. the decoration has the person's name and the year on it
The 2yo is all about tools. He loves 'fixing' and helping Dad. He is the only 2yo I know with two working drills. This year his contribution to the christmas tradition is the golden hammer. A friend of mine made it for his birthday, originally it was a badge (which he proudly wore) but somewhere in the chaos of this house the pin has gone AWOL. We've turned the badge into his 2009 decoration. It looks great on the tree. Each christmas it will be great to pull out the golden hammer and remember the things he loved to build and fix with his tools. A little trip down memory lane.

My garden

The man who used to own our house had a terrific garden and vege patch. Our neighbour tells us that in the last years of the owner's life he let the garden go because his health was declining.

One thing that survived was this beautiful rose in our front yard. My mum gave it a really good prune and it has been amazing ever since. I'm not sure what variety it is but it smells like a true rose should.

Losing the art

The days of receiving a handwritten letter in the post are pretty much gone. While I'm the first to say that I couldn't live without email, I do love the idea of checkingthe mailbox and opening up a letter on lined paper in somebody's scrawl or beautiful penmanship. The only handwritten letters I get now are from the Mr's grandmother. I really love getting her letters - they are super old school and contain (way too much) info about her health, the garden and her neighbours. Letter writing is therapeutic isn't it? I think the reader gets as much pleasure as the writer.
I always have good intentions on pulling out the lined paper and writing a long letter back but time gets the better of me and I end up typing a letter. Sad to think I can type a lot faster than I can write.
This letter is waiting to be mailed. Hope grandma pulls it out of the mailbox, smiles, sits down at the table with a cuppa and enjoys it.

Can't stop eating

I blame the breastfeeding. Actually, I don't blame the breastfeeding - I thank the breastfeeding. Bring on the sweet food I say! This is one of Nigella's christmas cupcakes that I baked with my 2 yo. Mmmm cranberries are gooood.

Advent

Inspired by Christie, I have finally hauled myself from the depths of craft despair. During my pregnancy I lost all my crafty mojo. No inspiration, no motivation and no energy. But now I'm back on the craft train.

Project #1 was an advent calendar for our little family. Not half as beautiful as Christie's but it does the trick. I'll take a pic of the finished product and post it soon.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

8 months since my last post. I'm terrible Muriel.
Anyhoo, camera found. Laptop battery almost dead. Post more another day.

MIA

Camera is still missing....for once I have lots of crafty things that need photographing.
Will hunt for camera tonight.

All gone to buggery

Lack of blogging over the last little while can be attributed to:
1. missing camera
2. the craft project that took me to hell and back (pics will be shown once said camera decides to turn up)
3. parents visiting
4. laptop charger broken
5. child going through a ridiculously long patch of nights where he was awake for hours on end

The good news is that once I find that damn camera, I'll be able to post some pics of a crafty project that is coming together nicely!

Till then, ciao bella.

Tile wall

This wall is very moving. It is in NYC and we stumbled upon it on the way to .... I can't remember where!
It is a tribute to those who lost their lives in 9/11 and to the fire fighters involved. I like it because it shows a real sense of community.
Spare a thought for our firefighters too.

6th in the 6th

Lou tagged me in 6th of the 6th. The 6th photo in the 6th folder.
Mine is a cool wall painting/collage in San Fran. I really loved this wall - it looks better in real life but hopefully you get the picture!
I tag Oblong Craft Collective and the clever folks over at Designers Emporium.

Super lovely buttons

Louise covered some buttons for me, she turned them into brooches and now they are destined to fasten my beautiful Fibre Red wrap. Aren't they swell?

I gave her some fabric from my stash and I think that both brooches turned out perfectly. Very different looks but I love them both. Big thanks Lou!

On the table

Cute Japanese fabric (bought from Spottie for a bargin of $6/m- can you believe it?) waiting to be turned into a pair of hot mitts and matching pot holder.

My little boy at the cricket

Note this

What else is there to do on Melbourne's hottest day? Clean up and organise the house. This is a never ending battle. I love to be organised and love to have a place for things and things in their place. However, this trait does not always rear its head. But today I am trapped inside. It's 45 degrees (and climbing) outside.
I unpacked several boxes that had been gathering dust and what did I find. Notebook after notebook. I found about 8 in total, most of them were unused.
I need to write more notes!

My 101st post!

Even though I'm a slack blogger, I seem to have notched up 101 posts! To celebrate, here is 25 random things that I'm sure you are dying to know about me.

1. I love these kind of taggy things where you write stuff about yourself and read stuff about others
2. As hideous as it sounds, I really want a pair of yellow shorts
3. I love that Herb knows how to flash a fake smile
4. I have texture issues with wobbly food
5. It shits me that magazines like HOUSES never profile Art Deco homes
6. At parties I like to drink sparkling apple cider in a glass so other people think it's beer and lay off me for not 'having a beer'
7. I cannot stand Times New Roman and if I recieve a document in said font, I promptly change it before I begin to read
8. I miss my Nokia 3310
9. I think I love Duplo more than my son does
10. When I see a train or hear the boom gate bells, I think I get more excited than Herb does
11. I LOVE the name Herb
12. I wish my sis and Ade's would uproot and move to sunny Melbs. Hint Chinks.
13. I call my sister Chinks. And it is not racist ok?
14. My youngest Facebook friend is 20 months. Hi Lucas you tech wizard you!!
15. My New Year's resolution is to learn to knit
16. I love the city and all it's tiny lane ways
17. If I had the cash, I'd buy me a brownstone on the Upper West Side in NYC and live there for 6 months of the year
18. If I had the cash, I'd give heaps to my mum so she could go to Ireland
19. I don't get physics. At all.
20. I like to say thankyou to the driver when I get off the tram
21. I like the word Yikes
22. The Mr and I challenged each other to use the phrase 'And the rest!' as many times as we could in one day. It is surprising how you can work this phrase into conversation. Often.
23. I think that nice people get cancer. And that sux.
24. I miss shows like Charles in Charge. I love that you can get TV shows on DVD now.
25. I think ordinary people are sooo much more interesting than celebs.

So, to all you readers out there (there must be millions of you!) consider yourself tagged.

Cheating

On a whim I bought some great Denyse Schmidt fabric, County Fair Patchwork Promenade. I decided to make my first cheat's quilt. All my other quilts have been hand pieced, hand basted, hand quilted and hand binded (bound perhaps?).

This fabric is a single print and it's pretty groovy. My neighbour is a quilter too and swears by tagging guns to baste. You know those little plastic tags that keep the labels to clothes in shops? Those annoying little ones whose ends fly away when you snip them?

Miss Skeptical (moi) decided to give it a crack but hand basted the straight, across and diagonal before turning to the tagger. What a success - after 40 mins the quilt was tagged to within an inch of its life. And what fun I had shooting those little tags in and essentially going crazy with the tagger. You'll be pleased to know that said tagging gun is now safely in the hands of my neighbour.

Keeping with my cheating resolution, I decided to simply quilt it by stitching in the 'ditch' - well the fake ditch in this case. And I'm not doing tiny stitches like I did on the hexy quilt - these are big ones, about 1cm each.

Hoping that this one comes together quickly.

Pasquale

I've been itching to make a Sock and Glove softie from the book I gave my sister last year. She recently spent a week in Melbs and we went to my local oppie and picked up some UNWORN Scottish pure wool gloves. We also grabbed a used pair of cheap Chinese gloves.

The result? Well a few short hours later, two dogs and one strong personality were born: Pasquale and Unnamed.

Pasquale (left) is my creation, he has a good heart but is very misunderstood. He hails from France and enjoys topiary and jazz ballet - among other things. His abruptness can sometimes make others thing that he is being rude - but that's just Pasquale!

Unnamed (right) is a glove puppy made by my sis. He's alot taller than Pasquale, I think it must be the Scottish in him. Poor Unnamed - we couldn't settle on a name for him, nor could his personality shine in the midst of Pasquale.

These cuties are on their way to a good home. My friend is expecting twins in June. A blessing - Paquale and Unnamed will never have to be separated. Together forever.

New beginnings

Clearly February 1 2009 is a fabulous time to finally put into place those pesky resolutions that were floating around one's head in late December/early Jan.
Committing the resolutions to the blog is like going on the public record - practically forcing me to keep them. So here goes:

• learn to knit - and actually knit something
• learn to Granny Square and make a little blanket
• figure out how to take good photos on my camera so my blog pics look all profesh
• think about doing some community education
• get a bit more motivation in the kitchen
• make our garden a lovely place to be
• make gravlax
• swim, swim, swim with the Mr and the little bloke
• ride to work. Often.

Nothing earth shattering there - but it's the little things that make a difference isn't it?

Mission complete

Before I fell pregnant with my lovely boy, I began to make a hexagon quilt. I saw one in a magazine and loved the old-school look. It reminded me of exactly what quilts should be - lots of memories and scraps lovingly made into something that can be passed down from generation to generation. I cut out countless hexagons from 1930's fabrics and began to hand piece them on the train to work.

Not too long after that, we found out that a little bub was on the way. The quilt became my gift to the baby and I set about piecing it with more gusto and a deadline! I imagined wrapping my little baby up in the quilt, all nice and cosy.

Days flew and my motivation for finishing it was swallowed up by my exhaustion. I simply couldn't prioritise anything over sleeping (um, except eating). By the time I was 40 weeks, all the hexagon flowers had been pieced, all the white paths had been pieced and most of the paths had been sewn to flowers. My trusty sister-in-law and husband pitched in and pieced with me. We would watch telly and the three of us would stitch so this little baby could come home from the hospital wrapped up in the quilt his mama made.

But it was not to be. On the night I gave birth, my SIL finished piecing the two halves of the quilt together. Fate perhaps? I had Herb at 10.23pm and she finished her last stitch at 10.30pm.

The quilt top was finished and it sat on its lonesome for a while. After about 4 months (memory hazy but let the story go on), I basted it. More time lapsed while I debated how I should quilt it. I decided to quilt around the flowers and inside the centre hexagon. So for the next 15 months I quilted.

And now it is finished. A huge labour of love and something my little boy cherishes every day. The quilt was wrapped up under the Christmas tree, when he opened it, his expression was priceless, something I will never forget.

My heart swells when I see him pick it up and take it to his bed - tucked in and wrapped up in my love.

Something for the boys

In yesterday's post I mentioned Lou. Well she's the brains behind ButtonsbyLouLou. What started off as a few buttons/hair ties/brooches has now spun out of control and she is racking up the sales on Etsy faster than you can say 'Wow - those robots are cute.'

And can I just say a few things:

• FINALLY there is something cute that you could use on projects for little blokes.
• She has two small boys of her own and somehow finds the time to churn out these cute accessories without total neglect of her offspring.
• She's nice and she deserves your custom.

So off you go. Check her out.

Kick up the pants

My friend Lou has kindly bestowed a blog award on me. It is very kind and I'm thinking of it less as a 'blog award' and more of a 'keep on trying' award. I can't think of the right words - you know when you are at school and you run in the athletics carnival and come dead last with a very embarrasing time (in my case, being lapped on the 1.6km run - still have very vivid memories of that day) and they give you an award which basically means 'you really sucked but at least you tried'. Well maybe that is like this blog award. A bit of motivation from Lou. I was telling her how I wanted to pretty up my blog, make a New Year's resolution to do more craft and post more regularly, master widgets, take better photos etc. So I think she's given me the required kick up the pants now!

So people - expect more from me ok?!