Sewing exploits

I haven't updated you on my sewing adventures in a while, so this post is a bit of a doozy!

Ok, so these leggings were sewn over a month ago. I traced a pair of Evie's leggings & added a harem crotch (I figured that would cover any fit issues!). I used some t-shirt fabric that my mum had hanging around from the 90's, which incidentally we both think is pretty cool! This was the only photo I could get of my reluctant model!

For our big trip I sewed myself a baby sling, which was a good decision because I used it heaps! I used this tutorial & I'm really happy with how it turned out. I used some chambray that I had hanging around, and the rings are from a hardware store. Yes, I did want a pic of Dexter's cute face, but he flatly refused!

Evie's much loved Penny made the trip to Melbourne with us, so before we left I sewed together a quick collar & label (with our contact details) in case the worst happened!

I noticed recently that Evie's sunhat wasn't shading her face (defeats the purpose really!) so I sewed her a new one. It's reversible as you can see here, and I used quilting cotton I had in my stash.

After my success at sewing t-shirts for Evie, Roger requested one. I traced one of his well-fitting shirts & created a pattern to sew this one. I'm pretty proud of it! Next time I sew one there's a bit of tweaking to do, but overall it's quite cool! (once again, this is some t-shirting from my mum's stash)

Ok, so I'm aware that this braggy post makes me look very productive, but I'm not showing you the pile of half-finished projects I have lying around!! (and some, like that sunhat, were cut out for months before they were sewn!)

Have you been up to any great projects lately?

Dex at six months

Hope that's not photo overload, but I couldn't resist! (and yes, Evie dressed herself there!). Dex turned six months while we were all sick in Melbourne, so these pics were taken a few days after our return.

What can I tell you about this boy? He is an absolute delight! The smiles, talking & giggles just make my day! You can't quite see in these photos, but Dex has this lovely, fluffy, sticky-up halo of hair, it cracks me up!

Dexter learnt to roll from back-to-front a few weeks ago & has now completely mastered the skill & I don't think he's too far off starting to crawl now. He's manoeuvring in a circle & working out how to reach what he's after.

We also have a first tooth on the horizon. One of the bottom middle teeth looks like it's trying to poke through, poor little thing!

I really need to wean Dex off the dummy now. It was pretty much done before our holiday, but then he needed the comfort while sick & the dummy is again firmly attached for all sleeps. I'm getting sick of waking up in the night just to pop it back it. The weaning must begin!

Cushions for Heidi

My friend Heidi has just ordered a sweet new charcoal sofa & has asked for my input with cushion ideas. Let me just say I'm super jealous!!  Here are some cushions I've found on Pinterest that I think would look wicked with a charcoal sofa:

skinny laminx

fine little day

how are you

my bearded pigeon

marimekko

my bearded pigeon

If I had a brand new charcoal couch to dress I would probably choose an awesome black & white cushion, something with lots of colour & then a couple of other cushions with a 'focus colour' to tie them together.

Yellow & grey are a great combination, like this throw:

crafty blossom

Any other hot cushion tips or decorating ideas for us??

The yucks

Hi again! We've just returned from the worst family holiday ever, you think I'm exaggerating?

I've been excited about our first family holiday for ages, flying to Melbourne and staying four nights, awesome, right?

How about Dexter waking up with gastro on the first morning there, then we all contract it and spend the holiday in our hotel room. Yep, not awesome! Although we did leave the room for a trip to the new Melbourne Children's Hospital, which is a beautiful new facility with a two story aquarium (gorgeous!). Incidentally we were worried that the kids were dehydrated, but they were fine.

We're home now, but still recovering from the after affects. Evie is fine and bouncing off the walls again. It's good to see, I've never seen her so sick & zombie-like. Dex is still coming back to food & drink slowly, but he's on the mend. Rog & I got this weird strain of the gastro that is more like a flu, so we're still exhausted & coughing, but getting there.

Evie says she "never ever wants to go on another holiday ever again" because she might get "bed sick with the yucks". So we might wait a while before trying again!

Here's a few pics that we took:

 We enjoyed a lovely breakfast together the first morning there in one of Melbourne's atmospheric laneways. This cafe had heaters & lap rugs, cute!

Speaking of cute...

These painted elephants were throughout the CBD, but we only managed to get photos of three, Evie loved them.

My darling Dex & the proof that I was on the holiday too

Some lovely links - 24

- free card download from Martha Stewart, via Charlotte's Fancy

- yummy tortilla recipe (which we've cooked a few times for burittos) from Dinner, A Love Story

- gorgeous velvet quiltcover & bedlinen from Castle

- lovely handwoven & handpainted scarfe from Milena

- aww, cute little kiddy tights from Harvest Textiles

- This video cracked me up, a real actor reading a Yelp review (customer review of a restaurant), via A Cup of Jo

- cool recipe for DIY coloured & scented lip balm

- in Denmark they're building a bicycle superhighway, so awesome

- delicious recipe for Pad Thai that we had the other night (with added little prawns!)

- recipe for Banana Date loaf, it's really yum! (I do half natural yoghurt, half milk - fancy!)

- some tips for travelling with kids

Family fun time

ha! I'm so obsessive. I haven't been here much this past week because I've been wrapping myself up in projects. I decided yesterday that I 'had' to make myself a new baby sling, so that's all I could focus on. At 5pm I realised I hadn't fed the baby yet (who was being babysit by his sister!) and the house was a mess - oops! Does anyone else get that 'project fever'?

Anyway, that's not really what I'm here to share about!

We're doing a new thing with Evie involving beads. We have a jar & everytime Evie is polite, helpful or listening she gets a bead in the jar, and when she's the opposite they're taken out. It's actually working quite well! (I got the idea from here). We picked up 60 wooden beads from our local cheap-shop & spent some time painting them, which was quite fun!

As you can imagine it's taken quite a while to earn 60 beads, but Evie did it over the weekend! I'm trying not to reward good behaviour with food, so instead we took Evie to Glenelg for a ride on the Ferris Wheel & Merry-go-round. It was a really lovely afternoon out! (Of course we worked some coffee & sweet treats into our family date too!)