Things I have been working on lately

I suppose it's a little bit like cheating showing you my uni assignments and no actual unencumbered sewing projects ;) ;) But since Uni is taking up 100% of my time these days, I will show you anyhow.

Dad made Mum a cup of tea

She struggled to get to the table, she was so weak, but she wanted to sit at the table.

When she was done, Dad wouldn't wash the cup over the days she was in hospital.  He wanted to look at that cup and see her lipstick then he could pretend  she was still in the house, and not in hospital dying.

I made these using free motion stitching on the sewing machine and lots of coloured thread. I used two different colour thread each part, one for the top thread and another bottom thread, changing the tensions altered the colour of the thread stitches and gave variations for shadow, light and variation.

It was an assignment for uni. It was to tell a story using a cup. My cup narrative was called one last cup of tea. It was a personal story of Mum's last day in her house, drinking her last cup of tea in her own space before she went off to hospital. 

I Loved doing this work so much I didn't want to stop!

I wish I could work out how to not bunch up the fabric,(Please someone tell me!!) sometimes it got very bunchy, other times not so much!

Mola (Reverse Applique) representing Mums Garden.

Mola (Reverse Applique Work representing Mums Sewing,  Dresses, tops, skirts, shorts,  and the yellow swimmers.

Mum

Me, safe in Mums cuddles

A year ago I lost my Mum.
Things are not the same.
My world is more sad and more lonely.
I can't believe it's been a year, that seems almost cruel.

I miss you Mum. Always.

More Christmas presents:)

Firstly, I finished off 3 pentagon balls for my nieces. They are pinks, blues and purples but each one is different.

I embroidered each ball with their initial

Recently when the Australian dollar was awesome I bought up some patterns from Above All Fabric. I had intended to just buy Frida but I ended up buying Sophie, Julia, Nina and Frida as well ;).

I'm really sorry to the australian sellers I know we all should support you, but I'm not paying $20-28.50 per pattern from you when I can buy the same pattern for $12.95 per pattern even with international postage on top of that its still very much cheaper, I just can't justify the difference in prices.

This is the first Frida I've made and now I love it so much I have to make more!

For my cousins little girl for Christmas I made a Frida dress and a pentagon ball using mums fabrics.

I love those little cap sleeves.

And I love the neckline.

I love the contrasting band of colour along the bottom.

I love the gorgeous little elasticised pockets and the ties under the arms.

Actually I love everything about this dress.

And the Last pentagon ball, for my cousins bub.

I tagged it explaining how the fabrics came form mums stash, made in memory of mum, for them.

This one is mostly white, orange and yellow.

All of the little kids, (mums great grandchildren) got a ball each, the older 3 teenage boys didn't of course because at their age, I really don't think they have any interest in them:) I am still making them hoodies and board shorts each. I wont see them until mid January, so I still have some time to finish those thank goodness!
Just enough time to show you my Christmas presents from my husband. A couple more Jamie books to add to my collection.

And, a gorgeous sewing box, I totally love it!

Inside it has a little tray as well as pouch and pin cushion and lot's of space for other things.

He also bought me a 1 yr mail subscription to SewHip magazine, which I totally totally love because now we don't have to deal with the crappy newsagent lady who tells us off every single time we pick up the magazine! We've never been late picking it up, we've always gotten it within a day of it being delivered to them but she lectures us and tells us off and tut tuts and looks down her nose at us about all the other people that put magazines on hold and never come to pick them up. She even laughed one time when they forgot to hold the magazine as expected and we couldn't get it.
So a Christmas sewing update and then to sleep finally! 3 hoodies and shorts to go for the boys, and something nice for my cousin, who's been ace and doesn't mind waiting until I finish all the hoodies ;)

Spikey the tiny tree & beginning to feel like christmas

Meet Spikey! This year we decided to buy a real living still growing tree. Spikey will be big one day, but for now his pot is almost bigger than he is! He is small enough we have popped him up on the table otherwise he sort of disappears if he is on the floor!

We had to race out today and buy some very small, very light-weight tinsel and baubles because the larger decorations we had would have broken and bent Spikey's tiny little branches! After decorating him we realised we had no star for the top! So I quickly crocheted up an Amigurumi star following Amy's instructions.

The little star is made from a scrap of 5 ply acrylic using a size 3.5 mm hook. (US E 4)

The crochet balls I crocheted with a mind to put on our tree earlier this Christmas preparation season have been strung up across the window next to the tree instead, else the lil tree might fall over!

I finished off another present for my little cousin in the wee hours of Saturday morning- My husband went off to bed, and I simply lost track of time while I was working on it, and the next time I looked at the clock it was 4:30am!

I made several mistakes, who wouldn't while sewing at that time of the morning! For some reason it is pulling funny in the middle of the front panel.

Inside I used the red robot print from a spotlight recent sale and rainbow from my stash (spotlight a while ago). The green bias I used is pulling funny and looks all wrinkled in the photo, but doesn't look that bad in person.

The red robot part is a zippy section we put in a box of crayons but its large enough for heaps of things. The pencil part we bought some cool triangle larger sized kids pencils because he is only just learning how to use them. The blue and white striped section we put in several thin colouring books. He also is getting the pentagon ball with the J on it.

The Last but not least bit of happy that happened yesterday, and then time for bed! My aunt and I have been sorting through some more things of mums, when we came across more of her stash - we'd thouhgt we'd found it all...but no, there are still surprises. Besides another cupboard full of fabrics, we found more plastic bags of yarn. We also found boxes full of threads, patterns, laces and zips and velcro and elastic.
I simply don't have the room here for it, so we made the decision to leave it there and as I make room in my stash I can bring some home with me.
Here are some of the goodies, two tins full - I couldn't resist bringing home yesterday.

Zips, zips and more zips, and some bias and velcro.

A reasonable sized biscuit tin full of zips and velcro and bias and some sort of stiffened mesh tape...not sure what thats for.

This tin is heavy, deep and bursting.

The heaviest biscuit tin FULL, BURSTING even, with laces. So much lace!
Mums cupboards constantly surprise me and I'm a lucky, lucky girl.

Welcome to forgetfulville, population I forgot...

Sometimes I'm in a focussed rush of typing and blogging and pressing publish in moments, other times the post sits for days half done and i change it fifty times before i hit publish.
In my haste the other day to finally hit publish on a post that had been sitting there half done for several days, cursor blinking at me, goading me - I forgot to upload pics of the doll clothes I was talking about, thanks to a comment from Hilary over at Quilary for reminding me the pics weren't actually on the post.
Lucky they weren't deleted because I could have sworn I uploaded them to iphoto already, but hadn't! here they are, finally off the camera today.

Undies and head scarf. Undies from scraps of 80's knit fabric left over from a t-shirt mum once made me. Head scarf from a scrap of taffeta lining, I hemmed it using an embroidered daisy stitch from the machine and used some bias binding I had made that was leftover from another project. All fabrics from mum originally.

A collared crop top using some left over striped poplin that originally was on the back of the shelves in my sewing room.. I used a band of this for the elastic casing on the skirt. The floral is from mum, it was a small remnant of unknown light-weight synthetic fabric. You can also see her shoes, white felt, with an olive green rose bow attached.

A t-shirt made from scraps of 80's knit fabric left over from a t-shirt mum once made me. Shorts made from some heavy weight fabric, a bit like denim, but chunkier weave. Another scrap piece from mums house, I used it originally to make myself a backpack in the early 90's while I was still at school. the backpack was so heavy in itself, it wasn't much good for carrying things but it was handy for storing a sleeping bag that lost it's bag. I still have it somewhere.

Dress and bag. The orange fabric was a left over rom when Mum had made kitchen curtains that were in our house throughout the 70's-80's. Mum had always thought she would make the left over square into a matching tablecloth, but with the growth in the size of the family, they bought a bigger table, and the square wasn't big enough for the new table. I had used this fabric earlier this year to make some clothes for the Vietnam orphans, this is the last piece left, except for some bias I had made. The bag is a small piece of white striped fabric also from mum, lined with the orange which is also used for the straps.

Here is a bit closer look at the dress. The lace on it even came from mum, just enough left on a card for this dress. So did the white hair ribbons, already cut into appropriate lengths with the ends neatly trimmed into points, I wonder what she was going to use them for...

The doll she is completed.

So this year I am attempting a completely handmade Christmas. But I assume that as time runs out to Christmas, "completely" will become somewhat or mostly ;)
This will be our first Christmas without Mum and that's pretty awful. I hope by making something handmade from the many patterns, fabric, laces, ribbons, yarn and what-not that came from Mum, that everyone will have something from Mum this christmas.

I made this doll for my niece. It started out as a UFO from a year ago. I had got this far, and then buried it in a box, and several bags of UFO's. I found all it's pieces while tidying up and organising my sewing room!

I think the most time consuming thing about making it was the stitching around the thumbs. Each time I went to stuff it, it split. I had to sew it a number of times. This fabric wasn't the best choice. It frayed easily. I also stuffed up the order of things. Then I wouldn't have ended up in this turning out mess!

But eventually she came good, but the nightmare of stitching on the head was, well, ahead...

I avoided that job for such a long time! and in the end I just went for it, and it really stitched up in no time..what was I so afraid of!?!

By Friday she was ready for the fun part! I used this boucle style yarn from a spotlight sale for her hair. First the fringe, I measured the length i wanted, then doubled it (it helps to wind it around and around a piece of stiff card) then i used some kitchen silicon paper strips wrapped around the yarn and used the sewing machine to sew right down the middle of the yarn. The paper holds the yarn flat but together and it stops the sewing machine eating the yarn. It also tears off really easily around the stitches. I left it on to pin place it, then ripped off the paper and hand stitched each piece of yarn to her head along the same line as the sewing machine stitch. Then you flip the back sections of yarn forward over the front section and no stitches can be seen.

We ended up getting this freezing cold rain shower Friday, that turned into a really cold night. What better to do than pull out Buffy the Vampire Slayer boxed set and stitch on the rest of the hair. You follow the same procedure as with the fringe, but down the centre of the head, a bit like a crazy mohawk. The Boucle yarn hides any stitches. Then I selected every second or  so strands of the yarn and stitched them further down the head about ear level (if she had ears) and stitched them down. This way, even when my niece decides to un-braid the hair, the doll head will still be covered and not mohawked! but some of her lovely long hair will still free.

So this is what she looked like finished. 

She's very cute, I'd quite like to keep her, awww but my niece will love her! If I were to make her again, (which I will have to as I had cut out 4 of these at once) I would alter the thumbs to make them easier to sew. Also the soles of her feet were too big for her leg parts, so they would need to be altered. I would also change the face or remove the darts in the chin area, to me they just look wrinkly. 

What every doll needs is clothing. So this week so far, I have stitched up a dress, some shorts, top, skirt, handbag, shoes undies and a head scarf!

Now I'm exhausted and she is being wrapped up for christmas! Yay! one down, 20 more to go!

Also some exciting packages came yesterday that made me almost squeal and be overly, overly excitable when saying thank you at the delivery man, as he handed them over.... I believe he now feels that I am a weirdo...but never-the-less, One package came from olivia in Germany as part of a Swap-bot.com swap of craft leftovers.
It was an envelope filled with, yarn, stickers, knitting needles, an ornament kit, tape, beads, a stamp, pieces of fabric and a lovely postcard.

The second package was an order I placed ages ago from Bendigo Woolen Mills. They've been super-busy with a huge sale on.
It's 100% cotton, it's 4 ply, (very very thin and a bit scary for me) as I am a beginner knitter. I bought it to knit up some stuff for Garry's cousin who is having a baby in march. It's so very cute and pretty colours too.

I had not knitted rib before last night, I was learning and making heaps of mistakes, so last nights attempt was very very poor! today I will have to pull it all back and start again. The great thing about it is that it is not wool, and so it is not so icky and fluffy and warm to knit in this hot muggy weather we've been having the past couple of days.
I was so excited I started knitting it straight away, despite having not finished heaps of other things - I know I know!!
The pattern came form mums knitting stash, I photocopied it to keep the original nice. It is from New Idea magazine, March 1976 just a few months before I was born!! I don't know if Mum ever knitted it...I hope so! I am making this first one striped, because I love little stripes. It also means I can use all the colours at once!
That's what I've been up to:)

Sometimes the Mud bogs you down, sometimes it cleanses your soul

The last few months I have felt so bogged down. We've had to deal with 2 family members stealing things from my Mum & Dads house while Mum was dying in hospital - who does that!!! People we loved and trusted.
Mum left explicit lists of instructions on who was to get what and now we can't fulfil those wishes because things have gone missing and other things have gone missing that should have stayed with Dad in the house until he passes on.
We are still trying to work out all the things stolen, but so far, clothing, sewing patterns, a vase, money in named money boxes for Mum's grandchildren, Mum's parents photos in frames, a coin collection for one of the Grandsons and loads of jewellery that Mum had specifically listed for each of her Children and Grandchildren.
We were all practically living at the hospital for 6 weeks before Mum passed away we just thought we were all going slightly round the bend with stress and tiredness and thats why we weren't able to find things like Mums big heavy vase that had always been in the same place in dining room.
There was an out of town family member who stayed in the house but left just before Mum died.
The day after she left, was when we noticed some of the things missing.
Then another family member arrived and we began to notice more and more things going missing until she left. Things from Mum's lists, things Dad needs, things that we knew had been there days before and other things that we had put in specific places for other people who hadn't arrived yet. My cousins baby had her clothing taken, it was there the night before and gone the next day when this family member went home.
It still makes me sick inside.
Then there were the family arguments between my aunt, my sister and my cousin. They decided to air their laundry in front of everyone and tried to make all of us take sides. the day before my Mum's funeral, they screamed at each other - I was dumbstruck and shell shocked! I really still am at a loss to understand, why now!!? why right this moment when I can barely breathe or dress or function, and my mum is gone. Seeing them do that stole the last sap of strength I had left and it was only the day before Mum's funeral, I still had the hardest day in front of me.

I was like a zombie, walking, talking doing, but barely there, but noone much noticed, they were too busy arguing and stealing and complaining and stabbing each other in the back, and demanding we cook them all home cooked dinners, when all we could barely manage to swallow ourselves were sandwiches. Everything tasted like sand. While they argued, or sat back, relaxed, talked, laughed, drunk booze, slept in and watched TV,  they gave me more and more things to do, organise, look after, plan, fix up and run around after on top of the funeral arrangements. More and more stuff! I could barely drag myself out of bed and dress myself, but I did. I was a zombie. I felt like I was literally walking around with boggy mud in my brain. It didn't stop, not for the funeral, not when I returned to work the next week, not when most of the family went home, not for the school holidays.

It didn't stop, not until we went camping. Then everything began to change.

The rain cleansed the earth and removed the mud from my brain, the quiet started to heal me inside and the good people we camped with showed me what it was like to be normal again. I wasn't quite there yet, but at least I had felt glimpses of what it was in the laughter and the quiet.

Yesterday I cleaned the house a bit, did some washing, sewed a lot and listened to a 3 mth backlog of podcasts.

Yesterday was so ordinary.

Yesterday everything was the same on the outside, but yesterday everything changed on the inside. 

I felt normal.