me on a friday

Here's my contribution to this week's 52 Fridays. I missed last week, due to it being the busy-crazy-mad-rush week that it was. I'm hoping there is at least one nice photo of me from Mishi's party (taken by my father-in-law).

So, anyway. Today I did the quick and easy computer photo. With silly prop! My new beautiful cup, that I bought last week from Shibui Homewares in West End. I had a lovely chat with the lady, who owns and works in the shop, about her visits to Japan, and about Japanese tea cups.

Right now I am being deliciously cheeky. My cup contains a yummy, hot / cold concoction of vanilla icecream and coffee. Otherwise known as affogatto. I haven't had one of these for ages - icecream  is rarely bought in this household, this is left over from Mishi's party. And Ari tempted me. Friday afternoon, afterall. Icecream and afternoon television for the boy. Before we get the girl from her kindy.

Today I have spent a fair bit of time reading and working on planning. I spotted Steady Days in the side bar of Soulemama's blog*, and clicked over and purchased. The book arrived in the post on Wednesday, and I've been carefully reading it in spare moments. This isn't a cute-pretty sort of book, but it's so easy to read and so well laid out. I really like the way that there are no half-page headings for each new chapter (saves on paper). This book feels like one of those Cliff's notes to .... (you know the cheats guides to Hamlet or McBeth that we all read at school?); it breaks things down into simple language, honest words and truthfulness in the telling and the story. I really like that Jamie (the author) doesn't pretend as if she's perfect, actually she often reminds us that she's not. 

So, I've been planning how to be more organised. These past few months (weeks especially) I've felt lost and drowning in the vastness of it all. I've been weighed down. And have felt pretty useless at a lot of stuff. You know when you feel like that it takes a lot of get back up and get going with stuff. The piles of paper normally just keep building up, and the mounds of laundry almost topple onto the kids while they're trying to find clean socks. 

I've written out a daily, weekly and (still working on) monthly plan for the whole family. I've included chores - silly things that shouldn't need to be included in a to-do list, but that have been getting  begrudgingly pushed between Sam and me lately (like the washing up, or the laundry). I've included a half hour every evening, before dinner where the whole family sits down and talks or plays a game, or writes / draws together in our journals. We do always sit together at breakfast and dinner time, but we're often caught up in the 'kids sit down', 'stop putting food everywhere', 'use your fork, please', 'eat your veges', rush to school, work or bed deal. So - I'm hoping some small amount of time to sit and enjoy as a family will help us all be a little bit happier in where we're at. 

I also added a whole hour, once a week, for Sam and me to sit down together and talk about our plans and dreams and goals (both personal and professional). This is something that we rarely get to do, and if we do, it's normally moments between making school lunches or reading bedtime stories or rushing out the door to work.

I'm going to spend the weekend working on and finalising the planning. Steady Days book suggests to put everything into an easy to reference binder, and I'm going to work with that. I'm also going to consult Sam and the kids on it all, as I want it to be something we do together, not something that I enforce and dictate.

Hopefully this time next week I'll be well into the good feeling of being organised and on top of things. And I'll be getting some proper solid work happening. Rather than this dribble-drabble-nothingness that's been happening around here lately.

*And look, it's on her bedside table today as well.

doing ::

i have a long list of need-to-get-done. writing it here may keep me accountable to finishing it all in a timely manner. some things on my list are work related, some are personal, and some for the family.

work ::
write business plan + financials
think of name for this new venture
get a wiggle along with sewing stock for the Racecourse Rd Steet Party Market
organise new business cards, swing tags, etc to be printed
(this is the edited list)

family ::
finish bag with Ari
make kids at least two new outfits each
source fabric for quilt for Ari - I'd love your advice on any fabrics you can suggest that a 5yr old boy may appreciate
finish binding on Mishi's quilt
make fabric baskets / buckets for kids room for storage
make shorts for Sam
make placemats for dining table (can you believe we only have store bought ones!)

me ::
finish organising craft room
cover + hang all my inspiration boards
get through my mound of paperwork (which includes doing our tax)
make myself some pin cushions (only have some piddly little thing that looks like an over spiked echidna)
make some new skirts + dresses for myself for Summer
make one of these lovely little rabbits for a cousin (who's about to have her baby)
read through my new craft books and actually make some projects from them
make some new cushions for the chairs in my craft room. something like this


So, where to start.......
Please follow me along, as I attempt to cross things off my list.

** Bamboo photo was taken at Sydney Botanical Gardens, while on my holiday; it saddens me the way people write on plants like this, yet is also looks quite interesting.
And one of Mishi + me, playing games last night (using the computer photobooth camera).

stationery for presents

A monumental birthday (50th) of a family member happened a week or so ago. Luckily we didn't see her until this weekend just gone - as Sam and I were still finishing her present on the morning of driving down to see them! Same old, hey...

Anyway, it was something that I've had in my mind for a while. Working out the logistics of it before I started cutting into the fabric and sewing. Of course there are always more things you find, as you sew and then look at the finished product, that need a bit of tweaking and fine tuning. But I know that especially for family people they a) don't mind these little "special mistakes" and b) they might actually like them as it's the real proof that I made it with my own hands especially for them.I used my beautiful hemp / organic cotton in the natural colour, and combined it with some Amy Butler greens and blues. Those soft hues being quite perfect for the recipient, I think. A simple fold-around, or wrap, that does up with buttons. With one long pocket inside, that was divided up into three smaller pockets. I finished the edges with a fabric twill tape that I sewed together to form a sort of not-bias binding.Sized just right for our own custom stationery. Some of my fabric stitched cards, as well as some A5 sized printed pale-colour designs that Sam made for the writing paper aspect of the stationery set. Little bird on a brach, and teeny tiny gumnut seeds in blues and greens.
There are a lot more of these planned in the coming weeks, for an upcoming market stall we are having. Some with embroidery, maybe some with screenprinting, and definitely some with contrasting quilting fabric panels. I think, though, that I will make them all with the hemp / organic cotton as the main body of the wrap, as I love the texture of this fabric and the depth tones in the naturalness of it.I also made this recently, a custom order of pink pink pink stationery with wrap. I fabric stitched the writing paper, which was really fun.

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Keep a look out this week, as I am going to have a de-lurking day. I want to get to know you all a little better. A special prize will be for one of you is going to be made (well, started) tonight at my fortnightly craft night!

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in which I make a feeble excuse at my absence, and send you all around the place...

It would have cost us $42 to ride the Ferris Wheel, so we just watched from the ground. (Photos taken on Sam's phone camera. Also, I'm on Sam's Mac - photos are sideways and I don't know much about Mac stuff. Sideways doesn't seem too bad for these images. Just click on image to view it right way round).

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:: Computer + internet issues have kept me away. And then, just life stuff. (I like the way Anna describes it here).

:: Currently loving Abby try again. Check out her beautiful, nostalgic, emotional photography. Sure to give your day a different perspective, and a bit of peace.
:: Lots of little things simmering away here. Bits of sewing, and planning, endless talking about the same things we want to achieve.
:: Ari's party is big talk here, he rings Grandma and talks about the cake and the food over and over.
:: Sam and I sat down today, over coffee, while Mishi slept. To chat about some upcoming *important* planning. And Ari chimed in saying that we needed it to be more "designery." So, I suppose he really should be part of our chats more often, maybe we'll get him to take notes, or do the brain storming.
:: I also just came upon this very stylish family and these shoes. (Via 2 or 3 things I know).
:: And this lovely place (where the exchange rate is a little nicer to us Aussie's). Felt. (Via tinyhappy).

Talk soon. Take care. E xx

pieces of my mother

Last week Sylve went home to Dad's house for the weekend, and came back with some birthday presents for me. Some lovely ceramic rice bowls, and a glass butter dish - all second hand, and really beautiful, already being used lots in our house. And all wrapped so specially - everyone in my family is great at wrapping presents, but the way my Dad wrapped these surprised and pleased me. Some lovely lace ribbon that he found in my Mum's things - he still keeps pulling things out slowly, bit by bit and sharing her things around with us all.

After I opened these, Sylve presented me with a bundle of maroony-red fabric. Slowly unfolding it - some pieces of my Mother. A quilt that she was making, working on over years - I imagine. Hand-stitching little scraps of colour together. Using fabric that had had another life somewhere else in her life. Pieces of my Dad's lungi; scraps from my Mum's worn and used sarongs; left over fabric from the tails coat my Mum and I made for my brother's year twelve formal (that's a whole story on it's own!); here and there, pieces that I remember from coats and dresses and bedspreads and lengths of material my Mum owned, pieces that permeated my childhood - vague memories mostly.

(I love this one best, I think. That peachy silk next to the green turquiouse one).

Put together in a haphazard manner - which is who my Mum was, how she was. Colour on colour on pattern on texture - mixing and matching and merging. Hit and miss - yet always my Mum, unforgettably my Mum.

My Mum was vivid, vibrant, colour, warmth, texture, strength, depth, light. Love. Life. In her house, her clothes, her food, her words, her voice, her art (potting, drawing, knitting, crochet, sewing, embroidery, weaving........), her gardening, her yoga, her stories, her dreams, her wisdom. And, so thankfully, her children.

Hmmm, this post was meant to be about the quilt. And about my anticipation to have the time to sit down and take all those patches and put them together. To piece a quilt that my Mother made. My Dad has given me this honour, this gift, this treasure. I feel so blessed and lucky to have this opportunity to finish what my Mum started. To show her life, to have it in my house, to wrap around myself and my babes. I may need some help and advice (from all you experts) when I finally get to it - and I'll give details when.

(Just look at this cluster and combination of patterns and colours!).

A quilt, we know, is so much more than just about the material, the weave, the fabric, the colour, the stitches. Think of those words, of the numerous meanings for the word fabric of life; weave of existence; material; piecing, patching, stitching things together. We feel that a quilt has a life of it's own, due to the love and energy and attention and care that it's maker imparts on it - deliberately or not. Traditional quilts have names, for a reason; they we made for or by someone, created and developed, and stitched into life and being by a person (a woman).

When I finally lay this out, to look at, and photograph, I said to Sam - this is my Mum, isn't it. And, he agreed. I touched the pieces of scraps of life and memories. And smiled. With tears sitting in the back of my eyes. The way she used some fabrics backwards, liking the reverse print or texture more or differently than the 'correct' side. The way she put reds and maroons and pinks next to each other. And patterns with patterns with patterns. That was the way my Mum dressed.

Thinking about this. I am so like my Mum. My fabric juxtapositions come from her, my want to have an almost clash in the patterns, to try and find that harmony in the mess or loudness or lines and shapes.

I really wish I had some photos to show you, of my Mum. Maybe I will someday. Please read this, written by a dear friend (in our shared blog - that I'm sharing with you for the first time). It reminded me of different things about my Mum, from someone I grew up with, and saw my Mum differently than I did (do).

Okay. Now I will load the photos, and leave it at that. (Excuse the quality, late at night photos).

Thank you Dad, for giving me this most preciousness. Rather than letting is sit and be eaten by mice or insects or mould.