Big Ideas for Little People (and big people too!)

I have had such a wonderful day! After a week with Tim and Tully away at various times and plans to sew, which were put on hold due to a sad baby, it was fun to have a day just to play with the kids and hang out the washing in the sunshine. No pressure or lists. And you should see little Evie! She just giggled and played happily and slept beautifully most of the day. Maybe it wasn't teeth after all? Maybe she just missed her big brother.

One of the fun things we got up to was to make our own crayons! We got the idea from our friend Anna from Feathering Nest. You should check out her beautiful nursery decor and other creative ideas for kids!
Do you have a collection of broken or worn down crayons? There was a time when Tully thought the whole point of crayons was to break them into small pieces!

So today, we spent some time tearing the paper off (I did this job because it was pretty tedious), breaking them up and sorting them according to colour in ice-cube trays.

Then we put a cup of water in the microwave and placed the tray next to it. I wasn't really sure how long they would take. I knew they took only 5 minutes in the oven on high but we didn't have silicon trays (which I would like to try for next time.)

They did take maybe 10 minutes per tray. And some of the crayons melted quicker that others so we let them cool, popped them out, then put the rest in the microwave for another round, (making sure the cup still had water in it).

So after what felt like a long time, we had some new, chunky, unbreakable crayons, ready for little hands! These would make great handmade Christmas gifts, don't you think?
Do you have any ideas for kid's (or big people) presents? We're going to try a few here over the next couple of months to see how many gifts we can keep handmade this year. We'd love to know your ideas!

Jodi. x

A winner!

Well, Super Tully is back, Happy Eve is back and everything is back to normal. Tully came home very cuddly and it was so nice just to sit around yesterday afternoon and enjoy all his exciting stories about jumping on the trampoline and going on the plane. "I was up, up very high, Mum! I think I was even in the clouds!"
Thank you for all your lovely encouragement this week as I sewed and cuddled a sad baby (maybe she just missed Tully?). And thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway! We have a winner!

When asked to pick a number between 1 and 24, Mr Random Number Generator at random.org chose number 3! Lauren, congratulations! I'll be in touch to see what you would like!

Have a happy Tuesday everyone! I'm going to do something fun and crafty with Tully so I can post it here for my 'Big Ideas'.

Jodi. xx

For the Boys.

My little boy comes home from Mama G and Pop's house today! I can't wait to see him! He's had such a wonderful time going to birthday parties and the beach and choir rehearsals. I think he's going to find coming back home very boring!
And, as I write this, my other 'boy', Tim, is at a job trial. Quick! Pray! It's for a job as a barista (making coffee). If he gets it, it will tide us over till he can find engineering work. Go Tim!

So, I thought it fitting to show you some of my boy fabrics today, and some of the ones I've got coming in.
These are some of the wonderful prints from Sarah Jane's "Children at Play" (plus a few extra stripes thrown in by oliver & s). The dresses I've made with her "On Parade" design have been my most popular.

These rockets and bikes ("the scooter one") are by far Tully's favourite. I have a particular soft spot for the paper aeroplanes and hats, and I LOVE the stripes!

Also on their way are some Herringbone by Joel Dewberry, (and some co-ordinates, but I can't remember which! They'll be here next week. Woo!)

If you enter my giveaway, closing tomorrow morning (hurry!), and choose to have boys shorts made, you can choose any of these designs. Just leave a comment at the bottom of my giveaway post to enter!

And to try out my new patterns, a giveaway!

You may end up hearing from me a bit today. After a week of sewing, I'm ready to share all these colours with you!

This week, with the help of this lovely lady:

And armed with these goodies:

(Rice cake to keep Eve happy, hot drinks, chocolate and rotary cutter to keep us happy. Yes, Eve did feel like she drew the short straw!)

I turned this PDF pattern from Sew Sweet Patterns:

Into this!:

I managed to tweak the pattern and make reversible shorts! I know! I'm amazed too!

When I first opened shop, some of the feedback I got was that people couldn't wait till I started making bigger sizes and things for little boys. These shorts go up to size 6! And while looking around Sew Sweet's store, I also purchased these, and would love to make something for you!

a) wrap dress, size 6m to 6yrs, b) romper! size 6m to 6 yrs, c) girls shorts, size 9m to 6 yrs.

The wrap dress and shorts will be reversible. The romper, well, it's cute enough as is, don't you think? I am definitely making one of these for Evie this summer!

So! A giveaway! Leave a comment below for a chance to win one of these outfits (including the boys shorts) made in the size and fabric of your choice. Fabric choices will be from what I have in stock, and I'll do another post in the next day or two to show you all the great prints I have (or are on their way to my house as we speak!) Followers of my blog, or facebook fans get an extra entry. Just leave an extra comment to say you are, or have become, one of these.

A random number generator will pick the winner Tuesday morning, Evie's Sleep Time!

Revenge of the Teeth.

Few! What a week. I quickly realised on Tuesday that my sewing and blogging to-do list for the day was to become my to-do list for the week. It's funny. I had a sneaking suspicion that my plans for a super sewing bonanza could be derailed by one little girl and her poor gums. 10 months of wondering when these little teeth would arrive and they come now!?
Thankfully, Rossi came to our rescue, making cups of tea, taking Evie for walks, taking my little sold packages to the post office.
For those visiting again from Celebrate Color, I don't always blog about teeth, I promise! My last entry in the competition was marked by the arrival of teeth. My 3 yr son got his teeth steadily but surely from 4 months. Eve waited till 9 months, just after I started turning this sewing hobby into a part time job, and it appears she may just busy us all with teeth-growing for the next little while until she catches up. And this week Tully's gone to stay with his grandparents and Tim has gone camping, so I had BIG hopes for what I could make. Oh well, I've been reminding myself, if my new little business venture can't take these kinds of interruptions from family life, then it's not compatible with family life.
One beautiful moment that came out of the chaos was Eve's first word! She was whinging on the floor, crawling towards me, ignoring all the toys we'd laid around her to try to keep her occuppied, when suddenly, peircing through the air, clear as anything, and with great frustration, came, "Mummy!"
Rossi and I just looked at each other in shock and I said, "Oh okay! Sewing can wait!"

Another beautiful thing which came out of the chaos was this new drawstring quilt in Autumn colours. I think it's my favourite!

I had intended to make a whole lot of colour wheel quilts like my last one but then I ran out of yellow triangles. I'm so pleased I did! (and I did take from it the little lesson of the beauty that can come out of loss, which is the story of autumn, really.)

For the quilting I tried something new (for me) and let the lines from seams continue till I had a repeated triangle pattern. I especially love the effect on the reverse where the white stitching plays well with the red and white polka dot print.

Anna Maria Horner's caramel and orange, mauves and reds are just made for an Autumn quilt, don't you think? They make me feel like drinking warm, spicy chai tea and baking bread, even though we're well and truly in the middle of spring here in Australia (and loving it!).

This new Drawstring Quilt is now available in my shop.

Big Ideas for Little People (and big people too).

Source: sueswink.tumblr.com via Jodi on Pinterest

It's a bit of a strange week this week. Tim left yesterday morning to run a teenager's camp out in the bush till Friday. Tully has two days of daycare then heads up to the Sunshine Coast for 4 (Yes! FOUR!) nights' holiday with Pop and Mama G. It's a long weekend here so the shopping I tried to do with the kids today ended in us sitting around at a cafe eating lunch and coming home empty handed.  And Daylight Saving has my head in a spin!
And so, instead of trying out some fantastic idea to share with you, I've been getting ready for a whole week of sewing (!) and trying to remember if Eve woke up at 11am old time or new time.

Source: fromupnorth.com via Jodi on Pinterest

I've been longing for this. A week to sew. Tim and I have spent the last 3 months doing a reasonably good job of negotiating back and forth about the house and the kids while he looks for work and I start a little business. But it takes time. And head space. And it's been hard work. The agreement has always been I'm the stay at home mum, and he's the working dad. That becomes pretty grey when my business starts off really well and work doesn't come by as quick as we'd hoped. So, while I miss him, I wonder if we need this week. A week where we know what our jobs are. Where we're not living in each other's pockets. Not constantly accountable to each other for how we spend our time.

Source: cdnimg.visualizeus.com via Jodi on Pinterest

Then, there's Tully. He's been away on little holidays before but not for this long, or this far away. It's always been just down the freeway in Sydney, where if it all falls apart, we can go get him. This time, he's going on a plane. He's there till Monday no matter what. And I know he'll have a blast, but it's still hard for a mum not to be a little bit anxious about her little boy going away.
And then, there's sewing. On the weekend, my folks came up to visit for the day and offered me a loan for my business to be able to stock up on yummy fabric for upcoming markets and the Christmas Season. It was incredibly generous and I was so certain it was what I wanted. But the moment the money was transfered into my account, I started to freak out! I lost my confidence. I've felt the same about this week. I think I've written about 20 lists of what I want to get done. All of them completely unreasonable.

Source: inspirucoocoo.blogspot.com via Jodi on Pinterest

So today I had a little browse around Pinterest to find some things that will help me do this week with grace and confidence. Do you like what I found?
I also found this:

Source: etsy.com via Jodi on Pinterest

I thought this was a cool thing to do with kids, including them in building a great culture in the home, though for our house, we would probably do it in pictures. But it also inspired me to tweak my 'to do' list for this week.

- Be kind to yourself
- Do something fun each day
- Stop when you need a break
- Celebrate your achievements
- Tell yourself the truth
- Enjoy yourself
- Do one thing at a time
- Go outside
- Play with Evie
- Rest

What do you want to get done this week?

Small Blog Meet!

I'm joining in the small blog meet hosted by Lily's quilts!
Go check it out, and meet some other people who live in the land of Blog. :)