Life from Tully's View.

Hello! It's my birthday today! Big 31! I feel like such an adult, being in my 30s. Like a real adult. Don't ask me what that means! Probably just that I'm doing what I love and don't care as much about what people think. I have had such a lovely day. Spent some birthday money this morning on some beautiful and ridiculously cheap fabric, kicked a footy outside with Tully, was taken out for lunch by the beach with the lovely Rossanne, and have come home to the smell of yummy, gluten free birthday cake. Hmmm, I'm feeling very loved!

A few days ago, I heard the sweet sound of Tully muttering under his breath, "Oh yes, that's beautiful. Very nice! Oh, I just love that colour. Oh, great shot!" I turned and looked and he had the camera. Instead of taking it off him like I normally do, I let him have a play. Here's Tully's photographic journal of the afternoon.

Tim working at his desk.

My fabric scrap bin. :)

The current favourite story.

High chair

Sewing

Feeding Eve Lily.

Sorry if you're the kind who get sea sick from this kind of thing! I thought they were fun! x

A Change in the Weather.

I think for the last two months I've been waiting. In June, Tim was busily finishing his degree, in July we went on holidays, got sick, organised a big local conference. Now it's August. Back to everyday life. Or not 'back'. Because we haven't been here before. Tim's looking for work. It's a season we don't know how long will last.
I've been looking forward to this change. Tim and I have been studying the whole time we've been together, so I'm used to having him around, being part of everyday family life, negotiating our roles and expectations as big assignments arise or a new baby comes, or Tim takes on some part time work. But this is different. This is unemployment. All that time to look after the kids while I sit at the sewing machine. (Can you see where this is going??)
So, this morning, Tim and I came to the unfortunate realisation that our expectations about how this season would be spent were quite different from each other. He's been longing for a break. Me too. He's been wanting to bury himself in a pile of things he's put off. Me too. He's been wanting to sit at his desk uninterrupted... Ok, so our expectations weren't that different, just incompatible.
When we were both at uni, so much of our life was shared. Even after Tully was born, we would study together, host friends together. I was studying History which really interested him and he was studying Engineering which baffled me but I was happy to listen. We had interesting dinner conversation and a life outside the home. Now I like to sew, and I'd like it to fill more of my time. But it's not nearly as exciting as World War Two or politics or the GFC.
How do you navigate a new season together? How do you pursue new interests without just becoming house-mates that just take turns looking after the kids? And how to you hold your dreams lightly, to allow room for the other to hold theirs?
Any ideas?

A Sunny, Winter Daycare Day

Sunny studio, open windows, bare feet, happy baby...

...and my little homey at Amanda's house.

I'm coming to eat you!

Sewing, Sunshine and the Curse of Forgetfulness.

Well, I've just sat down and gone through some photos to show you and I feel a bit silly. I've been complaining to myself most of this week (in between times of celebrating the sunshine and winning the battle against my washing) about my lack of time to sew. I feel like I spend all week holding a clingy baby and cleaning up after a newly toilet trained toddler. I feel like I never have time to try out all the ideas in my head. But these photos are evidence that that's not really the case. I still would like to lock myself in a room for 2 weeks, but maybe that wouldn't even be enough. Maybe nothing would. Maybe I would just remember all that time spent unpicking or rethreading the bobbin...

Shades of pink and white hanging in the sun.

Well, the reason I have all these photos is because I keep seeing grades of colour and light in everything. You know when you do something for a while, you start to see it everywhere? It used to happen to me when I worked on a cotton and vege farm in western NSW. Whenever I turned my head or closed my eyes I saw little clouds of cotton or walls of pumpkins. Well, this week, I've kept a bit of a photo log of the colour around me. I've seen quilts in my washing, my kids, my kids' lunch. (I tried to take a photo of that sandwich cut into triangles but Tully didn't want to wait long enough for me to grab the camera!)

Here's the clingy but adorable Eve Lily enjoying the sunshine in whites and greens:

My pins in silver and gold:

And our woolens in funky stripes:

And finally, proof that I don't just wash clothes and take photos of it:

New triangles quilt top done.

Then backed, basted and quilting started.

And my sweet little diamond quilt, put on hold while I finished Gen's rainbow one, now almost finished.

And I finally remembered to take this present to new little Pippa Faith at playgroup on Friday. And her talented mum Joanna took these for me:

There's even more in my head. I have vintage sheets I want to cut up, buttons to sew on dresses, and more, more of everything I want to make to put in my Etsy store in the next few weeks. But also, somehow, I want to have a posture of patience and thankfulness and enjoying each moment... (and if you would like to enjoy a moment with my little girl, come on over!)

Hope, pray and cross my fingers.

Here are Zaria's new deers.
I started cutting and sewing Zaria's deers together in the post holiday bliss a couple of weeks ago. The deers and I were getting along ever so well until I realised I had cut the sleeves on the deer side too short, two inches shorter than the little birds. Urgh...

The deers and I were not to speak or even look at each other for another week or so, while I came to terms with cutting new sleeves out of that beautiful long rectangle I managed to save as leftovers.

Every time I have cut out this pattern, I have made a major mistake. I have lost a piece, I have cut out sleeves upside down (the curse of using fabric that has a right way up!), I have cut into a piece that was sneekily laying under the fabric I was cutting out. I don't know if it's because I sew when I'm tired, or I'm too rushed and enthusiastic to check or if, like last week, there are just some things in life you don't look for until you've been hit in the face with them. Either way, I am learning to take a deep breath, tell myself it's all part of learning and try not to beat myself too hard with that imaginary stick.

So this week, I decided to make peace with the deers and, as a compromise, cut a small rectangle to lengthen the sleeves. I was pretty proud of my simple idea. It's amazing how a time of calming down and letting the disaster fade allows for creativity and resourcefulness. But when I went to measure, the difference in length had disappeared! I checked and double checked. Yep. The deers had either remorsefully fixed themselves, or the fabric gods had come to visit, or maybe it was just that tired thing again.

Whatever happened, next time I come into conflict with my sewing, I will definitely be letting it sit for a week while I walk away, hope, pray and cross my fingers that when I come back with fresh motivation and patience, the disaster has either been miraculously averted or just shrunk to a very small, manageable, un-disaster-like situation. :)

Quilt finished!

Well, I've come to terms with the fact that maybe 2 finished quilts and a cute jacket was probably stretching it a bit this week but I can show you this one. This is Genevieve's Quilted Rainbow, a lap quilt to keep her all snug in the evenings in front of the tele because she has just moved from Brisbane to Canberra. Brrrrr!

 Isn't it fun? I hand quilted along the lines, sometimes on either side of the line, but soon decided that if I kept that up, I wasn't going to finish it till next century. Then I stitched around the border 3 times. For the binding, I used different fabrics from the quilt to keep it colourful.

 And here's the back! I just love that red!

I find it so hard to finish a quilt because sewing always gives me a million ideas of what else I can make. But here it is, from cold, windy Newcastle! xx