My new pet...

I have a new pet, a small tiger or a cat - depending on the day.

She comes with me to the city to visit the State Library...

She 'torments' the other pet of the house by chasing, meowing and staring at her...

She always seems to find a comfy chair to sit in when shopping...

Or when at home...

I find her curled up around the house in various places...

Like most cats, she sleeps soundly in cooler weather...

And on hot nights...

And today she got to wear her entire outfit to kinder, for dress up day to end the first term.
Can you tell she was very pleased about that!

Excuse the dirty tail tip - she'd been dragging it through the dirt on the way to school drop-off!

Imagination is a wonderful thing.

We love you lots small cat.

Sunny Sunday performance

Today was a gorgeous day. 

So a backyard performance was staged.

There was a costume change and a meeting was held to decide the content.

It included hula hoops, ribbons and random dance moves.

A small cat even decided to get in on the action when the ribbons began to twirl.

The Mama-made blackboard bunting made an appearance (have I shown you this yet...)

Perfect way to spend a sunny Sunday.
What did you get up to??

Not I!!

Today was "Little Red Hen" day at school.

The girls have been studying about farms and where food comes from and it culminated in a day today where they dressed up as their favourite character from the story and made bread.

Of course they came home and told me they both wanted to be different characters....

Farmyard friends

Our girls love a good dress up day and embrace them wholeheartedly, as you can see.

So what did I do;

Cat - Fake fur overlocked around the edge then gently hand-stitched to a black long-sleeved T so it can be taken off later.

Tail made from polar fleece and fake fur.
Ears are felt stitched onto a headband - quick and easy.

Then we added a bow around her neck, and her tail as she requested, black boots and leggings and some face paint.

Furry tails all round

For the dog;

I traced an existing jacket and made a pattern for a loose-fitting top she could slip on and off over her head.

Added a slot for the tail to poke through, which has a wire coat hanger in it to give it shape and elastic for around her waist.

Spots are fake fur overlocked then machine sewn on.

Ears are polar fleece and felt sew onto a headband.

Collar is a woven fake leather I found at Spotlight with a black felt circle that actually has her name stitched onto it in hot pink.

There are two jean buttons with stars embossed on them on either side of the collar tag and it has a snap at the back for easy removal if required.

And of course the obligatory face paint and some leggings and boots.

Let's dress up!

The girls told me they were really comfortable all day in these outfits and they certainly beamed when they put them on.

The Emperors New Clothes

The three year old has new slippers.

She's currently wearing them and marching around the backyard with her sisters playing a toy piano, celebrating Chinese New Year apparently.

Would you have guessed we saw a band, complete with Chinese dragon, at a local shopping centre last week?

Did I mention that you are looking at her entire outfit...

Life is interesting here sometimes, last week it was nude trampolining!

Ahoy me hearties!!

Guess who got invited to a pirate party??!

The smallest was a late invite to the party but luckily was happy to go with her existing pettiskirt.

An easy pirate girl dress-up, pettiskirt, existing Pink Fig Olivia top in white, foam hat from local $2 shop, eye patch from same $1.50.

Leggings and boots in the wardrobe.

Oh, and of course the fake pirate tattoos from the $2 shop too!

I made the belts using satin and then had the guy who lives here punch some holes in with a saddlers punch then we added eyelets (just from Spotlight) and threaded it closed with a ribbon.

They rode up a little but the kids didn't seem to care.

I made these skirts a little less full - the bottom layers are 2/3 of the ones I made at Christmas time - so they were quicker but still effective.

My Creative Cohort

I missed joining in "My Creative Space "this week because one of my creative cohorts and her kids came over to 'play'.

The lovely Gypsy arrived with freshly made chocolate slice (hmmm don't seem to have a pic of the pieces she left here...) and two very sweet boys who had a lovely time playing all day with my three girls. (very hard to get a pic of all five of them...)

No sewing was done, though a number of future sew-along project days were discussed!

There was only the application of a couple of snaps and the chance to play with the snap press, with a view to, said cohort, getting one for herself.

Truth be told it was a mini-matchmaking exercise, they're never too young for that are they??

And as Bec pointed out after seeing the look on the face of the man-of-the-house in this pic - it would be easier to marry off a few in one go wouldn't it? *

We lunched on this...

Then they selected appropriate cool weather outdoor gear (which of course included a Curlypops Super hero headband, a sparkly cape, fairy wings and a footy jumper!) and we went to visit/terrorise the local ducks.

All-in-all a really lovely way to spend a day.

Thanks Gypsy.

* (please know that I write this with tongue firmly-planted-in-cheek, marrying off my children is not one of my major life goals for me or them!)

PS - normal sewing chatter will resume shortly - the machine has actually been humming quite a bit!

My Super girls

One of the weekend parties had a 'dress as a super hero' theme.

There is a notable absence of female superheroes - other than those with a more grown-up feel to them such as Wonder Woman and Cat Woman.

Therefore, I decided the girls should go quite generic - a 'make up your own hero', kind of hero.

So (stupidly I admit!) last night I decided to make three capes and headbands to wear this morning.

Miss L chose the rainbow stretch fabric and I teamed it up with some basic stars.

I figured if the slippery shiny stuff was going to be a pain to sew, it might be easier with a cotton back, and it was.

I have to say the lurid rainbow stuff was actually a breeze to sew - it moved easily through the machine and didn't snag at all.

I sort of winged the cape, an enlargement of the one I use for my caped T-shirts and I used the very well-written and easy to follow Curlypops Superhero headband tutorial for the headbands.

(Thanks Cam!)

So what were the things to note; I used Shapewell instead of interfacing for the headbands and this worked really with regard to holding their shape.

Next time I would probably make the star a little smaller, but I had that template on hand so went with it.

I put the stars on using Heat 'n' Bond which I had never used before but found it worked well, though takes a while to fuse.

I also interfaced both fabrics on the cape where the snaps were going to be for extra support as I figured they might get some wear and tear.

The smallest loved hers so much she left it on all day at the party and wore it to my basketball game tonight!

And Miss L had a lovely time watching it fly out behind her on the swing today, so the late night was, as always, worth the effort!

Wordless Weekend

Slowly, slowly...

That's how we've been taking the past few days - to recover from our ultra-busy start to the year.

Mind you, in 44 degree celcius heat, there is little you can do with three small children but barricade yourself into your home and stay cool.

Things have been a little slow on the sewing front too, only one little backpack to show so far, apart from the things my niece and I made - but I can't really take credit for those as she did most of the work.

So what have we been doing...

we took my gorgeous niece to the airport and said goodbye to her - always a fun outing in itself (and yes one of my children did go dressed as 'Dorothy'!)

I didn't get a great pic but here's the huge bag we made for all the extra stuff she had to get home.

It was 'plumped up' with pellon and has two internal pockets and a key hook inside, and a pocket with snaps outside as well as snaps along the top.

We used Milly's fabulous bag tutorial for the basic bag and just added the extras.

Then we made a matching mobile/iPod cover and made her a luggage tag to match as well just for fun.

We've been playing with hair styles

there's been lots of dancing on the deck in suitable attire (bee gumboots go with everything don't they??)

There was a little shopping for shoes ready for kinder girls and I got a couple of new pair that suit my current lifestyle.

Oh and I managed to corrupt another niece into the joys of sewing!

Life is returning to normal so I hope to be back soon with the backpack, I still have another three of them to make so get ready for it!

Taking it easy

The man of the house has a few days off and we planned some city sightseeing acitivites, like visiting the zoo and/or the aquarium without having to brave the weekend crowds, but the youngest developing chicken pox with a vengance put paid to that idea.

Instead we have found ourselves enjoying a serious lack of crowd activity at the beach.

Truth be told the weather is definitely more 'raincoat' than 'sunhat', but three-year-olds like to have all the bases covered.

What you can't tell from this pic is she has her swimming gear on underneath.

She's the eternal optimist that one!

How do you take time out??

Let's dress up

Justine Clarke is a big favourite in this household.

You may remember we went to see her in concert and then 'Santa' had me make some giant cutlery for the two big girls to use as a prop when dancing to one of Justine's tracks, Mrs Knife and Mr Fork.

This came about as they insisted on getting something to use with every track.

Umbrellas and boots for It's starting to rain; rabbit ears for Hop Hippity Hop and a teddy for If my Teddy Bear could talk.

That was all tolerable.

It's when it came to using a real knife and fork for dancing, that things became a bit dangerous. Hence the big soft ones.

Justine has a lot to answer for really.

These pics are the result of her song Let's dress up.

(Make sure you check out the footwear)

And Miss A insists her hat is a 'witcher' hat, and nothing will convince her otherwise, after all Justine sings "When the witches went to the witches ball there were 100 witches in the hall"

Sing that and see what the word witch sounds like!