the fruits of my labour

I love this fabric. I’ve been dreaming about turning it into pyjamas for Elliott (with a long-sleeved shirt and everything, not cheating with an appliqued t-shirt) for weeks.

So imagine my horror on Monday night when, halfway through making the pants (the easy part), I discovered that all the cowboys are upside down.

At least they’re looking up at Elliott when he looks down. But what an idiot! I really hope this is the kind of mistake you only make once. Now I have to make the shirt, knowing it’s going to be upside down. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

It was my 31st birthday on Tuesday and Chris and I celebrated it last Saturday night with a simple meal of rainbow trout with thyme and roasted lemons, salad and crispy potatoes. And good wine, of course.

The next day, we celebrated again with the kids and Chris’s dad, with Jamie Oliver’s carrot cake with lime marscapone icing. The recipe is from this book and can be found here. I’ve had the book a while, possibly since my last birthday, and this is the first thing I’ve cooked from it. If this cake is anything to go by, I should cook more from it soon. Very soon.

Getting older isn’t so bad when you have good people and good food to get you through.

As I enjoy stating the bleeding obvious, I have to say it’s been a long time between posts. There are plenty of good reasons for this (of course!), but I’ll try no to go on about them too much. Suffice to say that between our suddenly busy social calendar, sick kids and sick Chris (nothing serious), a trip to Warrnambool, sewing, knitting, and lots of other things I’ve forgotten, helping to make the whole time a blur, I’ve found it a bit hard to find the time and energy for blogging. Which is a real shame, as I really want to be able to use this blog to chronicle this busy (but fun) time of our lives. Part of my problem has been that I really want to make some improvements to the layout and presentation of the blog, but have so much to learn before I can do that. And then I spend a lot of time reading other blogs, mainly craft ones, feeling both really inspired and really inadequate at the same time.

But what I need to do, I think, is just soldier on and make improvements how and when I can. And aim to post almost every day, even if it’s just with a few words and/or a photo. We’ll see how I go.

Right now, of course, it’s that time of year when there’s a million things to do. It’s comforting reading other craft blogs and discovering I’m not the only one who has unrealistic expectations about what can be achieved at this time and who at times feels overwhelmed by the number of things that I need to do and would like to do, and the small amount of time there is in which to do them. Like others, I just need to accept I can’t do everything (especially with two small children who need lots of attention), that I should enjoy what I can do and make this time about family, friends and fun. There’s so much I want to make, though!

Here’s something I’ve made. These were a gift for a friend’s new (ish) baby. A soft baby cube, using this great tutorial found via Nested, two bibs using the pattern in Amy Karol’s great book and a fabric card inspired by the pattern in Denyse Schmidt Quilts. (Yes, I bought some craft books. Very exciting!). This was a fun project and I hope to make more baby gifts soon. In fact, I have to, as there’s a baby coming next month. One that I’m aware of, anyway!

I hope some of the next few posts can cover some of what we’ve been up to in all this time. Now I’m off to hang out some washing, hopefully spend a few minutes on my next craft project and try to get over the fact I was too slow to get hold of Clementine for Isobel’s first Christmas. I had my heart set on it, but now have to try to find a similarly beautiful handmade doll, if possible, and I’m not sure it is. Not necessarily to play with (Clementine would have just been for show due to small parts), but something special to admire. Oh, well, I just hope she’s gone to a good home.