Jeans Quilt 3.0

It was time to finish it. I started it more than a year ago (see here). It lay around for a long time. I suppose these things take time, and a Jeans Quilt is no exception.

As intended, it's bigger than it's predecessors (Jeans Quilt and Jeans Quilt 2.0). It fits our queen bed with ease and is super warm. The jeans and pants came from everywhere. Some from Steve's sister Beck, others from people from our bible study (recognise them Valery?), some I don't even remember where from and then some of our own.

I am not sure when I finished procrastinating finishing the top, but it was done when I pulled it out at the start of winter. We were lucky to get the backing fleece for 30% off, because we needed a lot. It's not the prettiest of finishes, because of the thick denim and the batting and the fleece, but I don't mind. It keeps us warm.

Also, there was no way I could actually quilt the thing because it's enormous and heavy and my little Sally was struggling with just the binding. Oh well. I'm sure it will last as long as it needs to.

The girls love it, because they can lay it out, fold it in half, and they've got a great cosy warm place to play and hide in. Here is Rachel demonstrating:

I'll probably not make any more of these though, now that there is one for each of the beds, so I'll either have to think of a new way to use jeans or stop collecting them. Steve would probably vote for the latter. He might be right.... nah!

Library Bag Mark 2

Rachel was the recent recipient of an excellent new Nature Explorer Bag, and when I was getting the material for it, it felt wrong not to be getting some for Sophie too. If Spotlight wasn't having a sale, I think sense would have won, but as it was, I got material for bags for both girls for $20, which is pretty good.

We have started going to the Library more regularly again, after a brief hiatus, caused by I have no idea what. I think part of the reason for the re-start is the stick insects, because our local library has some bush land and a park to play in right outside, so we can have a play and collect gum leaves for Rose and Twiggy while we are there, and since they need fresh leaves twice a week, it makes sense to capitalise on the trip.

Anyway, the library bags I made for the girls when they were smaller, are still good, but they have both grown out of them, so Rachel has inherited Sophie's (sorry second child) and Sophie was in need of a new one. This, coupled with the fact that a library bag was on her school book list for next year inspired me to get sewing.

Knowing it would probably be used for school, I modelled the design on a generic school-type one. This way, even if she has completely different fabric, it still kind of looks the same. Kind of.

Anyway, it's fully lined, got a little pocket on the inside for her library card, a Velcro closure, and a small space for her name in the bottom corner (as per the generic school-type ones). The stripy fabric is from the stash (hooray!), which I've used before in some bunting. It was a quick sew and came together easily and Sophie was delighted to take it to the library today to try it out.

Nature Explorer Bag

Rachel got a lot of nature presents for her birthday, being the bug lover that she is. She was so excited to go and look for insects and collect things on walks with her new treasures, but unfortunately, none of it came with a bag. The sewing mum in me responds to this predicament quickly: "Duty calls!"

I did a quick google for Nature Explorer Bags and found this pattern that I had seen a few years ago. I'll be honest, it doesn't have an exhaustive list of instructions or pictures, so you really need to know what you are doing to use it, but for a free pattern which meant I didn't have to guess sizes, it was perfect.

I did go to the stash to try to use up fabric for this project, but I didn't have anything sturdy enough for the outside of the bag that was really Rachel. I had white stuff, not ok for something that is going out into the wild, and some blue from the shorts I made for Sophie (here), but that seemed not great either, so I did splurge a bit and got more than enough of this great Japanese fabric from Spotlight.

The inside and trims of the bag are entirely from the stash though, the lady bugs are the last of the material that I made Rachel's Easter dress from, the floral is from some skirts, and I don't know where the blue check is from, but I assume a mysterious donation bag. I got the vinyl for the see-through pocket from one of those plastic pouches that sheets are in when you buy them. I even cut it so I could reuse the press studs, though I feel that was overkill now.

It's got pockets on the inside for all her insect collecting tools, and extra pockets on the outside for whatever. There is loads of space on the inside too. We took it for a road test to the part this morning and the kids played with it for over two hours, running through the bush, collecting bugs, looking at ants. It was great.

The thing that they all love is this compass that I spontaneously added. I think it came out of a Christmas cracker one year, so it doesn't work well (if at all), and I'm not sure why I kept it, but they love having it there. It's hooked on with a lanyard clip that I recycled from one of Steve's conferences. The adjustable strap clips came off my last backpack that I wore until the seams fell apart. Not sure if I'm hording too much stuff, but at least I'm using it up!

I love this bag for it's functionality, it's awesome bright material and it's total usability. Rachel loves it. We may go no where without it again. The only lament I have is that I sewed the front flap material on upside down and didn't realise until I had unpicked the top stitching twice and finally got it right the third time round. Rachel does not mind though, so let's go exploring!

Stick Insect Home

When it came to what to get our little four year old Rachel for her birthday, we couldn't go past insects. Pretty much nothing else in the world delights her like animals, especially the small kind that she can interact with easily. So despite our aversion to pets, we decided to get her some stick insects. This of course also meant making space for an enclosure and getting said enclosure. 

Obviously, I love to make things, and any excuse to use power tools, so I made the enclosure for the birthday stick insects. 

I talked to another kindy dad for advice on enclosure making, as he had made one for his son's stick insects and was a wealth of information. I was going to try to make it out of wood that we had here, but that proved difficult to get enough wood that was the right size, so we ended up spending some money on pine at Bunnings. 

I didn't get too many work in progress shots, because, well I'm bad at it, and I was busy making, but here is one of me with the drill that dad took.

I started making at my parents because I wanted to use dad's fancy electric saw, rather than hand saw all of the cuts myself. Once we finished the cuts, Dad was pretty excited to help out, so we just kept going. Here is my Dad being handy too. Maybe this is where I get it from?

Here is a shot of the frame almost complete, clamped together while the glue dries before we put the final screws in. On the ground, you can see the door frame and the drawer which were both ready to go at that point.

I wish I had more photos of the enclosure as it was finished that day, because it was beautiful and everything worked superbly. Unfortunately, I decided to paint it to help it last longer, and this, it turns out was the wrong decision. The paint, which took ages to do, because it was winter and I did it over three rainy days (drying time was so so so long!), ended up being way too thick. The door didn't fit anymore, let alone open and close with ease, and the draw at the bottom was just not happening at all.

I ended up having to sand back most of the edges and we even had to take some wood off the drawer sides to get it in. At this point, the beautiful enclosure that we had made felt like it was starting to be a little less than perfect. I was not to know, that this would in fact, get worse.

I was using a set of old handles that my parents had given me. Maybe they came from their cupboards when they redid their bedroom? Anyway, there were four, which was perfect for the drawer, the door and then two handles on the top so I could easily pick up and move the enclosure. Excellent.

Except that the bolts for these handles were twice as long as needed.

Sigh. Do we cut them down? Do we get new ones? Do we pad it out? I ended up padding it out. Luckily I had enough extra wood lying around to do it, but it was painful. The wood is not sanded back, or cut straight, or the same colour as the rest of the enclosure. For the drawer, I unknowningly put the handle too high, and when it was padded out, the drawer ceased to close at all, so I had to take it off, putty the holes and put it on again lower down.

By the end of it all, I really did feel like this enclosure was totally hacked together. Notice I have not taken close ups of all the hacking we did? I'm not proud of it.

I am proud though, that at the end of the day, it works. The fly screen is left over from when we put fly screens on all the windows three and a half years ago. I knew it would come in handy. Oh, and the latch that's on the front is from one of the doors around the house. Probably one of the first things we removed when we bought the house seven and a half years ago now, so that we could paint. I don't know why we kept it, but I'm glad we did.

The enclosure holds the two spiny leaf stick insects that we got for Rachel perfectly. She has called them Twiggy and Rose, after about two and a half days of deliberation. So far we have kept them alive and they seem to enjoy living with us. We are lucky to live close to a park and the forest which provide an ample supply of gum leaves, so feeding these little ladies is fairly inexpensive.

Rachel loves them too, and wants all visitors to have their own stick insect experience.

Here is the enclosure where it lives in our house on top of the bookshelf. It works and most days you don't even notice the hacking. Whew.

Rachel is Four

 Thanks to her godfather Wade for these fabulous photos.

A very small party for our little bug lover this year, just family. Of course she wanted a snail cake, after requesting a butterfly, a lady bug and a spider. It really came down to a caterpillar and the snail, but I thought I'd save that for a party with an abundance of kids, so I can just make it out of cupcakes and then don't have to cut anything.

We have ventured into the land of pets. Rachel is now the proud owner of two female spiny leaf stick insects that she has named Rose and Twiggy. I'll do a longer post about the makings of the enclosure for them. 

Rachel had a growth spurt about a month before her birthday. Before that, she was still on the small side of three, hanging onto the cuteness of toddler-hood. But I can deny it no longer: she has grown into a big girl and has embraced turning four with excitement.

Happy Birthday sweet Rachel.