The End of Solitude

School holidays are about to start and I'm noticing a distinct difference to the Easter holidays this year. We are actually planning things. Planning things with people. 

I'm feeling very mixed about this. Surprisingly I really enjoyed the social isolation period, even though I am generally an extroverted social kind of person. This move back to socialisation is proving to be hard. I often comment to Steve that I would almost prefer to wait until every restriction was lifted before re-entering society. If I can't hug people, I'd almost prefer not to see them at all.

Alas, this can't be the case. We don't know when this crisis will be finished, or when life can return to "normal". Maybe the not knowing is the hardest part. In the mean time, we've got to take advantage of the small allowances given, even if they are strange and uncomfortable.

As I write this, I realise that I have a lot of wonderful memories of our time in isolation, from the early days of the COVID-19 crisis in Australia, and I haven't really blogged about many of them. Sure, I shared about some sewing, some excessive fabric cutting, reading and also watching musicals, but we did do a lot more.

In an effort not to make this post an overwhelming dump of "all the things we did in isolation", I thought I'd just share some of the food related things, and save the others for another time. When you don't have to travel and find yourself at home a lot, there's a significant increase in time you can spend on food. Sweet delicious food. Like this pulla bread:

And these cupcakes that the girls got to decorate:

It was my birthday during isolation, so Sophie organised my favourite food for dinner: Pies and chips.

Rachel made scones one morning completely on her own. All I did was tell her what to put into the bowl and turn the oven on. Again, the time factor was such a grace here. Usually I'm in a rush and have to get them done as quick as possible. With no where to go, we could let Rachel take the half hour to make them and enjoy them when they were done.

A friend sent down several kilos of lemons from her dad's tree on the sunny coast and I made copious amounts of lemon butter.

The lime tree is abundantly producing so we made limeanade again.

More biscuit icing. The girls got to practice piping with royal icing, which is usually something I wouldn't bother with, but we had lots of time on our hands, so why not?

Ninja-bread men!

Sophie was particularly proud of hers.

Lastly this magnificent herb bread loaf, which yes, was amazing.

Now that I've done this post and taken this trip down memory lane as I lament the end of this quiet time of our lives, I think I'll go an make some cinnamon scrolls to help me cope with the changes to come. Maybe they will ease the transition to where ever we are going to next.

Rachel is Six

Another season, another birthday, and another bug themed cake. Will Rachel ever grow tired of asking for bug cakes? See the previous years if you care to reminisce: ladybug, butterfly, snail and caterpillar.

When she asked for a bee, I was hoping to get away with an ordinary cake decorated like a bee hive with bees stuck on. Rachel had other ideas. I was very happy with how the wings turned out though, and the cupcakes were very easy to hand out after we blew the candles out. 

Rachel's dress, which she wore with some glittery red converse shoes, was my last minute present for her. I made it two days before her birthday while she was in the house, using up any scrap of fabric I could find to avoid going out. That was the last of the butterfly material that had made this shirt, and the white embroidered fabric that I used for Sophie's Easter dress, and also the dragon fly material that has been in several skirts, as well as the light blue floral (lining) which was also in Sophie's Easter dress as well and came from Aunty Sue in Sydney.

Who knew they would go so well together? I wish we had a taken the time to get a better family photo on the day, but kids and running around hosting kept us a little busy. Oh well. Rachel spinning in her dress is a bit of a perfect way to view life with her at the moment.

She's carefree and fun, flighty and brave, keeping us on our toes and questioning our sanity as we wonder whether or not we can tell which way is up anymore. Happy birthday to you, Rachel.

Half Circle Skirt

When I made the girls half circle skirts at the start of the isolation period, they were so easy to make and well received that I quickly resolved to make them more. What has prompted this blog post about my most recent batch of half circle skirts, which is going to be quite in depth into the world of sewing, FYI, is that after the last post, a friend of mine actually asked how I did the waistband so that she could replicate it for her own daughter.

While I'm pretty chuffed to know that people are actually reading, I'm also still excited about how easily the skirts came together so I'm happy to share. If you don't care, I'm not at all offended if you stop reading now. For the rest of you, here we go!

Firstly, you'll need to measure your kid. I measured around Rachel's waist at about 60cm, and then I added an extra 2cm for a bit of give. These skirts are going to have elastic in them to keep them on, but they have to stretch to get up to the waist, so you need a little extra. Up to you as to how much you add, obviously more will let them last longer, but you'll have more bunching at the start.

I also measured the length I wanted the skirts to be from her waist (where the skirt would sit) to where I wanted it to end up (knee length in this case). Then I added a couple of centimetres again for hems and what not. These don't have to be super precise, unless you are really aiming for an exact length. I have a problem with odd numbers too, so if she measured at say, 31cm, I would have added two and then rounded up to 34cm just because 33cm isn't as nice a number (for me). What can I say, I'm a little bit weird.

Using the waist measurement, I went to the Circle Skirt Calculator and it told me the radius measurement that I needed to cut out the fabric. One thing you'll need to keep in mind, is that the Circle Skirt Calculator uses pre-set lengths, which are obviously for adults. Don't stress about it. Just choose the shortest length for the calculator, but then use your own length measurement (from your child) for your skirt.

I don't have a photo of cutting it out, but Sophie's skirt wasn't going to fit, so I just added an extra bit of fabric (you'll see it in the finished photos at the end) to make it up. Not the end of the world, but something to keep in mind if you have a child over about seven years of age.

After you have your first piece, lay it on the second fabric and cut that out as well - this way, your pieces are going to be identical and the skirt is going to be reversible!

With both skirt pieces separate, just flip them right sides together and sew up the one side that's open. You cut on a folded edge, so you should only have one side to sew. You don't need to worry about "finishing" the seams, since they will be inside the skirt when you finish.

The next thing to do is to flip one of the skirts and put it inside the other. Both skirts should have right sides facing each other, and from the outside you should be looking at the wrong side of fabric. I hope that makes sense.

Sorry for this bad night time photo! When you have the two pieces together, you sew the bottom hems together the whole way around. After that, you flip them back to right sides and you are nearly done!

Next step is the waistband. For this, you could do some tricky math to figure out what the circumference of your waist circle is, or, you could just cut a rectangle that is too long and trim it later. This is absolutely what I recommend. What you can't avoid is ironing. This helps so much, so don't skip it.

You'll want your rectangle to be longer than the waist of your skirt and however wide you need it to be. I know that's really vague, but everyone is different. Let me explain: mine is 4 inches (sorry, inches are bad I know, but my cutting board and ruler are in inches so that's what I'm working in). It's 4 inches because I know I'm going to loose about a half inch on either side in the seam, and then my elastic is one inch, and it needs two sides, and I want to give myself a bit of wiggle room, just in case. Make sense?

If you like working with smaller or larger seams, adjust accordingly. If your elastic is wider or thinner, adjust accordingly. If you don't like odd numbers (no judgement here), adjust accordingly. Anyway, you hopefully get the idea. Once your rectangle is cut, you should iron it in half and then the edges up as much as you expect the seam to be. That gives you a really easy line to follow to sew along and helps everything fall into place later too.

Double check that your waistband is long enough. Remember your skirt has a front and a back, so it's got to go across that curvy top edge twice. When you sew it though, you'll be pulling that curvy edge straight to match. See below:

Ready to sew that waistband on! I lined it up with the side seam of the skirt piece. You need to fold back the end of your waistband and then sew around the skirt along your top fold line - see the picture below for a visual.

When you get all the way around, you'll find yourself back at the start but with extra waistband. Now is the time to cut that extra off. Just make sure you leave a centimetre or two so there is enough to match up and to fold back to finish.

Hopefully it's visible in the picture below, but the excess is cut off, the end edge is folded towards the presser foot and I'm about to stitch over it to finish that bit of the waistband.

Then you take it off the machine and your waistband should flip up along the edge that you sewed/pre-ironed. Hooray!

Make sure the ends of the waistband are folded in, fold the seam down and then pin it to the skirt on the other side.

Then you simply stitch all the way around again and this time when you get back to where you started, you'll notice this handy hole in the waistband. Usually, that would be really silly and annoying, but in our case, it's actually perfect for inserting the elastic!

Put your elastic in, sew the ends together and then watch it disappear into your waistband like absolute magic.

Last thing to do is sew up that little gap. You can use fancy invisible ladder stitching if you like, or you can just zig-zag it closed like me. It's exciting to know that the join of the elastic is right there under that zig-zag and if I ever want to let it out or replace it, I just need to unpick that little tiny bit and the join is there waiting for me.

Hooray! You've now got a completely reversible circle skirt, ready to take out and play.

Or, if you are like me, you've got more than one. Rachel's skirt was made with some fabric mum had given me as leftovers from a dress she made the girls, and a new bit that we picked up on sale at Spotlight earlier in the year.

This is almost the very last of the unicorns, stars and that bluey floral that came from Aunty Sue in Sydney. This dinosaur print below is probably my favorite. It has also been shorts for Sophie before (as have the unicorns above actually) but it was fun to use it in such an uninterrupted way. Do you see what I mean about just adding a bit of extra material? The other side of Sophie's skirt is some strawberries that needed extra too, but I just did the same fabric rather than a contrast.

I dressed up that pink one (it's the reverse of the unicorns) with some of the blue flower trim that I used for this dress up dress last year. It's actually a gift for the same little girl, so I hope she still likes blue and pink. There is nothing quite so satisfying as a stack of freshly made clothes ready to be worn.

Half circle skirts for the win. I hope this was informative and helpful if you ever want to make your own skirt. Happy sewing!

Garden Updates

I feel that we are over due for a garden update. The weather lately has been so lovely, if a little changeable. Seriously, jeans and layers in the morning, but I'm in shirt and shorts by 11am! Then back to long and layers by four in the arvo. Madness. 

Anyway, because of the great weather, and the lots of time staying at home, our garden has been looking a little bit more well tended of late. The first exciting news is this: We grew a pumpkin! 

Out of all the amazing pumpkin vines, this was the only one we got, which makes me think it didn't appreciate being trampled on when we were building the Rainbow Fortress. Oh well. How many pumpkins do you need anyway? These pumpkin vines were all under the fruit trees and thriving in summer, but I tried to start another couple of vines in the same place and it turns out it's just not the spot for it in winter.

The fruit trees are well into their prime and producing lots of fruit. Limes every week. Actually, limes every day. Even though we make Limeanade quite frequently, and I made a batch of lemon/lime butter (six very large jars worth), and I use limes in just about every meal I can, the tree just keeps fruiting. So many limes! I'm constantly giving them away to everyone I see.

The mandarin tree has about 30 mandarins on and they are starting to turn orange which is exciting. Kids will be able to pick themselves and afternoon tea snack soon! The little lemon tree has given us one beautiful lemon and still has three on the tree too. I used it to make a roast chicken which was simply delicious.

I have plans to prune these trees back after they have finished fruiting to help keep them small and healthy. Who knew that I would one day be looking at videos entitled "How to Prune your Fruit Trees" of my own volition?

The front garden bed is finally starting to thrive again. After we moved it to the front of the house before the big renovations of 2018/19, it was sadly neglected and languished for quite a while (except to grow some very messy tomatoes). I've made more of an effort of late and things are looking up. I'm growing sage there for the first time, the parsley survived the possums and is looking healthy, and the most recent tomatoes to pop up were culled accordingly and are actually being taken care of this time.

We are also having some mild success with carrots (first time ever). To be honest, they are a lot of work, and I'm still not convinced they will be worth it, but we are giving it a go. I also have some capsicum plants that originally went into the bed next to the water tank before being transplanted to the front bed. Oh, and those spring onions that I regrew from the shop off cuts. Free food!

The oregano here is so healthy and the little blueberry plant seems happy too. Not sure we will get fruit this year, but that's ok. I can wait.

The flowers in the water tank bed are really taking off, and the bok choy, coriander, spinach, lettuce and rocket are all doing great too. The broccolini is growing, but we are yet to see fruit. I did plant at least 50 snow pea seeds along the back of that garden bed, hoping they would grow and use the wire fence for a trellis, but I ended up only having about four plants pop up, and to be honest, they are very pitiful attempts at snow pea plants. I'm not sure if was just the old seed pack, too early in the season, not enough water or what, but they just didn't take.

Despite this, we are growing so much and I love it. The lettuce in particular has been amazing, because previously I would have bought a whole pack of leaves and then only used half of it. Or got an iceberg lettuce only to forget it was in the fridge at all. Now, we can just go out and snip off a few leaves when we need them. So great.

The passion fruit vine is going great guns, which we are pretty pleased about, even though it's unbelievably hard to photograph.

It's grown up and onto the trellis and then straight over the path like it's supposed to. I'm keeping a pretty keen eye on it to make sure it keeps growing like it should, and nipping off any run away tendrils.

We might need to construct better support for that over the path trellis that's growing on, but it's working for now. It's all the way over to the other side and the plan is to train it down to the water tank, so fingers crossed.

The last things we have are some little snacksicum seedlings that I started from seeds (again from fruit I bought at the store). I don't know if they will grow fruit, but the start of their lives is looking good.

Even though we are growing so much, I still have a strange desire to have more garden beds. Is this rational? Am I going mad? I don't know, but given that Steve will probably provide the labor for the construction of new garden beds, and he is currently training to run 10ks to support his brother on his marathon, I don't think they will be appearing any time soon. Better just focus on keeping all this stuff alive and well for now.

Self Isolation Madness

I was really enjoying self isolating. I thought I was actually doing great at it all. Maybe I was. Maybe I still am. Maybe I enjoyed it too much. Here's what I did fairly early on in the isolating: cut around 800 three inch squares out of my scrap fabrics. 

That's a lot of fabric squares. The scrap fabric box is looking much healthier, and now I have this lovely box of organised squares. What am I going to be doing with them? I don't know. Let's hope isolation continues so we can find out shall we?