Library Mural: Part 2

The second installment of the school library mural! This was completed with a bunch of parents who had time on the holidays in the first week of January. We had a stack of kids come and just hang out with us too while we completed the next panel. 

The first part we did in the September holidays last year. This second part of the mural continued the lorikeets and native flowers around to another wall. This banksia flower below was done by a student who graduated grade 6 last year! I also let my girls help by allowing them to paint some of the background blue between the leaves (after I cut it in of course). 

We got more creative with the design as we went, and also updated the first part with an upgrade to the wattle blossoms and the grevillea. I think there is more we could add, and the leaves behind our original lorikeet still need to be continued over onto the next wall, but after two solid days of painting, we were all a bit done and just had to call it. Maybe next holidays we will do some additions and finish the final panel (the wall to the left of the original - biggest one yet)

Even though it was fun to paint, I think the best unexpected bonus of this mural is that now it makes it really easy to tell people where P&C meetings are - head to the building with the lorikeets! :D

Housewife 2.0

My very handy housewife has been traveling around with me for all the sewing for over a year now and I honestly love it so much. It's incredibly convenient to throw into a bag with whatever sewing project I have on my way out the door. Often I'm just using the un-picker, but man, is it so great to have the whole lot there. 

It came to my attention sometime in 2023, possibly term 4, as I lost a button on a jumpsuit I was wearing at work, that really, having a housewife is great if you know you are going to sew something. Equally as great to just have on hand if you are out and about and, like me, find yourself in a bit of a fashion emergency. 

I suppose the easy option would be just to pack my existing housewife in my work bag. It would certainly solve the problem, but as I only work part time, I felt for my colleagues who might find them selves in a similarly compromising position on a day that I was not in the office. The only solution I could see was to make a second housewife. (Actually, to be honest, I did consider purchasing a small travel sewing kit pre-made from Spotlight. But I have an abundance of almost everything that would go in it, and fabric to make one, so it seemed to be the more environmentally sustainable option to make my own.)

So I did. I went through my fabric stash for some suitable fabric to use up and found some final scrap of this cool flamingo and cactus print that I had made shorts for Sophie way back in 2020 and then a pillow case cover for one of these Christmas tree cushions. I also had a strip of that bluey-green stuff that felt a little fancy and made me worried about washing and ironing it. The bluey-green strip gave us the dimensions for this housewife as I just used exactly what I had. 

It's a little longer and thinner than my original, but has similar features. I used some very small scraps for the inside features like the Ikea fabric, (featured in this dress for Rachel, skorts for both girls and a skirt for me) and some final remnants of some beautiful animal print fabric (initially Rachel's Nature Bag but also her pencil case and library bag for school). No idea where the little floral scrap was from, but it's a lovely highlight. 

On what works out to be the "flap" part when it's all rolled up, I was inspired by some sashiko style stitching that I saw on the internet and wanted to have a go at. It's a Japanese style of hand stitching patterns into fabric. I think I've got room to grow, but it was a fun to experiment with on this project. 

I bound it all up by hand with some more self-made bias binding from a Lorraine Lea pillow case (which I've used before to bind things here). The housewife folds up in a similar way to the last one, and is all ready to live at work for a just in case emergency. I can already see it getting use patching some friendly classroom soft toys that experience a little too much love from the students (like this Happy Cat from Sophie's school). Hooray! 

Zero Waste

A blogger I've been following for a little while now is Liz Haywood from The Craft of Clothes who lives in South Australia (so amazing to find Australian bloggers/makers to follow). I don't know how I stumbled across her, but she is a big advocate for Zero Waste design and sewing. I'm intrigued by Zero Waste as the general sustainability situation of our lifestyles continues to be at the forefront of my mind, so I borrowed the book Zero Waste Sewing from the library to investigate. 

I read the book and considered the clothes. Some I liked, others were not my style. A couple of things I was keen to try. The biggest thing for me was having the time and brain space to read through all the instructions. I like to be ale to understand what fits where when I look at a pattern and to mentally connect things in my head before I start. Some Zero Waste patterns are straight forward, but others required a few mental gymnastics to see how things would fit. 

The first thing I tried was a top (could also be made into a dress) from the September installment of a Year of Zero Waste Sewing. I really liked the style and it was fairly easy to get my head around how it would work. I made it and liked it, but was honestly not sure I'd wear it because the back was so low. I know that's part of that style and my sisters assured me if I got the right bra it would be fine, but I just wasn't sure I was ready to commit. 

My next attempt was another Zero Waste top this time from the aforementioned book. I was using up some old bedsheets that a friend had donated to me in the name of sewing to make both of these projects. It's the first time I've used old bedsheets (though I have been known to use a table cloth or two to trial things before) and I really loved not having the pressure of "making it work" knowing the fabric had already had a great life before I took to it with scissors. And really, it was giving itself to the great cause of experimentation and the gaining of knowledge that I would go on to use to sew better and thus waste less fabric in the future. Definitely a good cause. 

Excuse the messy bathroom, notice the HUGE sleeves!

Not sure if this top needed smaller fabric before I started, or if the style is just not me, but it worked out to be pretty enormous. I still like the style, so I did take the sleeves off to see if I could make a sleeveless version work (or attempt to make the sleeves shorter in some way), but we were getting to the report card end of term 4 when I was sewing these last year and then the library told me I needed to return the Zero Waste sewing book I'd borrowed, so it got put in a box. 

I really like the neckline of this with the bow -
but the sleeves were enormous and the bodice might also need darts? 

I hope I get it out again this year, because Zero Waste sewing still intrigues me and I would like to give it more of a go. Wish me luck!

Japanese Banner

Here is a little something I worked on in the September holidays of 2023. I didn't know for sure if I would be teaching Japanese in 2024, but I had Japanese fabric and I wanted to sew something. Was I sewing in faith or folly? No idea. I might have just needed a project. 

In any case, I started with a yukata that I loved wearing, but had found on inspection that it had some holes in the fabric from some little bug that had been living in my storage drawer. So much of the fabric was still perfectly fine though, so I took the thing apart and considered how to use it. 

I decided if I were to teach Japanese again, I would need something for my classroom. So this, along with a number of random Japanese fabric samples that I had collected from homestay students over the years, my old sushi dress and a new piece of Japanese fabric mum had given me earlier in the year and I was ready to go.  

I did end up buying some black fabric for the letters, wanting this to be more than just bunting (if there is such a thing as "just bunting"), but also a sign for a potential room that I would be teaching in. Doing the maths, I figured I had enough fabric to make a rather long and big sign to declare Japanese to everyone. 

This did make it super hard to photograph on the floor of my house. I printed/hand drew all the letters on paper first to check size and layout and then went onto the black. Did the fancy interfacing glue stuff to get it stuck down and then zigzagged around each letter with white to make it clearly visible. 

Each of the letters down, I sewed the backing fabric on (right sides together and then flipped out) and bound the top with a long strip of exactly the amount of fabric that I had left. This project was actually a great way to use up all this fabric that would possibly have had no life otherwise. I only ended up using the sleeves of the yukata and a part of the okumi, so I actually still have a stack of that fabric left for something else. Pajamas maybe? 

Anyway, I did end up getting given Japanese to teach for 2024, as well as my own room, so hooray for faithful preparation. Hopefully the kids get excited when they see it too. My classroom as a whole is still coming together, but it is rather exciting to have one! 

Annual Christmas Clothes

Before Christmas gets too far away (like it absolutely  did for me last year, see these very belated posts here and here) I'm just going to do this quick check in and have a record that I did in fact make Christmas outfits for the girls. I already had fabric that I'd used to make Sophie some new shorts for 2022, so I grabbed it out and asked the girls what they wanted. 

Sophie wanted another pair of shorts. No surprises there. Clover Shorts pattern once again MVP. 

Pockets all round! Rachel asked for a skirt with hidden shorts inside. I explained to her what a skort was, and then modified the Clover Shorts pattern to make one for her. 

My only regret is that I forgot with the skort that I wouldn't be adding the cuffs, so it would have been prudent to add a bit of length. The skort fit her beautifully, but it won't grow with her for very long at all as a result. 

She's rockin' that skort though. 

Hebrews 12

Here we are with a new year before us. These holidays have been both long and short, as well as busy and restful. Now they are nearing their end though, and I'm finding I have more things on the list to do than I would like. I've made a bit of progress in these last few days, but many things, not the least of which is "catching up on blogging" are slowing down the usual reflection and planning phases that come with a new year. 2024 has started with speed; I feel like it's already racing to the big events. I can count the weeks to going back to work, school starting, milestone birthdays and suddenly holidays again, knowing these will fly by.

We started post-Christmas, with a bit of a clean up and out of the kitchen, though we haven't fully committed to an official "de-clutter" by any means. Steve has announced that the word of the year for 2024 is "AWAY" (yes, in all caps), and it's really gaining traction for us. Plates meant for the dishwasher - AWAY! Books lying around on the couch - AWAY! In the kitchen for me was 20 cups we never ever use - AWAY! I'm hoping that focusing on what needs to be AWAY can make space for the things we want to have in our lives, and also that we consider the AWAY things carefully before they go, so they are not discarded carelessly.

Another thing I'm looking forward to in 2024 is spending a year going through Bible Project's series on the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew's Gospel. I'm encouraged to be slowing down and letting the core message of Jesus' teaching start resonating and shaping me in new ways.

Before I say goodbye to 2023, my last thoughts on that year that was quite an emotional rollercoaster for me, are the bible verse from Hebrews that I kept coming back to. When I was tired, when I was numb, when I was exhausted or confused, I was reminded that the race is a marathon not a sprint, and that while there is much to go, Jesus has gone ahead.

So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees," the wisdom of Hebrews tells me. Take that new grip of 2024 and stand up straight Paula. God has not let you go and 2024 is bright. Sure the drafted blog posts count is longer than ever, and not everything is done on the list, but Jesus offers peace and rest. The kingdom of heaven is here and now, ready for us all.