Christmas Sewing: Dad's Shirt

Here is a short post about sewing a fun shirt for my Dad for Christmas. My Dad loves lots of colour and birds and though I was bummed that I couldn't get something with cockatoos or rainbow lorikeets, the fun willy wag tales print was still great.  

Not gonna lie: the pocket placement is perfection. 

Just used the men's shirt pattern I have from making Steve a couple of them.

It was a little stressful to sew this, because I really wanted it to be great quality. Dad's happy face when he saw it was worth it. I did have to do some adjusting since you can only get so accurate on the fit with just numbers, but still a total win. 

Happy New Year!

Here we are again ready for another year travelling around the sun. The incredible busyness that was the end of November, all of December and the start of January has finally subsided and this last week has been full of much slower paced days, family time, reading and rest. 

I did read a bit last year, but there were a number of books that actually languished around the house for weeks (or, in some cases months (I'm ashamed to admit!)) before I picked them up. It is completely irrational and almost inconceivable to me that starting a book feels like such an effort that at 8:30 at night it's often a more palatable option to doom scroll or watch junk food TV. The reward of reading is always so much more than the former options will give, but despite knowing this, I'm still hesitant to reach for the book. 

In any case, I've kicked off the year with Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams, The Dressmakers of Auschwitz by Lucy Adlington and Bottchan by Souseki Natusme. An eclectic list, but for the most part enjoyable reads. The Dressmakers of Auschwitz was moving (to say the least!), informative and engaging, but did leave me feeling the privilege of being in Australia, while so many other parts of the world, where countries are right up against their neighbours, are dealing with much more conflict than we can even comprehend. 

Still, I move on, since we must, and I have a list of posts to write thanks to all the sewing I have done. Not one or two, but three Christmas presents this year were handmade, and post Christmas there was a slew of small sewing things that just got done as well. I also noticed as I reflected on the year of 2024, that of the fabric I purchased in Japan, the three pieces that were intentionally for me, were all made into dresses (here, here and here). 

There is a huge sense of satisfaction knowing that I actually used the fabric that I bought for its intended purpose and it didn't just languish in the drawer. This year I'd like to continue that trend and intentionally sew up some fabric that I have. Not sure if I want to go the whole Make Nine, but definitely planning some sewing projects wouldn't go astray. First though, I need to get Sally serviced, since the amazing sewing that I've done would not be possible without her and she's now needing a bit of TLC. 

Until I get going on those posts, here is a sneak peak at some Christmas sewing to get you excited. 

Happy 2025!

That's a Wrap

Reflecting that many bloggers out there do a wrap up post at the end of the year, neatly cataloging all their makes, or highs and lows to look back on in the future, I lamented to Steve that I can't do that since I've got so many things that I've made in the last six weeks that are as yet, un-blogged, my list would be pretty incomplete, or at least not a good reflection on the year. I guess people who blog for work can be a little more planned about things and maybe they are working in advance, but not so much with me. Even though I've been at the blogging for nearly 20 years now....

Anyway, in lieu of a "Here are all the things I made in 2024" I thought I'd do a little wrap up post with the fun things that have happened in the last six weeks that have helped the year speed to it's ending. Things that are just small and fun but special to us and I'll want to remember. 

The girls made boats. 

With an eleven week term to finish the year, the teachers at the girls school got creative and ran a bunch of activities to make the final week interesting and fun. One of these was a boat race across the school pool. Students were invited to make their own boat and it had to carry a ping pong ball across the eight metre pool. Both Sophie and Rachel were interested so we got into it. 

Inspired by the Pop-Pop Boat in Ponyo, they investigated different engines. Rachel made her boiler from a beer can and straws which was powered by steam when the heat from the candle did it's job. Sophie tried a variety of different designs - variations on the same theme - the most complex of which was bending copper pipes to be the boiler. Unfortunately her boat couldn't take the weight of the pipes and we had to try again. 

There was so much trial and error in both the boats. Loads of fixing one thing to have something new break. Sophie's especially which went from wood, to two layers of wood, to wood with balloons (supporting the weight of the pipes), and then to a variety of different milk bottle designs (when the balloons caused too much drag and we needed to nix the pipes in favour of a more compact boiler). After we finally gave in with the boiler, we switched to fan powered and Sophie did all the wiring to make the fan work from a 9V battery, including a switch in the circuitry. Thanks to girl guides for teaching her how to do most of that! 

Rachel, testing the Carmelita 3 in our neighbour's pool.

In the end we learnt a lot and had two functioning boats to launch in the pool on race day. Neither won, (or even made it all the way across the pool), but neither did they sink, so we still counted it a victory. The boats were named after we finished reading and watching the Netflix version of A Series of Unfortunate Events,  the Carmelita 3 (Rachel's boat), Beatrice 2 (Sophie's pipe boat) and The Persistence (Sophie's final fan boat). 

Sophie has been given the leadership role of Library Captain for 2025 at school. We are pretty proud of our girl, and think the role suits her to a T. Both girls actually signed up as Library Helpers this year and were very serious about turning up for their "shifts". In the last week of school when the kids were loitering around classrooms getting given jobs by teachers, both girls were requested at the library to help catalogue the new home readers. Hilarious. 

I came to school in my staff week to find this little beauty on my classroom door. I rescued him, took this selfie and he promptly jumped on my head. Managed to get him into a nearby garden to hopefully live out a full and happy life; it honestly made my day. 

Even when my school year wrapped up (a week earlier than the girls), I wasn't resting. Typically, I volunteered to help coordinate the Community Carols event hosted by the girls' school. It was a lot of work, easily twice the size of last year, but it made my heart oh so full to see the churches of the area coming together to celebrate Christmas and serve the community. 

After that, I spent the week packing things up and sorting things out and then Steve and I went off to Bundy for a quick one night (the girls started their holidays with sleepovers at grandparents) to celebrate Steve's sister's 30th. 

I got to make the cake. Which was a lot of fun. 

We had thought we were going to miss our Street Christmas Party (being in Bundy) but the Saturday night in Brisbane was so rainy they ended up postponing until the next day. Hooray! Steve and I could make it after all. The girls had made oreo truffles and my contribution to the food was this mango and avo sushi platter. 

Mango sushi - so delicious! 

Speaking of food, the following Saturday my family got together to celebrate what would have been my Pa-Pou's 100th birthday but also, 100 years of the Greek Faros Family in Australia. We all made greek food and had a lovely evening together. I contributed this bread which was just delicious. 

It was really lovely to be together sharing food and memories. I heard a language teacher recently mention that they feel bi-cultural, and I think I often feel that way. Growing up in Australia but with a strong connection to our Greek heritage. It's even more confused now with how influenced we are by my Japanese experiences, but I think it's something to embrace. What is God's vision of the future if not a city where every nation and every tongue is represented?  

Steve has continued sweating it out at Jiu-Jitsu each week, despite some injuries this year to level up to his purple belt. It's been over four years of training and he still loves it. Sophie had a six month break but has decided to give it another shot and now we can't keep her away - even in the heat of summer. 

Both girls helped to paint some Christmas decos for Church this year and Rachel is pretty proud of her little cow in the nativity scene. 

I have sewn so much - lots of presents and then just lots of little things. Actually looking forward to cataloging those as well (it kind gives January an easy start having all these things made and ready to blog about :P), just have to find the time. 

I'll finish this post of somewhat random collection of things with what I consider to be the Quote of the Year from Rachel. Last week, the girls had come with me to grab some groceries and we drove past school. I mentioned that the playground was dismantled (the P&C are funding a new one next year). Rachel says: "Oh that playground. I didn't play there much because it was always infested with children."

Organised School Painting: Ninja Skills

Organised as I am, I finished this school year by preparing for an activity that's happening in March 2025. Since I've taken over as Japanese teacher, I've run a full day of "Cultural Festival" activities, otherwise known as the 文化祭 (bunkasai). It's a pretty huge day, with all students from years one to six participating in 12 round robin activities. When I ran it earlier in 2024, we had a group of Japanese students visiting, so there was a mix of Australian and Japanese culture. Next year is all Japanese activities. 

I was inspired by another Japanese teacher to have a ninja-skills station and needed some resources to make it work. Luckily I had a bit of budget left this year and the school groundsman was willing to help me get what I needed from Bunnings. Largish pieces of MDF, a bunch of extra pine beams, some hinges and screws were the main part and then of course - some paint! 

Even more amazing than being this organised was that when the kids finished school and the staff week rolled around, I was ahead on my paperwork and had the time to spend getting this done at school in office hours. One of the groundsmen also helped me out by cutting these big circular holes in MDF. 

These ones are for the kids to throw bean bags through the holes. They will have support beams on the back to hold them up on the oval. I was pretty stoked with my ninja - especially the green one who looks very invisible from the right angle. (Notice that pink goes good with green? If you know, you know.)

My other two boards have yet to be finished - I need to add dowels to the balloons in the Pikachu one for the kids to throw quoits at. Poor Pikachu is a little fat in the face, but I think he does an alright job of being iconic and recognisable. 

I knew I'd be going for an "up in the air" theme with the Pokemon boards, so I quizzed a bunch of grade five kids in the last week of school to get ideas for who else I could put in the air with Pikachu. "Dragonite", "Charizard!", "Areodactyel".... The replies were enthusiastic but also way too tricky for me to paint. 

So I went with Butterfree, who is chasing away a Charizard through the clouds. I'll add dowels to the clouds on this board. Not too bad for ten hours of work if I do say so myself. And I got to listen to podcasts and loud music while I did it. Now to keep going with my tedama production and another activity so I'm ready when March rolls around. Teacher life! 

Onigirazu Bento

Some days I'm still nailing the girls lunches. 

PJs for Sophie

My oldest daughter has spent much of this year growing; mostly upwards. She's nearly as tall as me (though that's not too hard). I'm noticing her long lanky legs more and more as her shorts seem to get shorter and shorter. She was dancing around the house one day in PJs when I realised something had to be done. New PJs were needed. 

I traced the general shape of the ones she most frequently wore, added length to both the top and bottom, and then got to work. Sophie picked out two fabrics from my stash that I only had small amounts of and was happy to donate to the cause. The first, a green with little white floral designs, was just enough to get a pair of shorts from. I even pieced the waistband to get it out. 

Not great lighting - cutting these out at night time.

It was a good trial run, and though Sophie thinks they are perfect, I think they have a little too much flair, so I took out some at the sides for the next round. 

Colour is closer to the top pic in real life, but oh so cute!

Second fabric choice was this lovely mustard-yellow floral which I had just enough to get the shorts and a top out of for her. And I mean just enough. Originally I asked her if I could leave the sleeves off to give myself a bit more wiggle room, but Sophie said that sleeves were very important. 

Another dodgy night time photo. The top right is where I cut the other sleeve,  and the small half circle in between the main pieces on the left along with the little bit at the bottom was where I got the waist band. Talk about efficiency! 

So I pieced bits together to make two sleeves and again used all the scrap bits I could to get a waist band out. It was really satisfying to turn all the off cut bits that would usually go straight to my "small enough for quilts" box, into actually usable parts of the garment. The second pair of shorts are much less flouncy but still fit great. 

For the top, I used the pattern from my own PJs, just did some shortening (though not much, that was more because I didn't have heaps of fabric!), and then cut it without seam allowance added on. It worked out ok, even without the collar (absolutely no spare fabric for that lying around!), but I noticed it falls strangely, so I think the shoulder slope must be off somehow. I just bound the neckline with a tiny scrap of the gold mustard fabric I had left from making my sister's classy bunting in August. Colour matched perfectly. 

Anyway, I did intend to add buttons to the front, but when Sophie tried it on, she could get it on and off without, so I just ended up sewing the front closed instead. Lazy? Maybe. But I did just make two sets of PJs in less than a week, so I can't be that lazy. 

Beauty in the Darkness

When I listen to music on Spotify and the album or list ends, as I'm sure you may have also experienced, the music continues on. Spotify trying to find music I like to listen to, to keep me connected. I know it's all about money making capitalism, but I don't mind it. It can be hit and miss, but in October, after listening to a musical album (can't remember for sure, but maybe Ride?) it started spitting out musical tracks including this one from a musical I'd never heard of. 

Mythic played in 2018 at the Channing Cross Theatre in London. It's got a cast album recording, but not much else existing in the way of being able to see it. I was pretty instantly drawn to the lyrics of the song and looked up the album. 

It's based on the Greek myth of Persephone and Hades but is looking at it through the lens of the relationship between Persephone and Demeter. It's got lots to say about teenagers and growing up and making choices. Not as deep and challenging as Hadestown (which deals with some similar characters), but still meaningful and lots of fun. The whole album was honestly 90% a total banger, though I will admit the last two songs are not quite up to a big finish, but I feel like that's because everything that's come before is so hard to follow. 

I loved it and pretty quickly shared it with the girls, who are also very into Greek myths. That's thanks, in large part to Percy Jackson, but also the musical Hadestown and the plethora of Greek myth books we've got in the house. We are enamoured and I wish there were a way I could convince a theatre company in Brisbane to perform the show. 

In the meantime, I'm going to share with you the song that got me in - Beauty in the Darkness. Definitely worth a listen. Especially for the deep people who know that sad is happy. 

I saw the spires of Tartarus
Strolled along the Styx
Pet the great dog Cerberus
Who lay there scratching ticks
People say the underworld is cruel and dark
Did you know that deep inside it, there's a spark?

I found bliss among the ruins
I felt life within each tomb
I found shelter in the shadows
I saw light inside the gloom
There's a peacefulness in sorrow
If you stop and take a breath
There is beauty in the darkness
There is so much love in death

The spires are cracked in Tartarus
They're all in disrepair
The Styx is drenched in hopelessness
And swimming with despair
Only thing that's hopeless is your point of view
Everything has such potential, even you

'Cause there's treasure in the wreckage
Underneath all the distress
If you glanced beyond the mayhem
You'd see magic in the mess
There is mercy in the monster
Underneath his fiery breath
There is beauty in the darkness
There is so much love in death

There's redemption all around you
If you stop and take a breath
There is beauty in the darkness
There is so much love in death