Small Things

I would say last week was pretty busy, but at the same time super productive. Monday was three loads of washing, grocery shopping, a batch of these stellar cupcakes and some short bread as well as vacuuming the house. So lovely are Mondays.

On Tuesday and Wednesday the only time we were home was for Sophie's naps. The rest of the time was out and seeing people. Busy, but good, and Sophie survived well. Thursday not so much, but one day out of seven ain't bad.

Friday I had another productive day at home, after a walk in the morning and a visit from a friend. I walked Sophie down to the park around three so we could post letters and have afternoon tea out and maybe some time on the swings. Little did I know that at ten past three the park would be crawling with primary school students running off their last lot of energy while groups of mums gathered around chatting over afternoon tea. Not a safe place for my I-can't-walk-yet one year old. Oh well.

Steve is away this weekend (just overnight for a party in Sydney) and so I decided I'd day trip to some friends in Maleny for a visit. Lovely idea and it turned out rather splendidly. On Friday, I decided it might be nice to take something for their three year old, so I did a quick stitch and produced a marble maze.

Please be nice about the photos. I decided to take them somewhere new, and didn't realise the lighting at Steve's desk in the afternoon would be so harsh. Oh well. This was made out of some old T-shirts that I cut up. Sewed on the felt dots, stitched up the maze, popped a marble in and sewed it closed. Hello choke proof kids toy! Also, because it's squishy, easy to put in your bag and take out whenever and where ever bordem threatens.

I am well pleased. While I had Sally the sewing machine out, I thought I'd finish off some baby shoes that I ambitiously cut suede for a while ago. I did this, and they look pretty nice.

The pattern is the Pleated Mary Jane from Shwin&Shwin. I have to say I'm not a massive fan. Maybe it's the fiddly-ness of the small baby shoe, but they take ages to make sure it's going to all go together right. Also, I don't like the way a lot of baby shoes have the inner soles just stuck in or sewn in but so you can still see all of the edges. So I spent extra time hand-sewing the inner soles down with stitches that you cannot see from the outside.

I feel it was worth it because they are beautiful and very soft, so perfect for a baby, but I doubt I'll be making baby shoes again.

P.S. I did do more work on the Log Cabin Quilt and another chunk of that top-secret Birthday Present for my Dad. Hooray!