Untitled

I did have grand plans for an informative and interesting last post in September, but it's the 27th now, and I'm running out of time. The last four days I've been travelling with the girls to Bundaberg and back again, and tomorrow, we are away again camping with friends at Mt Tambourine until Monday. Which takes us all the way into October. 

But I think this photo of Sophie at the beach sums up how I'm feeling. Enjoying the moment, taking in the beauty of God's creation, being hopeful for the future when the water will be warm enough to get in. 

God is good.

Kindy Shorts

Hugo starts kindy next year, so obviously I wanted him to have something cool to wear to kindy, just like the girls had. I had just enough material for a pair of shorts from the coloring in material that I'd gotten from Ikea.

It has made three dresses (see Sophie's, Sonia's and Rachel's), and was used in the Table Tent, and now all that remains are some scraps. Goodbye fabulous material. I hope I can find something similar again in the future, because wearing something you've colored yourself, is a pretty special feeling.

Anyway, because there was such little material left, it was a bit of creative cutting to get the shorts out; some of the pattern is upside down, I'll admit. And I accidentally cut one piece out facing the wrong way, so I had to trace everything through the material and color it a second time. Luckily, these are going to get trashed at kindy anyway, so it really doesn't matter.

And I don't think you can really tell. They just look fun to me. Crazy, but fun.

Shirt Tie Dress

Remember all those ties I had lying around? I've used another one!

Steve recently realized he had a few shirts he wouldn't be wearing again, so I made one of them into a dress for Sophie. I'm not sure I love how it turned out, but Sophie does. Being white, it was perfect to add a fun tie from my stash to jazz it up a bit.

I loved the curved hem, but I think it's way to long on her, so I would make sure I did more measuring next time. Rachel has been begging for some more kindy dresses, so I am fairly sure she'll be the next recipient of one.

When I asked Sophie what she likes about it, she said she likes the tie (which she got to choose) and that it's white. She promptly wore it to church the next day and managed to get felt pen on it, so I don't know how long it's going to last before I reassign it to being a kindy dress, but we shall see.

Red Dress Up Dress

We had a party on the weekend that required some princess dresses. Given that it's been two years since I've made a dress up dress for the girls, they've done some growing, and a new one was in order.

I started sewing it on Friday night, finished the hand sewing on Saturday, and it was worn to the party on Sunday. Talk about success!

It helps that I used exactly the same pattern as the previous dresses (Blue and Yellow ones, and the original Cinderella one) but just sized it up. I cut the bodice as a size 8 to allow room to grow and made sure the skirt would be floor length for the same reason. It was a little long, but I just tacked up the front a bit which looked cool and meant that Sophie could walk without tripping over. The back was still long.

I'm excited to say that part of the dress is made from curtains. The ones in our dining room were originally floor length, which was unnecessary, so I had cut them off and saved the excess. It proved to be exactly the right amount for the skirt. The bodice was leftover from my Mum making Christmas dresses, lined with some random lining fabric that was donated to me (I think). The skirt also has two layers of gauze with gold stars on it. So shiny!

Sophie was a little sad that it wasn't super spin-y (especially after I tacked the front up), but it's still pretty special, and look: she can still dig in the the sandpit in it.

Self Sufficiency

It's a new era of bento making: this morning, Sophie and Rachel both made their onigiri themselves! They had seen a video on how to make the panda shapes using the mold that we have, and asked if they could do it. I was dubious about how it would go, but it was actually really successful.

I set up the bowl of rice for them to use on the bench and distracted myself making the eggs so as not to hover too much. That sausage in egg is quite complicated to do, fyi. They took turns (eating breakfast while they were not making lunch) which went smoothly too.

Everything in the lunch box is sitting on a bed of cooked carrots. I didn't know any other way to get everything to fit nicely. The girls were super excited and proud of their onigiri making efforts. I don't know if it will become a regular occurrence, because it probably did slow down the lunch making process slightly, but I'm ok if it's a weekly thing. It was successful after all.