Rachel's Sewing Achievements

As I went to share what Rachel sewed up for Sophie's birthday in January, I realised that I missed documenting her very first sewing machine achievement from August last year. Time to rectify things! Before Rachel sewed an Enormous Pikachu, she made a dress. 

It's reversible and has some little patch pockets. It was a good basic starting place for this little seven year old learning to sew. I'm all for sewing things that are practical. This jelly fish fabric was a $2 remnant I picked up from Spotlight, and the reverse is rainbow fish that was gifted to use from Aunty Sue a while ago with fabric that I've used in lots of places (like here, here, here, here and here).

After a break and an Enormous Pikachu, Rachel said she'd like to make Sophie a pair of shorts for her birthday. We looked through the stash and I had some grey arrow fabric that was leftover from a shirt I made for Steve (un-blogged) that would do. 

Rachel is coming along in leaps and bounds with her sewing and we had this out in about two hours. She lined the pockets and the waistband with some scrap fabric leftover from skirts for fun pops of colour. There ended up being enough fabric left over for my mum to get a shirt for Hugo out of it too. Makes me glad to know it's all been used and nothing wasted. 

We used the go to Clover Shorts Pattern which I have used countless times before, the most recent of which being Sophie's Christmas Shorts. 

Is there anything better than a lovingly hand made birthday present? I love that the shorts match the Pocahontas shirt that we gave Sophie. It's the spinning arrow! True believers know what I mean. 

Good work sewing things Rachel. You are amazing.

Sophie's Birthday: 2022

Otherwise entitled: Not Cancelled by COVID. 

The start of 2022 has been very touch and go now that all the boarders are open in Queensland and the Coronavirus is taking hold here rapidly. I've been trying to stay in a shell and not look at numbers, but it's hard when everyone around you is looking for Rapid Antigen Tests and updating you on how long the line to get your booster vaccination is. 

I was pretty worried that Sophie's birthday would again be affected by it all (like last year), but unbelievably we made it through and had a lovely little family gathering for our now nine year old. On the day of her birthday we went out to Ipswich and walked around the free (well, gold coin donation) zoo. While we were there, we had a look in the Education Centre and were lucky enough to see a Wildlife Encounter Show. Girls were delighted, because they got to see and touch lots of animals, including this Albino Carpet Python called Lemon. 

We made a Robot Cake, from the Australian Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Cookbook,  with mixed success. I was trying to scale it down, since we didn't have anyone coming over on her birthday and I didn't want to be overdosing on cake for four days as we attempted to eat it all, but in my efforts to scale down, the robot turned out a little funny. Success though because Sophie decorated it will all sorts of lollies and was happy with it in the end. Those sprinkle covered parts are flipping hard to do though. 

The following Saturday, we had the family over for afternoon tea, with mushroom cupcakes, fruit and veg platters, popcorn and an ice cream cake, again inspired by the Australian Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Cookbook. 

Sophie was pretty delighted with all the love and I now feel like COVID can do it's worst. Given the news that the start of school for the year has been delayed for two weeks, I feel like I spoke a little too soon, but what can you do? 

Maybe I'll make another cake. 

Sophie's Eevee

After Rachel declared that she would indeed make the Enormous Pikachu and began to sew, Sophie decided she would also make a Pokémon toy. Thankfully, she chose something a little smaller than Rachel's idea. Sophie has less sewing stamina than Rachel, and I think anything bigger would have left her more defeated than empowered. 

In the midst of all the sewing interest last year, both girls had made a small stuffed fox. I had seen a picture of one on the internet somewhere and it was easy enough to duplicate. It was a good place for the girls to start hand sewing because there was lots of repetitive running stitches and it was all made with felt. 

Sophie decided that her latest creation would be an Eevee pillow of similar design to the fox. I had her draw a picture of what she wanted, and talk to her about how to deconstruct her ideas to a workable plan. 

We went to Spotlight and she spent $10 of pocket money to buy the material and stuffing. Again, I helped to appliqué the facial features on, but Sophie did the rest of the sewing. Rachel showed her how to do the ladder stitch to close Eevee up after we stuffed her. 

Not sure if I should have helped to guide more with the design so that Sophie would think of Eevee more 3D than 2D, but I was trying to let her have creative control. It's important to let kids figure it out on their own right? Sophie does love her Eevee, even if she isn't exactly what she had imagined to start with, and she's pretty proud that she sewed it all, given her limited sewing stamina. 

Eevee is actually sewn with some scrap fabric from my cape too, as well as some scrap batting that I had lying around which happened to be the right cream that Sophie was after for her tail and neck ruff. We have loads of the brown fleece left over, so maybe there will be more soft toys in our future. Who knows! 

The Enormous Pikachu

When I take the girls to the shops, I'm always very focused about what we are doing and were we are going. There are no side adventures into shops for anyone to admire or covet anything they didn't already come to the shops to get. Probably because I dislike shopping in general, am task oriented by nature and have no desire for more stuff that the children will no doubt be tempted by. 

Steve, however, is more free reigned than I, and a few months ago happened to be at Garden City and let the girls look into a pop culture/gaming shop that was full of Pokémon related items. Not the least of these, were the stuffed toys. Rachel happened to see a giant Pikachu on display for the price of $70 and declared that she wanted to buy it. 

While I'm all for letting kids make their own choices and learn from the consequences of their actions, also I'm not keen on watching $70 of hard earned pocket money go to waste on an enormous Pikachu with no real purpose or playing-longevity. That's a no from me. It was a no from Steve in the store (thankfully!), but they came home and talked about it. Rachel kept bringing it up for a few weeks after, continually stating that she really wanted to use her pocket money to buy the Pikachu. 

I was still a hard no, when Steve mentioned that she could probably make it for cheaper. Rachel liked this idea, and we did happen to be in Spotlight later that week and had a look at fabric options. I did some rough calculations in my head and it turned out she could potentially make the Pikachu for around $20 - $30. 

We talked more at home about it for the next few weeks, making sure Rachel did want to spend the money and was going to be committed to actually sewing the Pikachu. My parents had spontaneously bought the girls a kids beginner sewing machine last year and Rachel had really taken to it (she's even sewn a dress, but I've been slack in blogging about it). Anyway, she seemed very committed, so back to Spotlight we went in the December sales to get the fabric. 

For the pattern, we sized up the pattern we used for Rachel Bunny, which seems to be unavailable on the internet any more (sad day!). Luckily I had saved all the pieces for the pattern and I could figure out how to put it together without too much trouble. So we sized it up, rolled out a large amount of paper and traced out an Enormous Pikachu pattern. 

Laying out the pieces on the fabric, I cut the ones that were doubled, but Rachel did all the single layer ones. There was only short bursts of focused Pikachu making that Rachel could take, so this was day one of what turned out to be a week of sewing. 

Rachel sat at the sewing machine and put everything through herself. I often helped guide or set up what she was going to do, but once I had explained it and gotten her started, I could also walk away, which is amazing to me. Never too far, but I could be in the kitchen while she sewed at the little table close by. Ears and tail went together first, Rachel suggested the batting in both of these to give them structure and stability and I had leftovers in my stash that worked perfectly. 

After that it was piecing the head together and adding the facial features. I did do the sewing of the face, because I used the appliqueing stitch that was lacking on the girls' beginner friendly machine. It was around this moment that as Pikachu took shape, Sophie suggested Rachel could finish making it and sell it for a profit, since the materials had only cost $20 at this point. 

We then had a long talk about how much our time is worth and how if we are making things to sell, we also need to include our time in how much what we are making cost. Good life lessons there. 

Pikachu is made of new yellow fleece and mostly new stuffing, but all the other parts are scrap fabric I had. The black is actually leftovers from my cape, while the brown stripes and red are just felt I had in the cupboard. Maybe the brown is leftover from Vulpix? The white in the eyes is scrap batting.  

Rachel managed to finish the Pikachu in a week, since it was school holidays and we had the time to be working on it most days. She found she didn't have enough stuffing to fill Pikachu, so she spent another $5 to get more, taking the total cost of materials to $25. Pretty good really. We also talked about alternatives for stuffing that wouldn't cost money, like the scraps from when we cut out the fabric, but there wasn't enough of that anyway, and Rachel had other sewing plans for those scraps already. 

The Enormous Pikachu is absolutely hilarious. More so because Rachel likes to take it everywhere in the house. He's so big that the girls can both use him as a pillow. 

Here he is reading with Moo-moo and Rachel. 

Not to be left out, Sophie also decided to sew a soft toy, though thankfully not on the same scale as the Enormous Pikachu. Come back in the future for an update of more child sewing adventures. 

Christmas Sewing

I thought that the girls had Christmas dresses, or at least Rachel would have, since she should fit Sophie's from last year, but no matter how many times I went through the cupboard, no outfits were to be found. So off to Spotlight I went to grab some fabric. 

The girls came with and we came back with two pieces of Jocelyn Proust fabric. Rachel's was a little more pink than I would have liked, but I couldn't talk her out of it. Sophie liked it so much that she asked if there were leftovers, could she get a pair of shorts. 

So I made Rachel a dress, using the bodice pattern from the dress I had made for the girls for Fiona's wedding. I didn't have Rachel around when I was tracing it though, so I just traced the size six and winged it with the adjustments. I also lowered the back neckline, so I wouldn't need a zip that was as long and could use up one from my stash. 

I could absolutely have traced a size five for her though, because the whole dress turned out enormous. Two darts in the back and pin tucks in the skirt and it's wearable for this year, and next year I'll just let all that out and she can wear it again. Excellent. 

The lace in the skirt is also from the stash. I had the exact amount for twice around, so that felt very good. And I had exactly the right amount of fabric left (half a metre) to get a pair of shorts out for Sophie. 

I don't love it when they match, but I wasn't going to not make the shorts and let the fabric go to waste. I used the Clover Shorts pattern again and Sophie loves the pockets. 

I was planning on making her something out of the other fabric we had, but it was already the second week of December by the time I made these, so it didn't feel too worth it. Sophie's shorts are pretty loose, so they should fit her next year too. 

Hopefully it's not too matchy... in any case,  since both girls will have another year wear out of them, next year will be less matchy once I make a second Christmas option. 

Save the Trees

One part of owning a house that I have loved, is how many things we can grow in the garden. Gardening has been documented on the blog here before, though I feel somewhat erratically compared with sewing. As I began to get everything I needed together for this post, I noticed a significant lack of photos and records of gardens to be found. Time to try and rectify that I suppose!

As I mentioned in my post about building a shed, we were about to embark on another round of renovations for our house. (See and read about renovations here.) This time, to build a granny flat (or nana flat), under our house for Steve's mum. While we were at it, we figured we'd also relocate the drive way and get a covered carport, build a small veranda on the front of the house with a roof, relocate the stairs and landscape the entire front yard. Why not right? In for a penny, in for a pound. 

Since we were doing a whole lot of stuff to the front, it also included the relocation of most of our front yard gardens. Some of this was pretty straight forward (like the jasmine vine I had growing over the fence at the front corner), while others were tears and heart break. Not sure this will be the most interesting post for many people, but given that I want to remember these things for the future, and this blog is the means by which I do that, so tough luck. 

The first heart break was when we realised the entire water tank side of the house was about to change, and all the hard work we had put in only just over 12 months ago was about to be ripped out. The plants in the garden were fairly easily taken out and put into pots, but the glorious passion fruit vine was too tricky to save. 

I took photos and labelled things for Steve to dig out for me, but I also did some of the work too. Some plants (mostly succulents) were donated to the school gardens, most of the others were saved. 

This was the sight after we were done. Pretty sad compared to what it was, but I'm hopeful that what we transplanted will survive. And, we dug up the timber that was the garden bed edging there and used it in the back yard to re-edge the entire back garden bed. We also dug up the soil and used it to top up the back garden beds too. Anything we could salvage we did. Our neighbours even took a few wheelbarrow loads of the river stones from the pathway for their garden. 

The three camellia trees at the front of our house, which had probably been there for 60 years, were unable to be saved, like the jasmine vine by the front fence. I'll get another jasmine when we are all done, because that one was given to us as a house warming present by a good friend of mine, and I'd like to replace it. 

When we bought our house, there were two palm trees in the front yard. One of which, was growing right under the powerlines, so we cut it down, I think just last year. The other one we left, but needed to go for the renovation, so that one went too. Bit of a shame, since it shaded the front bedrooms now that it was so tall, but there was nothing for it. 

The last thing in the front garden was the four trees we had planted in the last three years. These were over by the fence on the left as you look at the house from the street. 

I love these trees. We actually bought two of them (a Blueberry Ash and a Luscious) in 2017 before we renovated. Since we started renovating though, we left them in pots and forgot to water them. When our renovation was nearly over, I took what looked like to be dead trees and planted them by the fence. Our builders then though I was crazy, but I was confident that I could bring the trees back. 

They did come back, and went from being about a metre tall, to four meters tall. We added the Australian Frangipani (third tree from the left), and a second Luscious just last year. All four trees were happy with their lives and grew tall and strong, aided by all the beautiful compost that Steve gave them too. The plan was that they would grow up and shade the front rooms of the house from the western sun. 

The second Luscious nearly didn't make it, but Steve and I worked to bring it back from the edge and it was doing fine when we realised that the new carport and landscaping of the front yard would mean the removal of all four trees. Devastating to say the least. 

In what may be a vain effort, Steve put in a number of hours digging up our beloved trees and replanting them. Three of the four when into our temporary pots made of garbage bins with drainage holes. We just aren't sure where they might go after the reno is done, and didn't want to have to move them twice since we weren't sure they would even survive the first round. 

The Blueberry Ash we planted out on the nature strip, and we hoped it would grow where other trees had failed. Even though I want to remain hopeful, I have to be honest and say it does not look good for the poor Blueberry Ash. The nature strip has about twenty centimetres of good soil and is then clay all the way down. Research has told me to work gypsum into the soil, which we will absoloutly do before we plant anything else there. I'm still hopeful though - I bought the Blueberry Ash back from the edge once before, maybe we can do it again! 

The three remaining trees in their temporary pots are living in the back yard supported by the tree house, and getting regular water to stay alive. 

The back garden is looking better than ever, with new edging, filled with good soil and mulch. And my saved collection of plants are doing well in their little corner behind the lime tree near the compost bins. Hopefully I'll get to plant them in a front garden bed again, when we find out what it all looks like after the mud is gone. 

The other thing I've done recently with plants is move my bonsai to a real pot! 

I've had a lesson in how to cut and style a bonsai, and I'm looking forward to this little guy growing into his new shape. 

Things that Bring me Joy

The girls' discovery and subsequent love of Tintin books. 

The school library having this on the shelf, as well as the five Spiderwick books, which we read together in quick succession. 

Rachel, spontaneously reading to me while we wait for Sophie at jiu-jitsu. 

Sophie, and her Wings of Fire books - these are read, reread and studied all the time. 

Rachel, reading books to the guinea pigs. 

Buying a book for the girls, and reading it myself to find it's pretty fabulous. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrel Meets World. Can't wait to read more of those. 

When I wake up in the morning and find these two on the couch together, reading the bible. 

Creative Rachel

Sometimes things just fall in to place. You wake up and have some egg whites in the fridge that need using up, sugar eyes in the cupboard that have no purpose and a Rachel who could use a little something to do while Sophie is out. 

So you make meringues. Dip them in chocolate and add the eyes for fun.  

All is right with the world. 

People Have Babies

 So I make shorts.

To give to them for their babies. 

And because mass producing small things is a great way to feel very accomplished.