Final Kimono

When my friend David offered me bolts of kimono and yukata fabric for cheap in April, I jumped at the chance. I was intending to only get a couple, but ended up with five. Of them, four were kimono length, while the last one is only haori length. I started with the cotton one, which I sewed up in a week and a half, all the way back in April. 

I then moved on to make the two that were wool/nylon blend into kimono for the girls. Rachel's is here, and Sophie's here. I took the final kimono bolt with us on our Winter Travels, after washing it out, for something to hand sew in the after dinner conversation time. 

Of all the kimono, that last one took the longest to make. I did sew it while we were travelling, but not nearly as much as I thought I would. When we returned home, I just took it to church with us each week and sewed while listening to the sermon. It was a nice little project to keep my legs warm each week, even if it did mean that it felt like it was taking a comparatively long time to complete. 

At last though, I did finish it. I was actually inspired to get it done so I could wear it to the Australia Japan Society 50th anniversary celebration at the Mt Cootha Botanical Gardens, so I spent two nights attaching the collar while Steve and I watched TV together. 

Unfortunately, even though I finished in time, I didn't end up wearing it to the celebration evening at all. The event was a picnic in the Japanese gardens, with traditional entertainment, but when it came to it, it had been cold and rainy the night before, and the friend I had been planning on going with bailed on me. Suddenly, I had two delicious bento made and no one to eat them with. 

So I did a call around, but the last minute notice left no one available. In the end I took the girls, thinking that if they couldn't handle it we would just leave early and no one would be worse for wear. Sadly though, because all the ringing around took time, and I was even on the edge of calling it and not going at one point, I left it too late to get into a kimono before we had to leave. 

Oh well. I put it on last week for photos, but being a 100% wool blend, I was feeling overly toasty pretty quickly. This will definitely be a kimono that is only for winter. Still, happy to have it done and it really is so pretty. Photos don't do it justice, but the colours are just lovely and the feel is beautiful. 

 

Looking back, sewing four kimono in five months is a pretty great achievement and I think has really sparked a love of hand sewing for me. I've always enjoyed the slower pace of hand sewing for a change, but I think having something that I can transport with me, and keep my hands busy while my mind thinks of other things is really amazing. 

The girls and I did have a great night together at the Japanese event, by the way. They were really delighted that I had decided to take them with me and were just so well behaved. We had our picnic, they listened to the speeches (a surprising number actually, but I think that's because I didn't realise it was a 50th anniversary event) and we enjoyed the traditional performances together. 

Ahh, delicious Japanese bento. So so good. 

Now I only have the haori to sew, but as I've never sewn one before, I'm taking a bit of a break before I tackle that. Also, I started another sewing project that I'm pretty excited about and that's taking up all of my brain space at the moment. Well, that and extra work days that I've picked up for next term, not to mention all the end of year performances that my choirs have coming up. And report cards. Can't forget those. 

Normality Restored: Planting Things

Now that the Nana Flat is done, and the turf was laid, it was time to start thinking about the garden beds. I especially wanted to get things into the ground before October rolled around and the weather turned hot and horrible. We had heaps of plants that we had kept from our garden beds prior to the renovation, as well as two of the four trees that we had saved. 

Excitedly, we ordered some soil and mulch and got going. The garden bed that had been created by the retaining wall that ran around the right side of our property (near the Nana Flat), we filled up and planted small things in. Maria has put lots of ground cover type stuff in the part that runs near the Nana Flat, while out the front where it comes down closer to ground level, I took advantage of the sun profile and planted lots of herbs. 

I wasn't going to plant anything in this garden bed, but this little section at the front actually has the most sun out of all of our garden beds now, and I didn't want to waste it. I also planted a jasmine vine to climb up over the fence. We had a jasmine vine given to us as a house warming present when we bought in 2010, and it had been thriving in that front corner of the yard before we had to dig it out for the renovations. 

In the ground in both corners of the front yard we planted the two trees that had managed to survive (RIP Blueberry Ash and Luscious Number One), the Australian Frangipani and the Luscious. These trees are so happy to be back in the ground and I'm just delighted they made it after nearly eight months of living in the confines of a big black rubbish bin. 

The day we planted, we emptied one and a half of our compost bins and I was practically swooning over the rich black soil. Most of the ground at the front we discovered was all clay, which isn't great for growing things. We had asked our builders to mix in some gypsum to help break it up when they levelled it off, which they did, so that's there, but it's not the kind of stuff that works overnight. As Steve dug each hole for the trees, I worked the gloriously alive, black compost into the clay before the trees went in. 

The small garden bed at the top of the driveway also has the clay problem, but the additional difficulty of only getting about three hours of sunlight a day. In the morning, this garden bed is shaded by the house, and in the afternoon, it's shaded by the fence. We were really not sure anything was going to grow there at all, especially with the damp clay/ground situation. 

But, it was worth a try. Eventually I'd like to plant a tree there (or at the top of the retaining wall) that will grow up and shade the house, but baby steps to start with. Let's see if we can get something small growing first. So I planted some little flowers, chives and a plant that Bunnings assured me was indoors-y and would do well with limited sun. 

Everything loves it's life there, which again, probably has a lot to do with the compost factor. Let me gush some more over the gloriousness of the compost! I feel I could write love poems to that compost. 

Anyway, thus far, the things planted in the front are thriving and it's really feeling like the renovations are over and we are settled in. We've also upgraded some of things that were living in the pots at the back of the house to larger pots, but most of them are still in limbo land as far as were we will eventually plant them.

I've got one native guava, which I'm guessing will do well in the sun, and a native something else I got at the school fete in 2021 which had Love in the name. I can't read the tag any more, and when I bought it, the guy at the plant stall told me it was a ground cover, but the way it's growing doesn't look very ground cover-y to me. Anyway, that's a problem for future Paula. Current Paula is happy keeping things alive and growing where they are. 

I Had a Moment

 hanhaba obi

Not 100% sure what inspired this, but in August, I had a moment where I wore traditional Japanese clothes every day; for a week. Since my post back in April, I've been wearing yukata a lot more. Mostly to school, probably once a week, or once a fortnight at least. But I was wanting to wear my kimono more, and so when the girls were at their guide camp, I figured I had enough time on the Sunday morning to put one on and get to church. 

Unfortunately, we had a car accident the day before, so I was not feeling up to the intense work out that would have been required for a full kimono and I just started with a yukata instead. Still, it was beautiful and comfy and I loved it. The August weather is so perfect for kimono and yukata in Brisbane, so when Monday rolled around, I wrote another one to school. 

On Tuesday, I wore another. I don't think I had initially started with a plan to wear one a day, but once I was going, there was just no stopping. I wore them to school, to the doctors, to get groceries, to have lunch with my sister at a cafe, everywhere! 

I tried out different obi styles, and combinations between obi and yukata. Most days I would start wearing a haori (a kimono jacket/coat) as well, and then layer off as the day warmed up. 

haori - Japanese kimono jackets/coats

It was beautiful. I did end up finishing by wearing a kimono, even though we had done some gardening the day before and my arms were like wet spaghetti noodles by the time I'd finished tying the obi. 

I didn't even wear all of my yukata, or obi, or haori, in that week of blissful Japanese-ness. I could have easily kept going, but I don't know if I'm ready just yet to make a full switch to completely strange.

Here are all the things I wore that week, sans shoes, since I forgot to pop them into the photo. I do have a modest collection of Japanese shoes as well, though I alternated with my converse since the days are still cool. 

Beautiful combinations, colours and fun. I hope I have another moment again soon. 

Book Week: Squirrel Girl

Sophie's turn for a Book Week post. In 2022, she went as Squirrel Girl. 

For the uninitiated, Squirrel Girl is a superhero in the Marvel universe, who is exactly what her name says: a girl, who is also a squirrel. She has a tail and buck teeth, climbs trees, talks to squirrels. Sophie had been given a small squirrel toy by her godmother who she loved (I think she's been camping with us even!) I thought reading about Squirrel Girl was right up her alley, so for her birthday, back in January, I bought a Squirrel Girl novel.

I was not wrong. The book was loved instantly. Sophie's grey squirrel turned out to be just like Doreen Green's side kick, Tippy Toe, and Sophie loved reading all about their adventures together. They eat nuts and kick bad guys' evil butts. She even has a song about it. Squirrel Girl, that is. 

I took the girls on a Library Crawl back in April, which is like a pub crawl, but where you visit lots of different libraries and borrow books and read in each one. Sophie came home with three of the Squirrel Girl comics which were quickly read, re-read and studied with great gusto. 

When it came to Book Week Sophie was pretty excited at the prospect of being Squirrel Girl for the day.  She even gave me an inspiration drawing, with Tippy Toe included. 

First thing to tackle was the tail. So big and soft. We had some soft brown felt left over from Sophie's Eevee which was good, but it wasn't enough. So lucky to go to Spotlight for some brown fur when they were having a 40% off sale, since fur is usually a whopping $60/metre. I also talked Sophie out of needing the whole tail to be made of fur, and thus only needed a half metre of it. 

I had to plan a fair bit of Sophie's costume, despite the fact that most of it was brown shirt and pants. I think it's because I only had limited fabric to work with (the leftover brown fleece and the precious half metre of brown fur), I needed to make things according to priority and then see what was leftover. 

Tail first. I traced a general shape on paper and cut it out of the felt, and then made it three dimensional by adding a strip of the fur in the middle. I didn't want to use completely new stuffing, so I asked our phenomenal street and someone donated two old pillows that they were about to throw away. The girls stuffed the tail and it was really coming to life. 

Squirrel Girl usually wears a jacket or hoodie with little ears, but lets be honest, this is Australia and even in August, I didn't want my nine year old dying of heat exhaustion. Even for a cause as great as Book Week. Instead, I made her a short vest out of the fur. I made a draft version to check the fit out of some brown fabric that I thought could be repurposed as lining, but I couldn't be bothered to line it in the end. 

I'd noticed online that the trick to getting the tail to stay up, was to strategically sew it to the jacket, so I attached it to the vest with buttons and fishing line. Unfortunately, the reason that the jacket works is because the arms hold the jacket in place, a vest, being without sleeves, does not have the same capabilities. The weight of the tail just pulled the vest backwards. The tail was still up, but it was sagging and the vest looked very odd. 

Solution (on the morning of Book Week day!) was a a ribbon looped under the tail and around Sophie's arms, much like a himo used to tie the sleeves back on a kimono or yukata. The tail was attached to the belt which was clipped on, so Sophie could take it off easily to visit the amenities without it. 

I made fur cuffs with some left over fur and pouches for the belt for Sophie to pop Tippy Toe and her acorn in. Sophie wore some brown pants, a brown shirt we already had and her boots. Costume done. Here is Sophie as Squirrel Girl, kicking some bad guys' evil butt (even though Wylah is by no means a bad guy, Rachel was happy to get in on the action). 

What a great year for Book Week it has been!

Book Week: Wylah

Since I was making a costume for myself this year for Book Week, it was only fair that the girls get costumes too. When we went on our road trip in the June/July holidays, I had seen a book in the shops called Wylah, which was about a young Aboriginal girl. I missed it the first time I saw it, but was lucky enough to grab a heavily discounted copy from a bookstore in the Blue Mountains that was closing down. 

Rachel loved it. Wylah (pronounced "Wee-lah") was in charge of teaching art to the younger members of her tribe when dragons attack. She goes on an adventure to save the day with the help of lots of Dreamtime megafauna animals. 

Wylah image from waylay.com.au

Wylah wears a patchwork dress made of animals skins and other natural items. Obviously I wasn't going to be able to recreate that, but I thought I could get the shape/style of it. I went to the fabric box and found some felt fabric for the top bit (Rachel wanted it to be furry/fuzzy), and then any scraps of brown that I had for the rest of it. 

It was lucky that a few of the brown pieces I had happened to have leaf designs, or flower patterns on them. Really helped with the nature feel of the dress. Knowing that Rachel would have to wear this at school and that the costume would still need to be sun-safe, I sewed it all onto a brownish shirt that she already had. 

Rachel's costume was the easiest one that I did this year, even if the circular shape of the dress was tricky to get at first. Although, even though I looked at the reference pictures for the dress, I managed to miss Wylah's feather belt until Rachel mentioned it the night before. I did plait a bit of ribbon in the morning for her to wear, but we didn't have the time to glue the feathers in. Oh well. 

Next up: Sophie's costume! It's got a lot of layers so get ready! 

Lastly, I don't want to have to put this out there, but I feel like I should; I know Wylah is an Aboriginal character, and we are by no means related. We mean no disrespect to the Aboriginal people, but wanted to celebrate a character that Rachel has loved reading about, and a culture that we love learning about. I genuinely hope that no one is upset or offended by Rachel's choice of Book Week character this year.

Book Week: Mary Poppins

Unbelievably excited to share this with the world! Hooray for Book Week! My costume was Mary Poppins. Since I'm currently a music teacher, I wanted someone musical as well as literary. My second choice would have been Matilda, since the musical has some great songs too, but Mary Poppins was hard to go past: practically perfect in every way! 

I started by putting on the shirt I made for Steve and thinking about how I could adjust it to be a Victorian long sleeve fitted women's shirt, rather than a short sleeve loose fitting men's. Then I traced out the pattern pieces added adjustments and cut up a random white sheet that I found in my material box. Looks like it had been used for a ghost costume before (random eye holes in the middle of it), but as I have absolutely no recollection of doing that it's a bit of a mystery. 

In any case, the white sheet fabric was perfect for a trial run of a Mary Poppins shirt. There were adjustment issues, and some fiddling with the sleeves to get the look I wanted, but all in all, I was on the right track. It really does pay to make a rough draft. 

When it came to fabric, I looked in my stash first to see if I had anything, and then went over to mum's to check hers out. Lucky I did, because she had the leftover fabric from Sophie's flower girl dress which was pretty great for Mary Poppins. 

I worked hard on the placement of the pattern so that I could get some matching of the pin tucks and lace. On the collar and sleeves, I wanted a bit of ruffle, so I went through my stash and found some eyelet trim that worked quite well. Mum had enough buttons in her stash too, so I'm feeling good about the sustainability of this shirt. 

Sally made some strange noises while I was making it, so I let her rest for a few days and did some other things before I attempted the button holes. As per usual, Sally was not keen on button holes, but I'm used to that now, so it's all good. 

Shirt done, I turned my thoughts to the skirt. For this I really did need to go and buy fabric. I got two meters of a light linen in a dark blue, and another two metres of a similar blue in a poplin to line it with. I used the skirt pattern I had drafted from a skirt I already own, just lengthened it really. Oh, and split the front into panels to mimic the Victorian style skirt Mary Poppins wears. I would have done the back as well, but I didn't have that much fabric, so I just put in darts. 

It turns out making three of those skirts last year was very good practice for this, though, since I managed to get the zip inserted correctly the first time round. Hooray! 

In the Julie Andrews movie, Mary Poppins wears a thin red bow with her shirt, but I wanted something a little fuller. So I traced Steve's bow tie onto some gorgeous red fabric I had leftover from what Steve gave me for my 21st birthday. On a side note, I can't believe I never blogged about that gift, the fabric or what happened to it, since it's possibly my proudest make from all those years ago. Trawling back through the archives to try to find any post about it (not something I recommend) was interesting indeed though, because it seems I didn't post much about sewing at all. So strange!

Anyway, back to making a bow tie. After tracing the shape, I sewed it, turned it and ironed it, and was pretty happy with how it looked. Mary Poppins was really coming together at this point, and all I really needed to add was her rather iconic hat. 

For this, I traced some circle shapes onto cardboard, cut them out and covered them with scraps of black fabric from my cape. I had to buy the grapes and flowers to glue on, but all in all, it's not a bad bit of DIY. Rachel found it hilarious that I was making at hat out of cardboard. I gave myself a nice burn with the hot glue gun doing it too. 

The last thing I did was very quickly sew up a strip of yellow fabric to be a measuring tape. I wrote the sayings that Mary Poppins has on it in the movie for herself (Practically Perfect in Everyway), and Jane and Michael. I also wrote two new ones for the girls. The kids at school thought it was hilarious when I measured them. 

Then it was a matter of getting dressed and going to school. I had a great time as Mary Poppins (there was even a student dressed as Mary Poppins too!), though I do think an umbrella would have been a good addition. 

Hooray for Book Week and being able to celebrate characters and books that have changed our lives. 

Book Week 2022

Even though I love Book Week, my efforts last year were so minimal that it turns out I didn't even bother to post about it. Hilarious. I think that was a combination of having started the term teaching music and still trying to figure out the juggle of a part time job that wasn't at home, and the ongoing effects of Covid making everything harder, lockdowns and what not. 

From memory, Book Week last year snuck up on me amidst all of that, and when the girls asked if they could be dragons, I told them a flat out no. 2021 was the year that I told them to use a costume we already owned. Rachel went as Aoki in a yukata we had, and Sophie dressed up as Mr Mistoffelees from T. S. Elliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. 

This year, I was ready for Book Week. Not only because I love it and life have been a lot calmer of late (especially now the renovation is done), but also because I'm teaching at a primary school. This means that not only do the girls get to dress up for Book Week, but so do I! Since I was going to make a costume for me, it seemed only fair that this year, I get my act together and make a costume for the girls too. 

Great ready for copious amounts of sewing and costumes coming up! 

Guide Camp Sewing

Our girls started Guides this year and have loved every minute of it. I'm glad, because I have great memories of being a Guide when I was a kid too, and I know they are learning so much being there with other people. It also has the perks of being two hours on a Friday night. I'll be honest, Steve and I haven't really taken full advantage of that yet, but every now and then, we do enjoy the quiet dinner together. 

So one thing Guides do, if you don't know, is go on camps. Pretty frequently actually. The girls had one in August that was just at a local guide hut for two nights. I was so excited for them, because again, I can remember so much fun on guide camps. Hooray! 

What I didn't remember was all the packing. Our Guide group is lovely, but they aren't the most organised, I'll have to admit. So we got the packing list a week before the girls were to go away. All well and good if you have been on a camp before, and it's not like the list contained too many out of the box things. Wet pack, spare clothes, sleeping bag were all there. But extra things like a plate bag, to put all their cutlery/crockery in, and a tarp, that had to be two by three metres. And a "Sit-upon" which is a square mat (preferably water proof) they can use if they need to sit on the grass for a long period of time. 

Reading the list, I felt a bit silly for not remembering some of those things, but also frustrated. We did have a tarp, for example, but it wasn't quite big enough, and I didn't have two of them. Most people would have a spare drawstring bag lying around for a plate bag, but two that are roughly the same to avoid arguments? Sigh. Even one extra weeks notice would have been greatly appreciated. 

In any case, I got my thinking hat on and then got sewing. Plate bags first, since drawstring bags are easy and I was sure to have some fabric I could use up in the scraps box. Serendipitously, I found that I had exactly the right amount of material for two plate bags from two rectangles of  fabric that the girls themselves had tie-dyed after Christmas. The tie dye powders were a Christmas present from my Godmother, and I had just given them any white fabric that I had on hand to be creative with. 

Perfect for their plate bags: hooray! Rachel sewed hers on her little sewing machine while I did most of Sophie's on Sally. She had to patch her piece of tie dyed fabric first since she'd cut a random circle from one corner for something else. (See my peacock fabric below?) Sophie did come over and do a bit, but was mostly not interested. I happened to have exactly the right amount of cord and two wooden beads in my stash as well. So perfect. 

While I was looking through the stash box for plate bag fabric, I stumbled across the strip of leftover vinyl that we had from recovering the chairs. I had to patch it together to get the squares, but they are pretty sturdy. 

For the flip side, I used a quilted Lorraine Lea pillow case that my friend Katie gave me. (I've used pillowcases before see?) I figured that the quilted bit would make the mats slightly more padded and thus comfortable on the ground. Rachel learnt how to bind things when we finished all the edges with strips of the other side of the pillow case.  

Done and done. Though it was rushed, I did feel good sending them off with home made things in their bags. Also happy to report that the girls both had a fantastic time camping and can't wait to go again.