2 new skirts

Following on from my blog post last week, I finished my first attempts at maternity clothing.

Skirt 1 was made by tracing a pattern off an existing skirt I had. It was a $20 K-Mart skirt which I wore to death while I was pregnant with Lola - and I didn't expect it to last a second pregnancy.  It was a simple 8 panel skirt (long, triangle shaped panels) with a band around the top. Turned out it was super easy to make - and I got to use the grey striped fabric I bought a few weeks back. I'm not sure yet whether it's maybe a "just around the house" skirt (the fabric is fairly thin and it's necessary to choose the right knickers to wear under it!) but we'll see how my standards drop the further through this pregnancy that I progress :)

Here are some bad self-timer photographs I took today (Lola was so funny - she kept following me and smiling but I'm sure she couldn't work out what was going on)..

And skirt 2 was something I had been thinking about doing for a while. You see, I bought a dress a year or so ago from Myer. I was looking for a light, summer dressing gown/robe, and this wrap around dress was perfect (it was on sale - and it was about 3 sizes too big).  So I started wearing it as a dressing gown - and after a while I decided that I quite liked the fabric and wanted to wear it out as a dress (which is what it was designed as) - but everytime I did - Simon would ask me 'why are you wearing a dressing gown out to the shops?'.. Not sure if this story is as funny to everyone else as it was to me, but needless to say - the dress/dressing gown had an identity crisis and needed a new life.  So today I decided to cut it in half and use the bottom half to make a skirt.  

Here are some before, during and after photo's:

Hope you also like the 27 week pregnant tummy included in this skirt photo :)

I'm fairly happy with my efforts over the last few days of sewing. I now have a few maternity skirts that should get me through the hot Queensland summer that's coming up. And I've never been all that confident with making things for myself - so I'm starting to think I'm working towards overcoming that fear.

This weekend

It's late Sunday afternoon, and I felt like writing about what a nice weekend we'd had.. Saturday Lola and I took a trip to Brisbane Markets to stock up on fresh fruit and vegetables. I was a bit anxious about whether I'd be able to maneouvre the pram around enough to actually be able to buy anything - but I was stoked when I got there.  The aisles were super wide and even though it was packed with people (which is enough to put  me off most times) - everyone was super friendly and everyone had either a trolley (for their stash of fruit and veges) or a pram, so we were all in the same boat.

Not only did we pick up some bargain seasonal fruit and veg (250g strawberry punnets for $1) but I also found an old school original Tupperware beetroot dispenser for $10 (they now sell new for $42). It's just like Mum has, and I've always wanted one (I found some awesome retro tupperware photo's on flickr but this one below shows it the best - although this one is green - and mine's dark brown!). Back in the day it was called a 'pickle dispenser' but I've always known it to be full of beetroot :)


Image from here

Anyway, we also found some great Columbian coffee, delicious pink cupcakes and I also picked up some strawberry plants for our garden. So all in all, it was a successful trip.

And today we celebrated my Dad's 60th birthday with a family bbq down at Fingal Head (northern NSW). It was an overcast day, but the rain held off and it was so nice to sit back and let others run around after Lola while I caught up with Aunties and Uncles..

Lola and Kel made a cool sand turtle on the beach, and after lunch we watched Poppy blow out his 90th birthday candles (My Aunty had picked up a 9 candle instead of a 6 and Dad never even noticed)

Oh and I wore my new grey and white striped skirt (which I made on Friday) and will blog about once I photograph it :)

So Happy 60th/90th birthday to the best Dad, and I hope everyone's weekend was as nice as mine.

Maternity skirt.. maybe

I have this lovely grey striped knit fabric that I bought about a month ago at Spotlight.. It was on a clearance rack and I bought a metre and a half with no particular project in mind..

Well wouldn't you know it - now I have a project in mind, but not enough fabric. I have a very well worn maternity skirt that I wore a lot when I was pregnant with Lola - and it's still ok for round the house - but not so nice anymore for when we go out.  But it's such an easy style to wear, and I 'think' (possibly this could be where I make my big mistake) that it also looks easy to sew?

So I traced a panel of the skirt (there are 8 panels all in a triangle shape) and also traced the band around the top of the skirt.  But before I start - I need to see if I can get 1 more metre of the fabric (I can do 6 panels and the band- but I need two more!)..

Anyway, I'll keep you posted if I can find more fabric - and also how the project progresses (hopefully it will).

 

Please start to grow Fruit trees?

I'm in a sewing 'lull' at the moment (I blame it on burn out after the 'frenzy' that created Lola's quilt) but I have spent a bit of time in the garden.

Our tomato plants are producing loads of awesome tomatoes and I love this photo that shows how busy things are underneath all the foliage (is it just us, or do all home gardeners use whatever they can find to support their tomato plants? in our case it was a broken clothes line)..

But I really wanted to use this blog post to keep a record of how our fruit trees are going. It feels like they've been planted for ages (when really, it was only the beginning of April that we planted them - which is 5 months ago).. but with Winter just ending - I feel like the 'growing' is about to begin..

So I have photographed them and measured them for record keeping purposes :) and now I'm going to record their specifications on this blog post (click away now if other people's citrus trees bore you..)

Lemon Tree
Details: Citrus x limon "Eurekea"
Rootstock Swingle (East Coast Citrus, NSW)
Plant height as at Sept 2010: 1mtr 3cm

Lime Tree
Details: Lime Tahitian
Rootstock Trifoliata
Plant height as at Sept 2010: 1mtr 17cm

Lychee Tree
Details: Litchi chinesis (Bowsworth 3)
Plant height as at Sept 2010: 1mtr

 
Mandarin Tree
Details: Mandarin Emporor
Rootstock: Trifoliata
Plant height as at Sept 2010: 1mtr 3cms

Happy Fathers Day

Happy Fathers day to everyone. I love Fathers day. It feels nice to make a special day for Dads (and my husbands idea of the perfect fathers day is to spend this day at home with no particular plans, and just with his family). This Loudon Wainright III song always makes me think of the special bond between Fathers and their daughters.. So thought I'd share it today.

The 'finished' quilt

The eagerly anticipated 'folded' quilt shot..

The showing off of the 'hand stitching' of the binding (It really wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be?) and it was nice to have something to do with my hands while I was watching Play School and other ABC2 entertainment each day

and the final shot has to be of the 'additional colour' Lola thought needed to be added to one of the squares..

Stick out your tongue and look 'shifty' if you're guilty of drawing on mama's Lola quilt with red crayon? Anyone?

The first day of Spring..

Beautiful image borrowed from Dave Ingram's Natural History blog

Today was the first day of Spring, and we spent all afternoon in the garden planting sunflowers (how very 'spring-y' of us!) and preparing the vegetable garden for Round 2 of planting.

For some great pictures of sunflowers at different stages of opening, head on over to the All Things Quilty blog