IF poem

I put more time and effort into my IF offering this week. Pencil on pastel paper. This fits into the theme because it is drawn from a favourite photo of my daughter, which reminds me of a favourite poem: the much-loved "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost (on account of the yellow leaves, albeit there is only one road in the photo....).
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Flashback Friday

I just saw on Meet Me at Mike's that Angela from Sew Your Own has started Flashback Fridays. Here is my first! Ah, the 80s. This was taken at a rented holiday house on Phillip Island. This would have been right about 1985. The fact that it's a Polaroid is just icing on the cake.

The Winter Shirt ... and other stories.

Here is the finished shirt. I'm surprised at how small it turned out, considering I made the 110 cm size, and my bigg'un is about 106 cm (aged 3-and-a-half...yikes!). I swear I stayed true to a 5 mm seam allowance! Oh, and I figured out why I was having gathering issues: because I was gathering too widely. But I figured that out after I'd sewn it and was comparing it to the magazine pic. Live and learn.

This is something else I whipped up in the last week -- thrifted felted jumper cut into a pocket shape to embellish this plain windcheater. For my lil'un. (Excuse my un-ironed bedsheets!)

More op-shopping saw me score these patterns (do they qualify as vintage? When did patterns last cost $1.60?). I am very much looking forward to making my children wear the items I sew from them...bwahaha.

IF Discovery

My second submission to IF. Sketched with pencil then coloured with Photoshop.

This is my younger daughter at almost-five months discovering her foot. There is little more satisfying than witnessing these kinds of discoveries.

Little Things

I've been busy sewing the winter shirt for my 3yo girl. Corduroy is quite tricky to gather nicely, I found (I'm blaming this on my general lack of gathering experience), and after sweating over it for a while I finally gathered it satisfactorily, and sewed it.

Then I felt like crying a little. But I picked, re-gathered and re-sewed, and it came out alright. Will show when it's all finished (not long!).

One more little thing: this is the only television in our house (circa 1984). That makes me very happy.

Doll Nina

This arrived today!!

Yay!! I'm gonna be making dolls and their clothes!

Will post some inside pix soon, but can't at the moment due to bouncing an almost-six-month-old on my lap who has decided she doesn't "do" sleep between 9pm and midnight. Which used to be the only time I had to myself. Pfffffft.

Here dey are...

The Good, Bad, Badder, and Ugly

Good: My 3yo was invited to her VERY first birthday party yesterday! (Not counting ones of friends' kids -- this was her first independent invitation.)

Bad: This means I missed the Melbourne Design Market I had been looking forward to for six months!

Badder: The party was a McDonald's party!!!!

Ugly: Unrelated, but all four of us have been sick all week. Luckily we're better now.

During this week, I STARTED MY FIRST JAPANESE CRAFT BOOK PROJECT (in reality rather than in my own head)!!! Now that is a major step. It is this shirt, and I am making it with "winter white" pinwale corduroy and this trim. So far I have cut out the fabric. Now to sew.

Also this last week I wrote a piece about soap-making for the new craft magazine Mix Tape by Nikkishell and 62Cherry ("mixtapezine" to me looks a lot like "mirtazepine" which is an antidepressant. Appropriate, really!) (I am a pharmacist by profession).