I Confess: On The Dress, There Has Not Been Much Progress

This is approximately what it should look like when finished. The skirt will stand out more because of the underskirt, and I'm hoping to make a sash also, but you get the idea.

So, I didn't manage to get Gosling's dress finished before the wedding, which was a pity, but totally expected. The bride lent me a gorgeous little purple dress that had been her daughters, so my bub was cute and matching anyway. So glad I'm not the only one who has a stash of no-longer-needed baby clothes lying around.

I am continuing to work on the dress, and I'm quite happy with how its coming along. It doesn't look professional, but I never expected it to. I'm sewing it by hand, I'm making it up as I go along, its by far the hardest thing I've ever attempted (yes, I consider a dress to be harder than a stuffed toy), and I only have very short spurts in which to sew - we're talking 5 minutes here, 10minutes there - so yes, I'm quite happy with how things are turning out.

Things I've learnt thus far:

• backtracking on a row of running stitch is nicer than doing a whole row of backstitch (thats nicer as in 'I prefer doing it', not necessarily 'looks better')
• skirts are easy, except for the opening at the back for a zip/buttons
• sewing is easier if you don't have a baby sitting on your lap
• sometimes, my stitches are visible where they shouldn't be, and I DON'T CARE
• arm holes are EVIL
• it helps if you have your pattern figured out before you start the actual sewing
• the needle threader is close to useless
• clipping curved seams/hems makes them sit SOOOOOOOOOOO much prettier
• pins are good, use as many as will fit
  
• ARM HOLES ARE EVIL
• I want to rub my face on the paler fabric because it is so nice and soft
• I still can't use a thimble
• I need to find my own scissors and stop using mum's
• I really don't know if I'm up to hand sewing button holes, and may have to break out the machine when it gets to those.
• ARM. HOLES. ARE. EVIL.*
  Unfinished arm-hole. Needs to have a facing put on.
  

My current aim is to get it done by Christmas. That would be good. Don't know that it will happen. The fact that Gosling is now sleeping unwrapped most of the time should help, but this wretched heat makes me want to just lie down and sleep too, instead of sewing or cooking or cleaning or feeding the kids (did I just say that?)..

Having two separate needles helps too. I have a scrap of fabric in my pin box with the needles in it when they aren't in use, and I am in fact using two needles. One for the dark thread, one for the light. I have no idea why its making things easier for me, but I've found it a lot easier to switch needles, and keep threading each one with its own coloured thread, rather than using one needle and alternating thread colours. I know, my brain works oddly.



*The mostly-arm-hole-shaped facing I've used instead of trying to 'hem' them properly has made things a LOT easier. But what would have made it EVEN EASIER, is if I'd made the shell and lining separately and then put them together, instead of treating it as one piece. Then I wouldn't have had to bother with all the clipping and folding and facing and cutting and screaming and swearing and finger stabbing and trying to only sew through three-out-of-four layers.... Next time. Next time I'll know.

Brought To You By The Letters "E" and "W", and By The Number "2"

Things Gosling doesn't (or does, but only partially) digest:

• peas
• corn
• carrot
• broccoli
  
• olives
• sultanas (golden raisins)
  
• pumpkin

I can understand all except the pumpkin, considering it's well and truly mushed up when she eats it.

Ok. I'm done. You can go eat now.

:D

Photodump - My Garden

WARNING!!! There are 20 photos in this post! Expect slowness!























All photos taken on a digital point-and-shoot. Photoshop was used to shrink&sharpen (sharpen not needed if I'd left them big), and watermark. No colour correction, no darkening or lightening, this is what you can get from a normal camera.

My Husband Is Not Special

I have a friend whose husband is a cop. Another is married to a doctor, another a head chef. My father is a lawyer. My oldest friend helps businesses find solutions to their biggest problems, his father helps with the pipelines all across Australia. A lot of my friends husbands are, or are training to be, ministers.

My husband is the manager of a refrigeration parts warehouse. Before that, he worked on the counter in a warehouse. Before that, he drove a truck, delivering stuff from a warehouse. Before that, he was the heavy lifting boy in a warehouse. Before that he was tech support, telling old people how to connect their computers to the internet.

Its very easy to see what he does as less important than the other men I've mentioned. He doesn't save lives, or catch baddies. He doesn't ensure our country's sewerage, gas, and water are all working. He doesn't know the bible inside-out and backwards, read it in three different languages, and speak to a congregation every week about our Lord. The only people he cooks for live in this house.

He doesn't have a good singing voice, he can't play an instrument. His writing is incredibly messy, and he can't paint or draw. He doesn't have an extraordinary memory, and he doesn't make up amazing stories. He isn't drop dead gorgeous by most people's standards, though I wouldnt change anything about him.

He sells copper pipe and refrigerant gas, components for cool rooms and filters for air conditioners, stud finders and tape measures, and gloves. He drives a truck and delivers parts to the fridgies and plumbers and sparkies who actually use the stuff he sells.

My husband is not special.

But without him, when the coolroom at your supermarket breaks down, everything is wasted. He goes to work in the middle of the night to get stuff for the technicians so the supermarket doesn't lose $50'000 worth of dairy (true story. He left well before midnight and didn't come home till the small hours). He sells the parts to keep your local department store air conditioned. He supplies the people who service the steelworks.

All of us have a job to do. Some look more important on the surface, but none is without worth. Just as none of our lives are without worth. God created each and every one of us, and he gave us each a job. Who knows what that job is? I don't. You don't. Only He knows what we do and why. But none of us is unimportant.

Ugh

I have about 4 posts half written, I'm just lacking the motivation to finish them off and actually post them. some of them might not happen at all because they won't be relevant anymore - time specific.

Last night's stint didn't help any. Gosling had me up 10 times. And then woke up for good at 6am because her brother's sleep-talking woke her.

And now she's sitting on the floor sobbing. Today is not going to be fun.

Someone send me soe chocolate??


In interesting news, despite getting a letter from Better Homes & Gardens saying my subscription was up, and me not renewing it (just can't afford it), I got one in the mail yesterday. I think the magazine people are stupid. Mum's subscription to a different magazine yields 3 copies. 2 sent here, and one sent to her address. They started sending the extra copy here after she renewed her subscription, and when she changed her address they started sending one there as well, instead of stopping the one(s) coming here. IDIOTS.

Oh well. They'll figure it out at some point, right? Or should I tell them?

Got the sewing bug..

A good friend of mine is getting married in less than two weeks. On Nov. 1st she will finally become Mrs F. after a three year engagement, and 3.5 years after the birth of their daughter.

She wants everything to be P-E-R-F-E-C-T, but as they have a three year old, two cars, and a mortgage, on only one income, they don't have much spare money to spend on the wedding. Which is where I come in. Not only am I one of the bridesmaids, I'm also the resident Fix It Lady. I've always been good with my hands, and she's putting them to good use.

I helped her make the invitations, from an opinion here and there on materials, to shopping trips all over the city to get the best prices on the various components, all the way to twelve hours straight (I'm serious. I got there at around 11am, and didn't leave till well after midnight) sitting at her dining room table cutting and folding and printing and arranging and fixing and deciding and gluing, and reminding her to drink her tea - AWAY FROM THE INVITATIONS!!!!!!!!!!! - and calm down.

I'm currently helping her recover a guestbook, so that instead of being a hideous floral vomitsplatter, its the same dark, eggplant satin as the bridesmaid dresses and the back panel on her dress. The book was in Target, marked down from $20-something to $6.86, and when we got it to the counter it rang up as $2.53 so YAY, especially considering she found exactly what she wanted on ebay for $80+. Even factoring in the price of the satin, the paper, the ribbon, the buckle, the spray adhesive, and labour, its not costing anywhere NEAR the $80 she would have otherwise spent.

All this crafty-ness and money-saving has got to me though, and rather than buy something for my Gosling to wear, that would be far too much money spent on something she might wear a total of 3 times, I decided to MAKE HER A DRESS. Which is funny, because, you know, I'm afraid of the sewing machine. I bought two shirts from the local second-hand stores in two beautiful shades of purple, and proceeded to cut them into dress shaped pieces - making the pattern up as I went along*. And then, I realised that not only am I afraid of the sewing machine, but the only time I have to use the machine is when Gosling is asleep, and therefor not stuck to me like a barnacle. Which would be great, except for the noise, which would wake her up, and oops, barnacle again and no sewing.

Good idea FAIL.

Then my brand new packet of needles caught my eye. Can you see where this is going?

Ladies and gentlemen, I am sewing a dress for my eight-month-old-daughter by hand.

Someone give me some sanity pills, please??




*By 'making up the pattern', I mean I don't have a bought pattern I'm following. I traced the outline of one of her shirts to make the bodice, the skirt is easy as it's just a half-circle, and the yoke I shrank from a grown-up sized pattern I found online. All the pieces have had to be tweaked though, so I really am just making it all up as I go along. I've also never made a dress, so I'm not quite sure how to put it all together..


**The colours in these photos are not entirely accurate, but are as close as I could get them in photoshop without losing any detail - my selection skillz are not good enough to only do part of the image. Yes, these are photos of the actual objects in question. Yes, that is a standard sized needle - about 1.5" (3ish cm) long. Yes, my stitches are quite small. Yes, I am completely insane.

The boy is five

I kept meaning to write this post, and never got round to it. Two weeks ago, Critter turned five. Which means its been over five years since I lay on bloodsoaked sheets in hospital, wondering how my baby could squeak before he was all the way out, and trying not to wonder if I was going to pass out. My sweet baby boy, my boogerface, my munchkin, my boyo is growing up. His vocabulary is increasing (he described dinner as delectable a couple months back. WHERE DOES HE LEARN THESE WORDS!!) almost daily, it seems, and his lego skills are enviable. I'm glad I have Gosling to be the baby, because Critter certainly isn't any more.


We had his birthday at the bowling alley, and my mum helped me to make a castle cake for him - he picked it out of the cake book. I love the cake book, but I might try to direct him towards something easier next time. The castle took 3 quantities of cake, and far too much icing. And I nearly had a meltdown trying to get the chocolate windows done.


I also made 4 dozen (48!!!) cupcakes for him to take to preschool. NEVER AGAIN.