Thursday, October 30, 2014

Dragonfly Dress for Milla


A few months ago Deb gave me a supermarket bag full of scrap fabric, inside was this purple dragonfly fabric. I had no ideas for things I could use it for, but as soon as Milla spyed it she declared "Isn't is soooo beeeautiful Mummy! All those purple butterflies!" as she looked at me sweetly! The purple force is strong in Milla.


I made the dress in one night a few weeks ago, but it's taken me until today to make the button holes and sew the buttons on. I just really really suck at button holes. 


But! Milla absolutely loves her dress. She has been patiently waiting for it.



Once again its the Savannah Dress pattern, which is now my 5th time making! (I have another to show you next week...) 

It's such a simple dress, and the pattern comes with different neckline and sleeve options. So versatile! Although when I first showed her she said "Thats just like my birthday dress!" So I think I will need to deviate from this pattern eventually to keep it exciting! 

Yay! I love sewing pretty things for my girls!

Thanks for stopping by my blog today xx

READ MORE:
Click here to view all my Savannah Dress sewing

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Our Humble Container Garden



I planted strawberries on a whim a wee while ago. I decided we needed to have them, after keeping a few alive last year (but not for much longer), they were great to have with toddlers, so I went out and bought the plants, soil and pots, even though we couldn't reeeeally afford anything extra that week. but MAN! I am SO GLAD I DID. These little plants are bringing me the greatest of joy.

I love them so much I went out and got some old recycling bins and made a little container garden for ourselves.


Cherry tomatoes, capsicum (I'm not really expecting these to grow, christchurch is too cold for them), strawberries... and now raspberries!


We were given some raspberry canes from a beautiful family in our church when I asked if anyone had any spare on FB. I had a few extra, and was able to give them to some other friends. Huzzah.



And these are our plants, just a few weeks later. Our strawberries are growing like crazy, the tomatoes are starting to creep up the stakes, and the raspberries have flowered and are sending new shoots up from the soil. Its completely satifying in every way, seeing my little plants grow. I'm even measuring my tomatoes growth week by week on the stakes. YEP. So exciting. 

I've seen some epic container gardens on Pinterest, but I'm pretty happy with our wee humble collection of growing things. It's about all I can keep alive right now! 

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

A Little Yellow Table



Errrm so I didn't "make" it exactly. However, I have spent the last few weeks ducking out to the garage in little spare moments to put layers of white and yellow on this wee coffee table. 


This is Resene's Paris Daisy, I bought a 1L of it to do up our bedside tables, so I have heaps of yellow left! Everything is going to be turning yellow around here...

I didn't do the greatest paint job in the world, but I'm trying to finish things rather than get stuck in the "it doesn't look perfect" rut. My builder and perfectionist brother won't be impressed by it, but I am. 

And, its the perfect (wee) size to have in our (wee) lounge, and can be easily moved about.

I love our new happy table!

(big thanks to our Fretty friends who generously share their thrifty finds with us)

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

The Beginning of our Training #moo2fitness



Well, that winter was long. I've been waiting for months for it to be light enough and warm enough to tighten the sneakers and get out on the pavement for another run. 

I really enjoyed training for the City to Surf, and when MrMoo announced that he wanted to train for a 10km fun run at the end of November I jumped on the bandwagon!


It is SO. GOOD. to be outside, sweating, huffing and puffing. It's a stress release and therapy time, a time to pray and zone out and focus in. It's just a good time for everything.

I'm looking forward to upping my fitness and acing that 10km. I'm actually considering not running in the fun run, and doing it on a different day so I can time myself. And. Well. I was really bitter about having to run with scooters and prams during the city to surf. It was dan.ger.ous. Apparently I'm not much of a "fun run" type. Oops.


I live around such a beautiful area, there are lovely parks and walk ways I can run down. 

I use the Nike app to coach me in my training - you put in how many km's you want to be able to run by a certain date and it works out a daily training schedule for you. In the early weeks I really like that there are some walks to loosen up your body in between runs.

[excuse that shoe pile]

MrMoo and I take advantage of the walks by going out together after dinner before bedtime. It's a lovely time bathed in sunset light, the girls sit happily in their buggy with their tummies full, sunglasses on and we get to chat about our days, which isn't something we are usually very good at making time for.


And, it's really hot seeing your hubby working out in such a perfect scene.
[I'm sharing on Instagram #moo2fitness ]

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Moon Gazing :: A Note to My Children


Dearest Children of Mine,

This week your Dad and I sat up late at night, staring out our window watching the bright moon change colour. It was absolutely beautiful. 

We felt like such oldies, taking the time to stargaze. We joked about Googling something, "Do young ones still use Google these days, love?" "Whats a Google?".

But, I hope that you'll always find to look up, into the nothingness and everythingness that is our universe. She's big, but somehow that makes me feel big too. Not little or insignificant like you might presume. Instead it makes me feel loved, and special. That in all of the years, and all of the people, God knows me, and you. It's pretty incredible, really. All of that everything only makes me believe more

I hope you'll find some comfort in that too.

Love, Mumma and Mimimimi.
xxx x


Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Amanda's Baby Shower Quilt

About a month and a half ago I hosted my first ever baby shower for my darling friend Amanda. I met Amanda 3 years ago at our Plunket new parents group and we have continued our friendship into toddler and second-new-baby hood.

At her baby shower I had the guests (with a lot of encouragement needed!!!) design up a quilt block on freezer paper (bought from Spotlight), they cut out the design and ironed it on to pre-cut quilting cotton.

At home I painted each of the blocks with a glitter gold fabric paint. It's actually quite sparkly and the photos don't do it justice here. In hindsight, I wish I had chosen a different method of doing this, because the glitter is a bit rough and probably not very practical for a nice soft snuggly quilt.

But I wasn't to know that, and I really wanted gold (for some reason). So I continued on, and built the quilt. The yellow around the outside and on the backing has little white dots in it which are hard to see here. 

I love each of the designs and they are all so different. When I showed Amanda the quilt today she had remembered each and every quilt block and who had made it. Impressive!


The back has a wee stripe of mini squares to jazz it up a bit and was hand quilted and hand binded together. Binding I think is my favourite part of making a quilt, its so satisfying all those tiny stitches and smooth edges and corners.


So here is my second ever quilt, not a bad effort, but I'd definitely change some things if I were doing it again.

I'm sure Amanda will do something with it though (and hopefully enjoy it), and it was a joy to pass it over to her and her family. (The new Pepe is doing great by the way :) I got snuggles today! Melt!)

READ MORE:
My first everyday quilt
My current scrappy quilt

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

I'm Joining In:: Scrappy Quilt Along

The last week, thankfully, flew by as we made our way through our first school holidays with Milla home from Kindy.

It was relaxing and I felt the pressure of being out of the house by 8.20 in the morning ease, along with packed lunches and tired cranky girls after busy days.

I've been sick for the last three weeks, trying to get over pesky swollen throat glands and headaches and last week I finally found some relief in the monotony.

As a result, I missed my Stuff I've Made blog post, but I did instead get the absolute honour of guest posting on Deb's Works In Progress blog.


I wrote to her readers about joining the Scrappy Quilt Along and showed off my first blocks and a little video of the process that the hubs made for me. You can jump over to the post to see it if you want to :) :: (Scrappy Quilt A Long Sophie Slim Guest Post).

So that's what I focussed on last week, a basket of some 1000 little fabric squares that are being sewn into rows and large squares. It's time consuming, repetitive, colourful, and just what I need right now.

Peace x
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