A productive day

Why was it so productive? Well, Friday is Alastair's daycare day (and Emma's in school). Technically he goes to daycare so I can work on my university studies, so obviously I can craft to procrastinate ;) It's ok, the final assignment isn't due until November 10! (Never mind the fact I have Emma's birthday before then, with two events to plan for that.)

This had been sitting, cut out, in my WIP pile for ages because the fold-over elastic and TouchTape were out in the shed. Done, one large PUL cover for Alastair:



(I also polished off a couple of other things in the pile - an old work skirt that needed the identifying tags unpicked because it was a branded uniform but I really like the skirt and want to use it when I start working again, and a carrier that needed mending.)

One mei tai with hood, for ME this time:



This is going to get worn to the 'Reclaim the Night' march/rally tonight :D It's in Amy Butler Nigella twill, with cotton drill straps.





And I started on a Christmas present, my first-ever attempt at quilting. It's going to be a quilted wall hanging for the kitchen:





Obviously I still have to back it and quilt it. I know the piecing isn't quite square, but it's made with love, which is what counts ;) I swear it's not as uneven as it looks in the photo, though! I love love LOVE the coffee fabric (it's Morning Roast, by Timeless Treasures).

I'm taking the pledge!

I, Georgina, pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of "new" manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 2 months. I pledge that i shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovated, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that thy thriftiness brings! Signed, me.

I'm aiming to do this for the children as well.

Starts November 1!

Bargain-hunting

I went op-shopping last week for the first time in ages, and of course didn't find what I really wanted - summer clothes for Alastair - but found some other things. A nice dark denim skirt for me, Barbie T-shirt for Emma, and these:

From Surprisingly Domestic

A handbag with tags still attached, in giftable condition - $5. Not my colour, but it'll make a nice Christmas gift!

From Surprisingly Domestic

That's $22 new, in as new condition for $1.75, and will fit Evelyn this summer.

Then on the weekend we went to Spotlight and I finally bought the drill for the next mei tai I want to make, and found this for $5 down from $25:

From Surprisingly Domestic

Alastair loves Dora! It's slightly scratched, that's all. We put it low on the wall so he can hang his own things :)

Recipe: exotic dairy-free ice cream

From Surprisingly Domestic

I 'invented' this tonight (most of the custard apples aren't ripe, but one big one blew off the tree in high winds the other night, so I ripened it with some bananas in a bowl).

1 large ripe custard apple, flesh scooped out and de-seeded
3 ripe kiwi fruit (I used gold), skin removed
1 egg
about 1 cup vanilla soymilk (or use plain soy/rice/cow milk + some vanilla extract)
about 1/4 cup sugar
about 1 tsp ground cinnamon

Throw ingredients in blender and blend.

Put in ice cream maker.

Eat.

Of course, if you don't have a custard apple tree in your backyard, this is probably kind of expensive ...

It's nice and creamy because custard apples are well, custardy, lol.

FO!

From Surprisingly Domestic

From Surprisingly Domestic

Next project is this in this:

From Surprisingly Domestic

(Tiger Cub on organic wool from The Yarn Cafe)

Argh! I'm an idiot.

:(

I try and keep my unused yarn in plastic tubs with lids, of course, but I have been careless about my unfinished objects, because, well, I guess I planned on finishing them sooner rather than later and it didn't happen.

Today I pulled out a pair of shorties for Alastair that I'd started working on LAST summer, and here's what I found:

From Surprisingly Domestic

From Surprisingly Domestic

Waaaah. I threw it in the bin because it wasn't that much work and the wool was eaten in quite a few places.

Lesson learned. I'm going to check my other UFOs & try to keep them safe.

In better news, the capris just need the crotch grafted and the ends woven in.

A productive day

Have I ever mentioned that I like crime fiction?

Our bookshelves are overflowing, so when I saw an offer on Freecycle for one in our suburb that would actually fit in our car, I snapped it up. (I love Freecycle, but given that we have a smallish car with no towbar, it's not actually feasible to collect many things from it!) Then I moved a lot of books around.

It fits about half my crime fiction collection:



The rest of our fiction collection is here (I'd say about 80% of it is mine!):



In contrast, here are the books poor Garry has to read (they're all computer books):



Evelyn's capris/shorties (I think they'll be capri length now and shorties in summer) are coming along nicely too:

Nectarine tree:

From Surprisingly Domestic

From Surprisingly Domestic

Custard apple:

From Surprisingly Domestic

Yum yum.

Food. Yum.

I've been rocking dinnertime this week, if I do say so myself.

Monday we had sausages & heaps of roast vegetables (potato, sweet potato, pumpkin & beetroot), with broccoli and cauliflower. Home-made chocolate ice cream and raspberries for dessert (the raspberries were frozen, of course, I *wish* we could get fresh here). Tuesday I put the leftover roast vegies on a pizza (Garry also took some with pasta for lunch, and then I had leftover pizza for lunch today, so it was pretty good value), with crusty garlic bread & more vegies. Fruit salad with vanilla & cinnamon whipped cream for dessert. Tonight we had hoi sin mince & vegies with Chinese cabbage and egg noodles. Ran out of yummy desserts, though :(

Last Friday Emma and I planted some seeds (carrots in the garden, and parsley in a large pot). I'm hoping they germinate soon :)

The fruit trees are doing quite well. The orange and plum trees out the front (established before we bought the place) have flowered nicely, so I just need to keep the fruit fly off. The young ones out the back - well, the nectarine one is doing great. It had a whole heap of young fruit - and then Alastair and a little friend decided to pick a handful each *sigh* at least they didn't try to eat them. There are still about 20 on the tree, hopefully the bugs stay away. The peacharine (cross between peach and nectarine) only has a couple of stunted fruit that don't look like they'll grow, but that's because half of the tree was dead and I didn't prune it until the beginning of spring. Since I pruned away the dead part the rest looks a lot healthier, so hopefully next year. The other plum tree has 6 or 7 young fruit. The mandarin tree only has one bud. The grapefruit is flowering, and I think I killed the lemon tree, lol.

This one is not really my crafty endeavour at all - well, only a tiny part.

I scored a new Beetlebums all-in-two nappy at last week's stocking (which, believe me, is hard to do), and Mel was kind enough to include a small offcut of the fabric so that I could make a matching shirt. I was just going to do a white singlet or shirt, but happened to have a shirt that's exactly the right shade of blue. Obviously it was meant to be ;)

From 20081006

From 20081006

Yeh, the applique's only half done; Alastair woke up too early from his nap. Such is life.

Yay!

From Surprisingly Domestic

I am nervous about whether the recipient will like it, because she's a fantastic seamstress. I do like this carrier, but it has imperfections. It has:

- darts in the body so the child fits in better
- curved shoulder straps that'll stay on the shoulders better than straight
- a hood
- the padding just right, I think.

Two new projects

This one isn't for me:

From Surprisingly Domestic

(Need to get this one finished soon, the recipient is waiting!)

And some shorties/capris (not sure how far the yarn will stretch) for Evelyn, because she's nearly outgrown the newborn longies I knitted her!

From Surprisingly Domestic

It's just cheap wool from K-mart, but it knits up really nicely (one of her newborn pairs is in the same yarn), and holds up pretty well to friction - Alastair has a pair in the same wool, different colourway, and although it pills a little, it has generally held up to his rampaging toddler-ness very well. So she can wear them through to autumn when she will be moving/crawling.