Little Fish Creations

A couple of weeks ago Chris and I decided that we would start looking for opportunites to move back ‘down south’ (as they say in the Northern Territory).  Preferrably somewhere in Victoria or Tasmania. 

Chris noticed a job ad with a paper mill in Southern Tasmania and sent off an enquiry.  The next day they were on the phone, last weekend they flew him down to Hobart for an interview (crazy, crazy flights), and yesterday he accepted their job offer and resigned from his current role!

Whew!!!!  I’m SOOO excited.  We are returning to the city (CITY!!! OMG!!!) where we went to university, where we met, where we still have many friends and where we never in our wildest imaginings thought we would find suitable employment for Chris (ya just gotta look, duh!). 

We’re thinking of driving back:

I should probably start knitting.  Poor Jasper has lived his whole life in the tropics and we are just about to dive into a Hobart winter. I’m off to browse Ravelry now (too bad I sold all my wool!)

I’ve been wanting to start an intensive project for ages, but couldn’t seem to settle on what I want to do! I was getting way too serious about the whole thing and hung up on the ‘final product’ and feeling too tired and, and, and…

Yesterday in a fit of frustration and in one of my short moments where Jasper was napping in his cot* I crept into my sewing room, snatched up a piece of scrap linen and quickly retreated to the loungeroom.  Where I took up some leftover standed cotton from my needle case and started stitching.

Just like that.  My intensive project has started.  I’m calling these little cross stitches ‘lollies’.  Small, unplanned, scattered, colourful and QUICK.

*Jasper has two naps per day and ususally wakes up after about 45minutes (one sleep cycle according to what I’ve read).  I’ve got into the habit of getting him out of the cot (where he’s usually standing up looking as awake as can be) and taking him to the lounge room where he quickly falls back to sleep, laying on me, for another 45-60 minutes.  This is a relaxing and a lovely way to while away my days…. but sucks in lots of ways.  Unfortunately he usually wakes up if I put him back into his cot.  Today I’ve resolved to keep on trying to get him to go back to sleep on his own.

This one goes out to my lovely friend Tracey who sent us two jars of home grown, home made jam all the way from Canberra to Jabiru!

Jasper reckons that Tracey’s apricot jam is super YUMMY!

In an attempt to maximise my sewing fun I’m making 6 pairs of baby pants at once!

1) Linen Chambray from Linnet this light weight linen has a lovely ‘shot’ weave with blue thread in one direction and green in the other,… these are ‘shorts’ length as I only had a small piece of the fabric.

2) Stretchy linen blend – leftovers from a skirt I made, but I’m making the ‘wrong’ side, not shown here as the ‘right’ side as I like the thin stripes (which may send me blind as it zizzes in front of my eyes!).  I’ve got lots of this fabric from Spotlight and I’ll be making myself some shorts from it too.

3) Cotton ‘rip stop’, also from Spotlight.  A crisp, dense weave, this was fabric left over from the shorts I made for myself a few weekends ago.

4) ‘Black hunter’ Linen from Tessuti. A light to medium weight linen woven from a black and white verigated yarn.  I really love this fabric and I’m thinking seriously about buying more to make a garment for myself.

5) ‘Edo Stream’ very light weight cotton from Tessuti.  This fabric is very soft.  I’m not sure how it will hold up as a pair of baby pants, but there’s only one way to find out!

6) ‘Cornwall – chino‘ linen from Tessuti. Beautiful, beautiful fabric!

Can you tell I’m still on my linen kick?  I just LOVE the feel and look of it and I can’t help myself from indulging.  The Tessuti linens are just under $40/m so I’m not exactly economising.

I have to mention that the cuts from Tessuti were very generous for the linen fabric, I ordered 0.5m and they sent 0.6m which leaves me with lots of nice chunky sized scraps to use in some little embroideries (which I’m dreaming about right now!).

So Jasper will be all set for pants which he mostly wears with bonds singlets as modelled above 🙂

I did some more stitching this weekend.

And Jasper spent some time outside while Chris tried to take photos of dragonflies.  When they swarm it’s, apparently, a signal that the wet season will finish in about 6 weeks. 

Did you know that it was my birthday this week.  I thought I was turning 34, but it turns out I was wrong. I’m 33.  Bonus!!! It’s like finding a $10 note in your pocket :o)

I’ve been noodling around with thread and fabric this week… in the evenings sitting on the couch with Chris, a glass of wine and our current ‘show of addiction’ (Deadwood) on the telly.  I stitch away and enjoy it very much! (Jasper is SLEEPING THROUGH people, my life is starting to feel normal and wonderful again)

Last weekend I finished 2 pairs of pants for Jasper (including a pair in brown check fabric above). I LOVE making baby pants.  They’re quick, practical and it gives me an excuse to buy 1/2 metre bits of fabric in all sorts of patterns and colours 🙂  Online retail therapy without any guilt what-so-ever!

I also finished a pair of shorts for myself.  The muslin (trial version) was really baggy, so I took off width at the side and the crotch… and now they are TIGHT.  So I’m going to add back all those bits before I make another pair.  Maybe Vogue Patterns knows better than me after all!

I decorated another 4 postcards (the two remaining cards have manufacturing faults so I’m not going to bother with them).  I scanned these instead of photographing them and they look more contrasty here than in real life.

I’m pretty chuffed to have used up some supplies! I’d love to send one or two out as postcards through the mail… if you’d like a postcard from me, please let me know in the comments!

I am SOOOO itching to get into my sewing room.  There are lots of projects backed up. I’m going to get dibbs on some baby-free time over the weekend so I can go crazy and sew, sew, sew.  I’m thinking I should do all my cutting out now…. so what do I want to make?

• Baby pants (finish one pair and make another)
• Pencil case – why do I keep my pencils in a plastic bag when I’m equiped and skilled to make a cute fabric case?!!
• A pair of shorts for myself (the pattern adustment project I started months ago…  I’ve adjusted the pattern so now I’ve got to make a muslin to test out the fit!!).
• A knit dress … a little ambitious for me, but I think I’m up for it!! 

I also need to think about possible hand sewing projects for times when I can’t get into my sewing room.  I just can’t decide what I want to make!  Arrrrgh!

I’m proud that I said I’d get my pencils out and then I actually did it!

First I taped off my ‘frames’ and layed down a watercolour base.  Then I got busy with my pencils 🙂

This is very bumpy handmade watercolour paper from Creative Paper in Burnie, Tasmania (my home town).  We did a tour of their new home at the Maker’s Workshop when we were home in January.  The new facility has lots of potential and I especially liked the maker’s kiosks where you can meet and chat with the makers while they are creating.  The day we were there we spoke with a sculpter (paper mache figures) and a glass bead maker.

In my recent cull of craft supplies I got rid of all my art papers.  In future I’ll be buying small quantities for immediate use. I’ve got 6 more postcard sized pieces of this paper left and I think I’ll use the rest up this weekend.

Here we have Jasper watching Chris mow the lawn. When we got back from our holiday some parts of our lawn were nearly taller than us.  Chris had to tackle it in parts over a number of days.

Jasper is pulling himself up onto furniture now, though he still doesn’t know about stepping.  He loves playing with doors, opening and closing, opening and closing.  Watching the top of the door as he moves it at the bottom.  Like some amazing puppet master.

I’m worried he’ll get his fingers jammed.  Today he got his foot awkwardly and firmly stuck under his bedroom door, I tried to gently pry it out but eventually had to use brute force…  I thought surely I must have broken it.  But it was just mildly grazed and he cried for about 30 seconds before moving onto more interesting things.

Tonight I’m thinking about coloured pencils… I’ve had a set of Derwents since I was 15 and I’m thinking that it’s time to USE them.  But first.  Sleep.

This project seemed to go on for-ever.  My technique for hemming is too slow… hand basting the fold line, finger pressing the hems and basting them by hand, then mitring the corners and stitching THEN finally sewing the actual hem on my machine.  I’ve tried to ‘wing’ it before, but the hems become uneven.  If anyone has a quicker method please put my out of my misery and let me know!  This is the pile of basting threads that I plucked out tonight.

Though maybe it wasn’t actually my method that was the problem.  Maybe it was that we have been going through the trauma of controlled crying (which has worked, OMG it has bloody well worked and I’m soooo, sooooo, sooooo happy about it, but oh how I wish it could have happened without the crying bit… including MY crying)

AND last Tuesday night the power went off and the food in our big freezer defrosted. So last week I had to cook. A lot.

Just in case you were wondering.  My ‘intensive’ project has been put off for a week.