Screen printing fun

Not as much sewing in the last week or so, although I do have some things traced off and cut out ready to put together. Just have to get motivated again.

Here, finally, are pics of my two yr old's complete outfit - you've seen it in bits.

On Sunday I went to a Prints Charming screen printing workshop. I printed this fabric - which will probably become dresses for the girls - something simple to show off the print.

I'm so use to having co-ordinates to sew with though that now I'm finding it hard to get motivated to sew; I just keep thinking of co-ordinates I could print to go with this fabric. As soon as the rain stops I'll have to have a few printing days.

You may know that I've done screen printing before, but mostly finer, detailed stuff, and mostly printed as a border or similar - as shown in these posts (note - right click and chose "open in new tab" or page if you don't want to lose your spot here). I have done one print (scroll down to the butterflies) that has different colours and overlapping bits, but it still has some detail stuff.

It was fun to just do the large simple prints and not to worry about spending too long getting the drawings exact, etc. I will definitely do more fabric in this style - probably with co-ordinates next time though!

I also have a few other fun screen printing ideas that I hope to try out in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned ...

To finish, a few pics from the garden.

Hopefully I'll be more productive in the next couple of weeks - my "list" is so long at the moment that I really need to get going with it all.

Mid-week catch up

This is what I woke up to this morning. This is hwo it looked outside our windows at about 6.30am. The picture is a bit blurry because I turned off the flash and hand held the camera to try and get the right colour, but you can certainly see the colour. It says on the news that this is the worst dust storm we've had in about 70 years.

The following few pics are really related to the last post, but are a few things that I found I was missing pictures of, so read there for the details.

This is a close up of the king parrot that I felted for the birthday ring (and maybe to be moved to our nature table when the birthday ring has been put away).

This is the birthday ring with the flowers in the vases - just because it looks so cute with them added too.

This pic shows our nature table as it is now - it's a work in progress with some things just there for the moment until I get it done properly. Last post I only had closeups of the birds.

This is a closeup of the birthday cake decoration girl. And it is worth saying again here - I did get the idea from various ones for sale on etsy, and it is very similar. I was going to link to the person who makes them there, and say to buy one from that store if you want one, but this one is a combination of inspiration taken from a few of them with a few differences too. If you feel that I've copied your doll, let me know and I'll either link to you so that you can get some business from it, or take my picture down. Mine is certainly lacking some of the lovely details of the ones on etsy, such as things the cake topper girls there are holding, etc.

Okay, that's enough of the pics that should have been in the last post. Here is some other stuff.

Ages ago I put in pics of an embroider and some screen printed fabric that were to become my bag. I finished the bag in about June, but never put in pics of it, so here they are, although the bag is getting quite grubby now and really needs a wash.

Decided to get back to a routine of reading to all the kids together before bed as I'd let that slip and just read individually to them. I wanted to start on something like a chapter book rather then picture books and decided to go with fairy tales and classics. The kids have been loving it. These are the books we've been using.

The first is probably my least favourite of the three, although still good. It is one from when I was little.

And a shot from an inside page ...

This one I love. It is also from when I was little. It's quite short though.

The pictures are so lovely ...

And the final one is a newer purchase ... Rapunzel and Other Magic Fairytales (because it is a newer one I could put it as a link - don't think the others would still be available, although I haven't searched). I love this one.


When I get time I'll have to list the big pile of books beside my bed for my reading.

This is a recent craft that the kids did. I got the idea from someone's blog that I visited, but I can't remember whose. If it is yours, please let me know and I'll link it.

They're garden prayer flags. Using fabric crayons on calico, the kids drew pictures of things that they wanted for the garden - to help it grow. They worked out what to draw. I just ironed them, put a rolled hem around the edge and quickly sewed them onto fabric tape. They're now hung in our garden. The idea is that you can't pray all the time, so with prayer flags you can send your constant prayers with the wind. Without getting into a religious discussion here, I think the concept of prayer flags works with just about any belief - in a God or whatever god you believe in, even if you just believe in the power of positive thinking!

And finally, I want to post here about a giveaway. Of course, by posting in my blog I get extra entries, but I want to tell you how much I love these products anyway. We have some stockmar crayons (not this nice double set) and I wont go back to supermarket crayons now. I love them. Great colours and I'm much happier for the children to use them. I think it is good for children to have good quality art supplies too. And they really look after them a lot more.

So here is the link - it's a giveaway ... you can look for yourself ... its on the Hip Mountain Mama blog.

That's all for now.

Birthday season around here, and lots of garden pics

I'll start trying to add in links to books that I use for patterns etc - I love it when I find a good book via someone else's blog, so I should make the effort too.

This is the first birthday crown that I've made - based on the one in the book The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections. It's for my oldest daughter. Wasn't sure if she'd be interested in starting a birthday crown tradition at this stage, but she loved it!
I wanted to add some more traditions to our lives, starting with their birthdays, as I always feel so rushed on their birthdays (particularly on their party days - getting ready for a party and/or visitors) and I felt that with a few nice traditions it would make the day more special and make us all slow down for at least part of the day!

On their birthdays they get to take cupcakes or similar to school to share with the class. Typical of my daughter, she didn't want cupcakes, but chose biscuits instead. Half choc chip biscuits, and half anzac slice. Both are vegan. The place where I use to buy my vegan choc chips closed down so I chopped up a block of choc instead. I'm fussy about choc so it is also organic (couldn't get fair trade, but tried) - I avoid buying chocolate that might come from cocoa that has been grown at a plantation that has child slaves.

My choc chip cookie recipe is from this book: Vive Le Vegan!: Simple, Delectable Recipes for the Everyday Vegan Family, by Dreena Burton. They are really good choc chip cookies. I make them all the time.

My daughter wore this outfit recently, although I sewed it up last summer. Wasn't sure if I'd put in pics already. Love how it looks on her. I only wish I had one similar! Both top and skirt are from Ottobre patterns.

This is her modelling an apron that I made for a friend of hers - for a birthday present. Simple style.

Made her a new tee - plain white, to go with her dalmation pants for a disco party for another of her friends. She badly needs more of the basics at the moment like tees - growing too fast. I'm only giving myself tonight off to do some blog catch up, then sewing full steam ahead to fill up the kids' summer wardrobes. They are currently seriously lacking things that fit them well.

And have I ever shown you the dalmation pants? I love these. A pattern from Ottobre of course, but any plain jeans pattern would do.

Not trying to show you anything homemade here (although I did make the top - hemp/org cotton, fibre reactive dyes; and the pants - from a thrift shop jumper), but I just love this pic. So fun to watch a bub with a balloon. I think this was the first hellium balloon she'd played with.

And now, onto some garden pics. There are heaps of them and I wont say much about them, but please make sure you get to the end, as there is a cute baby pic there!

By the way, this veg garden is our front yard. The back is full of fruit trees (still too young to be baring fruit). Haven't taken pics there yet.

Snow peas and sugar snap peas.

Love the look of the new peas "hatching" - with their cute little flower hats.

A few strawberry plants - will have to get a lot more of these in.

Some Giant Russian Garlic - love this variety. Not much here, but it just came up from cloves I accidentally left in from last year. There is a little of the smaller garlic too, but no pics of that.

A baby blueberry tree. There are three of them - with flowers on them already. Wonder if that means there will be a berry or two???

Some lettuce - there's heaps more of this, and actually, I took these pics a couple of weeks ago and it's grown a lot since then.

Spinach. I have masses of this and really need to get picking and make a few spinach pies. I made spinach frittata for dinner tonight and actually used frozen spinach - completely forgot about the lovely fresh, organic stuff growing in the garden. Hmmm ... might have to make it again in a couple of days!

Nasturtiums, parsley and weeds - growing under the lemon tree - just looking after themselves really. I try to encourage nasturtiums to pop up everywhere for a bit of protection for the veggies. And I end up with masses of parsley by the time summer hits - it self seeds and I can't bring myself to pull it out.

Potatoes - there are quite a few of these popping up from potatoes left in the ground from last year's planting. Which reminds me that I did buy some more seed potatoes and should get time in quickly. Adding that to me "to do" list now.

New Zealand Spinach. You might have seen this growing wild. I have it in because I don't have to do anything to look after it and it comes up. If food prices go too crazy, at least we'll be able to live on New Zealand spinach and parsley!

This is actually the most sparse part of this garden bed - not sure why I put in this pic and not another one, but you can see some silver beet and broccoli here. Also in the bed is cauli, cabbage, lots more silverbeet and all the spinach. I've tucked in a few other things too - just added one capsicum plant and a couple of rhubarb plants - that looked as though they were about to die in the pot, so not sure how they'll do. I put them in this bed because there is a section that seems to just flourish, and I wanted to give them the best chance.

This bed had potatoes last year, grown using Peter Cundall's method from his Organic Gardening DVD (which is excellent). Now, it is such a healthy garden.

The lemon tree is flowering madly.

A cabbage from the above-discussed bed.

Just some flowers. I thought they looked nice. I don't put much effort into decorative plants, but am trying to do a bit more to make things look nice.

Ahhh ... now back to birthday stuff - the crown I made for my youngest daughter's first birthday. Isn't she cute?

And her birthday cake - the first of a few (by the time we have the various gatherings with various people). This is just a plain sponge cake - not my favourite (although very nice), but her dad's favourite. I know the sprinkles and the strawberries don't really go that well, but the strawberries were completely necessary, and I had to add pink sprinkles when she was being such a pink girl that day. The sprinkles were very sparkly ones - called "Fairy Dust".

More of her birthday in the next post.

Here are the girls!

Okay, so when I say, "Here are the girls", I don't mean the banana bread that you first see in this post! You'll have to get to the end of the post to see the girls.

Although the last thing I wrote was only a couple of days' ago, it was photos that were downloaded onto my computer on about the 13th of February. I've just downloaded the photos that I've taken since then, so here is yet another catch up (before we get to the girls - which is really today's crafty contribution).

I've done a bit of baking. Used up some bananas in my quick banana bread - to be sliced and frozen for adding to school lunches for the following week or two. I'm trying a new method of breadmaking to keep up with all our bread needs. I already make all of our bread - which I've done for years, but this is a new method from the book "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a day" - which I love. It is delicious bread and it really is very quick. It's much easier to fit into a busy schedule. I've even used the method for pizza dough.

After working out (and making lots of times lately) a vegan (ie dairy and egg free, and of course no meat) version of sticky date pudding which is really delicious, I decided to see what a self-saucing sticky date pudding would be like - just because it would be so quick to make. So here it is. Not a very exciting photo I know. Tastes good, although not as good as the other one. I would still make it perhaps for a super quick family treat dessert, but would generally stick with the other version I think.

We finally dug up all the potatoes that have been growing in our potato patch for the past few months. We got less then I had hoped for, but still a good crop considering that the plants died early from sun burn. And now, we have a lovely, almost weed-free, area for planting into.

We also dug up some piddly little garlic bulbs that also got too much sun, and planted some beans and beetroot in their place.

I made a long sleeve peasant top for my 21 month old daughter. I just made it up and ended up adding elastic in the shoulder, which looks much better. The sleeves were just too big before that. The fabric is from Sandi Henderson's lovely collection.

Made light mauve leggings to match.

So after really, really hot weather, we had some cold weather when I was stuck searching for nice warm clothes for the little girls that would fit. That was why I started on the long sleeve top and leggings. Then it started getting warm again, and my 7 yr old has been in need of more shorts for a while, so I made her and my 5 yr old son some simple, plain black shorts. Made my son's shorts longer and added extra patch pockets on the sides. I don't think I took a photo of them so you'll have to wait to see them. Here are my daughter's shorts along with a variation on a pillowcase dress for her top. I think it turned out nicely.

And now, back to bread. The photos are in time order - just incase you're wondering why we're jumping back and forth. I made lots of bread between the last pictures and this one, but this is the first one with a bit of wholemeal flour in it. I'll have to gradually try substituting more and more wholemeal - this one tasted good.

And now, finally onto the girls! This is how my dining table looked for a couple of days (did pack it up in between each time, but kept getting it back out). I took a bit of a sewing break, to do some painting, and made a little collection of clothes peg dollies. Love how they turned out!

Here they are, waiting to get dressed (and have arms added too actually).

And here is a collection of cute little dresses.

This is a group shot, in they're current resting place - in front of the glasses in our dining room shelf. Close-ups to follow ....

These dolls were great fun to make. I wonder if I can make a living out of making little peg dollies??? I imagine by the hundredth one I might be saying something different though!

It was fun doing some painting again, so I do have plans for a couple of other painted things and also some fabric printing. Stay tuned!