Domestic roles

Most mornings I feel like a short-order cook... breakfast for 3 hungry little mouths, trying to accommodate different tastes and allergies and still provide a healthy, nutritious start to the day. There is whining if it doesn't happen quickly, and screaming from the boy if I take a break to refill his bowl!



I also feel like a barista most mornings. It's been a long time since I've been able to have a quiet morning coffee (as any parent of small children will know) and these days the whole morning coffee routine is quite a saga with 4 drinks to make (hot chocolate for the kids of course)!



We use my favourite Koziol cups that I enjoy collecting. They come in varying sizes - huge for me (or 'bucket sized' as the Mr calls it - well, it does have to get me through the morning :-), medium for the girls and small for the boy....



who insists on holding his own cup...


"Yes? Something wrong?"

and needs a lot of cleaning up afterwards!

Then there's my role as washerwoman and the absolute mountain of washing to address all the time. If you're in the neighbourhood and feel like an exciting evening of clothes folding, drop in!



Although I loved taking part in the kids clothing week challenge it came at a bad time for me as we'd just arrived back from holiday and when I looked around the house I realised just how grubby it was - all the holiday sewing I'd been doing had been to the detriment of the cleaning. It looked like the the grubby fairies had been in and messed up. Now we need a visit from the cleaning fairies... wait, that'll be me... oh dear!

So I've promised myself no more sewing until I can get a bit of control back in the house. It's going to be tough, I'm sewing addicted at the moment, but maybe that's just the incentive I need!

Cook Clean Craft has some great cleaning tips to help. Now if I just had the time and motivation to do a huge spring clean on the house... the desire is there, the problem is that the sewing machine is too :-)

Any tips for me? Ways you motivate yourself to do the not-so-fun stuff around the house? I'd love to hear them.

Connecting

Something I love about having a blog and being an Etsy storeholder is 'meeting' lovely people along the way.



It's particularly nice to connect with other mums trying to channel their creativity into something to help out their families along the way. Helen from Poss&Wom sells her gorgeous prints for children's rooms on Etsy and Madeit and also has a lovely website. Her illustrations have so much character and a real feeling of joy and wonder about them, which I think is great for children.



Helen recently bought two of my sleepy teddies and gave me some lovely feedback after receiving them. Although I know I should just get on with doing what I do, having positive feedback like that really is fantastic and makes the sometimes late nights and unsure moments all worth it.

Then there are other nice things, like Jen making one of my recipes, Fi following my sewing tip and thinking I'm clever (shh, don't tell her otherwise ;-) and also the map below that tells me that people from different places have joined me in my little world for a time.



Thank you everyone!

kcwc wrap up

I've really enjoyed participating in Elsie Marley's Kids Clothing Week Challenge, it's just the bit of incentive I needed to get my act together! And it's helped my sewing skills and confidence so much.



This 2nd 'Go To Dress' I am happy with.



I think mixing up the colours helps give it a bit of personality. I originally made the first dress with these long sleeves, but didn't like them so cut them off. Then when I saw the discarded sleeves sitting on the green fabric I could see it working as another dress.



I added the flower-ish type decoration to dress it up a bit and to link all the fabrics back together so it didn't look too disjointed. This was so much fun to make. I've come to realise that I really enjoy free-form design where I'm creating something without rules - I guess there's not the pressure for it to be perfect. Following a pattern is satisfying but making something up gives me the creative hit I need, even if it doesn't end up working! I cut long strips of each of the fabrics, sewed a single line of long stitches down the centre then gathered it. After this I just wound each one around on the front of the dress until I liked the look of it then machine sewed them on. I'm sure there must be a name for these - I've seen a couple around, and I'm sure I'll see lots more now that I'm consciously aware of them. I could have made this as a brooch so that it didn't get washed on the dress each time, but I knew that it would surely get misplaced or lost under the sofa, never to be seen again!



Also I had my first go at making leggings. I traced around some leggings we already had to make a pattern, then looked up online the thing about inserting one leg into the other to sew them up. It was so satisfying to demystify something I'd never considered sewing before! In the past I've wished I had more pairs of leggings for the girls because they are so useful, especially in these in-between seasons. So now I will definitely make some more.

The things I didn't get around to doing for the challenge were making the boy some shorts and also the '90 minute shirt' that I've been wanting to try for ages - one day! :-)

kcwc - the tinkering dress

I'm calling this the tinkering dress because it's one of those garments that I can tell I may never be finished with fiddling with. You know the sort... "if I just... add a bit of fabric at the bottom/trim the ruffles down/take it in etc, it will be right!" But you keep tinkering, never entirely happy.

I used the "Go To Dress" pattern from The Train to Crazy (hmm, I think I'm on that train too!). It is generously offered free of charge and was easy to follow. I think my desire to create a spring version of it without the long sleeves caused me problems and it all spiraled from there. I should have probably just made the standard version first before trying modifications. Well, that's what the logical part of my brain was trying to tell me but unfortunately the impulsive, impatient, excited side won! Anyway... after this one I made another dress that did work well. I'll show you later when I can get some half decent pics.



The fabric was a cherished piece I'd bought ages ago, a thick interlock of magenta pink with small black horses. I made it without the long sleeves, a double cap sleeve for a bit more 'flounce', and a pocket at the front to stop it looking too much like a nightie.

A benefit of making this dress is that it's definitely helped with my knit fabric sewing skills. I've learnt that I can actually use my old sewing machine to do a bit of top stitching. It doesn't have zig zag stitch - or anything but straight stitch - (it's an oldie but a goodie) so I was doubtful I could do any finishing apart from with my overlocker (serger). But now there's no stopping me!

Frustrations & forgetfulness

Day 4 of kcwc didn't go too well for me. I wanted to make a girl's dress in knit fabric and found a pattern I thought would work but I just was not happy with it at all. The construction went together well but the style just seemed all wrong... so in day 5 I've been pulling it apart and trying new things to get it to at least be wearable (hopefully show you tomorrow). The big girl thinks it's fine, but I couldn't take cringing every time she wears it! Of course I had to jump in and use one of my favourite pieces of fabric from my stash, instead of some boring thing to test it on first, which makes it even worse... ah... more speed, less haste.



Not to worry. I did finally finish off this cuff though. It's a present for a friend who's birthday I missed :-(



I used some of the fabric I got from Cloth a while ago and backed it with a lovely piece of orange wool felt. At the last minute I felt inspired to sew on a little birdy, which worked out as I wanted it to and was fun to do. I hope my friend likes it. Fingers crossed.

kcwc: day three

My little boy has been happily wearing the slippers I make since he was a newborn but since he started walking a month or so ago I've felt he probably needs something more... so I bought him a pair of sandals before we went away. But after seeing him hobble around awkwardly each time he wore them I've decided to go back to the slippers for the time being.



The slippers don't provide a lot of protection for walking feet though, which is why I only normally make them big enough for babies up to about the age of 1. So I thought I'd design something more like a pre-walker. I bought an old leather skirt at my local op shop a while ago thinking I could experiment with cutting it up to use as soles for the baby slippers, so I used some for the outer soles and also sandwiched a piece of felt in between the 2 sole layers for a bit of extra padding.



For the outer I used some of the Prints Charming jersey I bought recently, and for the inside plain green knit fabric. Normally the slippers are fully reversible, but I didn't think it would work with these, hence the inside all soft. On the advice of my friend the sewing machine repairer I didn't use a leather needle, just a large one (size 18) and it sewed beautifully. They were a bit of a nightmare to turn inside out, but once done I was quite happy with them. Anyway, technical details aside, only time (and an adventurous boy) will tell though how useful they are.



Oh those chubby baby ankles... I could just eat them up :-)

kcwc: day two

Yesterday for day 2 of the challenge I sewed some monkey pants that I'd cut out before we went away. This is the 3rd pair I've made for bub (1st pair here) and they're really a joy to make, so quick and easy.



Again I used the pattern that I made from an existing pair we had, but this time I thought I'd give them a fold-down waist like yoga pants so they'd be extra comfy for bub. Also both the fabrics are light weight jersey which I thought might not support a thick elastic band so well. I don't know if I'm not using the right elastic but my waists always seem to roll, even the 'no roll' elastic - grr! The pants are not perfect but are OK for at home loungey pants or maybe pyjamas.



And finally today I joined Flickr. I've enjoyed using it for ages as a source of inspiration and really wanted to join in for KCWC. If you love kids clothes and/or sewing I'd urge you to have a look at the pics in the group - they're amazingly inspiring!