Grace's Birthday

Grace, aged eight:

Cartwheeler

Handstander

Red-riding-hood wearer

Wombat lover

Food truck

Summer was fading along with all enthusiasm for cooking dinner. Food trucks reliably stop close by offering  decent fare,  a car park to eat it in and an incomparable view over the city.   Once we had delicious tacos followed by home made ice cream but this night there were competing burger trucks on either corner. We tried both - one had better burgers, the other better chips, Grace turned cartwheels, Lily amused us, a silent disco rocked by, Ruby road tested her newly straightened hair and Nina decided she likes burgers (my only child who does). The light was beautiful, the evening balmy and but for the photographs I took I'd probably has forgotten it already.

The Dining Room

I think I mentioned that we did up our dining room recently to make it function as both a dining room and a sewing room without always looking like a bomb site.  The final bit was putting in a window seat to store my machines and bits and pieces easily.  It has worked like a dream.  The light in this room always seems to be gorgeous, especially since we took down the heavy curtains.  As we didn't get a very hot summer, we haven't yet had cause to regret that yet.  The window seat is used constantly, for taking a nap, plaing games, doing a bit of crafty whatever, lying on to listen to an ipod (yes, we caved) as well as to store my stuff, which it does easily and is not a pain to use. We eat at the table - not every day but if someone is over, or for cake, or if the kitchen table is full and no one can be bothered clearing it.  For a while the playroom was my favourite room, but now its no contest.  I can't stop photographing it, which you'll know if you follow me on Instagram.

Beginnings

So Lily started school.  In fact she's just finished first term and I'm loathe to put the mozz on it, but all appears to be going quite smoothly.  She trots off happily, after a few obligatory moans (not really a morning person, our Lil) and is generally quite pleased with herself and her day at home time.  She's learning to read, as kids do, and taking tap classes and wanting to learn violin and tennis and 'keyboard' and gymnastics.  Those things can wait.

I'm did have a jolt, on her first day, a pang at the passing of a particular stage in my life - the stage with young kids at home.  It lasted only a second.

Frida Kahlo Doll

Isn't this cool?  I can take credit only for putting her together which honestly was easy as pie.  This Frida Kahlo, from Miko Designs was such a fun sew.  I added the ribbon round the bottom of the skirt and cut out the extra Frida head and bird from the printed sheet of fabric, that was decorated with a few extra bits and pieces to get creative with.  There was lovely script on the fabric too, which I cut out and  used to decorate a bag for Frida to go in. (she was a gift).  I also made a rabbit from this same designer, with a gorgeous Parisian skirt and other bits and pieces for Grace, which I'll maybe get around to photographing one day.  

Robots

My brother, the sole boy with four sisters, did not much like drawing as a kid. He didn't like making things, or cooking. Having so many sisters did not seem to quell his passion for Aussie Rules, backyard cricket, and pounding a tennis ball against the garage wall for hours. He started a paper-round at aged eight, and saved his money to buy a calculator. It did basic addition, subtraction and multiplication, cost $24 (a small fortune circa 1978) and was the pinnacle of technological achievment in our household. He taught us the fine art of the 'chinese burn', the horse bite, the dead leg - mostly through demonstration rather than instruction.

His one creative passion, as I recall, was drawing robots. He would draw endless robots, which were always entirely comprised of squares of different sizes. Pages of robots, drawings of robots for every handmade card he was required to give and even, once, a robot rendered in DAS for Mum's birthday.

Lily, too, likes to draw robots. Robots with robots inside and robots inside the robots inside, a la 'The Cat in the Hat'. Robots with loopy arms a la 'Lost in Space'. Robots on (?)roller blades.

My borhter went on to have four sons, all of whom share his passion for Aussie Rules (different teams though, alas), backyard cricket and balls of any description. They also seem reasonably well-versed in the arts of sibling maiming. I'm not sure whether any are particularly into robots though, so it's kind of nice to see the love continue.