The Best Book You Have Ever Seen !

Lily was so proud of this a few weeks back when she made it.  Already it has slipped into the never-ending pile of stuff that accumulates around this house.  It may be in the recycling by now, I find it hard to keep track.

She gets cross quite a lot when she is making something and needs help and I get it wrong.  When I don't interpret her demands request correctly there are tears and anger.  She is fond of the word 'idiot' said with a scary contempt.  It can be frustrating being a four year old and equally frustrating dealing with a four year old and I've never been the most patient person.  Collaboration with Lily is a nervewracking experience.

I remember when the older girls were younger and they would decide that they wanted to 'surprise' me. I always dreaded those surprises because something, surely, would happen that would result in sobbing tears.  The surprise might be that they were getting dressed by themselves, but then I would unwittingly 'see' them before they were ready.  Or they could never agree on the moment when the surprise would be revealed and it would drag on and on until the sobbing tears began.  Perhaps it was just the build up of anticipation finding an inevitable outlet.  You learn these things, as a parent, don't you? How to avoid the situations that spells disaster, how to circumvent the tears and move right along.  But then, being a parent and feeling like I've seen this movie a million times already and know the ending all too well, means that sometimes I move right along to avoid something that was not, in fact, in the offing.  Sometimes I incorrectly anticipate a disaster and, in doing so, provoke the very thing I was hoping to avoid.  There is surely nothing quite so irritating to a young person that an adult predicting tears at the very moment when everything is so truly wonderful that tears seem an impossibility.

Helping Lily with this little book was like that.  She said she wanted me to write 'and when she was younger' even though I was fairly sure what she actually meant was 'when she was younger' without the 'and'.  I strongly suspected that once I had written it, I would be condemned for doing exactly as she asked but I held my tongue and wrote it.  And when she realised what it said, she didn't bat an eyelid.  It was exactly how she wanted it.

Still Life

Paintings by, from top to bottom, Grace, Nina, Ruby and Lily. They all count as still life because Lily's is actually a portrait of her doll, Gretel. These say so much to me about my four girls. I love them all.

Cats and Dogs

Good lord didn't it rain cats and dogs yesterday? Welcome to spring, Melbourne. The rain was nicely timed to coincide with school pick up ensuring maximum chaos. It was all quite exciting, apart from Ruby's drenched bed from a leaky ceiling. 

More critters from Karin Neuschutz's book - cats, dogs, mice. The cats are by one of our school craft group members, Elizabeth, the others are mine and all of them are for the fete.

A Difficult Quilt

Oh this quilt gave me trouble.  I started it on Craft Camp as a quick bit of quilting gratification so that I could take at least one finished item home. I had the top done and it all basted up but when I looked at it afterwards it seemed all wrong.  It wasn't at all what I had in mind which was something simple and fresh and modern, and instead looked old fashioned and way too 'crafty'. So I unbasted it and cut the quilt into two pieces, inserted a stripe in the middle, took it out, tried a different colour, mucked around a bit more, sought advice via Instagram and eventually put it away for quite a while. I took it out again in the recent school holidays and decided that the marinating time had worked wonders.  I was able to finish the top and took it away to Little Sheoak for my first ever attempt at handquilting.  How fortunate that the little japanese plastic bowls we use every day were just the right template for the circular design I wanted to quilt.  I loved the process of handquilting, though of course my stitches are not even and the circles don't line up perfectly and there are myriad other faults.  But doesn't handquilting give such a lovely texture?  The backing is from Lotta Jansdotter's 'Glimma' range which was everywhere last year, and which I bought thinking I'd make a skirt.  Haven't made much progress on the seamstressy front but very very happy with it in this quilt.  It's just a small thing, this quilt, barely a lap quilt really, more like a cot quilt size.  But, after its difficult start, it's one I'm quite pleased with, which is lucky because it's not going anywhere.  Even Craig approves.

A Winter's Tale

I was staying up late, stitching those little horses.  Something about the way they came together pleased me so much that, even yawning and I knowing that I'd be tired tomorrow, I kept going.  It amuses and annoys me that as I lie in bed, to all intents fast asleep, my children come in and ask me questions  - 'can I have porrige?'  'where is my skirt' - without so much as a preliminary 'Mama are you awake?'.  Of course I am awake, alerted by the click click of Winnie's claws on the parquetry to the need to get her outside before she wees on the floor or, her preferred option, the carpet.
Last Saturday we were bundling out the door to get to tap when we discovered that someone had parked in our lane, blocking our car in. We quickly check all the neighbours but none knew whose enormous ute it was.  We should ride our bikes anyway, it's just lack of organisation that sees us driving.  But I was unaccountably annoyed at the lack of consideration and my mind immediately filled with indignation.  What if it had been an emergency?  What if one of the kids had been ill?  Or had a sports game to get to in a not-riding-distance location?  The ride was good though, in the frosty sunshine, even if we were late.  I started 'Dinner and the Homesick Restaurant' and was remined how much I love Anne Tyler.  By the time we got home the ute was gone and my outrage had dissipated.  I ran some errands, and the kids ran though their endless play-argue-make-up loop.  I sewed cushion covers out of old jumpers and we went to the pub with friends and their kids for an early dinner. By 9.15 everyone was in bed and settled and I was free to stitch some more horses in front of 'Game of Thrones'.
On Sunday Craig took Nina off to soccer and Lily and Grace made a broomstick out of twigs collected in the garden.  For hours they played a game of witches while Ruby wrote her latest installment of 'Creative Mind'.  I pottered around with loads of washing and attempted tidying and vacuuming up the snips of yarn and fabric that the horses had shed all over the floor.   Even after a few hours it seemed that the house was still a state.  Housework always feels like a sisyphean task but I can never escape the idea that  'apres moi, le deluge'.  I know that my context is wrong, but it does seem that if I don't keep myself somewhere in the game, the tsunami of housework will drown us all.  Grace and Lily painted each other's faces and got into dress-ups.  Somewhere in there I read most of the paper and had a cup of tea and then my friend Bruce came over and Nina returned and Craig went to work.  I fried up mushrooms in garlic and Bruce and I had them with Meredith feta on Turkish bread while we discussed his plans to buy a house in Reservoir (which he appears incapable of pronouncing in the correct Reservore way) with his partner Nenad.  Grace and Lily wrote a recipe book and nagged and nagged and nagged me to be allowed to make their signature dish  - 'Chocolate milk with Sugar'.  I told them they could make it for afternoon tea provided there was no more nagging.  I took Nina to her friend's house so they could go boating on the river, and Grace and Lily continued to play and fight for hours until eventually they made their drink, which was so sweet that neither Ruby nor I could have more than a teaspoon.  Ruby tired of her story and decided to make some fudge, but we didn't have all the ingredients so she walked to the shops to get them and then laboured over the recipe for what seemed like hours.  I forgot, being now an efficient baker by necessity, how long cooking would take when I was a kid - certainly the better part of an afternoon.  Grace has been trying to climb a particular tree in our garden for months.  She's tried ropes and even attempted to put screws in the trunk to act as steps, to no avail.  The lowest branch is way too high.  I finally relented and got out the ladder so she and Lily could get to the lowest branch.  Lily was far less fearful than Grace and extremely chuffed that she climbed higher than Grace.   I'm not an anxious parent, but I kept seeing a broken arm or leg as one or both tumbled out of the tree.  Neither materialised.  Craig came home to watch the Dogs get thrashed by the Hawks and I collected Nina so she could watch a couple of quarters with her Dad.  She tries hard to be the footy-companion that he doesn't really have, but she could only manage till three-quarter time and then went out to play on the trampoline with Ruby.   Grace and Lily did some jigsaw puzzles, and played and fought.  At least twice Lily threw things or hit Grace and ended up in her room, yelling at me for being mean.  I made pumpkin soup and chilli beans and pasta and rice and everyone had something they liked for dinner. Then bath and stories - the second Mr Galliano's Circus book for the little girls, the second-to-last chapter of 'A Wrinkle in Time' for the big girls and that was the weekend.  A weekend of the usual nothing much and so much.

All The Pretty Horses

My sewing definitely goes in fads.  I've whipped up 10 of these pretty horses in the past week, and they are not quick to make. But they are just so satisfying, the way three simple pieces of fabric come together into a very horsey shape.  There is, of course, also the fiddly addition of ears, and the mane and tail, and stuffing always takes time. I think the vintage fabrics, partly from stash, partly from Joan and partly donated to the craft stall, work well.  The pattern is from Karin Neuschutz's 'Sew Soft Toys', a kind gift from Suse.  It's the third thing I've made from the book and all the patterns so far have been simple but excellent.  I think you'd need reasonable sewing experience and a fairly clear idea of how to put something like this together though, the book is not terribly detailed and might be a bit confusing for beginners.
I'll quite possibly never make another one of these.  I think I've had my fill(y).