A therapeutic cushion!

The short version of this blog post goes like this. Had a crap week, made an awesome cushion that made all the planets align and now I feel awesome {insert picture of totally blissed out Byron Bay earth mother cradling baby here}.

The long version goes like this......

I have had complete and utter life-fail this week. Like, COMPLETE meltdown stuff.

Everything I did sucked. From dropping everything I touched, insomnia, burning food, not having enough milk (and not the normal cow kind either if you get my drift...) panic attack central, somehow tangling the threads on my overlocker (?!?!?!), my blog went into free-fall when I deleted some html, general arguments over stupid things with Hubby and a new found phobia of snakes (well, the old lady over the road did have one in her letterbox so that one is kinda legit). My week has sucked. Big time. And to top it off? Hubby went to a titty bar this afternoon. Noice. Just what these saggy, lifeless boobies need. Some perky 18 year old competition. Even my daughter doesn't want them. Don't even get me started on that (I will most definately cry).

And did I mention that Hubby is a Kiwi and the frikin Rugby World Cup started tonight? Yes, woe is me.

There are other, bigger things that happened too which I won't go into here. But let's just say they are pretty pivotal and life changing. Enough to make me a hormonal nervous wreck. And before you ask, NO I am not pregnant. Ew, definately not. Ew. EW! Like wouldn't I like, have to, you know, do.....that...thing? Nope, definately not pregnant.

So while I was trying to scrape my blog back together (you like? It's all shiny and kinda new!) I found all these other reeeeeaaaalllly cool blogs that are doing exactly what I want to do if I ever get time ever, ever, ever again. Instead of being all cool and composed about it, the green-eyed monster came out and I have been super depressed ever since.

I haven't had the urge, want or need to sew all week. For the first time since MLL started I have no orders for bunting. Instead of being upset about the downturn in business I am breathing a sigh of relief. I can have creative headspace and do what I want for a little while. Which this week involved sleeping at odd hours and teaching myself html coding.

Then this afternoon I decided to finish a cushion I had started a week ago for my Spring range. There were bits here, bits there. I accidentally cut the wrong size peice of fabric 3 times. Yep, fail continues. I was trying to 'meet the market'. What would someone want to buy? Were there too many fabrics on the one cushion? Someone suggested doilies, which I had actually been toying with. Definately. Yep, doilies. But no, that didn't work either. After cutting the wrong size for the 4th time I looked at my ironing board, now totally covered in bits of odd shaped pink fabric. What on earth was the universe trying to tell me? Then I listened to my creative heart. I wanted to make a birdy cushion. I wanted to put ric-rac on it, make it zhooshy and girly. I wanted doilies, frills, roses, birds, shabby sewing, applique and it all had to be on the one cushion.

So I started to stitch. And I realised then that when I let myself go, when I made what I really, honestly wanted to make then I was happy. I played for ages with techniques that I had been meaning to try but didn't have time. Using thick upholstery thread, shabby style applique. I let my imagination run wild and when I realised how happy I was at that exact moment I knew that the cushion I was making I could never sell. At what price is happiness? No, this cushion was for my Minky. To say sorry for being a horrible, miserable Mummy this week. With each snagged thread or wonky seam I didn't care about un-picking it to make it sellable. After all it was for my baby girl, to say 'I love you', and a reminder to myself to be honest to my craft. Because that is what will make me happy in the end. So here it is.

Better go, Sonny Bill just had his shirt ripped off on the field. Poor Sonny......

J xx

Family Vintage

When I was over in NZ a few weeks back, my mother-in-law pulled out an old brown paper bag, the type you used to get groceries in. I was puzzled as to what old goodies she had kept for all these years. She had already pulled out heaps of my husband’s blocks from when he was a baby, and his sister's old rocking doll. This is a house full of immaculately kept vintage treasures.

So you can imagine I nearly fell off my chair when she started to pull out about half a dozen dresses she had made for her daughter in the 1970s. The fabrics alone sent me into heart palpitations and left me absolutely itching to get back to the sewing machine and bolt to the nearest antique linen shop (more on that later!).

Back in those days, my father-in-law worked 3 jobs and ran his own business to pay the mortgage and my MIL stayed at home raising the babies. There wasn't any left over income for new clothes and they live in a fairly remote place with only a local corner shop. Where as these days it is seen as kind of trendy and kitsch for a middle-class WAHM to pick up a needle and thread, back then it was a means of saving money and be thrifty.

With my passion for sewing I was totally awestruck at the beautiful work she had done and each one was still in amazing condition. Worn a bit on the edges from days spent playing in the yard or down by the river, but still beautiful and a testament to her skill.

So here are a few photos I took. None of which do justice to the fabrics in cotton and cord. I am now endeavouring to sew my own dresses. I did complete two while I was there, but more on that later.

Enjoy xx

Leavin' on a jet plane

Sometimes so much happens, yet nothing really happens either. I've been sick for a week with gastro (yay for loosing 3kg, not so yay for horrible stomach cramps).

I spent the whole time on the couch thinking about what I should be doing, sewing etc. and came to the shocking realisation that I am kinda over making bunting! Oh my!! What the? I love it don't I?? Well sort of. I can totally understand where some crafters don't do custom orders. It is great to expand into colours and play with fabrics that I wouldn't normally use, but then again, I like to be the master of my own creativity. Hmmm.... was left pondering.

So I am off for a much deserved holiday to visit the outlaws in NZ for a few weeks. They live in the most serenely beautiful place in the Nth Island you could ever imagine. I love NZ because of it's fresh green purity. The rolling paddocks that meet the black sand, the beautiful mountains with their snowy hats on. It is truly a place to recharge (and freeze one's norks off at this time of year). They have a beautiful big garden where I can take Minky to pick fresh fruit and veg, hubby can go out fishing every day and Minks can spend lots of time rolling about with her Poppa or patting the sheep and cows that graze in the paddock behind the house.

What am I going to get out of it? Well there are loads of designers and galleries that I have always promised myself I will visit. So this time I AM going to. Even if I have to drive the half hour into town to do it! I am also going to visit some antique shops and see what vintage Kiwi bits I can pick up for possibly a new bunting range. Or something. Oh I don't know! I just feel so energised thinking about it! Kiwi designers have this amazing ability to draw on their surrounds for inspiration more-so than Aussies. There seems to be a significant influence everywhere from Maori art, and also the colours of the sea, native plants and black rocks and sand. It is so unique and can be picked from a line up. Can't wait to get stuck into it!

I guess the point to my rambling is this. I was watching Upstairs Downstairs Abbey last night and realised what I have long known. I was born in the wrong century. I could have quite happily spent hours in the sitting room doing cross-stitch, drinking out of fine china or riding side-saddle through the rolling hills (in my fantasy I was born into money mind you). I would collect roses from the garden, be married off to a lord someone and probably die during child birth of my 9lb daughter after 23hrs in labour...

BUT!! Besids all of that, I would have loved the purity of life. Which brings me to NZ. While everything is always that bit rosier on holidays there is a certain 'way of life' the Kiwi's have maintained that we seem to have lost, or strive for here. Hubby didn't know what 'organic' meant when he arrived here ten years ago, because all he ever knew was fresh from the garden. Both Minky's Nanna and Great Grandma both knit and sew (and have never owned an overlocker!) so I am looking forward to getting some tips from the masters. Days will be spent going for walks across the swing bridge to the beach and coming home for a hearty winter dinner in front of the fireplace.

If you don't already know where this place is, i'm not telling!!

See you in a few weeks if I ever decide to come home!!