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

Kids v's Design

I'm blogging when I should be putting the washing on the line. I'm blogging when Minky is asleep and I should be having a shower. I'm blogging instead of making a coffee. Oh, hang on that last one IS important, back in a sec....

*sip* Ah that's better!

So much to catch up on, so little time. I keep thinking about all these cool things I am going to write about and how I will become the next really interesting person on blogger. Alas Minky keeps me too busy and I am trying to juggle home, sewing and all that. So for now my interesting-ness will have to stay in my own head and be drip fed to you all one post at a (far in between) time.

One thing that I have been thinking about lately though is kid's rooms. Funny that, since I spend most of my day and night in one. I read an article somewhere, maybe Home Beautiful or the SMH or somewhere about a new kid's store opening up in Sydney around Dank Street. Without going into too much detail it basically put forward the idea that people who have mega-trendy homes need mega-trendy rooms for their little ones so they can keep their bedroom doors open without being embarrassed. Why should you let a children's messy, Dora splattered room spoil the overall aesthetic of your shiny, Eames filled inner city terrace? I had to laugh at the photo of this shop. Honestly it had about 3 things on the shelves, none of which the average toddler would find even moderately interesting. I'd be terrified of letting a 3 year old loose in there in case he/she left muddy footprints on the shiny white polished concrete floors! Most 6 year old girls would rather stare at their own reflection, play with their hair and wonder what to dress Barbie in when she got home than admire the fine lines of the retro-inspired foot stools (something apparently kid's reeeealy need in their bedroom).

So it got me thinking about how our own design ideas filter though to our babies rooms. From the initial stages of planning a 'nursery' right up to teenage rooms (the latter I will not *thank GOD* have to experience for a long while yet).

Having a strong passion for design, colour and interiors didn't sway me to make Minky's room 'fit' with the style of the rest of the house. She is a baby, babies need baby rooms. She didn't need a $3000 cot, Swedish bed linen or wall art that would be more at home in the Tate Modern. She needed a cuddly cot, white just to keep it simple, soft fluffy toys and a comfy chair for me to sit in. I kept it neutral with splashes of bright red and green as we didn't know if bub was a he or a she. And the rest I made myself.

Sure, I had off cuts from Cloth fabric which I turned into cushion covers but I always kept it child friendly. Bright. Soft. Not hard and stark. My baby needed a warm coocoon not a reminder that Mum and Dad were at the forefront of cutting edge 'staarl' and just itching to be featured in the next Vogue Living.

Kiddies need a bedroom that is inviting. So what if they want to splash Barbie from one end to another? Have Bratz dolls curtains and a Dora doona cover? Let them be kids. They don't understand the difference between Bebe Jou and the Wiggles. They just care that little Jack next door gets a Ben 10 sheet set and they are stuck with plain white bamboo-organic-dye-free-fun-free sheets that won't scream bad taste when their bedroom door is left open.

My antidote to all this silliness was to hand make a heap of stuff and recycle things from the shed (shock horror!). I've mentioned the birdy mobile before, and also my cushions. My dear friend crocheted a blankie and I made my first bunting. Minky got thousands of teddy bears when she was born, so they adorn every corner and shelf. There is an old set of drawers that I put in there. They were the first thing I bought when I moved out of home 12 years ago, and now they are hers. I didn't even get time to paint them. Her big designer pieces are a $18 lamp from Ikea and a wardrobe of French clothing her Grandma bought from ozsale.com.au. Other than that my aim was to have a place she would feel safe and happy.

The end result was something that I am proud of because I put MY heart and soul into it for MY daughter. And if it is a mess, well then I guess it does match the rest of the house, and I will keep that door wide open to show the world that I have a baby, and her comfort and enjoyment of her surrounds means more to me than anything else. See how it has evolved below...

So if you really want to integrate your children’s room with the rest of the house, stop and think for a moment. Will it really give them an advanced sense of style at age 3 or just make them feel sad they don't have a fun bedroom they can relate too? Bring on Dora I say.

Minky's first cot photo - I was so proud of this.

And after a few months of settling in, it's much pinker.