Tickly Tag Toys

Who's that peaking out from inside my crochet bag?

One of three new friends for my little treasures.

The remnants of the skirt I sewed for myself were begging me to make a few things for my new tribe of three little girls. They were inspired by other toys I've seen around and also my little Eee's love of all things tickly. She tickles her nose and lips with any tag she can find although her teddy (with his shaggy, taggy tail) is her favourite friend.

The taggy friends are in great use as ticklers and in playing games of hide'n'seek.

Visual Stimulation

Pleasure is spread through the earth

In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find.

~William Wordsworth, 1806

As you might imagine, days are very busy here. I am enjoying Spring coming indoors through these beautiful tulips - a gift from my lovely family as they shop at the markets while I care for our new treasure - just a month old today.

Many many days I have thought of ways I could share with you all the various happenings of our lives yet the time to reflect and write seems to elude me. I am sleep deprived and the urge to lie down in bed with my eyes shut definitely most often wins. Lots of reflection happens as I sit and feed, nurturing my new child in the comfort of my arms as we rock together.

My other little pair are aptly cared for, educated and nurtured with lots of assistance from my wonderful Mum and loving husband. For this I am deeply grateful. The time they have given is invaluable.

Indeed it is certainly wonderful to learn about how our lives began with a real life model. We have watched as our baby's vision has developed. We have seen her eyes open more and more day by day, watched as she began to focus on our faces close by, seen her drawn to effects of light and shade. We have enjoyed designing our own graphics for her to view and stimulate the development of her brain. These days we have to cover her eyes so she will settle to sleep as sometimes it seems all too enticing to continue popping that head up to peek around at the happenings of our busy household.

Ess' overlapping circles coloured for baby

Ess explores shapes in black and white for visual development

My own attempt at creating for our little one

We are all very proud of our precious Ess as she has baked her very first cake, indepently. A delicious chocolate cake using a lovely recipe of Donna Hay's as seen on Junior Masterchef recently. It was absolutely delightful watching her in the kitchen by herself only asking for assistance to collate ingredients beyond her reach.

Ess has definitely taken a shine to baking over the years and is now devoted to Junior Masterchef which we actually came across by accident. She is now aspiring to compete when she is 10 or 11 years of age. We wish her luck.

The cake was delicious and we look forward to our next one...soon please my darling.

There has also been a little 'rippling' happening here. Even if I only do 10 or 20 stitches a day it is enough to give me a little space and something of my own to do. Something which nurtures me in amidst all the 'little people nurturing'.

Water Bottle Carriers

I have been completing and commencing numerous sewing projects. I am attributing this to the lovely nesting phase I am now in. Although it is curious that I am organising things around our home to make life easier for us now, rather than really making anything for the new baby.

However I know these new water bottle carriers will make life so much easier for me when my arms become full with baby again - even though I use my sling with my little ones all the time. I have already found it so handy to be able to whip my water bottle over my shoulder to carry it out and about. The girls are also more keen to carry their own bottles. They did so previously, however there have been some drops and some ensuing dents in their stainless steel water bottles so the carriers work wonders for them also.

I really am so very pleased with these and my design of them, they have turned out just as I intended. So very happy :)

And of course there is one for my Generous Gentleman as well. He really enjoys using it which I am super stoked about as it is not often that I am able to sew anything specifically for him. I particularly like the way his has turned out and am really glad I saved that lovely Haigh's ribbon as it sets his off beautifully. Yes I was even allowed to decorate his slightly... so so pleased.

There are many other projects coming to completion in our home - some spring skirt making, cushion covers, bag holders, repurposing face washers for use in the laundry with some stitching and velcro, storage bag making, beach bag making, crochet ripple blanket commencement. Indeed I have been spending more time 'doing' than sitting and reading and writing about them. So let's wait and see how many I get to write about here.

Furthermore I am wondering how many more will actually reach completion with only about 10 or 11 days until our new birth day.

My Little Pink Bag and ensuing pretty scarves

Buttons and patches and the cold wind blowing,

The days pass quickly when I am sewing.

~Author Unknown

Do you remember this rectangle of fabric which I pieced together ages ago using a simple method of Alicia Paulson's?

I have wanted to make a bag with it as the lightweight interfacing makes it nice and sturdy. However which type of bag? It begged for something more, something prettier, than a simple tote, perhaps a drawstring??

However I became creative with my rectangle as I sat with it. A pleat here, a few more there. A fold this way, a matching one on the other side and there was the bag taking shape.

Now, as it turned out not to be a drawstring bag, I needed to devise some sort handle.

So with a crochet hook in hand and some inspiration on a style of crochet from Juliane, I began to hook.

Before long this pretty handle was ready to be fastened to the bag with a few decorative buttons.

and a little lavender bag was popped inside to ensure a sweet fragrance lingered.

The handle looked so much like a scarf according to Ess, that I set about making another longer piece of work so she could have an alternative scarf for her lovely Bella.

Pretty soon there were scarfs all around. The top one was made by Juliane and was my inspiration.

I think Bella wears hers beautifully, don't you. This is exactly the way my precious Ess adorned her.

Now I'm contemplating more little scarves and I'm knitting some leg warmers in the middle of summer. Crazy, I know! Although I heard today that we are expecting lower than average temperatures in the next few months. No-one could complain about that during heatwave season :)

My Pretty Shopping List

A little while ago I lost my shopping list while in Spotlight. My dear two year old Eee loves being there - so many buttons, ribbons, balls of wool etc. etc. However it is a little challenge for Mum to manage shopping for what I need with an excited toddler amongst the many textures and sights of a large craft shop. I did manage to leave the shop with all I needed, including my toddler. However my list remained somewhere within.

Have you ever lost your shopping list? I was surprised at how lost I felt without it. I survived my grocery shop at the markets and then the week at home remembering all the things which we had run out of and were written down in my list. The greatest loss for me was the list of ideas I had made over a period of time for Christmas gifts (sigh). Never mind, fortunately I do have a good brain and I have recalled many things. Who knows what I have forgotten however.

So to cheer myself up I made a special cover for my shopping list. Mette at Erleperle inspired me with her Christmas List Taker, yet I want mine to be used all year round.

I do love it! I was surprised how it heartened me to glance at my list on my stroller-top seeing such prettyness. Rather than simply seeing the things I needed I saw something crafted with my own hands, for my own heart.

It was lovely to gift myself a little this Christmas, in amidst preparing gifts for family and friends.

I hope you are enjoying your Christmas preparations.

Simple Sewing: A Child's Fabric Bookmark Tutorial

TV. If kids are entertained by two letters, imagine the fun they'll have with twenty-six. Open your child's imagination. Open a book. ~Author Unknown

To say my daughter is an avid reader I would consider a gross understatement. One must admire her selection of books. We can never leave our library without literally bags full of books. One or two for me, perhaps half a dozen for little Eee, and about 40 for Ess.

She has an interesting way of reading her books. Some are read from cover to cover in one sitting, some are treasured and to be shared with Mum and Dad in the evening. Chapter books are often read as a collection. Ess states she reads chapter one from each book before moving on. Interestingly I recall myself making a decision in my teens that I should really complete reading one book before commencing another and another which interested me. Ess must certainly be "her mother's daughter".

Thus we have a requirement for numerous bookmarks in our house. Often fabric scraps are used. Ess has another of my unfortunate traits and likes to hoard the little pieces of prettyness which appear when I cut fabric for some of my many creations. I notice that some of the blue fabric I used for Zet the Monster has been inserted into some of Ess' books in the above collection. I managed to gather some scraps she had earmarked while I was cutting my Jane Market Bag from Alicia Paulson to sew a prettier bookmark for her. Here is a little tutorial to make it simple for you.

Fabric Bookmark

Gather the materials needed: fabric scraps, scissors, pins, ribbon cut to desired length to decorate, your iron and a sewing machine.

Most of the work in finishing the bookmark is in folding and pressing your fabric so take your time at the ironing board. If you need to join two or more scraps of fabric to make the desired length for your book mark (as in the above picture), sew fabric right sides together with a 5mm seam allowance and iron flat. Iron the bookmark in half lenthways and open out to make it easier to fold in half later. Then mitre your corners, I find it makes a much neater finish and is not too difficult.

Firstly fold in the corner to the centre, ensuring all raw edges are perpendicular, ie standing at right angles.

Fold in the edges, top and side to make a neat sharp point on the corner.

Press your corners and pin them securely. Then fold your bookmark in half and pin all the way around.

Insert a couple of pieces of ribbon at the top of your bookmark for some pretty decoration, any decoration along the length of it is likely to create too much bulk, even for a child's book.


Now sew all the way around the outside edge of your bookmark and you will have a very professional finish.


There. So easy, even your daughter could sew it.

Enjoy your reading...and hers as well!

Tiny Stitches for Tiny Fingers

Our inspiration: Kim Archer's Blossom Friends Felt Finger Puppets in the new Australian Homesewn Magazine.

Our design and creative process:

Ess loved creating new hairstyles for our gals and continued this activity in her own book with sketchings of many new friends.

Our result (of a work still in progress):

There is just something so enticing and intriguing about making tiny tiny stitches to form something which is pretty for my little ones to play with.  It is calming, relaxing, inspiring and productive.  But that's not all...I just can't seem to put my finger on it.

Enjoyed in play:

Little Eee's favourite game with the puppets this morning was to pop them on her fingers one by one, then throw them down on the floor combining both fine and gross motor skill development.  What a clever little poppet!  She also simply loved swishing them all down after I had lined them up neatly on the window sill to be photographed ;).

This is how I enjoyed our winter solstice, snuggled up with tiny needle in hand making tiny stitches to delight tiny hearts with tiny finger puppets for magnanimous amounts of fun, creativity and play.

Daisy Jane Duck: A Tutorial

Easter spells out beauty, the rare beauty of new life.  ~ S.D. Gordon

Inspired by the various Easter symbols of New Life including my baby bunnies, bilbies, and ducklings etc.,  I searched for a nice template to make a cute little duckling for my daughters to enhance our Easter celebrations and decorations.  All to no avail.  Thus I set about creating my own.  After many discussions and drawings in our family on Saturday morning we have come up with a template we love which we'd like to share with you to make your own duckling.  I am very excited as this is my very first tutorial to be able to share.  

We were inspired by one of our favourite ducklings in this house - Daisy from the collection of books by Jane Simmons commencing with Come on, Daisy!. Thus, our little duckling is named Daisy Jane in honour of her inspiration.  I am very grateful to my Generous Gentleman who has a very good ability for bringing the image in his head to paper.  Curiously he is also more talented than I am at penning the image in my head as well (hmmm a husband who can read my mind, I wish!) so I give all due credit to him for the body of Daisy Jane.  All else is my very own creation, penned with my own hand.  Can you tell I'm just a teency bit excited to present my first tutorial?!

You will find the template and tutorial here.

If you decide to make your own Daisy Jane Duck please leave a comment here so we can come and visit you to see yours.  You will also find some more of mine on flickr.

Do you need a few more ideas for Kind Deeds to surprise someone special with to participate in my Easter Giveaway: a bouquet of flowers from your garden or the florist, a song written for someone, a few lines of what someone means to you in prose or poetry, a phone call to someone you'd like to be back in touch with.  Please come back to comment about how you surprised someone with something kind.  It will indeed make us smile to see your kindnesses shared.

Baby Cloth Book

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends;

they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors,

and the most patient of teachers.

~Charles W. Eliot

I recently found How to Make Books: Fold, Cut & Stitch Your Way to a One-Of-A-Kind Book. A fabulous book which has inspired me along many lines. I have always loved book-making and have really enjoyed everything I have produced for Ess since she was born.

Now it is Eee's turn. So inspired by this Stab-Stitched Cloth Book in How to Make Books, I have made her a cloth book to flip and finger and flick through to her heart's content.

I think I like mine more than my inspiration. Isn't that what personal satisfaction in creativity is all about? Have a flip through yourself here.

One is never too young to enjoy reading a book. This cloth book allows independence for my baby in book reading.

I hope this will be a companion for my little lady as she grows, teaching her the joy of reading. The joy of language as we speak about the pictures with her. The joy of reading as she learns to understand that stories are associated with books.

The joy of creation of something which is your own design made with love for another to grow with. The joy of reading together as we snuggle and form bonds as a mother and daughter, also as a larger family as we read together making those ever so important emotional connections.

These little owls have found yet another use in this little book.

These little flowers and butterflies have also featured before on Ess's library bag seen in the abovementioned post.

My darling little Eee absolutely loves it. She sits with it, flicking through, pressing the flower centre buttons and making her "reading book" vocalisations which are so adorable. Kind of like "brrrrrbrrrbrrrbrrrrrrrbrrr" with her lips moving from side to side. Almost like a very light "raspberry" but so very hard to explain in words.

This is my final page. My dedication to my little baby and all my love from her Mummy.