floating world

quiet

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas. We did - Ali was so excited and since it's the 4th Christmas we've spent in this house it feels like we're starting to build some family traditions...  a tray of mangos and a big bunch of Christmas bush, and our stockings (with one extra this year, for Miss Milla). This year there were also some things we tried for the first time, like a children's concert at the Opera House on Christmas Eve, putting out snacks for Santa and the reindeer, and reading Christmas story books (my favourite is this one, because of the gorgeous Rob Ryan illustrations, but Ali prefers the Grinch). It was so exciting to see Ali's face on Christmas morning when he came downstairs to find the snacks gone, the longed-for Buzz waiting for him, and presents under the tree, and then we spent the rest of the day catching up with the extended family. Now we're taking some time to be quiet, to play with new toys, reflect on the year and enjoy some time as a family of four.

cushions

I've been meaning to make covers for the sofa cushions in Milla's room since before she was born, and finally got around to it this week. The thing that spurred me into action was the gift of some gorgeous red Rick-Rack fabric from Susie - it was meant to be for jam hats, but it's so pretty I couldn't bear to chop it up and I knew it would look perfect in Milla's room*. It's stitched together with some of the natural linen left over from her quilt. And then I made another one with chambray and some grey Alexander Henry Heath from Tessuti. I do the laziest cushion covers, just a square for the front, two overlapping rectangles for the back, and then stitch a border on the right side to make a simple edging and trap the raw edges inside. I finished the back of the chambray cushion with some super cute Shinzi Katoh tape that was a gift from Amy.

And then, the very next day after I made the cushion covers the lovely ladies from Prints Charming dropped in one of their gorgeous hand printed Chicken cushions for Milla, which couldn't look better with the other two. Although Ali seems to have taken a shine to it, and I keep having to retreive it from his room... but when all three are on the sofa together it looks lovely and is the perfect spot for feeding (or a quick nap).

  * The nursery has something of a Flowerpress theme - one of the first things I bought for it when I was pregnant was Susie's Red Shoes print, which is now hanging above the cot.

gingerbread house

 
On the weekend I had my first attempt at gingerbread house construction. My friend Kath, her mum and I spent a few hours chatting, drinking coffee and decorating our houses with lollies (and eating some as we went). It was such a nice way to spend a hot afternoon, and a great break from the pre-Christmas busy-ness. We used Anna's Gingerbread House kits from Ikea, and stuck the whole thing together with icing. The house is now safely wrapped in cellophane to protect it from hungry children and ants, and I'm going to take it to a family Christmas party on the weekend. I don't really like sweets so much - chocolate is a completely different matter - so for me the decorating was definitely the best part, I'm happy to leave the eating to someone else.

Other things:

I just finished reading Breath by Tim Winton and it was fantastic. I have this block about Tim Winton books, we were forced to read a couple at school and analysing them and writing essays took all the joy away, so now whenever I see his books I expect them to be hard work. But when I started reading this one I was completely immersed straight away.

I've been avoiding the shopping centres as much as possible this Christmas... lots of shopping at local markets and small stores, and online. Nearly all the Christmas shopping is done now, the cards are posted, and the interstate presents have been sent. I have a few teacher gifts to make, and a couple of final things to pick up to go with presents (luckily none of them require a trip to the mall) and then we are ready to go. I'm planning lots of wrapping this weekend, although I'm not game to put presents under the tree until Christmas Eve... I think that might just be too much temptation for a 3 year old who loves unwrapping.

I have 2 days left of being 30 and found a grey hair yesterday morning.

Miss Milla is 9 weeks old now and being generally wonderful. I feel much less tired than I remember being with Ali at the same age - I'm not sure if this is because she's sleeping better, or if I'm just used to less sleep. She does all those textbook "tired signs" that I thought were just invented by baby health nurses to make me feel bad - she starts moving jerkily and avoiding eye contact, and then if I wrap her up and put her in her basket she puts herself to sleep. Magic! I was convinced that the self-settling baby was an urban myth, because Ali fed to sleep until he was about a year old. I know babies change all the time, so am not counting on it lasting but it's very nice while it does.

Milla & I had an excursion (by bus!) into the city yesterday for a meeting, and stopped by Gaffa near the QVB - for anyone in Sydney it's definitely worth a visit. Galleries and workshops upstairs, beautiful handmade things in the arcade downstairs, and a great coffee shop. I ate smoked salmon on toast, fed Milla and watched all the busy office people hurry past.

christmas cards

This year's Christmas cards, printed with the Gocco. This is the 10th year I've made them, I bought my Print Gocco at the end of 2001, just after I had finished uni. It's become a kind of Christmas ritual, making up a design, exposing the screens and then covering the dining room table with multiples. The gold ink is my favourite, when it's wet it looks dull and murky but as it dries it becomes all shimmery and beautiful.

jam

I love apricot jam, and was very excited when I realised that it's easy to make your own - I use the Stephanie Alexander recipe (the lovely Anna posted it here). This week I found some cheap apricots so made a big batch to give as presents. The packaging is always my favourite part - I got jars here, twine here and made labels in Illustrator, inspired by Angry Chicken - they're just printed on the computer and stuck on with glue stick, but fit the jars perfectly unlike the computer labels I've used in the past.

(I'm very proud that these are all ready almost 2 weeks before Christmas, because usually I am the queen of last minute Christmas sewing and cooking, which is particularly stressful for anyone who lives with me. Today Mark saw me looking through More Last Minute Knitted Gifts and shouted, "NO!!! No Last Minute anything!" - but I've learned my lesson, when I started a scarf from the first book 2 days before Christmas it took a year.)

garland

I've seen some pretty felt garlands online, so made my own with balls from here and the tutorial here. Ali helped me choose colours and I threaded them on. Very easy, and now looking pretty on the tree.

 

 

rainy day baking

Butter cookies made with the Biscuit Gun. This was a wedding present, and I used it once or twice when it was new, and then forgot about it. But I rediscovered it recently and realised that it would be fabulous for entertaining Ali. You can switch the templates to make different shaped biscuits when you pull the trigger... much easier for little hands than rolling balls. And then we decorated them with almonds and sprinkles and glace cherries. I love glace cherries.

I rediscovered this tea towel recently too. When I was little I took piano lessons, but we didn't have a piano at home so each morning before school I went across the road to Miss White's house to practice on hers. Miss White was very old, and lived alone except for a canary called Uncle. He was a replacement for a real Uncle who lived there with her until he died (although local gossip was that he wasn't actually her uncle). She would come and chat, and listen to me play, and sometimes give me something like a fairy cupcake or some flowers from her garden to take home. I think a lot of the appeal of piano practice was visiting Miss White. When I was 8 we moved to England, bought a piano, and I promptly lost all interest in playing. Miss White posted this tea towel and some hand knitted bedsocks over to me there, and while the bed socks are long gone and Miss White too, I still treasure the tea towel. I wonder if any of the things I make will outlast me.

christmas decorations

Some easy Christmas decorations. The mini pinecones are just painted with glue and then rolled in glitter - perfect for a 3 year old. Usually I resent glitter migrating around the house, but at this time of year I quite like it.

The patchwork one was meant to be a star, but kind of turned out more like a fat starfish, which is the risk of make-it-up-as-you-go, pins-are-for-wimps crafting. We'll get a tree this weekend (you can't get live ones too early here or the heat kills them before Christmas day) and once that's up and the house is smelling of pine I'll be in full-on decorating, listening to carols and eating Christmas cake mode.

gingerbread men

The start of Christmas baking, by request from Ali, who's currently loving The Gingerbread Boy. We used this recipe. The dough is very buttery and fragile, so we rolled it out between two sheets of greaseproof paper, and after cutting out a few men to decorate we rolled the rest into balls and baked them as cookies.