and we're back

Connected to the world again that is - the past week has been one without internet and I tell you, it has been stifling. The number of times website addresses are given out on the radio, in magazines, wherever; when you can't actually go and look them up, you really notice (and want to look them up, whereas usually you wouldn't be bothered).

Anyway, finally connected again and I feel like I've forgotten how to blog, and after such a busy month in August too. I really missed my blog when we were away in Australia and had a lot to make up for.

My mum arrived for a visit last Wednesday and that has been wonderful. On Friday afternoon we explored Bellevue Goodwill for an hour or so and I bought this length of fabric. There was a little tag on it indicating 1 1/2, so whether that's a yard and a half or a metre and a half I'm not sure. I love the print and it was 99c. I'm hoping that I can make a sweet top or even a dress out of it for baby bear.

One thing that I have been busy with is Stitchery (which is just my own personal version of Ravelry in the form of a few sets of photos on flickr). I am attempting to record all of the lengths of fabric, garments for refashioning, sewing supplies and patterns that I have collected (or should I say amassed?). I find the pattern search function on Ravelry so helpful, I'd like to just be able to search through my own patterns (Japanese craft books, Golden Hands volumes, random paper patterns) so that if I want to make a size 4 blouse out of this fabric I can just check my set of blouse photos, or size 4 photos. High hopes perhaps? A lot of work maybe, but hopefully worthwhile.

custom made

The great thing about making your own bag is that you can, indeed, make it your own. Ah, the insight!

I have been working away on the felted jumper bag - embroidering birds and sewing up the actual bag and lining. There's a sneak peek up above. And it occurred to me how great it would be to not have to root around in the bottom of the bag (it's quite deep) in order to find my phone when it rings. So I added internal pockets, tailored to my wallet and phone - hooray!

Next steps in the vision:
- decorative touches on the last two birds
- fix the edges and loose threads
- trim around bird shapes
- appliqué to bag
- sew lining in

Then there's the handle question - that's the one bit that I can't visualise at the moment. I think that I would like some tooled leather handles but haven't yet found any that I really like. I'm going to keep thrifting for a bag that I can recycle them from.

ps. What do your to-do lists look like? I start out with a rough overview of steps, the first ones the most detailed. As I move through the steps, the subsequent ones become increasingly detailed. I rewrite my to-do list (with its many many components) every few days. I wonder what one would look like if I kept it from start to finish?

size matters

Better a week late than never, finally a knitting post. I'm talking about matters of size here, of course. I am reasonably tall, generally an Australian size 12 (which is a US size 10), so a medium to large let's say. And Trinny and Susannah would probably call me a vase (a vaaz, not a vayz - phew). What Trinny and Susannah would not call me is an extra-small.

Which brings us to Joy. I have been wanting to knit this cardigan forever. Vintage Style was the first time that I got Rowan suckered; that is, so in love with the models and the styling that I wanted to knit everything in there and bought the book immediately. Ok, so there's only a couple of things that I actually want to knit in there but Joy is number one.

So, please observe the photo: I think that this model is definitely an extra-small. And there is not a lot of ease in the garment's fit, that is, it's not baggy or loose and those are not bell sleeves. Gauge is 26 stitches to 10 centimetres, using a 3.25mm needle. By my calculations, casting on 61 stitches should give a sleeve cuff that measures about 23.5 centimetres in width.

Ok, I'm going on and on about this because I am knitting my first sleeve of Joy in size extra-small and on 3mm needles. My cuff measures about 22 centimetres in width which would easily block out a bit but I don't know that I would even want to.













These two photos show how incredibly different the colour of this yarn is in different light. I can't decide whether it is brown or russet or purple. It's recycled from a Talbots twin set, 80 per cent wool 20 percent cashmere. A further note: while I am following the chevron pattern chart I am not achieving the effect by slipping a stitch with one of 5,300 tiny beads on in. No thank you. I am instead purling the stitch on the right side and knitting it on the wrong side. Because while sometimes nuts I am not crazy.

And those little clippy things holding the sleeve together in the photo on the right? Miniature hairclips. These things are an absolute must for anyone who has not mastered the whole seamless knitting in the round picking up stitches thing. They hold your knitted garment's seams together perfectly, grip tight, one stitch in, don't allow slippage and I could not seam without them. Why then is my Wallingford still languishing in want of a side seam? Well, I never said that I seam with them either.

toile de jouy

So I have continued my long overdue exploration of the second-hand book shops in the nearby University District. Today I went to Twice Sold Tales and was rewarded with this lovely book about toile de Jouy fabrics. I actually had the pleasure of a daytrip to the town of Jouy-en-Josas last year when we were visiting Paris. There baby bear and I visited the museum on the site of the original Oberkampf factory.

I can't remember when I was first introduced to toiles de Jouy. It was when we were living in Sydney because I remember a day trip up to some suburb of Gosford to a patchwork shop which was the only place that I could find that sold the stuff. For $90 a metre.

Anyway, my heart leapt when I saw this book at the bookshop because just this morning in an attempt to ravelrise my sewing stash I had taken some photos of my own toile de Jouy fabrics (and assorted others) to store/organise on flickr. Am I nuts? you may ask. Yes, probably.

A word or three about Twice Sold Tales - this is a bossy bookshop. You know, the kind that has little signs and notices stuck up next to the cash register that read:

'If you can'y see me, I can't see you. Please ring the bell just ONCE!!.'
'No returns on books, ever. That means YOU!!.'

The use of bolded italic uppercase in these messages seems to be OBLIGATORY. As is multiple exclamation marks!! I guess that if you are the proprietor of a successful small business then you can afford to be crotchety.

cretaceous

Cretaceous. That's me. I am feeling completely, utterly and entirely cretaceous. Hmmm? Cretaceous is an adjective to describe the time period some 145 to 65 million years ago, and not over-tired, sleep deprived, irritable and cranky, do I hear you say?

Careful, or I'll:
ps. we baked gingerbread yesterday, using the recipe from Sweet Old-fashioned Favourites (Australian Women's Weekly) and using the cookie cutters that I bought at Urban Craft Uprising a few weeks ago.

running out of doily-associated word play

I have sewn them all up! Yes, Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon were filled with the whir of my sewing machine and all thirty-five squares of nine patches each are complete!

Looking back on my blog posts I estimate that I started cutting the blocks out for this quilt late in July, so in the absence of a sewing version of Ravelry (when is somebody going to start that? even just an on-line database for projects, stash and pattern queue - pleeeease) I calculate that to be just over three weeks of tracing, cutting, *pinning, sewing, ironing, repeat from *.

And I am at peace. Really. The imperative I had to get working on this quilt has been quelled and I feel like I can let it sit for a while or just work on it at my leisure. Such a relief. Needless to say, percolator style, other projects will soon enough rise to the top to demand my attention.

In some other random news, my copy of Quilting from the Traditional Needle Arts series has arrived - hooray. And some fabric also arrived in the mail - I took a gamble and bought a couple of metres of red cotton jersey on ebay. A gamble because red is a colour very close to my heart and it has to be a good shade of red. And this one is - it will be the backing for the wagga. And a package destined for me that has been held up at a sort facility in Denver, Colorado for three days has finally entered Washington - hooray! I hope that it gets delivered tomorrow.

Oh and by the way, did you know that I knit? Yes, really. I'll prove it tomorrow.

getting pinned

Growing up in Australia we got a lot of media from the UK and from the US alongside our own national stuff. As such I read as many Enid Blyton novels as I did Judy Blume, and watched as much Educating Marmalade as I did Growing Pains. And sadly, that was probably many more hours than I spent reading Australian novels or watching local tv. Ah, misspent youth.

But anyway, point here is that I spent much of my childhood getting my head around the lingo particular to each country. The concept of 'getting pinned' was one that I first encountered in, I think, the musical Bye-bye Birdie. Needless to say, I never got pinned. But the doily quilt (yes, I am getting around to something relevant), that is all pinned up.














Here are all the strips of three that I completed a few days ago having the seams ironed open and flat.

And here are all of those strips of three, pinned together to make blocks of nine which I did this morning. Next step is a whole lot of sewing.

traditional needle arts

As I have mentioned before, I am not an embroiderer. This does not stop me in any way from acquiring books about embroidery (ditto for quilting, needlepoint, dressmaking etc). I really recommend this Traditional Needle Arts series - they also publish volumes on embroidery, patchwork, quilting and cross stitch. The projects are lovely, the photos inspiring, the instructions clear - fantastic books.

I already have the Patchwork volume (should be sailing its way from Australia to the US in the next few weeks along with many other books and possessions, I can't wait to look at it again) and now the Embroidery volume (ah, and Quilting and Cross Stitch are on their way too, courtesy of abebooks).

And trapunto is long something that I have been interested in trying (one day). I have had this book from the library before.

I bought these two volumes from Magus Books (1408 NE 42nd St, Seattle, 98105; 206 633 1800) in Seattle's University District on Friday. I had never been in before and it's quite an unassuming storefront. But oh what a treasure chest of second-hand books! It's actually huge inside and when I asked where to find the needlework books, no one sneered at me (it has happened before elsewhere).

Not being an embroiderer also does not stop me from actually doing embroidery as and where required. My approach to making things is mostly that I have an idea and imagine what it will look like, then work out what techniques to use, then try my hand at it. Thankfully I have so many books on various needlework topics from which I have absorbed basic techniques and details in the past, and I can always look something up.

Do you remember the felted jumper bag, the poor long neglected felted jumper bag? I'm still working on it, little by little. Wow, I just checked - it is almost exactly two years to the day that I posted a photo of the materials and threads that I was collecting to make the bag!) So these are the little birds that I have been embroidering to go in the tree that decorates the bag. One is complete and five are at finished outline stage - I think I'll just do some feather stitch (how appropriate) and see if I can master french knots. Ooooh, I'm excited.

doily update

I tell you, I could practically give you a daily update on the doily quilt. I am just loving making it and manage to fit in a few seams or some ironing or pinning pretty much every day. I have quite a production-line method in place and it is delivering up results.

At last report, I had started out by pinning all of the squares in the intended configuration onto a spare sheet. Here are a couple up close:

And here are the resulting nine-patch squares:

I am really delighted with how they have turned out. So delighted that I have, in fact, already completed seventeen of them. And the other eighteen have been sewn into three strips of three each and are waiting to be ironed. This has come together so much more quickly than I had anticipated. I do hope that I can keep the momentum going.

$1.25

I have long been meaning to start a comprehensive and in-depth review of thrift stores in Seattle and surrounds. Problem is that I have thus far found that the best thrift stores are the big chains (Goodwill and Value Village) and that the smaller, independent store fronts often don't measure up, which is unfortunate. And I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Anyway, I stopped by what must be one of Seattle's most idiosyncratic thrift stores today. It is held in the hall of the University Temple United Methodist Church on Fridays between 2 and 5 pm, accessed by the lane behind the church. Amongst dinner being prepared for the neighbourhood's needy and someone plinking away at the grand piano there are a number of racks of clothes, tables of stuff and shelves of homewares and books. And these things really are a bargain - the vintage sewing pattern, child's shirt and three Duralex glasses were a quarter (that is, 25c) each; a grand total of $1.25.

Alas the sewing pattern is missing the pattern piece for the sleeve. Truth be told, I do know how to draft one up myself but what a chore. Also truthfully, the pattern is a child's size 10 and baby bear being almost three I have years to psyche myself up for a bit of pattern drfating. I just really liked the picture on the packet.

No pattern drafting required (and costing a tad more than $1.25 but I expect that it will be worth every cent) I finally bought myself an Ottobre magazine. It's issue 5/2006 (winter) and my choice of this particular issue was prompted by an inspirational creation that I saw over at the blog omi creates. I think that Naomi's version looks far better than that in the magazine (pictured below left). And Naomi made hers from fabric that she bought at the Salvation Army - fantastic!

I had bought (ahem, a couple of years ago now) a very generic McCalls pattern to make baby bear a coat by recycling a Romeo Gigli jacket (that I incidentally also bought at the Salvation Army) but I'm almost ashamed of it now, having seen what is possible.

I also like the red jacket on the right and have just the fabric for it - to be recycled from a pale aquamarine angora/wool coat that I bought at (wait for it) the Salvation Army, albeit in Zurich, last year. And fortunately all of the patterns come in a number of sizes so there are still years in which to procrastinate ...

alchemy

You may have read a book called The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. It's a long time since I did but the general gist that I remember was taking a journey to discover that what you most wanted was right here at home. Such was my trip to Portland.

So here I am at Sock Summit, staffing my friend Kylie's stall while she took a well-deserved break on the Saturday. I wish that I had the alchemical ability to turn my toenails to bright red - that was one thing that I forgot to take with me, some nail polish. The idea was that, finally with time to myself, I would catch up on those kind of grooming things. I did manage to get my hair cut but no nail polish was applied.

I caught the train down and it was a great, relaxing ride. It also ran on time, both going there and coming back, which I've been told is quite unusual. I was able to sit and knit, uninterrupted for several hours. I really enjoy train travel and this is the first long train ride that I have taken, by myself, since ... hmm, moving from Melbourne to Sydney in 2001? Anyway, I got back onto my faux prussian stole and actually ran out of yarn! I have heaps more here at home but hadn't thought to take any spare with me. I don't think that I realised that I was so far through it already.

At Sock Summit itself I wasn't booked in for any workshops, I just went to experience the atmosphere, visit the marketplace, catch up with friends. Kylie brought all of this wonderful hand-dyed sock yarn over from Australia under the lable ms. gusset. I worked in retail all though high school and my uni years and I had forgotten how much fun it is, for the first 15 minutes. Then my cheeks started to hurt from all the smiling but I did get to talk to lots of attendees and even sold some yarn.

And bought some yarn too. I have been hankering after the Handmaiden 'vintage' colourway for months now but had only seen it available in the Camelspin which is about $40 per skein at my nearest yarn store. So I was delighted to come across their Casbah on sale for $24 a skein, and machine washable to boot - hoorah!

Otherwise, I found the marketplace completely overwhelming - hundreds of vendors all with, well, basically the same thing - sock yarn - and as much as I like knitting with finer yarn it's not really where my head is now. And there were just so many vendors that really, it all started to blend into one big mass of colour. Perhaps a more experienced sock knitting connoisseur would have coped better with it all! As for my Handmaiden, I'm considering the Cleopatra Wrap (Ravelry link) from Sensual Knits. But then again, I still haven't made a Clapotis yet ...

koharu

Yes, I went to Portland; I even stayed overnight, two overnights! But I've got a finished project to show and that's even more exciting.

Last week, I finished the little halter top from Koharu no Fuku, made from my beloved tea towel. Here is my favourite bird - the blue wren - just next to the underarm, nicely bound with some fabric that I had in the stash. I think that it would have been hard to find a closer match for the green.

The top was of very simple construction - just front and back with some bound edges and a casing for elastic at the back. It was the perfect pattern for my limited yardage as the ties are made from the bias tape and there were no sleeves to cut out. I made the 120cm size (that is, the size for a child of height 120cms) as it was the largest that I could achieve out of the available fabric. Even so I did have to make the bottom hem a little narrower than was called for, by only a centimetre or so. Then two seams and a lot of bias tape, which was actually very easy going using my trusty Clover tape maker.

The pattern called for elastic across the back, which I included. I have, however, left one end of the casing open. Given that I made such a large side (I think that baby bear is only around 105cm tall) I wanted the elastic to be as adjustable as possible. You see this trick sometimes in children's trousers - the elastic in the back waist can be adjusted by buttoning it at either end of the casing. That is of course special elastic with buttonholes running down the centre, which I haven't used. At the moment the elastic is secured with a safety pin but this is not a long-term solution, as in, baby bear can't wear the top until I find an alternative. It might just have to be a few rough stitches to secure it, and a few more in six months when she's grown a bit more. I also love how you can see the details of the linen and the tea towel brand still there on the back.

I'm really delighted to have this project finished. I haven't done nearly as much sewing for baby bear as I would like to, and it was such a shame to have this tea towel tucked out of sight. The weather here in Seattle has, of course, cooled down dramatically this past week. I'm sure that the top will still look cute over a long sleeve white t-shirt but I am glad that I made a larger size as there will definitely be use out of it next year as well.

the finger

Ah, hand stitching. What a pain in the middle finger.

Turns out that stitching through two layers of fulled wool requires a bit of effort and an extra push with the tip of the middle finger, which ends up feeling a bit tender. But, it has been worth it. I'm almost finished and the blanket as a whole is going to lay flatter. And I will be satisfied which is also a good thing.

I would like to continue the recycled theme (all of the wool patches are from jumpers that I bought at the op shop in Australia ... and transported over here, over a year ago, yes) with the backing but am concerned that the whole might end up too patchy-patchy; that is, a pieced backing in different shades and textures of red would vie with the blanket itself.

Ok, just a few more seams before I can retire my middle finger.

astral travelling

A couple of weeks ago I went to London, by myself what's more. Ok, I was fast asleep and dreaming but it was one of those super-vivid dreams and I was really walking down a street in London. It felt great. I loved London last time I was there and the dream held that wonderful feeling of promise and expectation.

Tomorrow I am off to Portland, Oregon to enjoy the halo of Sock Summit. In my dreams? No, really - I am going to Sock Summit (in that I am not booked in for anything, just going to enjoy the atmosphere and catch up with some other Australian visitors). And here's the promise and expectation bit - I am going alone, overnight, for the very first time since I became a mother. Back on Sunday evening!

wagga seams

Ah, hand stitching. So soothing.

The seams on the wagga are quite narrow and some of the fabrics quite stiff, so getting the seams to lay flat is a bit difficult. There will be a backing but I don't want the seams to be bulky through the backing. Anyway, I'm slip stitching along the seams to keep them nicely in place. Yes, it's a bit onerous and Tim thinks that I am nuts but I actually find the rhythm of the stitching very calming.

I'm wondering whether to take the wagga to the dry cleaners to have it pressed. The fabrics are already fulled and flattened out so I don't think that having it pressed would affect the texture of the fabrics. I want it as flat as possible in order to do some embroidery on it and think that would make it easier. Any thoughts?

catching up with myself

Ok, I cannot keep my hands of this thing; I got the (initial) layout of the doilies quilt done today. Tim took baby bear for a bike ride and was conveniently distracted for some hours by the military-industrial complex's contribution to Seafair (aka fighter jets flying in formation). Not my cup of tea but that's fine because I was at home with sudden and unexpected free time on my hands. So I laid out the quilt.

To recap, the quilt will consist of thirty-five blocks of nine patches each; eighteen blocks will be white (and shades thereof) and seventeen will have coloured embroidery on them. When I cut the embroidered patches out I attempted to get large motifs square and centre and to have them fill up the patch as much as possible. Not always achievable and in order to use up as much of the doily as possible I also cut out several partial patches. These partial patches were then sewn together in such a way as to get as much embroidery in as I could. Ok, that's the coloured embroidered patches.

The white patches I cut out of the left-over fabric and also out of whitework doilies. As such, about half of the white patches are also embroidered (in white), the other half are just plain.










Phew! So how to get all of this randomness into a cohesive whole? Well I made my seventeen and eighteen piles respectively, at random, and laid them out in the quilt formation, at random. And just as I had hoped, the randomness worked - there is enough difference between all of the patches that once they are laid out together it does create a whole. There were only a couple of patches that I had to swap around from pile to pile. Hoorah!

The actual arrangement of the blocks may change but I'm going to get them sewn up first. Umm, the next update may take some time ...

doily quilt

So, this is what has become of my doily collection. Thirty-five sets of nine squares each, destined to become a nine-patch quilt for baby bear.

It all started with this book - Make Your Own Contemporary Quilts. Have I mentioned this book before? I love this book. It is full of really fantastic ideas for making quilts, some very simple, some incorporating more traditional patchwork piecing and appliqué techniques. Plus a really good techniques section. The quilt in this book that really caught my eye and my imagination was one named Oxfam Flowers, referring to the British charity organisation.

I love needlework and I love embroidery although it's not something at which I have really tried my hand. I also haven't really tried my hand at patchwork finding it often a bit, well, twee. But the idea of incorporating all of those stitches and motifs into one quilt set me to work. And of course, I love the idea of making something new out of something old.

I am going with a different quilt design to that in the book - alternating squares of white and embroidered fabrics, each square made up of nine patches. For the white squares I am using both the leftover fabric from the cut-up doilies and patches cut from all-white doilies. It's going to be quite a challenge now to decide upon a balanced layout - so many colours, so many designs and so many shades of white to boot. Then there'll be the sewing, then a border maybe, then the batting, the backing, the quilting ... oops, ahead of myself. Layout first.

everybody's doing it

Ah, making new cushion covers that is. My newly-returned-home burst of inspiration continues, predominantly with sewing projects because it's too hot to knit much (but not too hot to sew a woollen blanket ... yeah, anyway). I bought this fabric at a thrift store some time ago while out shopping with my friend Melissa from Owl and Acorn and, needless to say, have been intending to use it ever since. I really love botanical drawings and prints.

So finally, a cushion cover for one of the couches. It's a very simple envelope style, the same as the ones that I made for baby bear's bedroom some time back.

percolator

I keep lists. I love lists. I love ticking things off on my lists. in fact, I have so many lists that I could well keep a list of all of my lists. As Di wrote recently, "... it's interesting to see which projects percolate to the top of the list and come into being." I am fully convinced that creative endeavours do not follow the usual to-the-top-of-the-list logic; my creative mind is not so much an incubator as a percolator. They buzz and simmer and percolate until they reach their own critical mass and suddenly, they need to be done, have to be done, must be done.

So, despite all my lists, that is what it was like today. I had to sew up a woollen blanket that I have had in mind for years. You'll understand the strength of the imperative on this one if you note that it was about 34 degrees centigrade (94 degrees Fahrenheit) in Seattle today, and humid to boot. Just sweltering. And I was sewing up a woollen blanket.

I have had this blanket, or at least a version of it, in mind since baby bear was about eight months old, so let's just say for a couple of years. I have been slowly but surely collecting and preparing the materials for it ever since. And here is the result, a patchwork blanket of fulled woollen squares:

It's not completely sewn up yet, that will have to wait until the temperature drops a bit.

I have previously mentioned the exhibition "And so to bed" that I once saw at Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney. That was a really significant day for me; I attribute it with rekindling my interest in needlecrafts. An item on display that day was a wagga, is a traditional Australian quilt/rug, often made from suiting samples, hessian and flour sacks. That was the inspiration behind making a blanket like this and I have some other Australian(a) touches that I intend to add at a later date.

s l o w

Slow food, slow day, slow sewing - we are having a take-it-easy Sunday in Seattle.

I said that I would show some of the craft-related stuff that I brought back with me from Australia. One of them was a lovely piece of polished cotton with a floral print that has been floating around my life for goodness knows how long. I actually do not know how long I have had it for or where it came from.


















Seattle has a wonderful recycling programme, including a weekly yard waste collection into which we put all of our food waste, including meat and fish scraps (they heat treat it apparently). After recycling the tins, glass and paper, we end up with only a couple of supermarket plastic bags of rubbish each week. These click-clack style containers are great for keeping your kitchen scraps in - airtight, a range of sizes, easy to clean. Only drawback compost-wise is that they are see through and all those layers of food scraps - ick.

Lo and behold, the advent of the compost cosy. The fabric is is just the right colour scheme to go in our kitchen, so I used some cotton twill that I had lying around to give it some stability, quilting the layers together roughly around the outline of the floral print. Then I made a cylinder from the double layer and applied some binding at both top and bottom. The fabric I used for the binding was leftover from the roses quilt - yes, the one that I did use.

And what is slow sewing about this? Well, I sewed it all by hand. I just felt like it. We were just back from Melbourne, I was too tired to get the sewing machine out, it was too hot to knit at knit night so I took along some hand sewing and it just continued from there. I really enjoyed making it.

Currently in there are the stalks from these beautiful tomatoes, grown here in our very own garden (although I do not hesitate to admit not by us). We have tenant farmers, also known as lovely friends who live in a flat and wanted a veggie patch so they use our garden and share the bounty with us.

I have also finished the koharu top and it has had a test wear. Hence it is in the wash after being covered in dust and cherry dribble. Next time.

a thousand words

I have heard it said by many that with the Japanese craft books you don't need to be able to read the Japanese because the pictures are clear enough and easy to follow. I concur but strongly recommend actually looking at the pictures. I just looked at the paper pattern, rued that it was unclear whether the seam allowance was included or not, sewed two very tight narrow seams (in white thread on white linen) and then looked at the pictures. Seam allowance of 15mm was included. Quick-unpick!

I had a search through the fabric stash last night to make the bias tape. I actually had a good idea of what I was searching for, there's only a sliver shown here because the rest is in the wash. Originally purchased to be the binding on my roses quilt I got the fabric home and realised that it was the wrong colour (or rather, not the colour I had intended to purchase). I did subsequently buy the intended colourway online and have had this slightly darker green ever since waiting for a purpose. It's just about the same green as the leaves in the screenprint - excellent. And fabulous thing about making bias tape with fabric that has a grid of small spots is that you have ready-made markers for where to cut on the diagonal. I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to go shopping for a matching blue fabric to make the bias tape but it is better to use from the stash. And I did get to buy a new spool of matching sewing thread - hooray!

This little top is a bit of a leap of faith (like most of my sewing!). As I have limited fabric I narrowed the hem width by a couple of centimetres and have no hem allowance (so that will need to be bound with bias tape as well). The front neckline is conveniently the selvedge of the fabric but I'm going to need to dream something up for the back neckline (where I also have no seam allowance). The pattern calls for putting in elastic but I'm wondering if a casing with ties would be sweeter?

blue wren

Finally, we seem to be back on track here in Seattle. Settled back in, sleeping well and the new charger for my camera battery arrived. Yes, somehow I managed to leave the charger for the camera battery behind (sound familiar?).

The blue wren is my very favourite Australian bird and this is an image from my very favourite tea towel. Which unfortunately will no longer be used as a tea towel because of a small singeing incident in the kitchen (Tim, not me). One thing about being home from Australia is that I have renewed energy to get things done - to replace the ugly blind in the closet, to start on the doily quilt (first contemplated back in November 2007) and to do something with this tea towel.

And so I did - I cut out the pieces for a halter top for baby bear from a Japanese craft book that I have called Koharu no fuku. The pattern calls for binding and I don't have enough tea towel so I'm going to dig through the stash to find something complementary to make the bias tape. Incidentally, while the tea towel is indeed from Australia, I have had it here in Seattle all along. Many craft supplies and books were rediscovered while we were in Melbourne; I'll get around to show and tell eventually.

home

And so we're back home, from home. It has been an exhausting five weeks and I expect that it will take a couple more to recover. The trip was very emotional - sorting through all of our belongings that had been in storage and watching baby bear play with my beautiful friends' beautiful children. There is so much to say that I don't know whether I'll actually be able to - perhaps for the next issue of mixtapeZINE (issue 9 is out now and issue 10 available for pre-order - yippee).

In the meantime I leave you with what makes some 40 hours of plane journeys, delayed flights and airport security with a two-year old in tow all worthwhile: