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one week and counting...

until the big day! The dress is almost finished, after a minor,ok ,MAJOR drama last night. I discovered as I was attaching the chiffon overskirt to the underskirt and lining, that I had sewed one of the front panels in the wrong place. Yes, that would be the chiffon overskirt that had to be all french seamed. This meant that I had to undo 4 seams and resew them. 4 french seams. In chiffon. So there I was, trying hard to stay calm while I contemplated the idea of unpicking and resewing the newly trimmed 4mm seams.
Oh, and for anyone who hasn't sewed with chiffon before- Don't. It frays. Dreadfully.
I had to have a cup of tea ,a really bad for me biscuit and then a piece or two of restorative chocolate before I could even look at the unpicker let alone use it. So after 3 hours of work my net progress forward on the dress was nil. (Actually I had gone backwards but let's not dwell on that).
Anyway, that was last night. Tonight the dress is complete with chiffon overskirt and floaty drapey bit at the front.
And really, it looks lovely.
Only really, I can hardly bring myself to look at it.
Hence the picture of sea holly because that I can look at.

( Don't worry bride -to- be Emma, if you are reading this. Wedding dresses that I make always have this effect on me!)

While I was busy unpicking, cursing and resewing I was practicing my response to the following question.

" Will you make me a wedding dress? "
" Of course I will. As long as it's in calico and looks a lot like an apron."

Reminder to self: I DO NOT do wedding dresses.

So off to Queensland, bright and early Saturday morning. With the dress.
I promise that there will be a picture of it when I get back.( Just as long as I don't have to look at it!)

brave pixie

Rose recently went from long hair to a bob - on Thursday she decided to go one step further and have her hair styled into a 'pixie' cut. I love this type of style- however I was a little hesitant, mainly because no other girl in kindergarten has very short hair- most have medium to long hair. I discussed this with Rose.How she would she feel being the only girl with this type of haircut? Rose assured me that she didn't mind and I felt that it was a very positive thing that she didn't feel the need to look the same as everyone else.
She had the haircut and off she went to school the next day, all excited (especially because she had some gel in her hair!) Charlie had a new style as well- a 'pixie' bob so she was quite happy to pose for a picture with her big sister.

I kept my fingers crossed that her joy in her new look wouldn't be crushed by  the comments of the other kids. When I picked her up all was fine. Just about everyone had liked it - there were the few inevitable ' you look like a boy" comments which bothered her a bit. I reassured her that nobody could mistake her for a boy and told her that anybody who said that obviously had no idea of style.
Last thing I heard was Rose walking around practicing" you have no idea about style" delivered  in a big confident voice with a toss of her fine little head!

not quite the big one....

My paintings for this weekends Spring fair Art stall....the big canvas is still a work in progress. I will keep on at it for the next two evenings but there is still quite a way to go on it. I'm not getting too stressed about it though...I would rather take my time with it as I somehow get the feeling that it really is only going to appeal to me anyway. I'll just make a donation to the art stall and keep on adding layers of paint.
I am hopeful that my other pieces will find new homes though....

how to make a wedding dress in 3 days...

almost.
It's not quite finished due to a major change in design on day one but it's almost there. Enough that I will be able to sleep soundly tonight, hopefully minus the dreams of being chased by an enormous mountain of white tulle and satin.
Cousin Emma arrived on Friday lunchtime and before she even had time to put down her bag I had her draped in a big piece of calico. I had actually made a toile last time she was here but all week I have been thinking that the bodice needed to be changed.Quite drastically.
So it was back to square one on Friday, leaving me with a little less than three days to fit, pattern make, cut and sew the Dress. Just a little bit of pressure.
Pattern making is not my greatest strength or my passion - actually I quite loathe it! So Friday and the early hours of Saturday morning were grueling to say the least. By Saturday afternoon it was all fitted and ready to cut out.Naturally enough the fabric was not your easy going stable kind of stuff- no, this was slippery soft satin faced crepe.And it was ivory so there was the added danger of dirt and little grubby fingers to contend with.
Sunday, 1pm the dress was almost done with the exception of hems and hand finishing. Final try on by the bride( who needed to be on her way by 6.30pm).
Problem.
I could sense that Emma was not perfectly happy with the dress.But why? The new bodice fitted perfectly and looked just beautiful, the dress hung well and didn't pull over the hips or thighs.
Hmmm, after a bit of prodding , the answer. Emma just didn't feel that the satin finish of the dress was very flattering on her.Even though it was fitting well, she just wasn't at ease with the 'shiny-ness' of the fabric.
Rather big problem, that.
There was no way that I could have sent her home unhappy about the dress, and absolutely no chance that I could have sat through the wedding knowing that Emma was not 100% satisfied with The Dress. That I had made.
Inspiration or perhaps desperation stepped in- the original dress was to have a chiffon drapey kind of bit around the waist and falling to the floor down one side of the dress.
A bit of pinning and next thing you know, one happy looking Emma in a satin dress with full chiffon overlay. No more 'shiny-ness' , just soft floaty, bridey looking dress. Add in a flowing chiffon drape, from the bust, completed with a vintage diamante buckle (found in a box of estate jewelry I bought at an auction) and you have one bride -to-be who is perfectly happy with her dress.
And you have me , in a relieved little puddle on the floor.
So, one dress almost completed in the three days - just the overlay and drape to make and attach (I won't think to much about the fact that the overdress will have to be all french seamed....)
Hand hemming and the like can wait until the week before the wedding ,so that doesn't count.
Oh and I am officially semi -retired from the bridal dress business after this one. (This is number 8 or 9.)
Surely I have at least twenty or so years before either of my girls will be in the market for one.

Maybe I can convince them to elope.....

yes, well....

Remember this canvas? This enormous empty canvas? Only a 8 days to go until it's meant to be complete for the Spring Fair. So what am doing?
Anything but working on that great blank space!

We have a lovely old Chippendale chair that sits quietly in the hallway. I did a very quick sketch the other day( top left corner) and scanned it into Photoshop where I had a bit of play. Straightened it up a bit to make it look like it just might stand up and then tried out a few filters.
I think I might have a go with the Gocco using this image.
After I finish the big canvas of course.Maybe I'll just paint an enormous red and green chair on it.
And then buy it myself.

Wish me inspiration!

no more cupcakes, please....

Today's fairy disco party signals the end of cupcake month at my house.
Seriously, I could  whip up a perfectly acceptable batch of cupcakes, iced and decorated within an inch of their sweet little lives, blindfolded and  with both hands tied behind my back.
All done whilst singing Wuthering Heights loudly and tunefully.
(Ok, maybe not tunefully but definitely loudly and with feeling and that's what counts. You hear what I'm saying, girlfriend? Just ask Marsha.)
Anyway ,the party was a lot of fun- relaxed, plenty of food( including cupcakes)  and fine weather, music loud and fairy- disco like.What more could a three year old ask for?

A fairy disco cake ,of course!
This one almost beat me- all week I've been trying to work out how to decorate the cake with very little progress. At 8pm last night, the cake was baked and ready to be transformed- but into what?
Finally,inspiration!
Fairy disco equals fairy disco wands- bit of glitter, a few stars and a quick hunt through Rose's fairy collection. Rose whipped up a few paddle pop stick flowers and helped add the finishing touches with silver balls and sugar flowers.
Charlie seemed most happy with the result and I am now hanging up the apron and putting on the painting smock to finish my canvases for the Spring Fair.

(Actually, I think I might just can the painting for tonight and watch some junk TV with a glass of wine instead. I'm all domestic godess/superschool mummed out...)

Speaking of fairies,we had our first visit from the tooth collecting variety last night.
Rose, much to her delight lost her first tiny bottom tooth yesterday.She's been checking her teeth for wobbly ones ever since she started kindy and most of her classmates started losing their teeth.

Now I guess I  have about three more years of Charlie telling me everyday that she thinks she has wobbly 'teef" as well.
As long as my teeth don't start falling out from eating too many cupcakes, that's fine with me!

ps- my family thanks everyone for their song suggestions. I think they will be quite happy to hear just a little less of   "'wuthering,wuthering,wuthering- heights, Heathcliff...."

busy baking cupcakes....

and these are some of the things that I see as I make pink and purple icing. Nice.

sea urchin all the way from New Zealand ( with thanks to Megan)

ceramic pears( remember these Jo?)

and a seed pod.