Red Day skirt

 J had a red day at kindy today, and although we had some red tops, she didn't have anything to wear on her bottom half.  So we made a skirt out of a woolen jersey in my stash.  It was super simple to make.

 I just cut the jersey off under the arms to make a rectangle open at two ends.

Then I just zigzagged two strips of elastic to the top of the rectangle.  All the other seams are already finished, and the zigzag on the elastic should stop the top of the skirt from fraying too badly.

I had to use underwear elastic because that's all I had, but J didn't seem too worried about it.

 It certainly did the job for her Red day (in honour of Red Nose Day), and she wore it all afternoon.

How does my garden grow?

Not too badly for winter.

 Most years, we just let the vege garden go over winter, and forage for whatever is still in the ground.

But my project this week is to dig over everything and stake out our rows for the spring/summer plantings.

Birthday knitting

While I did complete a birthday present this week, it wasn't one for J.  I have finished one fingerless mitten for my brother for his birthday, and I'm most of the way through the other half of the pair.  The pattern is Alice's amazing no gusset fingerless mittens (ravelry link).

So far I am enjoying it, and I am knitting at practically light speed, having completed most of the pair this week.

Now with pictures!

Birthday presents

My project this week is to start on some birthday presents for J.  I can't believe she is nearly four.  Where is all this time going, and how do I slow it down!

Anyway, enough freaking out about ageing, so far I have a few ideas for her presents:

• Barbie clothes (I can knit some really fast right?)
• Lego
• Something pony/unicorn related
• Maybe something musical?

Okay, so my ideas are still a little nascent, but they are at least a good start.  I might see what I can find on Ravelry and Pinterest.

While we are on the subject, have I confessed that I don't really like Pinterest? I get the point of it, but my mind doesn't really work the way that it is set up.  Maybe I am just getting old, and that technology is for the younger generation.  Back in my day, we just remembered where we saw the idea in the first place instead of pinning everything (insert zimmer frame shaking here).

Any other thoughts or ideas about 4 year old birthday ideas?

More projects

12/08 - Birthday presents
19/08 - Gardening
26/08 - Birthday presents
02/09 - Holiday
09/09 - Photos
16/09 - Birthday presents
23/09 - Gifts
30/09 - Montessori
07/10 - Knitting
14/10 - No project
21/10 - Christmas presents
28/10 - No project

These will take me up to the end of October and by then I should be full swing into Christmas presents (I can hear you all laughing from here).  I am trying to think of projects that are more knitting and hand sewing based, so we will see how that goes.

Losing my sewing mojo

I had completely lost my sewing mojo at the moment.  We had to pull everything out of the house to recarpet, and my sewing material has not yet returned from the bottomless pit that is our garage.  And if that wasn't enough to stop me in my tracks, the knowledge that every time I get the sewing machine out I will have to put it away immediately afterwards isn't very conducive to creativity either.  Plus I managed to organise my UFO shelf in the linen cupboard, and now I don't want to make it untidy in their either.  All of this rampant tidiness is so that we can put it on the market to sell.  So stressful and creativity killing when it comes to sewing.  However, there are still hand crafts.  So when I decide on J's birthday presents, and Christmas presents for all the girls, I suspect they will heavily feature knitted and embroidered gifts.  Unless the house sells really quickly of course, in which case I can bring out the sewing machine and sew with wild abandon.