Newsflash

12 year old is cutting his own fingernails without even being asked.
Major Parenting Breakthrough. Hello, light at end of tunnel!

- Jane x

a 12 year old! (and a very insistent 5 year old)

Well this dear glowing face turned 12 last week. Charlie is much loved by his youngest brother, who insisted on taking his own pocket money to Haighs to buy Charlie some chocolate as a gift.

Charlie loves to draw and I bought him 'Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals' by Carla Sonheim which is a simply delightful and inspiring book. The bedroom he shares with Jasper features some fabulous wall cracks that, as the book demonstrates, can be wonderful starting points for all kinds of illustrations!

He also asked for, and received, more Tintin books. I think I have talked him into letting me cut and style his hair like Tintin for Book Week at school this year :)

Charlie is a happy soul, enjoys his own company and doesn't ask for much. Which is fortunate really because he has two very squeaky wheels for younger brothers. Clem has been pestering me incessantly for new pyjamas ever since he laid eyes on the fabric he is wearing above, in our shop. And so, during quiet moments at the shop, on Charlie's birthday, I found myself sewing pyjamas for Clem (sorry Charlie). He put them on as soon as he saw them (after school on Friday, in the shop) and wore them non-stop until mid Saturday afternoon. Pestering + appreciation = happy Clem + happy Mama. And a happy 5 year old means a happier whole family, really.

The printed knit is organic cotton/spandex by Lillestoff and the stripe is some Farbenmix from my stash. Top pattern - Ottobre Best T-shirts, legs from Growing Up Sew Liberated, a rough combination of size 2 width and size 4 length with added seam allowance and cuffs. I just love soft, stretchy, forgiving knits! And I do wish I could rock a pair of stripey leggings like he does.

- Jane x

Shop!

Last Saturday, Fiona, my partner-in-scary-shop-venture and I, opened The Drapery to the public for the very first time!

We put out the A-frame and opened the doors and no fireworks went off and there was not a crowd of a thousand waiting to barge in and it was all a bit anti-climactic of course, this very moment.

The first to walk in were Andy and the boys about half an hour later. But as the day passed, people came by. Lovely people, not all blood relatives of ours, just enough to feel busy but not totally overwhelmed, and we made a decent amount of sales.

We had loads of lovely comments that reaffirmed the reasons we opened the shop in the first place: Adelaide really needs a new sewing shop, there are no decent fabric shops left, you want to get in and feel the fabric, and so forth. Heck, this gamble of ours may actually be a success!

There is tweaking to be done, and more stock to order in (now that we have a little money starting to come in to help pay for it all!) and learning to happen (like, really, the way our cash register calculates fabric meterage is just not intuitive or even, apparently, logical). But it was fun! And we pretty much grinned our heads off the entire day, and for some time afterwards. In fact we were both so energised by the experience that we each cut fabric to take home and launch into more sewing projects... shop samples to display and wear!

Because our kids and Fiona's kids are on school holidays (last week and this week) we're just opening again this Saturday, then more 'proper' hours next week when school goes back. A good way to ease into it, really.

And I would just like to say here, hooray for Dads, because Fiona's awesome Dad made our shop counter, above, from recycled timber, and my awesome Dad made the A-frame you can see in the first picture, mostly from gum tree branches from my parents' block in the hills. Hooray for Dads!

If you are reading this and you are in Adelaide and would like to come by The Drapery, we're open 10 - 4 again this Saturday. And we really must get around to starting up The Drapery's own blog. One step at a time, hey.

- Jane x

Yep, I embroidered

I felt like a bit of soothing hand stitching and I wanted to try out some beautiful embroidery thread we ordered in for the shop. So yes, I decided to embellish my Linen Esme Top with a little crossed embroidery stitch.

The thread actually has a lovely subtle variation in colour as it goes along (I hesitate to use the 'ombre' word which is everywhere but I don't even know how to pronounce... omber? ombray? ombra? ormb?). It's hard to see here but because I did the bottom of the cross stitches in one go and then went back the other way over the top, sometimes the top and bottom of the cross have a pretty contrast.

I realised one of the things I love about the Esme Top so much is that the sleeved are bias cut, which gives them a lovely drape. Such a nice detail.

In case you are wondering about the necklace, it's this adorable happy sloth I got from Etsy here. A couple of weeks ago I was feeling majorly stressed and, you know, pulled in a thousand directions at once and not on top of any of it, so naturally, I was hit by a primal urge to buy something pretty for me! I'm fairly good at containing that urge lately but oh, sometimes, I give in....

We've had a heap of short weeks lately which have been a killer, what with Easter and a long weekend and a 'pupil free day' on Monday of the last week of term so it has been so hard to cram in all the work I've needed to get done. Plus Andy is deep in rehearsals for the biggest new show his company has ever done so he's hardly home. And, um, we're trying to get the shop open, and now it's two weeks of school holidays and, ack... so on that pupil free day I took the boys to my favourite haven of the Botanic Gardens and we had some welcome fresh air and sunshine, which I invite you to share. Breathe ..... :)

- Jane x

Linen Esme

Another Sew Liberated Esme Top!

I have been wearing my first one so much - it's so handy for this transitional autumn weather - that I thought I should sew up another. This time in more of the lovely natural linen that my parents brought me back from Lithuania, and that I used for my Washi Dress. (I think there was four metres, and there's still probably a metre left!)

I made the bib lining and back neck facing out of some leftover Anna Maria Horner voile. The only alteration I made was to raise the back neckline a bit.

More mismatched buttons as solution to indecision. I was intending on adding a little embroidery to the bib in a running or cross stitch around the edge but I'm not sure now. Best left plain or could it use a little more decoration?

And on a real person. Hmm there's a bit of front gaping there. I think it's more to do with my button placement than anything. I might fix that with just a little hand-tacking, since I think the buttons will always be done up. The linen is slightly stiff and scratchy right now but I know from my Washi Dress that it will soften up beautifully with a few more washes.

In the interests of reality-checking, here's a different view of that terribly picturesque rustic background:

It's the door of our falling-down shed. And I was standing in possum poo. Glamorous, non?

During last week, the boys had sports day (across two days) at school. It's always rather delightful and for some reason I even get a little choked up when the teams all do their chants and cheers at the end.

Guess what colour our team is :)  And we won!

- Jane x

a little creepy, quite fascinating

We've had our eye on two fat Wanderer caterpillars in our front yard for a few days now. Today, Clem went to check on them and found one in the very act of shedding its skin and revealing the chrysalis. You don't think it's a bit creepy? Picture it wiggling - nay, writhing - to get that skin off. Happened within the span of a minute or two. Kept wiggling somewhat after the entire skin was gone. But isn't it cool how you can see where the wings are already beginning to form at the end there?

- Jane x

this moment

Joining with SouleMama - {this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

- Jane x