where to begin

more apologies and excuses for my long absence: with the airport not working on my macbook pro, i have to plug into the modem, which currently sits on our kitchen counter, which means i have to sit on a vintage, wooden chair to do any serious interneting, which means my pregnant body complains all too quickly, which means no bloggidy blog posts for me. i have an appointment at the genius bar this coming week so hopefully they will be able to find a fix for my no airport/no sound mess or at least comfirm that i just need to take a chunk of our house reno money and buy a new laptop. i've had lots of things to write about, lots of things to share but i don't want to make this the absolute longest post in the world so here's a short(ish) form:







:: two huge things with maesey: she started an afternoon of childcare last week and absolutely loved it. when i arrived at the end of her session, she didn't have any interest in leaving and i eventually had to pick her up to get her out of there! such a relief for me as i'm finding it a bit challenging to entertain her seven days a week while shane works on the house so the extra three hours means she has good exposure to all sorts of fun stuff and i get a bit of a break. the second thing is that MAE IS SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT. i'm talking 7pm to 7am without a peep aside from the chatting she does to herself before dropping off. it's been 10 nights now, with a couple of weeks of hits and misses before that, and i still can't quite believe it. i'm putting it down to basic development as we haven't done anything hugely different - slightly more rigid routine? more toys in the cot to entertain her? offering her only water during the night? these things have all happened over the last couple of months but she just seems so much more receptive to reasoning these days. like, she gets that it's bedtime. finally.






:: back in february, i spent a glorious weekend in rye with some wonderful, crafty friends and, in between stuffing my face with food and partaking in all manner of true-confessions-style conversation, managed to finish a quilt top for baby no.2. i decided to work in pink, purple and grey and i am so thrilled with how this little pram quilt turned out. it is soft and sweet and interesting and the print on the back couldn't be more perfect. i feel it is somewhat symbolic as well - this will be the last quilt i work on for some time now as i decided to push all of my custom quilt orders until some indefinite time later this year. i unfortunately just don't have the time, energy or creativity to do them justice these days and i'm under no illusions as to how crazy my life is going to be 12 weeks from now. i have one quilt left to show that i finished about six months ago and is destined for a pattern release - again at some indefinite time. maybe when my computer is back in action i will have the inclination to actually get the pattern written up...



:: instead of quilts, i've been strangely drawn to sewing clothes for myself and mae lately. i go through phases where all i feel like doing is making stock for my shop and sewing clothes seems like a waste of time and now i find myself in a phase of avoiding onegirl "work" in favour of small personal projects - perhaps a nesting of the wardrobe? i made myself the above dress last week, using a lovely shot cotton that i found at savers for $3.99 and a pattern from the stylish dress book (pg 26). i had fun tweaking the pattern a bit, using a bit of shirring on the sleeves instead of a gather and the selvedge for the sleeve hem. it makes a great maternity dress and i got plenty of compliments from my amazing mothers group pals when i wore it out for tapas on friday night (first time out since mae was born - ALMOST TWENTY MONTHS, PEOPLE). i'll do a separate post for mae's wardobe enhancements as there are quite a few of them and i just may have a little freebie pattern to offer you kind, patient folk...