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my big girl and my littlest girl

May 26, 2010 By corrie 36 Comments

Well it’s a big day here! Miss Keira turns 4 today and is definitely a big girl. When I look at baby photos of her I just can’t believe that was her and that it’s been 4 years. All of those old cliches of time flies and they grow up so quickly is so true.

She is just the most adorable little daughter you could ask for and keeps me entertained all day long.

A total girly girl who insists on having her toe nails painted and lip gloss on when we are going somewhere and always wanting to wear dresses.

But she is also the most easy going little person and all she wanted for her special birthday dinner tonight was kids ravioli with cheese and an ice-cream cake.

Having a day shopping is always ‘the best day of my whole life’ and going to school next year is all we can talk about.

So happy birthday gorgeous girl! We love you so much! And on this special day I also gave Keira the news that she is having a little sister! Today, I got to see my littlest girl, at 19 weeks she already looks like a little doll to me and we’re thrilled to be welcoming a new girl into our family this October. I actually thought I might be having a boy to balance out the family, but as a lover of all things pink……..well, I’m sorry Finn that it’s another girl.

Like all mummies to be I’m just glad I have a healthy baby onboard and will continue to pray everyday for a healthy baby to be delivered and come home with us.

Filed Under: everything else

new store button

May 25, 2010 By corrie 6 Comments

I wasn’t really a fan of the button for my blog that came with my store, so I’ve just had a new one made up for me by a nice lady on etsy!

and I love it! Definitely very cute and very retro mummy! And while the store is looking a bit bare at the moment, don’t worry, I do all of my buying for the next 6 months very soon and there will be lots of lovely new fabrics coming to my house!

Filed Under: store

crochet, crochet and more crochet

May 24, 2010 By corrie 18 Comments

Lots of crochet going on here! On Saturday I taught 8 lovely ladies the basics of crochet and they were granny squaring along by the end of the class and I can’t wait to see their progress. Everyone picked it up at their own pace and while it was pouring with rain outside we were having a lovely time with our tea, shortbread biscuits and crochet inside. Next crochet class is with Sarah London on June 26.

On the homefront it’s crochet city as I power through my hats for handmade market on the 5th June. Markets seem to sneak up on me and I’d like to get at least another 12 hats done before we head down to Canberra. Notice all those ends….yep that is another job to do but as I seem to lose wool needles like I lose socks in this house I have to buy another needle for this batch of hats.

I also think I need to do a retro mummy size hat just to beat the canberra chill down there!!!!!!!!

Filed Under: crochet, markets

more bendigo for the stash

May 21, 2010 By corrie 17 Comments

I know I go on about it but if you’re not ordering your wool/yarn/knitting stash from bendigo then you need to go and take a look, like NOW! I find them to be such good value and the colours are always getting better! Their latest yarn ‘Highlands’ is a gorgeous tweedy yarn…of course I went straight to the pink shade – Montrose. And $12 per 200g ball, money saver!

It also comes with a free ladies cardy pattern to knit up…..I doubt I’ll get the time to knit it for myself unless I start learning how to knit in my sleep but I might do a hoody for each of my girls. If you’ve never ordered from Bendigo before just ask them for a shade card and you’ll go on their mailing list to always receive their latest specials and new shade cards.

These balls here are for the fair isle cardigan and there will be oodles leftover for matching hats! What a nice big mail delivery that was, I’m so lucky retro daddy isn’t home for the postman!

Filed Under: bendigo, knitting

what I’m working on

May 20, 2010 By corrie 13 Comments

Well, when I’m not organising Notebook Magazine’s The Craft Room then I’m planning my next 2 markets at handmade and mathilda’s which are both in canberra next month (yikes!) and then when I’m not doing that and need some relaxing then I’m crocheting hats…..I was lucky enough to pick up this lovely Jo Sharp wool when I was at wool baa last weekend. Its a lovely soft pink and is making the sweetest little winter hats which we’ll take to market with us. I’m also going to invest in a reachy upper thing (very technical name, I know!) so I can pull the hats off my tree with ease and put them back again! We spend a lot of time doing that all day!

I also picked up this lovely book, Debbie Bliss 9-5, perfect if you like knitting for kids that have outgrown the pre-schooler patterns. First on my list is the gorgeous fair isle cardy. I have ordered all the wool from bendigo and can’t wait to get started…I also plan a trip to my grandma betty the queen of fairisle knitting for some pointers.

and the last thing I’m working on is this lovely quilt in Rosalie Quinlan’s book, A Stitch in Time. It’s a very, very pretty book and the large hexagons (2 inch sides) are so easy. I need 16 large flowers and have 4 finished so far. And think about the 16 large flowers not the 100+ individual large hexagons you need, much easier to deal with!

and the best thing about working on all of these projects and being super busy is that the weeks are flying by with baby number 4 on board! 18 1/2 weeks and 6 kilos later!

Filed Under: knitting, quilting

Sydney Film Festival Giveaway – 2 double passes

May 19, 2010 By corrie 12 Comments

I love cute feel good movies! Twigson is a Norwegian movie showing as part of the Sydney Film Festival and they have been kind enough to give me 2 x double passes to giveaway on my blog to you guys! So if you live in Sydney and want to enter just leave me a comment and tell me who’ll you be taking. I’ll draw 2 winners Sunday night!

You can see a preview here and it looks like such a sweet movie! Now, while you’re there check out the other movies! I’ll need to rearrange my already very busy June to see a few more movies including Babies…watch the trailer….it’s good to see that my twins ~~fight~~ play just like children in remotest africa!

tears rolling down my face watching it and I’m about to go and watch the trailer again at Keira’s request! Looks like I’ll be taking all three of my ‘babies’ to that one! Thank you to the Sydney Film Festival for their generous giveaway and Frills in the Hills too – who is probably seeing every single movie showing!!!!

Filed Under: giveaway

the loot

May 19, 2010 By corrie 20 Comments

Well of course you want to see what I came home with, don’t you! First up is the lovely selection of fabrics that came home with me. I thought some other people were being very restrained walking around the store deciding what to pick, whereas I’m more get in there and take what you want as soon as you see it and lug the bolts around the store with you!!

I also love these little liberty rolls for hair ties and will also use this for hexagons for the current quilt I’m working on

and I also picked up this little panel for a cushion or canvas for retro daddy, the melbourne boy that he is.

and lastly here is what I was working on at the crafting session, large hexagon flowers for a quilt. These will be appliqued to a white background. I think I need a scary amount of these to be finished to make a large quilt but I’ll get there, they are perfect for night time when everyone has gone to bed and I can pull out the scissors and needles.

These are hunky dory charm squares and I’ll mix in a range of pinks, greens, yellows and blues from my own stash for the quilt.

Filed Under: sew it together

saturday crafting session

May 18, 2010 By corrie 6 Comments

The second part of sew it together was devoted to a day of craft! On the drive in to the hotel retro daddy admitted that he thought I was going to listen to craft speakers all day but no, just a day of craft. Obviously he is going to the wrong conventions, isn’t he? No children, no housework, no washing to hang out, just craft and lots of company.

Sheridan did a fabulous job finding a room the perfect size and it wasn’t long before the noise level rose as more and more ladies arrived! lots of hugs and kisses for old friends and lots (and I mean lots) of new bloggers to meet.

I parked myself with my craft for the day and fat quarters in front of me. I decided to tackle some paper piecing and managed to almost finish 2 large flowers in the day.

There were so many prizes donated that everyone got a prize and I won a copy of ottobre magazine, so a big thank you to craftymamas and thank you to all the sponsors who so kindly donated prizes. After our day of crafting we had a few hours to kill and you know you’re with kindred spirits when you can flop out and finish more craft, do some chatting and get ready for dinner. Thanks Abbe and Bianca for letting us hang out in your room….

We ate out in Carlton and yet again Sheridan found a nice big noisy space for us to blend into! We had a great meal and lots more chatting and then it was all over! Retro daddy picked me up (isn’t he a good hubby) and we felt like oldies in the car watching all the young kids out for their night of partying and we were calling it a night before 11pm.

I can’t believe it’s all over because it was such a fun weekend that could have gone for a week, sign me up for next year because I’m there with bells on! We just can’t thank Sheridan enough for all the organising she did. Tomorrow I’ll share the shopping….

Filed Under: craft, everything else

the friday shopping trip

May 17, 2010 By corrie 10 Comments

Friday afternoon of sew it together was devoted to fabric shopping! I’d actually had a morning of shopping at the nearest DFO to get myself some comfy winter shoes so my toes didn’t freeze off in the melbourne air. We started the fabric shopping at Amitie, my favourite and I got a head start as we were staying closer to Amitie than the city! Such genius to be the first in the store by 15 minutes and start pulling down the bolts I wanted.

Jenny made us feel oh so welcome (but she always does) and had afternoon tea out for us and a very generous discount for us so we had a ball shopping there.

In fact if I had to be locked in this store it wouldn’t be such a bad thing, I could be locked in there for a week!

Back on the bus (can you tell we don’t get out much!) and next stop patchwork on central, we only had 1/2 hour so no photos from me but I picked up some cute fabrics that will be shown in another post

Next stop was Ink & Spindle and a little demo of how their fabric is printed, it looks like hard messy work and I think my arms are too short to lean across the table! The girls were so lovely and welcoming and I came home with a little piece for a cushion for my couch.

We left the trip there so retro daddy could ~~get lost on his way to find us and keep us in the cold for 30 minutes~~ pick us up and take us home! I was so exhausted after our afternoon of shopping but not having to drive or find a park was a dream and we had a great day!

Filed Under: fabric, melbourne, shopping

I love melbourne

May 16, 2010 By corrie 19 Comments

we’re home again and it feels soooooo good to be back in my dressing gown and slippers and back online!! I do love melbourne, a little chilly this weekend but a great city that to me equals shopping and food……….. and I did both justice! Here is a red velvet cupcake (oh my I could do a whole post about how delicious they are) I enjoyed on saturday during a little break we took from our crafting session.

I think it will take me a few blog posts to tell you all about sew it together and melbourne! It was just such a great weekend full of old and new friends, craft, shopping, food, chatting (oh the chatting) and fun! Sheridan outdid herself with her organisational skills and we all owe her a huge thank you for the amazing weekend she organised for us. I’ll definitely be signing up again for 2011.

We were only down for 4 days but they flew by. Keira just adored spending time with her grandma jill and was her cheeky self. Here she is enjoying a pink neenish tart a little too much!

Retro daddy did a great job babysitting for me and while I enjoyed a little break from family duties it was soooo nice to have breakfast again as a family this morning (when we got our flight times wrong and had an extra hour to kill this morning). You’d think we were in paris with the chairs outside, but no just the laurent patisserie in albert park.

and how perfect to finish my crafty weekend with a spot of shopping at wool baa as well! Too perfect really and photos of my loot to come once I get it all out to oohh and ahhh over it.

I don’t think we’ll fly with the twins again anytime soon (think major tillie tantrums and an embarrassed me) but we had a great time and a little break from the everyday routine. I am sooo exhausted, am half way through all the washing and looking forward to taking it easy over the next few days and will share more photos and stories with you here……

Filed Under: sew it together

hexy t-shirt

May 11, 2010 By corrie 17 Comments

Well I knew that my hexagons wouldn’t sit around for long and keira decided it had to go on a t-shirt…just as I started ironing it on she changed her mind and decided she wanted it on a dress but it was too late! I love it and it’s a perfect match for the little denim skirt I made her earlier in the year. So we went out the back for our modelling shoot and we have sweet and demure

and then we have crazy face! Honestly, no prompting needed she just changes her face and pose after each click of the camera!

we do have fun and next year I either need to get the twins more co-operative in front of the camera or save my photographing for weekends and after school.

Filed Under: sewing

1 down….59 to go

May 10, 2010 By corrie 14 Comments

When Sheridan first mentioned the idea of a bloggers get together in Melbourne, I was there and offering to sponsor an event…and who would have thought we’d get to 60…yes, 60 ladies coming to our Saturday craft session! Which means that today I’m working my little butt off making cute kits for everyone…in between washing and drying sheets, pyjamas and towels of a set of vomiting twins! Never a dull moment here!

Thankfully I have cute japanese fabric in every corner of my house so that wasn’t too hard and paper hexagons are easy to come by (I ordered from 2 suppliers which means I have over 1000 hexagons now!). And while it’s been a long time since I’ve done paper piecing (it was a craft show before I had keira actually) here is what I made last night…I started to pull out the basting stitches when I realised a trip to the iron first would have been a wise move so these are my hexagons before they went to the iron!

These are soooooo addictive and I think some charm squares would be perfect to use up for a cushion! I’m actually going to applique this one to a pillowcase for keira’s bedroom as she loves it and has already taken it as her own.

Filed Under: japanese fabrics, quilting, sew it together

eating out with children

May 9, 2010 By corrie 13 Comments

We do love to eat out but taking all of my littlies out to a really nice restaurant isn’t something we’ve ever done……….but I’m happy to report it was a success!

the kids menu kept the little people happy and since Finn is also known as the chippie monster he was very happy with his plate of fish and chips

daddy kept them entertained with some songs and actions….

and miss keira was the perfect little diner sipping on her lemonade, telling jokes and being an angel. I think she’s just at the right age for eating out and making it a pleasant experience.

there was a playground right next door so the daddies (mine included) took all the little ones out for a play and the mummies got to enjoy our desserts. After lunch there were dry and crinkly leaves to run around in….

looking at these photos makes me realise how far we’ve come with the twinnies and how much they are growing into little people….

so a lovely relaxing day down at Clontarf and something we’ll do again!!

Filed Under: twins

pretty flowers for mothers day

May 9, 2010 By corrie 5 Comments

when you get a box of chocolates for mothers day the size of your palm, it’s a good idea to take your family to the florist and pick something yourself!!!! first up we had to spoil my own mum with a lovely boxed arrangement.