Now I have a fun jungle dress to wear when the sun shines, yipee!
This is a Tilly and The Buttons pattern, from her book Love at First Stitch which I rented from the library. It looks much sweeter on her little petite frame.
I lengthened the bodice by 2cm, and added in some back neckline darts after all was said and done. One of these days I need to try a full-bust-adjustment, because I think I border line need one. Also, sway back adjustment should have been added. I did do an acceptable toile! I swear.
If I was in the Great British Sewing Bee (watch the latest season 4 on YouTube!) I think Patrick would critique that there are some fitting issues, but I've made a wearable garment.
I've binged the GBSB so much lately that I hear Patrick over my shoulder when I sew now.
Not such a bad thing, really.
And also, I've sewed the best zipper of my life, so there's that to be proud of.
That, along with the colours, stretch and fullness of the cotton sateen make it a great dress! I'm looking forward to wearing it more and more, just as soon as the weather decides to kick it up a notch!
I think I inherited this fabric from Debs stash, along with a free pattern from the Library, and a $8 zipper make this a pretty cheap dress!
This has been my longest project, and definitely the largest in volume!
Although I started out with much gusto, spurred on by the quick sewing of Deb and Clare who seem to whip quilts up over night, it turns out that no matter how motivated, sewing little 2.5inch squares in rows and blocks is bloody boring.
So much cutting, so many tiny seams, so much ironing, arranging, mess.
However, over the years I've been learning perseverance, and also I must be upping my standards.
What would have been "fine" is no longer "fine", and I found myself unpicking 24 meters of top stitching of the quilt top so that I could hand stitch it again. My machine quilting skills were below par, and after musing over it, I set about with the un-picker and spent another month unpicking and restitching by hand for a much nicer finish.
All that to say, even though I cursed and loathed this quilt, and went through the 5 stages of grief over it, I eventually came to love it (stockholm syndrome?), and wanted it to look its best. And, it was really great having a project handy that I could pull out whilst watching tv, or something to sew in the sunshine.
I absolutely love the binding, the backing, the bright colours, the yellow thread, the flowers, the spots, the patterns...
I might even go so far to say, I miss creating it.
But now I have a bright and happy quilt to keep our family warm, and the satisfaction of creating something that has a purpose and is of use to our family is at an all time high.
To celebrate, we had a monarch butterfly afternoon, as you have requested for the past year. And threw in some My Little Ponies too at the last moment. A girl can change her mind if she wants to!
I made you some monarch wings to wear as well as for decoration, we had rainbow streamers, and a huge monarch cake! You were a pretty happy girl having all of these dreams come true!
We played a treasure hunt game where we found pictures of My Little Ponies in our garden, and then had an obstacle course! The obstacle course started our taking the ping pong ball (EGG) on a spoon and throwing it into the bucket with the leaves on it. Then, crawling through the tunnel (CATERPILLAR). Then, racing to the finish line with rainbow ribbons (BUTTERFLY). The little children were so happy to find out they could keep their ribbons!
You can't wait to be starting school in the new year, and you are loving being a 5 year old. You know you're a big kid now, and as always responsibility is high on your priorities list. You are nailing this 5 year old, big sister, growing up thing. I am so proud of you Milla.
For the last term, and until you start school in January, we have been having Mondays to our selves while Katie is at Kindy having her "special day" by herself.
I love Milla Mondays! You are such fun to hang out with. You talk my ear off all day, and we do something special together. Some times it's tumble times, or the library (our new favourite place to go together), or just to a cafe, or to Willowbank, or painting at home together, or ... where ever you want to go! It's lots of fun, as I said!
You've been practicing your phonetics, recognising more words in books and on signs and have been writing little notes. The other morning you came into my bedroom saying "look mum, I wrote 'Katie is in bed'", and sure enough, you had! Clever cookie. You'll love school! In the mean time, we've been playing word games, practising writing and trying to do fun creative learning to tide you over.
At Kindy you had a special celebration led by Kaiako Duncan. They sang you the whale song (a humongous whale, spouting out the water...)(aaaa... great white shark, great white shark...), happy birthday, presented you with your cake and card and Kindy book and talked about your time at Kindy. You were so excited to be up there, you spoke clearly and loudly for everyone to hear (which I was very proud of), and loved your time up the front under the cloak.
As a gift to Kindy on your birthday we presented them with a book we made together called "he iti kahuku". It's a story about a little butterfly who finds its mum at the park and dances under a rainbow. Kindy loved the book, and you were so creative to have made it!
When I thought about it later, I realised it's about you! You are our little Monarch.
Hola! Way back in May we celebrated Graeme's 30th Birthday at Mexico with friends and whānau.
Graemes birthday has been the event of the year for us. We love celebrating things, we love our people, and we love birthdays. So, we've been planning for these celebrations for a year, putting aside money each week for the last year so when the time came, we could do what our hearts desired.
After much humming and haa'ing, we decided on having our party out and about, and catered for. It was more expensive than doing ourselves, but it took all of the stress out and meant we could invite who ever and didn't need to be worried for a "wet weather option". I also hired a friend to make the cake! Best decision of the year. It was amazing!
It took months to find a venue, after a whole lot of emails, and venue visits at various locations around the city and still not finding any where suitable. I mused to myself "it would be amazing to have a party with mexican fried chicken handed around", and so I email Mexico and we were in! They ticked all of the boxes and were fantastic hosts!
We ended up having 65 friends and whānau. Even though we don't see many of these people very often they all hold dear places in our hearts and it was so great to have them.
I have only included a few photos in the post, but we are making up a photo book so we have picture of everyone! Lighting was hard, and most were taken with polaroids, so our photos aren't the greatest!
Our kids came for the first hour, then Nannie took them back to her house where a family friend babysat them while they slept. They were so excited to be at their Daddies party! And it was great having them there!! Also, Aunty Izy came from Australia to join in the celebrations!
The birthday boy! I surprise him by secretly handing out little badges with his face on them with a golden sparkly crown. See if you can spot them in the photos. He turned around and realised everyone was wearing them! So great. There were also some larger faces stuck on the walls. Graeme is our Party King, so it seemed fitting to have his face everywhere.
I strung up a few banners and decorations when we arrived but Mexico in Christchurch is so bright and fun, it really didn't need much. The decor is ace, as is the music. The atmosphere was perfect!
We also played pinata, which was a bit of a fail! Graeme ended up whacking his friend Joe over the head (not surprising, since Joe was standing next to it saying "hit me!") but the string holding it up didn't hold so we ended up ripping it open with our hands! Still good though.
I said a speech for Graeme, and then it was backed up with a Māori waiata (song), as is custom when honoring someone.
During the week we had secret practises for Purea Nei, a beautiful waiata. Jared was on guitar leading it, and started after my speech.
Graeme said he was looking around taking in the song and then started to realise that everyone was singing, even people who didn't know Māori waitata, and then he started to realise how special it was and that everyone must have learnt it for him!
Well, they did! 65 people, singing a song most of them didn't know for their friend who they were honoring. It doesn't get much more special than that!
You can watch and pretend you were there with the video below::
Most of all, Graeme had a great night! He felt loved, celebrated and honored!
Friends and Whānau, thank you for partying with us and being in our lives!
xxx
(ps, Blog post on our birthday holiday here (yes, the celebrations seemed to continue for a whole month!)
