Works in progress

This shirt-in-the-making has been put on hold momentarily while I tackle some t-shirt and bodysuit orders.

Hopefully I'll get back to this in the next few days.  In the meantime, this pile awaits:

I sort the orders into piles requiring different coloured threads.  These ones require white thread, then I have my green pile, blue pile, pink pile, yellow pile for pears, hearts, flowers and giraffes respectively.  When my seamstress is around to help we whip through these in no time.

There are the pink and green ones all ready to go.

More creative spaces on Kirsty's blog. 

Just what I feel like

I have been baking Madeleines a lot lately.  They take 5 minutes to whip up, and 10 minutes in the oven, which makes them the perfect last minute treat if people drop by.  My boys love them in their school lunch too.

I have 9 year old Max home with the flu, so the background to my day is "Man vs. Wild", "Mythbusters", "Megastructures", "James Bond" and "Destroyed in 60 Seconds".   It's better than back to back Teletubbies I guess.

Madeleines 

• 2 eggs
• 2 Tablespoons caster sugar
• 2 Tablespoons icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 35 g self raising flour
• 35 g plain flour
• 75 g butter, melted
• 1 Tablespoon hot water

 

• Heat oven to 200 celsius.  Beat eggs, sugar and extract with electric mixer until thick and creamy.  Sift flours twice.  Sift flours over egg mixture; pour combined butter and water down side of bowl then fold ingredients together.
• Drop rounded tablespoons of mixture into Madeleine pan holes.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Tap hot pan firmly on bench to release madeleines, then turn onto wire rack and dust with icing sugar.  Eat 5 in a row.

 

A little online shopping

Taking a break from building my own website today, I enjoyed browsing through a catalogue that arrived in the mail this week from one of my favourite French children's wear brands.

I find this little winter dress adorable.  And I love it with the knee high socks too. 

But for Adelaide next winter, I think grey rib tights, Henri's hand me down Chocolate brown Sonnet Mary Janes, a grey cable knit cardi or Henri's pre-loved chocolate cashmere coat and she will be good to go.

When she grows out of that one, she could wear this one.  Definitely with these shoes and a red coat.

What I love about these dresses is they are wool.  Which means they are warm for Melbourne winters.  And machine washable to boot.  What's not to love.

On the subject of shopping, Adelaide got her first pair of proper shoes today.  She has been walking for about a month.  I can hear her coming now - tap, tap on the floorboards.  So cute.

My creative space

A little garment sketching this week.

I've just put my last specification sheet together for production of this top.  It is now with the manufacturer. 

There's also lots of behind the scenes work going on while I build content for my website.  The summer range will hopefully be online within hours.

More creative spaces over here.

A brief affair

It was love at first sight.  For both of us.  We weren't looking for it.

At the first open for inspection both Will and I were mad for this house.  Four children's bedrooms, a study for Will, a studio opening to the garden for me, a pool out the back.  We wanted it badly.

It set in train a flurry of activity at our house.  Painters, handymen, landscapers, real estate agents came calling.  Everyone was hard at work.

There was much ruminating in the middle of the night.  Thoughts were shared: "I'm worried we may not love that house as much as we love our current house"; "There's no wall for the piano"; "Not all our furniture fits."

We were torn.  We were in, we were out.  By the time the auction came around we were out.  The house sold for an absolute steal today.  One fifth less than we thought it was worth.  (Since when does that happen?)

But we're OK with it.  All those pesky odd jobs we needed to do around our house have now been done - from a broken fence paling at the front, to school bag hooks in the garage out the back.  Fresh paint, a decluttered house and garage, a spruced up garden and look:

Is that an impressive toy drawer or what?  Flylady would be proud.

And thankfully I don't have to turn my studio into a formal dining room for our own auction campaign.  That would have killed me - trying to run Townmouse and packing up all signs of it for open-for-inspections twice a week.