When you have a small person that occassionlly rises before six am, you get to see some beautiful sunrises.
Today was no exception, though I was outside Auckland and could take in a sea view of sun up.
With coffee.
So this is finally finished! I’m so pleased, it has been one of those projects which I’ve wanted to just make up over a weekend, but has taken me a month or so half and hour here and there. The kids love it too.
We needed a comfy cushion to sit by the radio listening to audio books and reading books by the ‘home library’ a small bookshelf in the living room which attempts to contain the downstairs kids books.
Also you might remember Luna’s Letters, a stuffed alphabet made out of felt I made Luna a while back which also took ages, but is still a favourite toy to play with or just throw around heh.
So it was really quite a simple project, I spent awhile hand cutting the letters, I’m making an alphabet blanket too, and probably another set of letters. I had this old orange wool blanket that was one of the picnic beach blankets, though a bit small for us all now. So I just visually laid out the letters on one half of the blanket, hand stitched then on (this took all the time) over about a month.
The blanket is old and wearing a little thin in places, it also stretched a bit as I was working with it, so it was lucky I backed it with a piece of cotton.
I went with warm coloured letters, red, pinks, yellow, etc.
The back, I like to see the backs of work like this, maybe you do too?
So, the next bit was the speedy and much easier bit, sewing the cushion up, again as I had found the blanket was becoming thin, I backed it with an unused cot sheet, kind of quilty, (I momentarily considered getting much more quilty with it but reconsidered how much more time that would take!). I spent some time ensuring the layers would not move while sewing together by pin basting the pieces together.
Phew! Then to the machine, great to get it going in the new sewing room.
All ready to fill! Though I allowed the hem space around the sides and base, it was not quite enough, I needed more edge at the bottom so there is a bit too much space at the top of the cushion…
But it still looks cool when it’s full, see!
See the kids love it! Luna listening to The Witches.
Blake chilling out.
I found this tattered copy of A A Milne‘s When we were very young at an op shop a little while back, 50 cents even! And I LOVE it, so do Luna and Blake. I have been looking out for some books with poetry to read with the kids for a while, and I have a copy of The House at Pooh Corner from when I was a kid, and I still enjoy it. Childhood so different to the business of kids these days.
We have three favourite poems, here are two of them…
I met a Man as I went walking:
I met a horse as I went walking;
We got talking,
Horse and I.
“Where are you going to, Horse, today?”
(I said to the Horse as he went by).
“Down to the village to get some hay.
Will you come with me?” “No, not I.”
I met a Woman as I went walking;
We got talking,
Woman and I.
“Where are you going to, Woman, so early?”
(I said to the Woman as she went by).
“Down to the village to get some barley.
Will you come with me?” “No, not I.”
I met some Rabbits as I went walking;
We got talking,
Rabbits and I.
“Where are you going in your brown fur coats?”
(I said to the Rabbits as they went by).
“Down to the village to get some oats.
Will you come with us?” “No, not I.”
I met a Puppy as I went walking;
We got talking,
Puppy and I.
“Where are you going this nice fine day?”
(I said to the Puppy as he went by).
“Up to the hills to roll and play.”
“I’ll come with you, Puppy,” said I.
I went down to the shouting sea,
Taking Christopher down with me,
For Nurse had given us sixpence each-
And down we went to the beach.
We had sand in the eyes and the ears and the nose,
And sand in the hair, and sand-between-the-toes.
Whenever a good nor’wester blows,
Christopher is certain of
Sand-between-the-toes.
The sea was galloping grey and white;
Christopher clutched his sixpence tight;
We clambered over the humping sand-
And Christopher held my hand.
We had sand in the eyes and the ears and the nose,
And sand in the hair, and sand-between-the-toes.
Whenever a good nor’wester blows,
Christopher is certain of
Sand-between-the-toes.
There was a roaring in the sky;
The sea-gulls cried as they blew by;
We tried to talk, but had to shout-
Nobody else was out.
When we got home, we had sand in the hair,
In the eyes and the ears and everywhere;
Whenever a good nor’wester blows,
Christopher is found with
Sand-between-the-toes.
I love this illustration, by E H Shepard.
This has been one of Luna’s favourite books, so I had to share it, first published in 1967. Moon Man saw everyone dancing and having a great time on Earth, and he wanted a piece of the action, unfortunately, humans panicked and called him an invader!
The illustrations are cool too, bold and stylised.
We are looking to find a new flat, with two kiddies more than when we moved in three years ago, and a letter to say the rent is going up in 60 days, the count down has begun. With such a change a head, I find myself reflecting on the time I have had here.
The other day as I lay breastfeeding Blake to sleep in the afternoon, Luna was beside me in bed reading, or so I thought as I gazed out the open window at the silhouette of the plum tree against the cloudy sky. I looked over as I was about to extract myself from Blake when I realised she had also been staring out the window. Seems it’s a good view. I have spent so many hours in this room, with this view, mostly breastfeeding, singing to, or cuddling either Luna or Blake off to sleep here and if there is some light I enjoy looking out the window. The view is mostly of the sky behind the old plum tree and the pitasporum. In winter the skinny bare branches scratch at the sky, and in summer the leaves make a crisp rustling noise, which I think captured Luna’s attention. At this time of the year I can really feel the change as we move closer to Autumn, and I love it.
I will miss this view, and this has been an eventful home for us, I gave birth to both my babies here, and the profound experience of becoming a mother has been shaped to some extent by this house, making it easier for me to go with my instincts. For one thing, the ‘second bedroom’ is not so much a ‘bedroom’ as a small room off the garage with manky carpet and a mouldy wall, it was not perfect when we moved in but we figured we could work with it. We have, after all, lived in some odd places. Luna taught me that all those ideas about what babies are like, all the ‘what to expect’s are absurd myths that everyone pretends are true. For instance, the idea that you just put a baby to bed in a bassinet and they lay there and drift off to sleep all happy and content. Or that babies ‘genrally breastfeed between 2-4 hours’ at first, so then you think, ok I can live with that. Surely you just feed them, and then they’ll sleep/be happy/not need you long enough so you can shower, clean the house, organise a meal, right?
So we ended up just co-sleeping, having all the babies in with us, it’s lovely and a bit of a squeeze at times, especially when old Austin The Cat moves in on those cold old winter nights, or for afternoon naps. But we are all ready for a change and some more space to stretch out. I’m excited about what our next adventure will be and where it will take us, and the new things to learn as our children grow.
Early evening from our bedroom window.
This is really just showing off, here is Luna’s birthday cake… It took a good too nights to complete and she actually helped me mix and bake it, and it was a kind of torture for her, learning about having to wait until the following day to eat the cake. I was a bit worried that the picture of the cake in my head would fail to appear in the layers of cake and off white chocolate icing, but after adding a couple of craters and astronauts, it turned out pretty close.
And one more…
The cake was made in two pieces, one double mixture in a large roasting tray, then one large cake in a round cake tin, stacked, with icing in between, I also had to poke a couple of skewers through to stop the top layer sliding off! Then I trimmed the bottom layer into a circle, larger than the top round cake, and then just sliced off at angles all the way round, kind of fitting the off-cuts into the space between layers… Phew then really carefully I iced it, trying to avoid the kind of avalanche effect (when the icing picks up cake debris and drags it off the edge and onto the tray exposing the choc cake underneath…) this was tricky, and I thought it would all fall apart! But a bit if careful smoothing and some strategically placed moon rock/marsh mellows and all was well.
Then the craters were fun and the icing sugar was all that was needed to make it look more white and less creamy.
I bought these on ebay last month, for about NZ$4 not too bad, I figured they look sweet and I have an idea for pillowcase bags which I may incorporate these into for Luna or myself.
On the aquatic theme, I started this project, Redfish, ages ago, but it has since gone on the backburner with shifting house and the race to finish off the Killer Angelfish before the little one arrives.
But it’s getting there…
Apparently people under six months old really get into black and white objects and imagery – all this after spending months making the crazy colourful starfish mobile – so I have decided to make the little one a beautiful killer angelfish to hang above the bassinet.
Here’s how it’s going so far, it’s just based on a wee sketch and is of course a bit of an experiment…
I hope she likes it – I do and it’s not even finished yet, only a couple more hours…
So far for the cushionstar mobile I have thirteen starfish, and four more near completion, I have about a gazzilion colours to choose from, as far as the felt goes, and so things have been getting a bit out of hand. I am fast using up my beads as well!
Here are some recent photos…
I do like the undersides of these little ones.
And of course, after a few starfish I wanted to try a little seadollar, a little tricky as far as creating the segments, or the appearance of there being segments, but overall it came out ok.
