"All yours, Babooshka, Babooshka, Babooshka-ya-ya"

Today is my Babooshka's birthday and the first one without her here on this Earth with us. She was such a special part of our lives and I have so many amazing memories of her that it's rare that a day goes by that I'm not reminded of her. She was from the Ukraine and so we were lucky to grow up eating what I consider the most delicious food of all time - Veraniki. So of course I had to make it for dinner in honour of her and all the fun times.

I also thought it would be the perfect time to finally get to altering one of her dresses so it would be something I could wear. Firstly I cut the skirt from the top, then removed the white front triangle piece. I then made the top into a crossover across the bust and toyed around with the idea of a two piece;) see dodgy pic above! I then decided I'm definitely not brave enough to pull that off, as much as two pieces are all the rage!

                      

I eventually settled on a form fitted skirt piece as I don't really have many dresses like that, and attached the top to the bottom and viola! A special dress in a new format that I know I will love to wear. And even better is that due to the stretch in the fabric I didn't need to put in any fastenings, so it's a nice and simple pull on:)

Here's a rare picture of me actually caught cooking! Veraniki is one of the only things I cook;)

The dinner was lovely and it was nice thinking of all the fun memories. But my daughter then read out her birthday card she wrote to Nanna and let's just say I don't think we've ever cried while eating veraniki before!

For the Ears!

Kate Bush: Babooshka

"triangles are my favourite shape, three points where two lines meet"

I made this baby blanket for my brother and sister-in-law who are expecting their first little human next month! The Arctic Monkeys are loved by us all so I thought I'd go for the AM album feel, whether or not that came across I don't know!
I also used a triangle template (my third now) for this one but went for the right-angled style as opposed to the isosceles trianges used in my previous two. This blanket is a bit smaller too which I think is good to use in a pram or a quick pull out to lie bub on.

I found this super gorgeous thin fleece at Spotlight and thought it would be perfect for a little dreaming baby to snuggle up on:). I especially love the little rockets!
And though I love how the triangles worked out in a diamond/zigzag pattern, sewing right-angled triangles was very trying! I don't think I've ever pressed anything so hard to get smooth in all my sewing life!!

For the Ears!

Alt-j: Tesselate

"Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers and me."

It's been a busy couple of weeks for us with both my daughters birthdays within a fortnight of each other! My eldest turned 8 and I still find that hard to digest! This year she was allowed to have a big party as last year I had a 2 week old (and I'm definitely no way close to being that organised!). The theme was Rainbow and the weather was nice to us, allowing fun times of rainbow mummy wrapping, croquet and tye dying. 

For the dress I used this pattern by Ellie Mae Designs and found the rainbow teardrop fabric from Spotlight. It was a great pattern to use but it did end up quite large, but that's solely due to me thinking that (for once) I would trust my sizing instincts and not make the size 4 for my 8 year old (surely!) and only go one size down with the 6. Well yep, I should have listened to the pattern and made that size 4! But hey, she's only got to grow! 

For the Ears!
Kermit: The Rainbow Connection

"Blue becomes red, and red becomes blue, and your mummy suddenly becomes your daddy, and everything looks like a giant cupcake. And you keep laughing, and laughing, and laughing. Nothing is quite the same really. And after you finish laughing, it's time to turn into a frog yourself. Its very funny to be a frog!"

If I had a choice, Kermit the Frog and I would be best friends. As this is unlikely to ever eventuate, wearing a gazillion Kermits will have to do instead!

 I found this awesome fleece fabric on ebay I think, a couple of years ago and have wanted to make a jumper out of it since moving to a place that actually has cold winters. This project was about 15th on my list but made a giant leap frog hop to the top after I saw Amy's version of the new Capital Chic sweater pattern called White Russian. I had been searching for the perfect jumper pattern but nothing jumped out at me until now!

This jumper was so quick to whip up, in fact the longest part was taping together the pattern and then tracing my size. With the sizing I went with the finished garment sizes instead of the body measurements and I'm so glad I did because otherwise this would have turned out two sizes bigger. I wanted a closer fitting sweater so that's why I did that, and with this fabric it was a good decision. The next one I make will be the next size or two down but with a fabric with more stretch. This fleece has one way stretch and the way I had to cut the pattern was against the grain due to only having a yard of it. Sooo, no stretch at all across the bust, and a looser fit around the waist.
I used a contrasting ribbing for all the cuffs and bands, but I think they came out a bit too loose. I also increased the seam allowance for the neck to 2cm to just get a slightly slimmer neck band. Will definitely be making more next winter, this one is almost over!

For the Ears!
M83: Raconte-moi une historie

"tonight I'm tangled in my blanket of clouds, dreaming aloud"

It's done! Our band t-shirt blanket. Finally. It took over THREE years to finish! 

Why? 

It's a pretty simple project so all I can say is that I'll blame it on moving house a few times, forgetfulness, lack of spreading out space and if I'm totally honest; procrastination. 

We had a large collection of music tees (and a lot more have resurfaced since - another blanket maybe?) that had their day in the sun, were worn to bits, stretched here and there or just somehow stained or torn. Now these shirts are all very precious memories so I thought the best thing would be to make a lovely warm blanket to keep them all together and give them a new lease on life.

Charging ahead as I sometimes do without thinking first, I went and chopped up most of the shirts into rough squares or rectangles, not thinking of using a more uniform template. This screwed me up majorly later on when I started to lay all the pieces down and realised that it wasn't going to be that easy. So a lot of trimming and (sometimes too much) chopping later, I was able to get some very uneven rows happening. 

And t-shirts stretch all which ways which was frustrating until I decided to iron interface them all, which made a HUGE difference. 

I backed the blanket in a nice soft fleece and bias taped the edges. This blanket is sooooo snuggly and warm and made just in time for THIS winter! The blanket has no uniformity and is all over the place and not really how I would have liked it, but apparently I've just been staring at it for so damn long! It's growing on me. I guess its all scattered like my brain is most of the time.

No longer will I have to hear "Will our blanket be ready this winter??"

For the Ears!
Foo Fighters: Walking After You