International Yarn Bombing Day 9th June

It's this Saturday. So get knitting stitching or cutting up an old blanket and go pretty up your part of the world. If you do I'd love to see a pic, leave message with a link ;) I've tried to rally a few crafty peeps around these parts to hit our main street with some woolly goodness, but given our crazy life at the moment I probably haven't organised it as much a I needed to. there is always next year! Hopefully though, a few dedicated folk will be out in their snow gear late Friday night, needle and thread in hand and we will see the fruits of their labour Saturday morning. Stay tuned!

Ps- I stood in a huge chicken poo in my socks while taking that photo, so come on, make it worth my while ;)

Hello gorgeous!

My big boy Escher meeting his gorgeous new baby brother. **Swoon***

Not even a day old and he's so totally perfect! Escher's Dad and his partner were kind enough to share their magical babymooning space with me. It was so beautiful to see them so happy and blessed. Yay. Rachel shared with me her story of a joyous and empowering birth experience which will see her and this little man have a wonderful start to motherhood and life. Really, life doesn't get more wonderful than that :)

A little welcome bear.

My ex-partner and his wonderful new partner had a wee baby boy this morning. Congratulations Kle and Rachel, we are all so happy for you. He was born at home and I will get to see him tonight! Just one day old! Yummy :) So my big boy Escher gets another little brother, just what he wanted- apparently one sister is enough ;) Escher and I have been busy of an evening stitching together this little bear from alpaca wool scraps to welcome him to the world. Escher thinks he needs an eye patch, I think he needs a top hat, but maybe he's just perfect the way he is :) 

Ooooh can't wait to find out the baby's name and see his little teeny tiny feet and smell his little newbornness. Mmmmm lovely little babies yay! 

Lights you could probably make yourself...

One of the big things we've had to do for our house of late (which I imagine every home builder or renovator has to do) is cut costs. For me that means trying not to compromise too much on the things you want, but to do more of it yourself instead. So we've been busily working out which things we can do ourselves, and which we will have to pay an expert for.

So I've completely cut out our budget for light fixtures. I think I can make them all. So no lustful lighting at this stage, though it was nice to dream. We have LED down lights in a lot of the house, but there are probably about 5 spots that could use a lovely unique fixture. So I've collected a few thing I think could be achievable, even by a time poor mother of three.

 I absolutely adore the knitting lamp up top there by desacord on Etsy but as we are on a different voltage here and I wouldn't trust such a fragile thing to international post I may have to make my own version. I'm thinking it would look spectacular in the kitchen which will be largely black. Maybe hanging from a birch hook. Do you think that tube of knitting was done on a knitting nancy? And I think something like those string lamps above (via pinterest) would be quite easy to do, though I'm not sure where it would look good at our place. 

These nifty little balls (found via Convoy, on Tumblr) are made from strips of wood veneer secured with what appears to be a pin. Simple but effective and super super easy.

I really like the glass bubble chandelier idea but I think combining it with some hot pink macrame would totally ramp up it's awesomeness. I've not had much luck finding the glass bubbles here in Australia though (not the terrarium ones, but the totally enclosed glass bubbles) anyone know where to get them? I wonder if I can still recall the knots from my hippie jewellery making days. I used to make a living from macrame!

And how divine is this paper creation? Time consuming but totally doable. I love the shadows it creates and it would be fabulous in a little persons room. I wonder if the shadows might scare them?

And this pretty paper lampshade even comes with instructions, so there's no excuses there. You could do all sorts of variations on it too I think. Lots of small ones clustered together perhaps? Maybe with some small tissue pom poms in wild colours?

And I'm sure we could all whip up a few of these to replace any ugly pendant lights that are hanging around. You know those hideous ones that came with the house, that you've been meaning to do something about but have never got around to? There is no longer any excuse for ugly light fittings! Get a cheap shade from target or ikea and rib knit a cover. Do it now! I'm gonna have some lunch first, but then I'm gettin started :)

Things.

Things have been quite a challenge here. Of course we knew when we decided to follow our dream and try to design & build an eco house that doing so with three small children was going to be difficult. We agreed to do it anyway. If everyone gave up on their dreams because they were too hard nothing amazing would ever happen right? I'm still not regretting the decision, not one iota, but the last few months has presented more than it's fair share of hurdles. The thing is there are many reasons why building a house rather than buying one is right for us. Firstly, we want to live there forever. We don't want to sell it a few years because it has rising damp, or not enough bedrooms, or not enough space out back for a studio. I want to plant an orchard and watch it grow, have it feed our family, enjoy its yearly cycle and marvel in it's progress. For me it's so important because I've never had a real home. My family were basically New Zealands equivalent to trailer trash and we moved a lot, sometimes several times a year. I lived in foster homes periodically and from 15 I was out on my own completely. I want my kids to have a real home. One they can always come back to. Secondly we need to live sustainably. This house with need little or no cooling or heating. It will have solar power, water tanks and permaculture garden to feed us. We will have little or no bills to pay and teeny tiny environmental footprint. In the end it will all be worth it. It's important to remember all of this when there is SO much going on, so many things that need your attention, so many things seemingly going wrong that you think you are going to just collapse and die from the stress of it all...

Hence the lack of blogging. 

A few major things have happened that almost made us give up. Luckily we never both wanted to give up on the same day, or we'd be wallowing in quitsville. Instead we cheered each other on and vowed to fight until the end. It aint over till the fat lady sings and all that. Things seem to be looking up a bit this week and hopefully soon I can return to some crafting and some blogging and some generally feeling good.As the state government has in it's infinite wisdom decided to scrap the rural first homebuilders grants, we now have four weeks to sort the remaining issues out and sign a contract with our builder. Wish us luck. If all goes well you will be some long awaited progress starting in July. Our builder has predicted a 25 week build so we will hopefully be living the dream by Christmas. If it doesn't go well, well, lets not even go there.

In other news our special little fella Otis turned 1. Happy Birthday little man.

He had a wonderful party and especially enjoyed wolfing down some cake for the first time. You are such a pleasure to be around Oty, I'm trying really hard to not miss the specialness of your first couple of years while we madly try to get this house done, I hope that I'm succeeding.

xx t

Lustful lighting...

Oh my god right?

These amazing lights are made by and old friend of mine, Chris Boots. 

He's a very talented fella that one- I remember loving his work way back when he was wrapping found chair frames with string. Oh the bad old days of crazy Melbourne share housing! Anyway, I can't stop thinking how fabulous (sure that word is an understatement) the second light, the prometheus, would look above our dining table in the new house. I wonder if he has any dishes he needs washing...
But seriously, I'm thinking if I could make all the other light fittings myself, maybe I could blow our whole lighting budget on this one light? If I'm going to spend any money at all on lighting I'd like it to be spent on something truly incredible, and something truly incredible that a friend has made is like awesome to the power of a million. Don't you agree?
Happy Saturday Peeps, I hope there are some beautiful things in your world today :)

We has a building permit!!

Terrible photo I know, I've not had a shower (is that vegemite on my nose?) & I don't have a photographer (the 3yr old is so not interested...) but people I am SO bloody excited! We finally have our building permit! This feels so absolutely momentous- after what feels like an eternity in the planning stage we are about move into some actual physical building. Holy hell. Let the grand designs nightmares begin! 

Just after my post yesterday I went to pick up what I thought was one of my million Ebay purchases from the post office... and it was a big fat beautiful council envelope. I actually squealed (seriously!) and did a little happy dance right there in front everyone. We bought a bottle of champagne, but were too tired to drink it by the time all the kids were tucked up in bed. So we spent the evening collating our quotes and tweaking our costings spreadsheet ('cause thats how we roll...) and then of course I couldn't sleep as my mind was racing- ideas swarming my brain. Oh my god! We are building our house!!??? Oh my god, I am now officially a project manager.... eek! I'm on a bit of a high right now, can ya tell?

So one more hurdle to jump- finance. Hopefully that won't take long. Our fantastic builder, the wonderful Mr strawbale maestro, James Henderson (you can check him out here if you are interested), is ready and waiting. Yay yay yay yay yay!!!

I'll leave you with these cute images I found on the weekend in my friends cafe Grigons & Orr (great cafe, you should check it out sometime if you are in Melbourne ;)

Seriously cute huh? God I love 50's architecture, I'd totally build that now! If only it would cost that little!! Have a wonderful day friends :)

My Creative Space... one million and one.

In my creative space today: the latest addition to the jumpers for things that don't need jumpers collection. Deer antler #1. Deer antler #1, lets call him Simon, has a partner, but she's still being dressed. She shall make her debut soon I hope. Knitting these is distracting me from the serious business of waiting for our building permit to come in the mail, the only thing holding us up now. It's a serious business this waiting. Every morning I race out to the letter box, and every morning I return dejected. Every day I mumble and curse the council, the building surveyor and even the post man, whose fault it probably is not. Maybe tomorrow will be the day... you have to stay positive don't you?

Bling.

Been busy busy adding some new goodies to the shop. I got my hands on this gorgeous gold italian calf skin leather and I'm LOVING it. So is Mr Singer, bless him. I'm so inspired at the moment to create, I only wish I had more time. Anyone wanna babysit? We are this (see me me holding up my fingers illustrating a teeny tiny gap) close to starting the building of our house. Maybe I'd better get as much sewing in while I can hey? Stay tuned for a housie update very soon. Oh and tomorrow I'm hitting a whole town garage sale- so stay tuned for some vintage finds (hopefully)! Hope you've had a rad week :)