Little Bear Skirt

I love the texture that hand stitching brings to a garment and I love the slow process of sewing something by hand. But I also love being able to quickly put something together with a sewing machine, so I've been finding myself more and more using a combination of both hand and machine sewing when I'm making things.

This skirt came together really quickly, I finished all the edges with the over-locker and then relaxed in the sun room watching TEDx talks and slowing stitching the hem and waist band. I like using bright embroidery thread to highlight the hand stitched detail and I chose yellow to compliment the gold detail on the bear print.

My little Peace Warrior was very happy to have a new skirt. 

Drawing Development 2 Years 10 Months

Mio is continuing to show her love and skill for drawing. Here's some My Neighbor Totoro inspired drawings she did this morning.

Totoro

Another Totoro (this was the first one she drew)

The Cat Bus

 

Little Pants for Mio

I found some cute corduroy fabric in an op-shop recently for $1.25 and knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. Paired with some purple stretch fabric my in-laws gave me, I thought it would make great pants for Mio. I drew around the shape of some of Mio's pants for a rough pattern, altered the length for the leg bands and took a bit off the top for the stretchy waist band. The pants came together really quickly, I love little projects like this that are quick and easy. Now on to the thousand other clothing ideas I have swimming around my head.

Playing in the backyard kitchen.

Through the overgrown garden and into the cubby, life is full of wonder.  

Mio's Pom Pom Beanie

I love making beanies so it's a good thing that it's autumn again and my small person has done plenty of growing over the summer and could do with some more cozy head wear for the colder months here in Melbourne.

This was a super easy beanie to make without a pattern, once you've roughly figured out the gauge and head circumference, cast on an even number of stitches and work beanie in a knit 1 purl 1 rib in the round until you have a cuff the width you like. Then knit in stockinette (knit all stitches in the round) until your beanie is the right size and cast off using kitchener stitch. Add a couple of pom poms and you're done. Easy!
The wool yarn was so soft and such a delight to work with, and it only used a little over 50 grams of yarn so it was well worth investing that little bit extra money to make something with natural fibres for Mio's precious little noggin.

       

Mio's Drawing 2yrs 7mths

Since Mio was a baby she seemed to be grasping concepts and developing beyond what is 'normal'. At 2 years and 7 months she's a bright little cookie with very advanced language and communication skills and wonderful fine motor skills. She loves to draw and write and has been enjoying drawing faces and people over the past month or so. I was rather impressed with her drawing today which she told me was of a person with one hand on it's head (below)

I've been reading up on drawing development which with a background in primary school education and creative arts I'm finding really interesting. Her drawing above indicates she's in the pre-schematic stage of drawing which typically begins around 4 years of age but can occur earlier. I'm really enjoying watching her learn and develop, she's such a delight to be around.

Playing with Spices

Cooking is one of the most valuable skills you can pass on to your children. Introducing kids to a variety of different foods and helping them to understand how to use them from a young age will help to ensure that children grow up with a healthy relationship with food.
As an important part of my children's food education I want them to grow up knowing how to use spices and to be confident with experimenting with them in their cooking. Spices add so much to food, not only do they make food delicious and exciting, they also add a valuable set of nutrients that have long been proven to have wonderful nutritive and healing potential.
Cold rainy days provide the perfect opportunity to get into some creative play in the kitchen so we pulled a bunch of spices out and got our noses, eyes and fingers into some fun play.

Lots of different shapes and sizes.

Busy work.

Pouring and exploring.

A few of our spices.

And sometimes spices don't smell nice! (Though on second smell she thought the fenugreek was ok)

India and Mio both enjoyed our kitchen play and when we packed up India left the kitchen yelling "that was fun" as she ran off to play with something else.

School Holiday Explorations

I love school holidays! I love having both the girls around all day and just hanging out together. I also love that we have more time to explore fun learning activities. Being the winter school holidays at the moment it's cold and often wet outside meaning we spend at lot more time indoors and we have to get creative with our play. Learning about the human body is something that has not yet been explored at school for India so I've been wanting to delve into that with her for awhile so today we got stuck into some fun learning.

We started by just getting India to lie down on some paper so I could draw around her. We are lucky enough to live close to a paper distributor and we can get some great end rolls of paper from printing machines for quite cheap, so we always have really big sheets of paper to get creative with. Today we just looked at the organs but I'd love to explore other body systems with India as well.

An Afternoon With India

An afternoon to practice yoga, explore and be silly, just India and I.

Malasana

India does silly the best.

Vriksasana

In India's words, this one is 'Gollum'.

Virabhadrasana II

Adho Mukha Svanasana

Gomukhasana

Dandayamna Baddha Konasana

Paschimuttanasana

Baddha Konasana

Urdhva Upavishta Konasana

Garudasana

Hakini Mudra

Earth Plug Mudra- India described this as feeling like all her silliness was going out of her and calm was coming up through her fingers.

Shavasana

And the sun sets on a perfect afternoon.