Dance

I went with this little one to a new dance studio last night.

She's been dancing for two terms now at Funky Kids and she's loved it but she asked very seriously the other month to start taking ballet classes.
So I had to look up a different studio.

This one is an old studio that's been in town for years and years and so far it looks promising.

I enrolled her in a beginner's class with the hope to let her take ballet this fall. Or any other class that she would like to try.
With a bit of coaching maybe Isabel will want to join in a class as well.

Scrapbooking made easy

I've never been good at photo albums. Even worse now that we only take digital pictures and stick them all on a file server - not many pictures actually make it onto paper - even fewer into an album.

I tried taking up scrapbooking a while back but it ended up stuck in a drawer.

So when I read about Project Life and saw the pretty scrap booking like albums made with such little effort I thought I'd give it a try.



I place a pre-order for the new Heather Bailey Project Life kit in September when it was launched but it only arrived in the mail last week.
I have cannibalised our photo albums for pictures and  made a few pages. I have 18 months (2006-2007) that I need to make copies from as well as a few years (2008-2012) that I need to make a selection from and order copies.

I was so hooked I even ordered a second kit to try and make a 2013 album from, with a bit more notes and journalling. The second kit was in stock so I hope it will arrive soon and I won't have to wait 4 months for this as well.

Ouchie

I was home alone with two 5 year-olds and was about to start making lunch for us. Rickard and Isabel were on their way home after swimming and Rickard had asked for pasta and bacon and onions.

I decided to fancy it up with some sliced carrots. So I took out the mandolin and started slicing. I have nicked my thumb on it on several occasions and I know it's crazy sharp so I was paying attention. No, I really was!

Then Isabel came home and I turned to ask her how swimming was and got to the end of a carrot and slipped and sliced off a dime sized piece of my right fore finger knuckle.



I had just finished pinning a bunch of sewing and I had some grading left to do on Isabel's cargo trousers so losing the function of my right fore finger was kind of awkward and to tell the truth a bit unnecessary.

The mandolin is so sharp it made a clean cut and it actually doesn't hurt as much as I thought it would. I also have more flexibility in the finger than I thought I would so it's really not so bad.

The biggest issue is that my bandage gets stuck in the wound so it starts to bleed every time I change the dressing. It's also really hard to keep up with personal hygiene.  (No worries, I said it's hard - not impossible.) Yesterday I had to clamp my right hand on the shower curtain rod to prevent myself from putting it in the water.

Let me tell you, washing my hair with just my left hand was not easy.

Fizzle and pop

Well, if January had been slow and mellow it ended with a bang .. or maybe just a slow fizzle.

When both girls were dressed and in the car on Wednesday morning, I locked up and we drove off to drop Isabel off at school.
I though the car felt weird and thought I had left the parking brake on, but after a quick stop to pull and release it the car still felt weird to drive.




Yeah - I was driving on a flat tyre. So I had to stick the car in reverse and back up to our drive again (we hadn't gotten very far).
Isabel was sent off to school on foot - it's really not that far I only drop her off because it's sort of on my way to daycare.

Sofia and I went inside and I called Mum. Woke Mum in fact. But she kindly agreed to brave rush hour traffic to town to come pick us up and drop Sofia off at daycare and me at work. (Rickard was on a business trip up North and was due home in the afternoon. He also had a big presentation so I didn't want to distract him with our troubles, especially since there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.)

Sofia had a sandwich and some soured milk because she would end up missing breakfast at daycare, and the coffee I had made was still warm so I got to have a second cup while we waited.

I ended up only 30 minutes late. Which considering the morning was pretty good.

Short on blogging

We had a slow and mellow January with not a lot of blogging going on.

There has been some cooking, some sewing and a lot of lounging in front of the television.

Our girls have discovered The Lord of the Rings movies and they don't want to watch anything else these days.
Well - with the exception of the Harry Potter movies.

Some scenes are a bit icky and gruesome but they are pretty good about closing their eyes on their own. We do tell them not to look when Saruman falls from his tower onto that spiky wheel in the third movie.
But on the whole they enjoy the movies and it's fun to have that together. (Both Rickard and I love them and have watched them multiple times.)

I have sewn cargo trousers for Sofia and two blouses and currently I'm working on grading the cargo trousers for Isabel. She's grown so much none of the Oliver + S patterns fit her any longer.
This is the last time I grade one of them for her. I think it's just easier to buy patterns closer to her size to begin with.
I should have a look at my Ottobre magazines. I hope I can find something that will fit her there.

February is coming up and we have a few birthdays to celebrate, among them my own. First up is my Mum though in a fortnight.

Lunch bag from London

After visiting the goldsmith on Saturday I took the bus back home and shut myself in my sewing room for the day.
I had one of my Saturdays off and Rickard took care of giving little girls lifts to parties and fixing lunch and dinner. It was great!



I ended up starting and almost finish this project that I have been mulling over for months. I didn't have time to finish completely on Saturday so I ended up sewing the last seams on Sunday.

The pattern is from Pink Penguin. I like it, but there are a few things I would change for next time. The tutorial suggests to add heavy interfacing if you use quilting cotton for the outside, which I did. But since I didn't have any iron-on interfacing I used a heavy interlining instead.
Then I added insulating interfacing too which made it way too bulky.
I also didn't bother altering the dimensions to fit my most used lunch boxes.

So for next time I think I'll enlarge it to fit, change dimensions so I can sew it with a 1/2" seam allowance and I will not add the interlining if I insulate it.

I will also change it so the cover is in two layers so I don't have any exposed raw edges on the inside.

Other than that I like it and I used it this morning.

Rings

Way back in the 80's when my grandmother passed away I inherited her engagement and  wedding bands as well as her mother's wedding band. The oldest ring was very thin and worn and we took all three rings to a gold smith to have them altered into one ring.



It felt weird to wear such a thing as a teenager and I kept taking it off and putting it in random places and my father kept asking me if I knew where it was to make sure I didn't lose it. (To be honest it happened a few times that I did lose it - but always at home so it was more a question of misplacing it.)
After a couple of years I decided to just get used to it and start wearing it after all.

We also built on it and added an amethyst to it (my birthstone) and later a diamond as well.

After Isabel was born I added a ruby which is her birthstone.

For the past few years though it has been too small and I ended up putting it in a bowl in the kitchen window and there it's been until this weekend.

I took the ring, a ring and pearl pendant, a gold chain and a little heart pendant I got for my christening to a gold smith in town and we had a nice discussion and design session where he drew up a sketch for one ring using all my gold.

I had plans to make two equal valued rings that I could wear now and that I could pass on to my girls, but we talked about that and came to the conclusion that it's better to make one thing of it that I really like and will wear and when the time comes to pass it on we'll melt it down and make two things for the girls that they really like then.

I hope I made the right decision.

I called him this morning and asked him to get started on it after talking money with Rickard.

I also left my own wedding and engagement rings with him to have them altered so I can wear them again. I go to pick them up in two weeks and he will have the ring prepared so I can try the new one on then. So excited!