things have been quiet...

Okay, so I promised I would be back very soon and then I disappeared again.

Since I've been gone though, I've been busy, I promise! I have finished (well, nearly), two UFOs - one dress for a little girl born in the same week as the gherkin - just need to work out how to do buttonholes! and one doll, who now just needs hair, eyes and a tutu (very important that she get the tutu!). I have also sacrifices another spectacular 1980s teatowel, this time to become a fabulous sunhat. Photos will come soon....

And sleeping.

I have been taking absolutely every opportunity to grab some zzzz's. I have been exhausted!

And, well, I really thought perhaps it had something to do with dusting myself off, picking myself up and climbing back onto the roundabout that is fertility treatment again(hurrah), but, well, after just two cycles, we are expecting another little pickle. We feel extremely fortunate - it took us two years to have our little gherkin, and this little pickle has decided to join us quickly. Now fifteen weeks along, and all going swimmingly.

So I hope you'll forgive the silence?

On another very exciting note, someone very lovely wants to stock summerpickles rings in her real live shop! More news on this next time.

And, another gorgeous bloggy friend has launched her new website, which features photos of our gorgeous little gherkin Check our the site - her photos are just beautiful - we are so happy we took the gherkin out for a day with her and will be doing it all again very soon.

Chat soon, and take care,
xo

a vintage find... and brooches, brooches, brooches

What does one do with a one year old who has been told to rest? (after two weeks of resting already)

YouTube of course, searching for music & pictures to keep the gherkin occupied on mummy's lap (there are only so many times one can read I Can Fly!). And look what I found....



Oh, and when he's dozing on my lap, mummy looks at brooches on flickr....



1. brooch - miss h, 2. felt bird brooch, 3. PLAYFUL fabric brooch corsage pin 31 Jul 2008, 4. fabric flower with beads #1, 5. happy brooch, 6. shades of pink, 7. Fabric Corsage - side view, 8. Some new work, 9. flower pod?

Chat soon xo

other things i should be doing right now...

* doing a uni assignment
* writing a report for barb
* cleaning the house
* washing clothes
* sewing?
* training the dog ... etc etc

But instead, I am sitting here, typing an extremely overdue hello post after a long time away, whilst the boy and I split a devon and sauce sandwich. (I know, not an entirely balanced and nutritious meal!) Not nutritious perhaps, but exciting.... devon is hard to find when you're living in victoria...

So... our news?

The boy is one (already), walking (albeit tentatively), talking (about 8-10 words), singing and being generally gorgeous.

The spare room is in the midst of a re-do, with piles of fabric now sorted into project piles, so when I do get a few spare minutes I can go straight to the, eg. pants pile and whip up a pair of pants for the boy. Likewise, collections of buttons await assembly into rings/brooches/clips etc for the shop

Being back in the paid workforce part-time is mad... a great time for my brain (and yes, I feel guilty confessing to this!) , but I do (like so many others) feel that I am not actually completing or doing a whole job of anything. But I am adjusting... and the gherkin seems to have settled beautifully into our new routine, bless him.

Otherwise my life has been fairly quiet, not counting some great visits with family & friends, being completely addicted to project runway australia and justine clarke's albums for kids, and the list of all the things I could be doing now, which I am not, so will have to do later....

Take care, I will aim to be back soon, especially now I have dipped my toe back into the bloggy waters again... xo

yes, we are still here....

We've celebrated our first mothers day together, watched our first play school together (I know... an ex-speechie and all, allowing television before the age of 1 - heaven forbid!), we've been to the beach, we've finger painted, spent time on a woodchipped play area (not for very long - the gherkin just wanted to eat all the woodchips), he's spent some time in childcare (it's a great centre, the experience itself is just ok), and i've become a juggling mummy with some paid work and some glorious days still at home with my little man. No sewing, no crafting, no creative stuff to share --- life has just been, well exhausting! But on the whole, quite wonderful.

We are all well and happy. I could go into a rant about how people don't take food allergy seriously, or about child care centres who don't follow instructions, or about mums who judge other mums who need to go back to work to pay the mortgage... but I won't.

I could also gush about the wonder of mothers groups, of close girlfriends who will answer the phone late at night when you are having a baby crisis, pretending to be perky and wide awake ("no, of course I wasn't in bed yet!"), or amazingly wonderful pashes from a certain little man not quite one year old... but I won't do that either.

Instead, hello again! And thankyou so much to all of you who left such lovely comments about the gherkin's teatowel board shorts. Credit where credit is due - my inspiration came from the lovely Miss Cinti at my poppet who makes the most gorgeous vintage teatowel tunics (but alas! the gherkin is not a girl, so we couldn't shop with Miss Cinti... well, for these, anyway).

The gherkin is divine, just so lovely, and so much of my day is spent either enjoying every moment with him, or counting down the minutes to leave work so I can see him again. Oh, and Mr Pickles is alright too!

Hope you are all fabulous, and I promise to be back soon... once I am into the swing of the juggle (which I can feel coming... I am getting on top of things... she types at 1am in the morning), I will be back into the crafting adventures again. I promise! Soon!

Have fun lovelies, xo

to teatowel, with love xo

new boardies!, originally uploaded by summer pickles.

Come with me. Transport yourself back to a time when all things "Oz" were great. When the height of fashion was a Jenny Kee jumper, a fimo koala and cockatoo necklace, a white Ken Done tracksuit. Once there, you will find one of these - a gorgeous teatowel, celebrating all things Gold Coast - gaudy parrots, beaches lined with highrises, tiny bikinis...

Now, come on back to the present day and here I am, stumbling across that same teatowel at a local garage sale. Buying it for just fifty cents. And madly hurrying home to start sewing these fantastic boardshorts (modelled by our very own, very gorgeous gherkin).

These were easy! And I reckon they're pretty fab.

Thankyou to tinyhappy for convincing me pants would be easy (i have had this post favourited for a looong time, waiting for babies and courage), Kath for this post with the how tos and for Miss Cinti for the inspiration provided by her lovely tea towel dresses.

Hooray for blogland, the eighties, the gold coast and all things vintage! (And of course for very gorgeous baby models!) Now, to the opshops!

xo

i've been tagged

I have been tagged by Lin! (Sorry Lin, I am hopelessly useless at getting these done quickly).

So, six quirky, yet boring, unremarkable facts about me...?

1. I am medically infertile and have a 0% chance of falling pregnant without fertility treatment. What a blessing our little gherkin is! (hooray for modern medicine).

2. I like to mix foods... a mouthful of savoury, a mouthful of sweet and so on. One of my former housemates (a dietitian) told me it fools your body into thinking you are eating less - you can fit more in this way (oh dear). I also like to finish each meal with the perfect mouthful, so you will see me leaving the tiniest bit of this and that on my plate so I can finish with one gorgeous combined mouthful of the best bits!

3. When I was a little kid, I wanted to be: a nun, an opera singer, a nurse, an architect, a graphic designer, a journalist. Some of these ideas still sounds really good! I grew up to be none of these.

4. I am tactile defensive. There are some things I just don't like to touch. Like some velveteen type fabrics, or wet fallen leaves, that "slime" stuff you used to be able to get in a jar in the 80s, feathers (especially if I am not expecting them), uncooked egg whites. Sometimes these just make me feel a bit off, I get goosebumps and cold chills up and down my spine, or some things (like plastic bags of cornflour) make me gag.

5. I am living in my nineteenth home (I think that's right but may be underestimating by a few). My favourite home, obviously, is with my boys (the hubby, the baby and the pug). But my favourite house was here:

6. When I got pregnant, my body changed forever (not entirely surprising!). Before I was pregnant, I had seven freckles and three moles in total. Now I have too many to count. Perhaps more freakish is that I never used to grow toenails on my little toes... and now I do (I even have to cut them).

7. Sometimes, when I am bored or stressed, I count my steps. I think it all started when I first filled in a Dr Seuss? book all about me. One of the things you had to do was to count the steps to your letterbox, the nearest tree, the local shop etc etc.

Now... which bloggers out there shall I tag? Will get back to you shortly...

Have a gorgoeus week xo

lost for words

Kevin Rudd, our PM, lost for words

I have been struggling to think of what to write here about the Victorian bushfires. I decided if our PM couldn't come up with the right words, it was ok if I couldn't either.

Obviously we are thinking about those in the fire affected areas, your families, friends, animals.

You can make a donation here.