Car Cake

Yesterday we had a picnic to celebrate the lil' man's birthday. It was such a beautiful sunny day and so many people came to hang out- it was really heartwarming, there are so many people who love him.

We didn't take too many photos, but other people did. Though I did insist that Steve take some pictures of the cake I made, because it had a few run-ins with park dogs and the frosting was looking kind of melty. I made a Casper cake last year and wanted to up the stakes a bit with a car cake this year. I based it on my Dad's car, which is a pink FB Holden. It's a basic chocolate cake with buttercream frosting, marshmallow headlights and oreos with liquorice wrapped around them for the tyres.

The best thing was that it combined Casper's two true loves, cars and cakes.

Colour Theory

It might be something in the jeans, but Casper knows his colour theory.

Casper's Nursery Tour

Casper's room is my favourite room in the house, our dog Mika loves to sleep in the sunny spot on his bed. Sometimes there is this beautiful silence and I find Casper in there calmly reading or playing with toys. I am really lucky to have a child because now I can completely indulge my dollhouse obsession. 

We haven't really spent any money on his room, except for the bed, which we made and cost us about $65.

 My Dad found this dollhouse in Rosebud and now it is a bookcase/block holder/garage for toy firetrucks. We use an old magic suitcase as his toy-box.

The dollhouse on the left is one I made out of papier mache this year, but that's another storey (pun intended). The house on the right, I bought from gumtree and the woman who was selling it told me her father had built it in the fifties. The shell is Casper's nightlight, the painting is one of mine, the tambourine hung on the wall in my room growing up and the picture of the little girl is a present from our dear friend in Montreal.

Casper's bed is a very simple pine box with some old wood beams we used as supports. The quilt is one I made last year. Unfortunately there is not very much room for the ship I built for the soft toys- it lives at the end of the bed, unless it gets dragged out and explodes with dolls and teddies.

We found this chest of drawers in the alleyway near our house. I wasn't sure about the black paint at first but now I really like it. One of the drawers was missing a face, which I used as an opportunity to display some blankets and quilts.

This is Casper's bunny, he falls asleep holding her every night, she's one of the flip-dolls I made a while ago to sell. Luckily she didn't make the cut.

Casper's drawing desk is an old drum a friend gave us with a wooden board balanced on top, we are eventually going to build him a table and some chairs, but this will do until then!

I think Casper likes his room too, it's a good place to store sultanas and pieces of chewed apple for later.

Casper is Two!

Casper turned two on Friday so we went out to Trippy Taco for dinner and a beer in the afternoon sunshine. Yesterday I handed in my last essay for the year which means I have officially finished my first year of University. I have really only noticed how many things have changed this year. Casper started daycare, started walking and talking and growing SO quickly. 

I can't believe he is terribly two already.

Casper modelling some overalls I made him a few weeks ago, I just love the anchor suspenders.

This sequinned jacket is his favourite item of clothing and it's not even his size. He asks to wear it all the time, he's been a fancy boy from birth. He loves reading books, he is very animated when he reads stories to me, it's always "Oh no!" this and "Woooahhh" that. He is halfway between baby and little boy and that's okay with me. Happy Birthday little buddy.

Also, some work-in-progress paper piecing that I'm not sure what to do with yet, maybe another quilt?

I am also always posting my artwork on my tumblr if you ever want to see more of what I do!

Drawing

A lot of my friends tease me about how much I talk about my childhood- I guess you could say it was idyllic. My parents are pretty amazing- they're both artists, my Mum was a children's librarian and my Dad was a carpenter at the St Kilda Adventure Playground, a magician and he flew hot air balloons for a while. My brother and I grew up in a  house with lots of friends, food, art and music.

I try to give Casper an interesting and loving home life, we play records most of the day and from the time that he could move, Casper has always danced and been very musical. He dances to anything with a beat. He has shown an interest in drawing and painting, but not so much as with music, which is why I relish the times that he sits down for more than a few minutes and draws with me.

I can't wait until he's big enough to do some sewing with me and we can make costumes and toys and I'll teach him how to knit and crochet. I loved doing that sort of stuff when I was a kid, I think I'm lucky that I had people around me who wanted to help me learn and now I'm even luckier because I can experience it all over again with Casper.

Hawaiian Quilt

I had been wanting an excuse to make a Hawaiian quilt ever since I read about them in a library in Marin when I was 15. When we received a very open-ended project in one of my painting classes last semester, I decided to make one.

I don't think I knew what I was getting myself in to.

I did very little preparation for the design, I mainly improvised which was scary because I used some very old silk (1940s I think) and an expensive bedsheet to make the top.

Construction of a Hawaiian quilt is fairly straightforward. Basically, it's like cutting a "snowflake" out of fabric by folding it in half twice and then appliquéing it onto a larger piece of fabric, in this case a bedsheet.

Here is a link to a great tutorial on how to make your own.

I spent about 50 or 60 hours making this quilt and I think it will be a long time before I try anything remotely intricate again. Although I am a fully fledged quilt-addict, so it probably won't be too long.

I quilted with my machine (free motion) and by hand with crochet cotton. I really like breaking the rules with that sort of stuff and just going with whatever feels right. 

It's so gorgeous to have in the house; on the bed, dogs and babies snuggled up in it. I guess that's why I make quilts, so that I can provide warmth and comfort to the people (and animals) that I love.

I hope that's not too sappy. 

Mum's Quilt

My Mum recently had three couches made in some delicious blue, green and lavender velvet. I had been thinking about the colours a lot and decided that since she does so much for me and I haven't really made her something for being such a beautiful grandmother to Casper, I would make her a smallish quilt to compliment her new lounge suite!

 I bought a triangle template ages ago and I haven't had the right project to use it on, so I decided to make a simple, colourful quilt. Simplicity is not something that I tend to do with sewing, so it was refreshing to concentrate on the placement of colour and relax with some smooth sewing. I really like being neat and matching edges up and this was a very satisfying project in that regard.

I used quilting cottons and bound two of the edges and set fringing on the other two.

We snuck into her house while she was at work yesterday and put the quilt over the blue couch so that when she got home she would have a nice surprise!

Thank you Mum.

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