Have you ever heard of using tennis balls to massage?

I get a lot of lower back pain – despite having done alot of work in the gym to rehabilitate my abdominal muscles after 4 pregnancies and 3 caesareans. The back pain usually happens when I’m ovulating, and a couple of days before and during menstruation. I think alot of it is related to the caesars and scar tissue sticking many bits in my pelvis together, and they all go out in sympathy together with the changes in my body during my cycle.

I used to always use my personal massuesse (AKA my husband), but he’s doing an engineering degree part time as well as working full time so “spare time” for a back rub from him in the evening during the end of semester is hard to come by.  I’ve had to resort to the tennis balls. Truth be told, they’re actually probably doing a better job (massage isn’t Richard’s best skill!), but finding time for a little human touch is nicer. And it’s nice that he makes the effort without (much!) complaint.

Other things that help – Child’s pose and standing and seated forward bends.

Have you ever tried a tennis ball massage?

I’ve decided to do my own little weekly update on Wednesday instead of Creative Spaces on Thursday.  Hopefully I’ll keep this up regularly on Wednesdays  like I did on Thursday’s.

WIP for the un-initiated (it’s a crafty acronym) – Work/s In Progress.

The weather has cooled down significantly, and upon trying on many of the warmer garments in the wardrobes of the kids,  many do not fit.

I made this little pair of pants earlier in the week from some cotton velour in the stash  – I actually bought this pattern for me. It’s Jalie’s Yoga pants, and the sizing goes from a girl’s size 2, to a ladies size 14 – so it’s a pretty good size range. Ruby is quite slim, so according to her measurements I cut the size 4 width with a size 7 length. She turned 6 in March, so the length is quite a bit longer than she currently needs – but I don’t mind. It means generally that she gets a couple of years worth of wear from them (we don’t have cold weather for long in Hervey Bay so wearing them out isn’t an issue).

And now that I know they fit well, I’m cutting another pair to make. These are polar fleece from the stash – I think I’ve made her something else in this (A Farbenmix Amelie perhaps?). I’m not bothering with elastic in either of these pairs as the fabrics are stretchy and recover well enough to go on and off without them.

What have you been working on this Wednesday?

with all these little treasures?

I have a cupboard full of little love notes, rainbows, smiling people with huge eyelashes and fingers and toes.

She has moved on considerably since this was done, but I love these people and have quite a collection of them.

I thought Sara might find this a helpful suggestion for a new rainbow dress creation (it also somewhat reminds of Tikki’s Tropical Lily knit) in this picture from the other day.

We have a tenancy inspection tommorrow, so today I’ve being tidying the piles that seem to grow in flat spaces around the house, and cleaning!

Is State of Origin on at your place tonight? Normally the tele would be stuck on channel 10 tonight (yes, I confess I am an Offspring and Good Wife addict…fortunately we have a PVR), but the boys have control of the remote on such a night.

Many, many years ago I met a girl when we first moved to a little country town in Australia (I was born and raised in Papau New Guinea till then). I was not quite 5 – I don’t actually remember our first meeting. Sarah’s parents were new to town too, and we grew up seeing lots of each-other at church and later at school. Our parents were good friends (her parents would have been the ones who raised my brother and I, had anything happened to my parents) so we were like each-other’s extended family.

My longest loved friend sent me something for my birthday last month, and it arrived today all the way from England.

As young girls, we were Lady Di mad. We both had scrapbooks with photos filled with pics of her. Several years back, I found a Charles and Di commemorative teaspoon in it’s velvety box at an opshop and sent it to her as part of her birthday gift.

This year, I had a good belly laugh to see what had been sent to me for my birthday. I’m just trying to decide whether or not I should use it (I need a new coffee mug), or have it as a keepsake. We have quite a high attrition rate for ceramics since we moved to a house with tiled floors.

Ruby is slightly jealous, as she is quite taken with princesses and beautiful dresses. Any opportunity to dress up isn’t missed by her. Any picture of a lady in a beautiful dress will cause Ruby to have a sharp intake of excited breath.

Ruby and I dressed up and watched the royal wedding and had our own little celebration (coloured marshmellows, iced and decorated bikkies, sparkling apple juice etc etc),  and she has her commemorative Women’s Weekly. But I really don’t think she ever needed my encouragement to be princess crazy.  Sarah and I facebooked a couple of times throughout the proceedings – we live in different states now.

I’m debating ordering 2 (one for Ruby) and then I can keep this one safe and sound.

 

Has some ruffly leggings for Ruby and a pair for the shop while I’m at it.

I got heaps of cutting out down during the week, all ready to go now my beloved machine is back. Finn is very happy!

Hosting of Creative Spaces is no longer done by an independent blogger. It is now in a place owned by News limited (I found this out after googling kidspot’s ownership this morning)

I don’t think Rupert needs my free link every week, and I don’t wish to give it to him. Creative spaces was never about being able to sell stuff for me (a larger audience for your goods was one of the things mentioned when the move was announced). It was a place to go and be inspired and admire other’s creative processes.

I hope that showing how beautiful modern cloth nappies and pads are planted a little seed or 2, encouraging people to think about using them because I linked there regularly for several years.

For now I’ll have to visit the archives – there were always so many participants that there are many spaces I never got to. I feel really sad that the community has gone…

If you’ve done your own Creative space, I’d love it if you gave me your link in the comments so I can go see it.

Ruby on the left with Dora (the chicken) in the box, Finn in the middle, Gannon on the right with Gertrude and Dorothy (2 chickens in the box).

Finally after 15 months we were bringing our girls back home to live with us.  They’d been living with my brother and SIL and their kids, but they had moved at the beginning of this term  due to my lovely SIL getting a full time teaching gig.

My parents had taken on caring for our girls, but they had left to go on another Asian adventure yesterday for 5 weeks. We had been holding off bringing them here till we’d found the right house, but circumstances dictated that they needed to come home with us now.

Sadly, Gwen (Gannon’s chook), was killed by a dog only the weekend before we picked them up – He was very upset. She was so close to coming home!

In the back we have T-bone, the dog (no, he wasn’t responsible for Gwen’s demise – he’s  a lover, not a fighter). Named because of the white mark on his forehead, he belongs to the globetrotting grandparents. He used to stay with my brother’s family, but is coming to visit with us while my parents are away now they no longer have close by pet minders. The kids are VERY excited about having him visit.

I had to sit in the boot for a short before we got to the main road to show Tbone that there was really nothing to worry about sitting in there. Sadly, DH did not get a picture of that…

 

is still reeling at the lack of a sewing machine in the house. My littlest (Finn is almost 4) kept asking me this morning “are we going to pick up your sewing machine, mum”. He couldn’t comprehend when we left it that it wouldn’t come home that day – obviously he was as shocked as I was.

So today I’m cutting.

I’m going to try stenciling.

I might even get the time and inclination to finish this cardi from last year before Ruby outgrows it.

And who knows, I may even learn to crochet (it’s been on my to do list for years).

I knew she needed to leave me for a while, but I was hoping I’d find a new companion to share in our life together before she went.

My poor Janome has been flogged over the last almost 18 months since we’ve moved here, and she hasn’t been serviced once (she used to go every 6 months). She’s been telling me for several months that she’s not happy, and I kept telling her I’d organise something at a better time…My other old backup Janome wasn’t worth repairing when we moved, so it’s just been the 2 of us and her cousin (Janome overlocker 644D).

One of the last things we worked on was for Mother’s Day…

It’s a mug rug for my mother in law. I ended up having to hand stitch the binding closed. The quilting isn’t the best (you’ll see the thread tension isn’t great – it was terrible once I got to the binding so I had to unpick the little bit I tried.

And now I have to work out what I’m going to do with the week. It’s not like I don’t have plenty to do, but it’s almost like my right arm is gone.

is finishing off these special projects.

Ever since I worked on Ruby’s quilt, I’ve had a bit of a freehand quilting bug that hasn’t been put to much use. I tried making a free motion quilted pad (using bamboo fleece instead of batting) and quilting the whole top, but it wasn’t particularly comfortable as quilting the whole thing made it quite inflexible – so I didn’t go ahead with it. I’ve used the idea a couple of ways here – to try to make the man on the Ferris Wheel be heard shouting…but I’m wondering if it’s a joke that only I get. And then just a little decorative quilted channeling in this pad – just a little bit is ok.

It’s funny how being encouraged to do something a bit different (one of the things they ask of you when you particpate at the Gossamer Dreams store) opens up a whole new world of possibilites and ideas. I had to actually sit and think of new ways to do the things I normally do. But enough ramble.

Go visit more Creative Spaces!

I’ve been quite busy behind the scenes in the past couple of weeks – in between interstate family visiting and school, and secretly getting organised for a surprise Mother’s Day stocking over at Gossamer Dreams.

The Only Organics Trio. I decided this stocking was a good time to launch my new range I’m calling “Only Organics”. As the name suggests, it’s only certified organic fabrics. Fabrics that are printed with low impact dyes such as those from Cloud 9 and Birch fabrics

Organic Merino Wool backed,  a pretty cotton print

 

Lovely organic cotton toppings – Sherpa and cotton fleece

Something quite unique – appliqued and free-hand machine embroidered. Topped with Benartex gelato minkee.

And some special things for anyone who is Heather Ross mad…

Or obsessed with Aqua Sea minky… (yes, some people are!).

The store is only open for 48 hours – it closes 8pm Thursday night I think. There are lots of other gorgeous things there too – bags, clothing.

Then there’s a bunch of things I’ve got happening that didn’t get finished. I’ll save those for another day!