Friday round-up

So it's Friday again. I meant to write this this morning (and hopefully motivate myself to get things done today) but it never managed to happen.

Right now dinner is cooking, Miss S is playing with fridge magnets, Miss A (who is tired but refusing to take a nap) is on my lap making cute noises at the computer, and The Hubster is out at youth group 35mins away.

So I haven't really managed to do anything today. My wrists are rather sore and I've been feeling a bit down, probably because I'm sore and not getting anything done.

So what Have I done this week?

Marked 13 assignments (2 to go).
Amalgamated two half-written essays into one (this still needs work, but it's starting to get some flow).
Done a little more on my ethics app, but am waiting to hear back from my supervisors about my interview questions.
Researched possible free-txt options for potential participants to contact me through.
Knitted another row on my hat, only to find I've not got enough yarn to do another row, let alone the five or six more I need to finish it.
Cut out another pair of trackpants for Miss A and a vest for Miss S (though discovered Miss S needs some new pjs more than anything, and wants some with feet).
Attempted to read my overdue library book which someone has put a hold on so I can't renew it.
The Hubster and I visited the school Miss S will be starting at in September.
I went for one walk (I had planned 3, but that didn't happen) and did two 5min ab workouts.

So maybe it has been a busy week after all. (justified tiredness?)

So next week?

Finish all the marking (there were possibly some late ones coming in).
Work more on the essay, perhaps even manage to get it to a stage where I might be able to show my supervisors.
Follow-up the free-txt thing.
I need to write a little bio thing for an article I'm getting printed within the psych department (I have NO idea what to include).
And maybe rest my wrists enough so that I can do some sewing. That would be nice.

... later in the evening, because I still haven't managed to finish this...
Miss S is negotiating with me about how long til bedtime. I said 10mins, she said she'd rather have 6. I agreed, but then she replied 'no, no, no, 7 minutes, no, 8 minutes!' 'Sure, darling.' :)

A busy week of bits and pieces

So it's Friday again. I think it has been a good week. At least I Feel like I've been getting things done.
I meant to do a wordless Wednesday post of our ant graveyard, but it didn't happen.

Miss S has been back at kindy, which I'm sure has been good for us all.

Miss A seems to be teething, so a bit crotchety round the edges and wanting to chew on fingers lots, but otherwise doing well. I took her out to uni on Wednesday for a bit of show and tell with my supervisors, lecturers, and some study friends.

I've managed to make good progress on my ethics application, most of the 18 pages are now filled out. And I've done some writing work trying to bash out a literature review/article-y thing.

I've also managed to do four mystery shops this week, which was a few too many, but I forgot I had agreed to the first two when I agreed to the second two. Did two on Monday, had to dress up all flash for one of them which was fun. Then finally got around to doing the other two today.

I managed to finish a second pair of trackpants for Miss A last weekend, though they're a bit big for her, but I suppose it keeps her feet (completely) warm for now, and she'll grow. And I finished sewing bias-binding around the edge of a muslin square for breastfeeding in public with, to make it a bit prettier and layering two layers of muslin together. I decided to handsew it, knowing it would take longer, but it gave my hands something to do while watching tv, you know, cos I have no other handcraft work going at the moment.So that's two things crossed off my crafting list this week! I'm trying very hard to resist writing anything new on there until I have finished it all, the list is rather long and is a mix of machine sewing, hand sewing, and knitting.

So what's my plan for the next week?
Get my ethics application closer to finished. This involves going and talking to people I don't know, so it might take a bit of effort, I'm not so keen on doing that.
I'd also like to get my writing a bit closer to one thing, rather than a random mash-up of two or three. Serious editing required.
And I'd like to make some more progress on my handcraft list, just one more thing done would be nice, but we'll have to see how I go, whether I can get anything done at all.

The weather is getting more autumnal, and I'm enjoying watching the colours of the leaves change during the day and getting cozy by the fire in the evenings.

Returning to study and a finished thing

So today I have officially returned to full-time PhD study, and I am yet to spontaneously combust with anxiety. Didn't get a great deal done, but I've made a start, and a to-do list to help me keep going. First up is getting my ethics proposal done, I'm wanting to interview people about some delicate topics, so I need permission, and there's lots of little things that need to be included in the ethics application, so I'm going to work my way through them.

I also managed to go for a walk with Miss A both yesterday and today (just a short ones). It was lovely to get out and moving in the sunshine (and cool wind). Probably good for me too.

Over the weekend I managed to finish the first of Miss A's trackpants, and they fit her beautifully, with room to grow. And I love the bright blue.

They're a very simple style, but very cozy and cute, and easy to sew. There's elastic in the waistband, but the cuffs are just a tighter band of fabric. The second pair is half sewn, sitting beside me waiting to be finished. Soon.

A couple of goals

I've been thinking a bit lately, and I've decided on two goals for myself.

Can I tell you a secret, interwebs? I know I'm doing a PhD in Psychology, and it's a big thing, but I don't want to do it for the rest of my life. When I left school I went and studied fashion design, psychology was my second choice. When I was 23 all my small joint problems became one big massive ball of chronic pain, and an insurmountable boulder in my path down a fashion career - everything I though I might enjoy involved handling stuff, and any kind of gripping, turning, holding, moving, repetitive action, particularly with my wrists and hands, was a big pain-inducer. So with much frustration and many tears I went back to learn something different.

I started studying psychology with the intention of doing a PhD and getting a job doing psychology in some form (not just using it as a base for work involving people in someway like a lot of people do with an undergrad psych degree). At that time, sewing had become a maybe 30mins once or twice a week thing, and in time I sold my three industrial sewing machines, my mannequin, and my patternmaking table. It was done with a lot of sadness and regret. And every now and then I would wake up from a dream doing my dream job as a patternmaker and I would wake up and cry because I STILL wanted to do it, even though my body was trying to tell me it was impossible.

So here I am six years later, and I've learned a LOT about managing my activities and pain. Sewing still hurts me, but I'm slowly learning how much I can do at a time, how much is sustainable. For a long time it wasn't just the pain holding me back, but that it tore at my heartstrings every time I sewed or designed something, knowing I couldn't do it as a larger part of my life, let alone a career. But I'm finding that I kind of NEED to make things, it helps keep me sane. And so with a bit of planning out and breaking things into small steps I'm starting to find a few things manageable. My sense of style requires that I make clothes for myself. My desire for quality clothing (and a very small budget) requires that I make clothes for myself (I am hopeless! at clothing shopping, everything seems so badly sewn or not quite right somehow). And I'm starting to think these things just might be possible.

So here's my goal: Be a patternmaker by the time I'm 50.

I turn 30 next year, so I have 20 years to figure it all out and slowly get there. I can use my psychology to support my family in the meantime.

When I was studying fashion design 10 years ago, small independent patternmakers didn't seem to exist, not that I knew of anyway. But I've seen a few start cropping up over the internet the last few years, so I've been starting to dream again. No rush, no hurry, but a small dream to work on in the background over the long-term.

Oh, and the other goal? To reshape my wardrobe so that I can be wearing skirts 5 days a week by the end of the year. I need a few more skirts for a start, but also more tops that work well with skirts.

Oh the sickness.....

I was all mentally prepared on Thursday night to write a post last Friday. Except that I woke up sick. Like head fuzzy, throat sore, feverish, no voice, type sick. Then Saturday I was worse. And Sunday no better. Monday showed some slight signs of improvement, along with a visit to my doctor. And today I'm feeling almost like I might be nearly nearly-better. Not nearly-nearly like closer than nearly, but nearly nearly as in nearly up to being nearly. Clear as mud? Or my brain over the weekend?

So the last week and a bit hasn't exactly been productive.
No sewing done.
No exercise done.
No housework... ok scratch that, it doesn't get done often enough even when I'm well.
No planning for my return to my PhD.
Not even very much reading. I was that out of it.

I did manage to finish my marking last Thursday, which was good. And my parents came to visit on Saturday, which was awesome! Nothing like your mum being there when you're sick, even when you're grown up. They even took away Miss S for an hour or two in the afternoon (I'm not being vague, I really have no idea how long it was) to visit her other grands while the Hubster and I zoned out.

And of course now that I'm getting better, the Hubster is getting worse again. Hopefully whatever this viral bug thingy is will go away and leave us all alone soon.

So the plan for the last little bit of the week?

Field the girls a bit more so the Hubster can rest (it's holidays so Miss S is home all day too, and it's boring with Mum and Dad being sick so we can't do anything).
Try to at least finish the first pair of pants for Miss A, they only have the cuffs left to do.
Write a bit of a plan for getting back into my PhD, ease my way in.
Try not to spend toooooo much time exploring the journey and adventures of Gertie's vintage sewing over here: www.blogforbettersewing.com

Hope your last week has been better than mine. Onward!

The week past

It feels like it's been a rather unproductive week. I haven't done anything crafty since last weekend as my wrists have been recovering from doing a whole 2 rows of knitting. I am determined to finish that hat eventually, it looks awesome even only half done, but the needles are too small for my hands to be happy doing it. Sad that I love finer knitwork (though I also love fine wool knitted on chunky needles, so might just have to stick with that).

I have however managed to get through over half my marking, mostly done during Miss A's micro-naps. And been for three (yes 3!!!!) walks, one of which was the whole family and the other two just me and Miss A. None very long, but it's the getting out and moving that's the important bit at this stage. I've only had one day without a shower, even if yesterday's was in the evening after the girls were in bed. (Yay me! Celebrating the small things round here.)

Little Miss A is growing out of her 0-3 month clothes, so I burrowed through our under-1 box under her cot and found the next-size-up things. Yay for growing babies!

This of course means that I've found some gaps, like warm pants, that Just Need Filling. So my list of things to do keeps growing.

Onward!

Embracing motherhood

I'll say it straight out, I'm somewhat apprehensive about going back to fulltime PhD work on 1st May, but I'm doing some marking this week, so it's on my mind. Miss A will only be 3 months old and, unlike when I first became a mother four and a half years ago, I'm actually enjoying it and wanting to be with my baby.

With Miss S it was somewhat a relief to return to fulltime study when she was 6 months old. She had really bad silent reflux which was only just coming right after diet changes for me, and had long hated lying down as it made her uncomfortable and so therefore we didn't get much sleep. And I had No Idea what I was doing. I'm not really a natural baby or kid person. I had (pre- and) postnatal depression and really struggled with anxiety. So despite having to then express milk every break I got at uni, it was nice to get some semblance of normality and time to myself, and to have space to think about new things.

This time around I am much more confident in what I am doing. We've changed my diet straight away to help with the reflux (and the fact that we knew what to look for with reflux, or what reflux even was certainly helped!) and she's usually only waking once in the night for a feed. Daytime I'm much happier to go adventuring with baby (it helps that I can feed her Not Lying Down, like I still was with Miss S at this stage), and we invested in a good baby carrier to help things. She'll only catnap most days and want milk more often than I might like, which can lead to us all being rather tired by mid-afternoon when Miss S (who is endlessly busy and chatty) comes home from kindy. But she's usually good at getting herself off to sleep, which is such a relief after Miss S who would only sleep when upright.

I'm planning to work as much as I can from home, especially during kindy hours ;) but I'm really finding myself actually embracing motherhood, rather than just being a mother, this time around. So I'd like to somehow manage a more working-from-home style balance to things. I mean, I'm happy to express milk, but it takes large amounts of time and really hurts my wrists doing it constantly, so if I can do this less (or at least delay it) I'll be better able to do other things, like crafting which also kills my wrists but is so emotionally rewarding that it is worth the pain and then some, at least to a point.

At the moment the only problem with going back to fulltime work is, well, umm, the work, fitting it in during sleeps (which are far too short at the mo) and around cuddles. There's always things that need doing (or are maybe just preferable) at home. I might end up spreading my "40hr working week" over into evenings and weekends a little.

Speaking (typing?) of doing work, I should get back to my marking.

A return

I've been thinking of reawakening my blog.

It's been a long time, but I feel like it might be a good thing to have a place to set goals and share the things I manage to get done.

I'm in quite a different place to a few years ago when I was last around here, but in some ways still similar, echoes of the past. I've had another baby and am about to be back full-time studying, and as ever I am trying to fit more crafting into my life while balancing the fact that crafting causes me pain (lack of crafting also causes me pain, but emotional/psychological rather than physical).

So goals for the next month/wee while?
1. do a little bit of something crafty every day. I have long skirts to make, clothes for Miss S (who's now 4!!), a bit of knitting that has been waiting to be finished for a few years that I am determined to get done.
2. Take photos more, of said craftiness, baby Miss A, not-baby Miss S, and other things that catch my eye.
3. My book pile is growing rather than being kept up with, so I want to be a bit more deliberate about it.
4. AND there's that pesky PhD to work on ;) Might do another post of goals for that one. Though I'm not officially back into it till 1 May, I'd like to be able to ease my way in.

To help enable number 1, I've got my sewing machine sitting out all the time, with the laptop away, instead of the previously usual other way around, though bits and pieces still need to be put away from curious little hands.

Another thought of getting back into blogging is to get myself writing more, even just blog posts, and to help myself 'think on paper/keyboard' again which will help my PhD writing.

We'll see how we go :)

neglected

My blog's been rather neglected this year, I've felt so busy with uni and motherhood. It's been a hard year and it's crazy that it's nearly over - exams in a week and a half. I've struggled this year, struggled to find time to relax, time to do hobbies I enjoy, time to try and remember who I am and who I'm trying to become. Some days I just carry on because that's all I know how to do. Miss S has been a wonderful blessing and joy in my life, an amazing bright spot in a world which sometimes seems too dark.

cruisin' and crawlin'

I haven't been doing much lately, enjoying my holiday, and keeping Miss S out of trouble now that she's crawling and cruising around the house.


I've been doing a bit of drawing to keep myself entertained, though of rather emotive and heavy topics (suicide/self-harm), I won't post more than a detail here, showing of some of the embroidered detail work, but if you're interested, look me up as khhast on flickr.com

One week of holidays left, then I'm back into the study. I hope to keep a bit more creativity in my life this semester, but managing pain levels tends to be more important most of the time.

finishing and starting

I'm counting down to this date:


University starts back in only 5 days and my list of things to get done over the summer break seems to be nearly as long now as it was back in November. Eek! Today, however, I did manage to finish one thing on my list: Nappies! I have finally finished sewing nappy pockets and can get back to some more creative sewing, almost. The nappies have had all 360 corners of velcro trimmed (4 corners x 5 pieces of velcro x 18 nappies = 360 corners, and no I didn't really need to know how many there was) and then had a wash so they're now all ready to use. Don't the colours look fantastic?!


I've started on another sewing item on my list, new curtains for our bedroom. We were given some nice full-length curtains which I've chopped the bottoms off so they can be normal length window curtains and curtains for the small window above our bed. So far I've hemmed the large ones, the small ones are still a work in progress.

I found some baby snails (they were tiny! only finger-width in length) while yanking out some very very long grass in our front yard, and had to stop and run find the camera. Most of the grass is still there, I didn't want the baby snails to lose their home. They were so amazingly wonderful. And their shells were translucent in the morning sunshine.


In other news, Miss S is starting on solids tomorrow! She hasn't put any weight on since I went lactose-free to help her reflux 2.5months ago, so we're getting started on solids to see if it'll help. Going lactose-free cut out a huge amount of fat from my diet, which may have been good for me, but not so good for a growing baby. The plunket nurse (free medical service for under5s) will visit again in a fortnight to see how she's going. It will be fun! The darling husband and I are very much looking forward to Miss S's reactions to food.

What are you excited about getting crossed off your list these days?
Or just getting started on that's exciting and inspiring you?

state of chaos

I was gonna do some sewing today, you know, get those nappies finished before uni restarts in a fortnight, maybe even get creative, but instead my sewing room looks like this:



I can't even get in, let alone do anything!

My dad brought up a bed for Miss S, as well as a rather large bookcase. This provoked a mass rearranging of most of the house. The darling husband and I have swapped sides of the bedroom (confusing for sleepily stumbling into bed) and the living room has been totally changed, all because of the addition of one bookcase. The furniture's now mostly in place, but I have much book organising to do, so who knows when I'll get some sewing done. I might have to make some time for it cos I really want to get those nappies (among other things) finished before uni starts, but I'm running out of time. Eek!

In other news, Miss S's first tooth is coming through!

cardmaking

I did some card making yesterday, it's not something I've ever done much of, but this year I want to try to be a bit more creative with my gifting (having no money to spare on these things helps, but I also just want to be able to give people something made especially for them if I'm going to give anything). So when I was told that my sister had handed in her PhD thesis and gently reminded that my cousin was turning 21 this week (thanks Mum!) I decided that I just had to make some cards. So here's what I came up with, all made with things I already had... gotta use up some of that stash!

Some flowers for my cousin.

And some fireworks for my sister.

Photos are clickable for bigger versions so you can see detail.

Cards are made from ribbon, sequins, beads, button, fabric glitter paint, embroidery thread, and gold thread stitched on heavy denim, then sewn onto card with a really long stitch.

I also made envelopes for them out of scented floral drawer-liners, because they weren't standard-sized, and if I'm going handmade, why not go all the way? But I forgot to photograph them and they're already in the mail.

So after a whole lot of creativity, I'm feeling a bit better, though very much looking forward to starting study for the year in 3 weeks.

What different things have you tried doing lately?

plastic bags

I didn't think I'd be posting quite this often, but I had to share.

I was sewing earlier today, to some wonderful sounds in the next room.

With Miss S getting closer and closer to crawling, and therefore exploring things we'd rather she didn't, like this:


I decided it was about time I made this brilliantly coloured bag tidy/dispenser:


It was so easy to make, just a tube with a bit of elastic at the bottom and a loop to hang with at the top, then stuff with plastic bags and all done!


I was thinking as I was sewing it that I should be making a tutorial as I did it, same with the bags a few days ago, maybe next time.

The second best thing about it is that I made it out of fabric I had in my stash. (the best thing is that it'll protect Miss S from the plastic bag monsters). Like Hazel of Hazeljoy discussed here I'm trying to not buy any new fabric this year. My stash is rather huge, and I need to get rid of some of it so there's room for storage in my studio so Miss S doesn't have to share her bedroom with boxes of her parents' junk. I'm not going quite as extreme as Hazel is, I'll buy fabric for a particular item if I really really need to, but I'll try to use stash fabric and notions first.

As soon as I popped out to show the darling husband the wonderful thing I'd made he asked why I wasn't sewing desperately needed clothes for him. Sorry darling, this was more fun. Unless you want something made out of scraps of brightly checked fabric?

What treasures do you have hidden away waiting to be used in a project that never manages to happen?

Oh, and the sounds in the other room? Miss S and her dad giggling and having some fun – best sounds in the world!

Have a joyful day!

looking to the year ahead

I've been thinking of starting a blog for so long, and never seemed to get around to it, nothing of significant note seemed to happen, or when it did I didn't have the time to even think about blogging. So here we go, we'll try this and see what happens. The beginning of a new year is a great time to start these things.

This year will be an interesting one: I return to study fulltime in Feb and my daughter was born last September, so she brings plenty of surprises and excitement. I'm also trying to take more photos, not just of the darling daughter - that's easy, but of little things I notice, interesting things that happen, and just general stuff I'm doing. In the midst of all this I'm trying to sew, little bits at a time so I don't get too sore. But that combined with trying to find the time means anything takes forever to get made.

There's reasons we gave our daughter Hope as a middle name. Ah well, on with the new year!