ways to celebrate a 1st birthday

Miss S is one today, and my what a day! It has been filled with all sorts of things. Here's just some of them:
-go to a lecture at uni
-eat curry
-spend about 1hr on buses or waiting for them
-talk on the phone while expressing milk
-wash and polish a car both inside and out (with help from the darling husband)
-turn a carseat around
-cut my hair in a new and spunky style
-get Miss S and myself covered in hair clippings
-enjoy some sunshine while reading a book
-plant a flower (not a real one, a bright yellow and pink spinning one)
-blow up balloons
-open presents for someone else
and hug a one-year-old!

embroidered art

I decided to post my recent art after all. Somewhat hesitantly, but then, why not? As a disclaimer, I'm not suicidal, but I have been in the past, and have self-harmed in the past. I've found that getting these types of thoughts out as art helps them stay out of my head (which can only be a good thing). If these sort of images disturb you or prompt you to think in negative ways, please don't look, this is theraputic art for me and I don't want it to affect anyone negatively. So I've put a cute pic in to give you a bit of distancing.


These pictures were all done in soft coloured pencil on the thermal backing of an old curtain, and then embroidered with polyester thread.

contemplating death

suicide

self-harm

Any thoughts?

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.

yesterday

I had a pretty good day yesterday, despite having my second of four exams. While wandering around uni wasting time before my exam I saw two baby swans, a beautiful soft and fluffy grey, happily waddling around with their parents.
After my exam was over and I was walking back to my car, a beautiful tui (native NZ bird) sang to me from the top of an almost naked tree.
On the drive home I saw a van painted with the following slogan that made me laugh aloud:

"I followed the road less travelled
now where the hell am I?"

Then we went to the in-laws for dinner and they fed us yummy apple and berry strudel for desert.
It was a good day.

hope you're having a good one!

raining leaves

It's this time of year when all the beautifully coloured autumn leaves start collecting in the street gutters. Which is beautiful and wonderful, and really quite lovely, except for one thing: at some point it rains for a few days straight (it's doing it right now!) and all the lovely leaves start blocking drains and causing big puddles. They were fun for biking through on the way home from school as a kid, but they can cause some problems.

I am thankful for the rain though, my garden was in need of a good watering. My lavendar bushes are growing fantastically well, unfortunately so are the weeds, as I haven't had much of a chance to get rid of any with lots of assignments to do instead.

Right now, Miss S is out for a walk with her dad, enjoying the rain, while I'm puddling around at home in a quick break from assignment writing.

a rainbow of trackpants

I've been enjoying my holiday break so far, I've been getting a bit of study done, working on some assignments with some classmates, but between that I've been trying to relax a bit and chill out.


I've started making a few pairs of track-pants for Miss S, and it's been great to get some sewing done and just enjoy myself. One pair is complete and another half done, though I'll need some more elastic to finish the third pair. I'm just using the simplest of patterns based on another pair of pants we have for her to grow into, only two pieces of fabric with a fold over for the elastic at waist and ankles. They look like they'll be super cozy for winter, and of course super cute!

photos go on holiday

I'm so glad I'm finally on holiday, I'm in real need of a break, though I have plenty of assignments and readings to get done over my break.

I've been really enjoying taking photos lately, exploring my camera a bit, and I've finally worked out how to do the cool depth of field photos that are all over the place. Here's one of my sewing machine...


and one of Miss S's latest toy.


I took this third photo on our duck feeding trip last week of the sunshine sparkling in the paddling pool.


I've finally got a bit of sewing done, maybe more on that later. Enjoy your Easter weekend.

feeding laughing ducks

We had the most fun I've had in so very long last Tuesday with a bunch of old friends getting together and laughing all evening - I highly recommend it. Though my cheeks were sore for the next couple of days from all the laughing and smiling.

On Friday it was an absolutely gorgeously sunny day and we seemed to be making a collection of stale bread and crusts so we went to feed the ducks. It was a fun adventure with Miss S fascinated by the ducks crowding around demanding food.


After we'd run out of bread we wandered over to the paddling pool...


...where we dipped Miss S's feet in, before heading back to the car and home.


It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon as a family - sunshine and fun all round.

relaxing madness

I have had a crazy last couple of weeks with two assignments to get done and two tests to study for, but thankfully it's all over and I can relax a little. Unfortunately I'm quite sore from too much writing and stressing so can't really chill out by sewing, which is disappointing as I have far too many ideas floating around in my head wanting to get out, plus umpteen dozen works in progress. However to distract me from this sad state of affairs my bestest friend from high school is coming to town tomorrow and we're having a big random potluck dinner at my place to celebrate. This is her first visit home from London in two and a half years and it really has been far far too long. So tonight it'll be early to bed so I can rush around after uni tomorrow picking up pieces of house to make room for visitors. We're so excited!

sheep at 5am

I'm up pre-dawn today, Miss S keeps deciding that she's wide awake in the middle of the night and insists on not staying in bed, so we're up enjoying 5am. To amuse myself I've been catching up on some blog reading, it's been getting a bit behind with some assignments coming due and tests to study for, but 5am is no time to be doing anything productive. I found this incredible video over at Inhabitat and it amazed me so I thought I'd share.



Enjoy your day... hopefully I'll be going back to bed for a while before I truly start mine.