sewing for South Sudan

Every possible surface of our house has been festooned with drying fabric for the past few days!

Lovely Christine of little red clog has organised a sewing night tonight and crafternoon tomorrow to make pencil cases, library bags, and lots and lots of baby blankets for Graham and Linda Poole to take with them to South Sudan.

I’ve spent lots of generously donated money buying metres and metres of fabric to make snuggly blankets.  Embroidered with the name of the hospital – ‘His House of Hope’ – the blankets will be given to babies born there in the hope that other mums will be encouraged to come and have their babies in the hospital.

Graham and Linda and their three gorgeous kids Jasmine, Caleb (a good friend of Toby) and Josiah (buddies with Jasper), are preparing to move to the Republic of South Sudan in just a few weeks time. They will serve as medical missionaries in ‘His House of Hope’ to join with others in re-building South Sudan…

By providing health care to women and children

By promoting the value and values of God-honouring families

By proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, in words and deeds

By praying that God’s Name and His Ways would be honoured

For the benefit of all peoples and for the glory of God!

This information comes from Graham and Linda’s website, Servants of South Sudan – head over and take a look at the awesome work of God these guys are part of!  It has been amazing to watch the faith with which Graham and Linda are planning and preparing, and the incredible, unending provision of God as He makes clear their path.

Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in your power to act.

Proverbs 3:27

memory cards

Hooray, my new memory card sets are finished!

It’s the same as the traditional memory card game, but with fabric!  So far I’ve made three sets – one with a transport theme and two with animals.

There are twenty cards in each set (ten pairs), and they are packaged in a calico bag with a silky lining to make packing up that little bit easier (because we all know how much children adore packing up!).

I’ve had so much fun making these – I can see a lot more of them being made soon!  I’d love to know what you think of them too!

brown paper packages

Today brought very gloomy weather, but two lovely parcels came in the mail! 

One was a huge roll of elastic (I buy 20mm wide, ribbed, non-roll elastic in 50m coils from Elastix), wrapped in black paper and looking like a record.  I bought 50m last year, which means that in about 12 months I’ve made 100 pairs of reversible pants!  That’s a lots of little legs!

But the more interesting parcel was some lovely fabrics I bought from Singapore (on Etsy, from this seller).

I try to shop locally as much as possible, but I fell in love with this alphabet panel, and though that I may as well make the shipping costs worthwhile by picking some other goodies at the same time (that sounds suspiciously like an excuse…I can assure you it’s not)!

U for UMBRELLA – “Won’t you share my umbrella?”

K for KITCHEN - “Mother is busy in the kitchen”

And having two days this week without the boys at home, I’ve even made some progress with my new project.  Should be done in a day or two!

On another topic, today is Winter solstice.  While I’m appreciating cosy evenings tucked up on the couch and the fabulously flamboyant sunsets (I love that they are early enough for the boys to marvel at as well.  Jasper is always super-excited when the sky turns pink – “Look Mama, God turned the sky my favourite colour!”)…I’m really looking forward to longer (warmer) days too!

school holidays, pt. 3

Back to school already!  Where did those two weeks disappear to?  We can’t believe how quickly they flew past…and are already looking forward to the next ones!

But in between catching up with friends, visiting the library, having special holidays with grandparents and even going to the movies, we had some lovely, unrushed play time too…

…for some beautiful drawing…

…learning some new things…

…exploring some new (and not so new) places…

…and playing with some stuff we’re not normally allowed to touch!

I hope you had a wonderful holidays filled with fun too!

numbers

1 very patient and generous husband + 2 busy noisy boys + 3 day weekend = lots of lovely sewing time for me!

14 tea wallets

12 sandwich wraps

2 happy birthday banners

5 pairs of reversible pants (including size 00 – they are so sweet this tiny!)

 

+ a little bit more progress on my next new product, of which, despite the sneak peek back here, I have no more to show you just yet!

Hope you had a lovely sunny long weekend too!

school holidays, pt. 2

The boys and I adore Mary Poppins.  We watch it at least a few times a year, and this time we thought it might be fun to invite Christine and her gorgeous children over to join us!

 

We sent them tickets (from Gingham Cherry) and a programme, and were so excited that they wanted to come and play along!

We made popcorn (using boxes from here) and had lemonade and (spicy!) gingerbread and yummy shortbread.  Alannah, Toby, Imogen, Jasper and Finn all lasted pretty much the entire movie but were pretty sleepy by the end.  I wish I took more photos – the girls were dressed up and looked so “practically perfect in every way” in their straw hats, and Finn was a very cute Michael in his jacket and cap.

Thanks for coming, guys!

the holidays begin!

Hooray!!  Despite it being really good weather for sewing and being snuggled up inside, we braved the cold wind and headed to the park this afternoon.  We found so many treasures!  The colours of the leaves are amazing.

Fairy toadstools!  We had to ‘hike’ up a really steep part of the park in the gusty wind to get a photo of this, but it was worth it!

‘When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?…O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!’

Psalm 8:3-4, 9

Oh, and a little sneak peek of a new sewing project.  This little idea has been bubbling away at the back of my mind since last year, and I finally had a few spare minutes to bring it to life…