six and a half stitches

FISHBOWL

Most days at the moment I feel like a fish. Swimming around the same fishbowl, all day, everyday. Same scenery. Same food. Same children staring at me. Same pebbles. Same rocks. Round and round. And round. I've talked to other mothers, and they all tell me the same thing: right now, I'm staring at the hardest part of childhood and it does get better. I should know this, because I have one child who has already been through 3. Except, I'm starting to realise Max was an exception to the rule of toddlerhood, because even though we had days which I thought would never end, we never had months, and months which I thought would never end, which is kind of how I feel with Pia. I love her. I adore her. But I also feel like she is slowly eating through my soul. And that's a fairly terrifying thought to have. That one small person can who is completely of your being, can have that much of an affect on you.

Some days, are just about the taking.

Some days, are about the giving back to the soul though as well.

Small, intrinsically basic actions, can have a huge affect on how I feel. My crafting and making time is getting less and less as I juggle children and school times, but when I get something done, the sense of achievement within my little fishbowl world is immense. Lists get made, and broken, and forgotton about, and re-made. I have been making a real effort recently to start looking at working on those lists, and each week I make a little progress. Two weeks ago, a small gathered top for Pia in Nani Iro. The week before that, a mock up of a top for myself, that needs to be resized, and for which I have slightly lost my confidence in until a time when I can really focus on it. Another small top for Pia in some Kristen Doran fabric which I never seem to be able to photograph on her. And a small knitted gift slowly coming along in a very lightweight lace wool. This week I hope to achieve - some small pants for a friends new born baby, a skirt for Pia, a start on resizing the top for myself. And a lot of piles. Boxes have been taken out, and rummaged through, and now I have a few piles waiting to play with. Tonight I have once again traced out some patterns, and will cut...

And more importantly, I pulled out a moleskin sketch book. Because I want to make some plans. Simple plans, with direction and focus. And I want to write them down. Draw them. Draw around them. Trace them in my head and with my pen in my fingers. I want to make them real.

And find a life outside my fishbowl.

3

Look Mummy, it's for you - because I love you, said Max

stop. laugh. love. cuddle. share.

[Happy Birthday Pia - you seem so much more grown up than 3]

POUR DRAIN TWIST EAT

Sometimes I get obsessed.

The beautiful rich smell and aroma of almonds, and almond biscotti, eaten quickly as the icing sugar dusts off onto your hands and the floor. Something little and sweet and easy to make while a child demands your attention and you stop and have a cup of tea.

I love ricotta. More than that, I love homemade ricotta. The kind which has come out of my kitchen, made by me, heated twisted drained and served....all by me. This has been on my To Do List for far too long. Years in fact. Ever since Charlotte wrote to me about making some, and made it sound like she just popped into the kitchen and voila! there it was before her and I was so sure she was making it all up how easy it is to make that I kept putting it off. So sure was I, that it would be so difficult to make. And then Gourmet Traveller - my bible of cooking inspiration - had a little inconspicuous recipe for vanilla ricotta and rhubard compote. I sat and read through the recipe. And re-read it. And went out and bought muslin. And milk. And an hour later I had fresh ricotta infused with vanilla beans sitting on my benchtop. Since then I have made it a few times, and it will surely become another staple in my cooking week. I've added it to spanakopita, eaten it with rhubarb compote as per the recipe in GT, and eaten it fresh out of the muslin while it's still warm. That there, that simple act, is joy in itself. It is ridiculously easy. And ridiculously satisfying.

Heat on high 2 litres of milk in a non-reactive pan [stainless steel, ceramic, glass] stirring constantly with a rubber spatula for the first 5 and a half minutes to make sure the milk doesn't burn to the bottom of the pan, let it continue heating without stirring for a further 4 and a half minutes, then take off heat and add 50ml of white vinegar. Let stand for an hour. Then drain through muslin. I've googled other recipes and they do it without adding the vinegar. Or they add lemon juice. Some use a combination of whole milk and buttermilk. I've done it with just whole milk, and also just with skim milk and both work equally well. The only downside is that for the amount of milk, I seem to get very little ricotta and so the cost effectiveness is not great. But honestly, that really doesn't matter. Because it tastes fantastic.

And my next obsession.....these beautiful pieces.

FROM LIGHT TO DARK

1 [] Soft, delicate clouds of cashmere, finished. So unbelievably light, and such a beautifully simple knit.

2 [] Scraps of chocolate linen, a new shift dress for summer for me from the Robe Rouge book. The linen needs to soften, and then it will be 'just right'. We sanded down the little Ikea table the children use to draw and eat on, and now it has a wonderful faded sandblasted feel to it, although the drawings and scribbles have now almost gone, just remnants and shadows of them remain.

3 [] Strong light casting shadows and dark recesses against brilliant shards of light travelling through the house now, and 2 cats following it around.

From light to dark.

RUSHING BY SLOWLY

chai, hot, subtle and milky [] small amounts of sporadic knitting, slowly moving towards completion [] patterns drafted out [] patterns cut out [] fabric ordered, received, played with, folded [] one computer now dead throwing my world into chaos a few days after Paul's death. yes everything was lost on it. yes I had backed up a week before, saving all my photos and architectural work [] hello new computer, and new programmes for photo editing which I am loving [] one printer...now....dead. and unreplaced for the moment till I get really tired of putting off all my printing and go out and buy one [] new music which I am loving [] the constant twittering of a nearly 3 year old being....nearly 3 [] the same nearly 3 year old riding her bike with training wheels and feeling very grown up about it, and pretending she's going to school just like her brother. the same child riding that bike like she's been riding it all her life. best thing is we get everywhere a LOT quicker, and with a LOT less hassle. she twitters away having amazing conversations about going to school on it the entire time [] weekends away at the south coast with the first warmth of spring-turning-to-summer, touching the ground on our block of land, wading through icy cold water and collecting pippies while the children kayak [] watching a bloom of small clear jelly fish pass through the waters around us and hoping they don't sting [] children playing with friends in back laneways riding bikes, scooters, skateboards [] new clothes - how long has that been.... [] watching plants flower and die, captured in photographs forever [] more washing each week than I care to acknowledge [] plans being made for an upcoming overseas trip - lists being made and emails I really need to start writing to people once a few technicalities have been worked out [] a pinboard/inspiration board covered and lying waiting to be attached to the wall [] helping out with art projects for the school's art exhibition [] watching Max's first public speaking in assembly and loving his childish husky voice []loving flickr's new galleries feature - long overdue [] simple days. sometimes productive. sometimes not. days rushing by. one at a time.

GATHERING TIME

An enormous thankyou. From the bottom of my heart.

For those who emailed. Who commented. Who phoned, who have walked beside us in our short journey and have shown support and friendship. Knowing I didn't have to do this alone, knowing people were thinking of us, and of Paul, throughout, has been wonderful. His funeral was emotional, beautiful, personal, and full of warmth and love from so many people for someone who touched so many people in return.

But then it's all over.

And we all have lives. Yet....

Yet ... there's this weird limbo I find myself in. Intense focus, intense waiting, has given way to extreme tiredness and lack of focus, and lack of enthusiasm and energy. Time has become warped and I'm struggling to find balance and grounding again. And I'm also trying to embrace that a little, and just let it be. If that's what my body and my mind need, other things can wait. I am enjoying time running and walking, soaking up the heady scents of spring jasmine that fill the streets and lane ways, enjoying the warmer weather sitting in the garden, and enjoying small chances to think through new projects and make plans for some exciting things in the next few months.

And in amongst all that, occasionally something gets done. A linen top, made from Linnet chambray linen with lots of gathers and puffed sleeves and yoke, held together with little Nani Iro timber buttons [I'm waiting for more to arrive to finish the line of buttons so the split seals all the way down]. The pattern is Village Frock by Sugar City and is brilliant. It went together easily and is neat and beautiful. I'd like to hope I will make more throughout the years. And yes, I agree - there should be an adults version shouldn't there!

HOLDING HIS HAND

It seems fitting that the beginning and the end are marked with fog.

It seems fitting that my head is a cloudy fog of mist. Of images, words, sadness, touches. Of a day shared with some beautiful people. Of the dignity and grace with which we helped someone we all loved deeply, go. We are left stunned and shattered at the force with which death crashed finally upon us late on Sunday afternoon, and the realness of his process. It was, as someone very close said - a real death. I cannot trully say it was peaceful. It certainly was not calm for him, despite our efforts to make it so. It was frought. And heartbreaking. And at times horrific. For my husband's brother, though, it is over, and for that we are thankful. Far too soon. But it is over.

We have spent the last 10 weeks caring and travelling with this cancer. We have dropped our lives to be with Paul. Plans made and broken simultaneously, days lived on edge, constantly trying to review where we were in the process, and days spent in vigil with him over the last week so someone close was with him to relieve the anxiety and the fear, have left us exhausted and drained. Misty. And foggy. A fog we would not change for anything - that time has been precious and intimate and I am so priviledged to have been there to the end.

Holding his hand.

LANDSCAPES RUSHING BY

I wanted to write about colour.

And about landscapes rushing by.

A project always come alive for me when I can equate it to something - feel it's warmth through it's colour, feel its song and dance through the movement of coloured shades twisting before me. The colour laid before me is really hard to photograph. It's subtle, and deep, and intense, and alive in the best way muted colours can be. It's purple and grey mixed with tinges of burnt browns - smoky, and fresh, and warm, and, as it's colour name suggests, the colour of thunderous skies across parched landscapes. It is whisper soft. Cashmere lace which drifts as I turn it around for a new row, which will softly encase when it is finished. Like a cloud. Like a storm cloud.

Last week I drove to pick up my children. I drove through bushland, and detoured off the main highway to go a back route. I had intended to stop and take photographs, but a wrong turn and a storm coming through meant I kept driving. But for about half an hour I was accompanied by the most intense storm clouds - deep and full, bursting with life and wetness. Brooding. Dark. On the other side was a setting sun - brilliant and golden in it's final throws of light. The combination of the two was quite stunning [and yes I am kicking myself that I didn't stop]. Intense saturated light, stark bare trees against dark skies lit brilliantly with golden sun. I love that light - touched by the hand of God light. Everything comes alive.

As I sat and thought about this post this afternoon, and the colours of the knitting - the softness of it's breathe within my fingers - a shadowy remnant of a faded memory in colour, I was also reminded of the past. And I realise once more why I love this colour and this piece [featherweight cardigan]. When I was in first year Architecture we did an excercise with colour - we went into the bush, picked native leaves and flowers, bark, grasses etc, and we matched paint colours to them all by mixing our own paints then and there. These sorts of excercises I love - I love the fact colour is made up of so many different other colours. And the australian bush is so full of rich murky colours with depth and layering which we rarely stop to really look at, that I really fell in love with the colour schemes I came up with that day. I can still remember the deep purples and greys that made up gum leaves, the lavender and silvers of bark, and the grey greens of leaves and grasses. The purple.grey.silver undertones have stayed with me in all my projects, and I never render tree canopies now without a good deal of purple and silver thrown in.

So this is my landscape project - a piece for chasing clouds across bush farming land, outrunning storms, accepting the vastness of the land which spreads before me with each drive to my parents house and looking at it with fresh eyes each time I drive [and maybe one day I will stop and photograph it], and that the landscape changes as the light and weather pass over it.

EAT SNOWFLAKES

An unintentional blog break...lack of energy, creativity, enthusiasm, time, place and before you know it weeks have sped past. At the moment we lurch - from day to day, from hour to hour, from crisis to crisis, from phone call to phone call, tantrum to tantrum, activity to activity, one city to another - it's barely wonder we have any sense of composure, or sense of balance.

With the children away for school holidays with grandparents, I have a small chance to regroup my thoughts. I was going to say find some new energy....but I'm just going to leave it as regrouping thoughts. I've caught up on some emails, caught up on some design magazine reading, and I've bought some cookbooks.

Cooking is my salve - my way of reconnecting, something I've said many times before. It's been really missing in the last few weeks as I've just been too tired to even think about cooking something different each night. The amount of thinking that happens through the day to just get us through, isn't enough to extend to fancy - or even good basic - meals. And it grates with me. We should be eating great food every night. I'm home, it should be the one basic good thing we do each day. And often it's not. And I always know when it's time to regroup when the food thing starts going amiss.

New cookbooks though, completely enthuse.

So tonight we are saying thankyou to a close friend of my husband's brother - someone who has often been our lifeline and communication with a constantly changing battleground. Someone Paul communicates with when he's not communicating with anyone else. And someone who's good fun to be around despite everything. A thankyou dinner for her time and effort in clearing houses and cleaning houses. And a small conference on how we approach things in the future, how we might serve each other and Paul to the best of our ability, and how we can act as a family team, filling in gaps, and finding some balance which at the moment is disparate and lacking.

I love to say thankyou with food. Given from the heart, made from the heart. A conversation about the changing time and seasons, deliberated over as I sit in the sun which is streaming through the house, and I look and see buds on trees, waiting to burst forth with glorious magnolia bloom and scent. And there in the corner, I noticed this morning, a native orchid about the flower - the second time only in 6 years of being here. And I am once again reminded there is beauty of we take the time to look.

eat/ate

snowflakes and schnapps

paris: made by hand [because you never know when you'll be in Paris]

oh! and before I forget....the pyjama pants were found....tucked inside the doona cover....the shoelaces were found....tucked in the back pocket of Max's school pants [along with some pieces of chalk, some pieces of concrete, some twigs, and some dirt]

PLAYING IN ELYSIUM FIELDS

A few weeks ago I sat and made, very quickly, two pairs of pyjama pants - one for Pia and one for Max. Many years ago I bought fabric for just such occasions, and had some fabric given to me by Kelly, which I have had neatly tucked away....You know that kind of fabric. It was special. For no particular reason it was special. It was for something, no matter how far into the future that something might have been, and even if the something happened to be pyjama pants. Some of the fabric is discontinued, and by default it becomes even more special because of it's rarity now. Some of it I went out of my way to get - those special internet purchases which seem to carry far more weight than something purchased at the local fabric shop. I wavered before cutting into the fabric. I had so little....just enough. And true to form, I did mess up one cut and only just squeezed an extra piece out of it. The perils of cutting and planning at night when you're tired because you're being pestered by children for pyjama pants now. They love them. I would dearly love to photograph them. Max's I can. But haven't yet. Pia's....a wonderful Aronzi Aronzo fabric of little pastel cat illustrations....were very cute.

Except I can't for the life of me find them.

Nowhere in the house can I find them.

Nowhere in the laundry can I find them.

They have disappeared.

Completely.

Utterly.

Disappeared.

So I made another pair.

And if the story of the fabric on the first pairs was emotively driven, the story of this fabric almost made me weep when I cut into it. Part of a selection of fabrics by the now defunct Cotton Bow Wow in Japan, this was purchased well before I even considered having a second child. It was the beginning of my love affair with Nani Iro fabrics, having seen an amazing quilt made by Hillary. This beautiful elyisum field of soft coral flowers fabric has sat neatly folded and pressed in the box reserved for 'good' fabrics. Occasionally I would pull it out and try to imagine using it, but would quickly put it back, fearing to even cut it would be sacreligious. Such weight and emotional enormity we place on static inanimate objects in our lives...it's totally wrong. This fabric represented desire - for another child in the future who might be a girl. It came to represent the lightness of mothering, the joy of having a small version of myself running around, that airy fairy concept we sometimes have of sweetness and purity of small children. Their smiles, their curls. Their laughter. Yes, I think this fabric was about laughter. Lots of it. Pia and I haven't had much laughter recently. We have moments. But it sometimes doesn't feel like enough. We're both struggling with each other. A symptom of her age and our situation, and an interim period of time which will pass as she gets older and more independant and we once again find a new groove to live with. So to manufacture some laughter is something I do wholeheartedly, we'll take what we can get.

I wanted to make her simple pants to run and laugh in. For us to snuggle on the couch and read books in. That would have brightness and imagination poured into them. Something to capture her dreams each night in. My hands trembled a little at the point of cutting...such lovely soft fabric in such a beautiful design. But they're done. She's wearing them. She gasped [she's easily pleased at least!]. They are so adorable. The lost ones can miraculously turn up now [please?].

And now I've lost one of her shoe laces.

And the fuel cap for the car.