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Happy Mother’s Day to all the special women out there making a difference in their children’s lives.  What a great job we have and how nice it is to be spoilt a little bit on Mother’s Day.  So far, I have enjoyed a sleep in, had lovely handmade things foisted on me by little hands, had bacon and eggs with hollandaise cooked for me, and I’m still in my jammies at 1pm.  Lovely! 

I went fabric shopping last weekend for the first time in a while.  I decided to get organised before I went so that I would only come home with fabrics that could be made into things that would fill holes in my work wardrobe.  I ended up spending about $90 and bought enough fabric to make eleven new tops.  If I had bought ready to wear, I would have gotten about three decent tops. 

That’s three pieces of fleece - red, green and grey.

Four pieces of jersey type fabric - red with white spots, green with white hearts, red, and a light green texture print.    The photos of the other fabrics were truly awful so I will have to rephotograph them another day but I bought a few nice prints in slinky type jersey too. 

Before I left the house I used my mobile phone to take photos of the pattern envelopes for all the tops I wanted to make and I wrote a list telling me how much fabric I would need to make each one.  Going through all my patterns to pull out the ones to make next and writing lists was a great way to get it all sorted in my head.  Now I just need to get stuck into all that fabric! 

I have started already - I am part way through sewing up McCalls 5469 in the light green as I love the sleeves and the pleats.  I’m making View B (the main photo on the envelope) and hoping it won’t be too billowy.  After I cut it out, I read that there is about 20cm ease in the bust area!  I’m thinking of making a self fabric belt to tie around my waist if I need it.

Oh, and I’ve written my article up for Women’s Clothing Month over at Sew, Mama, Sew blog.  You’ll have to wait a bit to see it though - I’m not sure which day it will go live. 

It’s the first of May!  I had to send a text message to my very best friend ever, Yvie to tell her:   “OMG!  You are getting married THIS month!”  I can’t wait to see her and Dan get married in Sydney in a few short weeks.  I’m sure it will be a lovely wedding and a great party afterwards.  Paul and I are having the kids minded and we’re going to stay at a posh hotel in Double Bay for the night.  Can’t wait!

Also happening in May - the lovely girls at the Sew, Mama, Sew! blog are doing a Women’s Clothing Month all through May.  I am very excited to say that I am keeping company with some inspiring women as I will be providing an article for them!   Mind you, I still have to write the article.   I have been percolating ideas in my head though so when I sit down to write it (maybe this weekend?) I will know where the article will be going.

It’s been three weeks now and I’m still really enjoying my new job and getting a lot out of it.  I have even done a crazy thing in the name of bonding -  I’ve signed up along with two of my workmates for one of those crack-of-dawn boot camp things!  Starting next week I will be getting up bright and early (or at least early) and being hounded and pounded for an hour from 6.15am, twice a week.  Am I crazy?  I think so.  I would still like to lose 10 kilos so this is a good way to keep motivated and do something a bit different.  Sharing it with two women from work will make it fun and we can all complain together.

It turns out that my boss is the star attraction at her gym - even appearing in their posters and giving motivational talks. She went from 150 kg (330 lbs) to 85 kg (187 lbs) in 12 months.  She is tall and so 85 kilos makes her very slim and trim.  A huge transformation and it should keep me on track with my weight loss goals - she even has one of the gym posters up at work with all the before, during and after shots.  I am always shocked at how much people’s faces change with all that extra weight.  I have been finding it hard to get to the gym since starting work so the boot camp is a good way to keep things going.  It’s just a pity I hate early mornings!

I’ve just watched Sam win on Biggest Loser and didn’t they all look AMAZING!  I was really hoping Allison would win and of course Kirsten too.  I like Kirsten but Allison was the won I wanted to win - since losing the weight and gaining confidence Allison had this wonderful child-like joy just shining out of her eyes.  By the way, I’m not saying I particularly agree with their idea of losing huge amounts of weight in just 3 months but it does make for a good show.  It’s the first year I have watched it and it was good to see the real results and of course,  The Journey.   

Hello!

Apologies for not posting an entry in so long but I was busy having kittens because of a mystery WordPress glitch that rendered my site unreachable and generally mucked things up. It is SO frustrating when you don’t have a clue what is happening with your site. It’s one thing to miss a week or so because you have lost your blogging mojo or you’re just plain tired - it’s another thing entirely when you have things to say and no way to say them!

Anyway it looks like I have cracked the mystery and sorted out the problem, so here I am. Now I’m cold and tired and it’s late so a proper post will have to wait.

I will share one piece of exciting news though - recently I added this little image to my sidebar as I like what this site is doing for crafty Aussies and… sure, they were running a competition too. All you had to do was register on their site and add their banner to your site - easy enough and I didn’t think any more about it.

And then I got an email that I had won one of six advertising packages on the site - valued at $5000! I nearly fell off my chair! They said that I generated the most links to their site during March which was also great to hear! It turns out that the $5000 package gets me a total of ONE ad on the site for a month. That’s one pricey advertisement so imagine the hits I could get from it. I will direct the ad towards my site at www.redinstead.com.au and see how that goes. Wow. Still can’t quite believe it.

My first day at work today went really well. The people are really great and the workplace has a nice feel to it. Today was mostly about learning about how they do things, getting my head around all the processes and getting to know the systems they use.  I had a good day and it looks like it will be a good job for me.  My job title is Print Manager and I am responsible for tracking print jobs, liaising with clients about their requirements, basic design layouts and print-ready artwork and digital print production.  Yay!

For my lovely friend Jess, who asked what I wore to work today:

That’s the shirt I made last week along with a red knitwear vest that I picked up from the op shop recently.   In perfect condition and a great colour.  I also wore black stretch trousers and ankle boots with a heel.  I was comfy and happy with how I looked.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a bit tired of seeing my fake-smiling face staring out at me from this blog. I sure have sewn a lot lately though - and it did need modelling!