New Life

On top of all the things that have been happening in the last crazy couple of months, I have been struggling with morning sickness. Yep I’m pregnant and due to give birth to our second child in September! Here is one of the first pics.

(Sorry its a bit of a blurry photo of a grainy ultrasound scan)

I have been starting to feel a lot better in the last couple of weeks and now have a lot more energy, time and motivation to blog and sew. I didn’t go to the March market ‘cos I wasn’t feeling well, but I did go as a visitor. It was cold and wet and a good market not to got to! The April market went well though – it was warm in the sun and no rain. I will be at the May market, the last market of the summer season and my last market till after the baby is born. But I won’t be far away as I intend to open an online store soon – so stay tuned!

Callignee is experiencing some new life now too. The birds are starting to return, Mum’s garden is looking green and I have been told there are even some flowers coming out now!

Mum and Dad kept this bank of garden really wet in the lead up to the fire and although all the plants were either burnt or cooked in the heat, the roots were kept damp in the soil which meant the plants were able to regenerate quite quickly. The mint was one of the first plants to grow back amongst the molten metal “sculptures” from the burnt out cars.

The trees around them though have been slow to reshoot. Some have a few new green shoots but there are also many that aren’t showing any signs of life yet. Eucalypts are usually pretty quick to reshoot after a bushfire –goes to show just how intense the fire must have been. Dad was outside as the fire front passed through and he recalls that as it came up over the hill it was a wall of flame from the ground to the top of the trees and the flame then curled over the top of the house by another tree length! Very scary. Here is a photo of Mount Tassie, just a few kilometres up the road from Callignee.

The TV towers you can see, supply Gippsland with TV reception and were damaged by the fire. In the foreground is a pine plantation which the fire ripped through very, very quickly.

Now I do tell a small lie when I say I haven’t been doing any sewing lately. I have done a little bit of sewing bringing new life to fabrics in my stash and creating gifts for Khye’s cousins who recently turned one. The first is a soft, pretty dolly. She is my own design with a bit of inspiration from the More Softies book.

Khye’s cousin looked at her for a bit after she was unwrapped, then gave her a big cuddle and chewed her cheek! I guess she liked her new dolly.

I made for Khye’s other cousin a Humpty Dumpty. He again is my own design with a bit of inspiration from the Play School Humpty.
Khye’s cousin was more interested in the curling ribbon around the present than in Humpty himself! Hopefully with a bit of time he will like Humpty and have some fun with him.