deondergangvanmijnouders

Hi! Welcome to my fabulously printed Kim Dress blog post! It’s full of brightness and clever camera angles thanks to my clever clogs Husband and his new camera attachment on his iPhone! I’ll tell you about that at the end, but sewing this dress was fun! Pity I didn’t get the fit right! I bought lots of light fabric this summer as I visited the markets here in Shanghai. It’s been very hot and I wanted to be prepared but I actually couldn’t sew much. I got too hot even inside with the AC on. Of course I did sew up a few things, but it’s only these last few weeks that I’ve felt like sewing again. Luckily, in Shanghai it’s mid 20s for a while and it doesn’t seem to get cold at nighttime till November (I remember really balmy November nights) so I might be ok with making these lighter dresses … as I have a purple one on the go this week. But ALSO, we’ll be visiting Australia for a bit, so I’m hoping it’s not freezing cold there when we’ll be there! So, this is the Kim Dress of the By Hand...

August & September are busy months now in our family & world… it’s taken me a little while to find a rhythm to our days and weeks! Birthdays and parties and then visiting friends and relatives have made me soooooooo happy! I’ve pretty much eaten and drunk all the dumplings and wine and as I catch a moment to myself this morning, I’m like: IT’S now autumn/fall. It’s almost OCTOBER! We’ve been in Shanghai for one whole year so I know how to handle the season changes… but it still feels like it should be gearing up to summer holidays as Australia tends to have a season change around now and then it’s all GO til Christmas. But in China, we’re all busy with school days for Felix and crazy work hours for my husband, and then it’s the Chinese Golden Week holidays and we’ll be travelling back to Australia for a short time. The year’s broken up so different in China to Australia, not to mention the northern/southern hemisphere thing! This week, I’ve also been workshopping a workshop (!)...

My little baby is 3 years old today! Here he is as he was in 2012! SO squishy! I'd made a wrap skirt that I wore only a few times and felt didn't suit me, but these photos show that it wasn't too bad. I just don't think I got into this 1970s style while I was maternity leave, like I thought I would! But this is a birthday blog post today! For Happy Birthday Darling Boy! When I was going through my blog post drafts a few months ago (a blog tidy up) I found these photos of little Baby Darling in his vintage pram that I never published. He was maybe 2 months old... he always looked big after 1 month, so I can't really remember! I'd had a few vintage baby suits for him that I'd collected up from the op shops of Queensland's Redcliffe and he just grew so fast, I think this was the only one that fitted him for a bit. But while I love the vintage suits they're just not very practical for modern parents and babies... buttons! Even zippers were annoying fo...

Well, today is our one year anniversary of being in Shanghai! I am absolutely shocked with how fast the days and weeks fly by here. I know that naturally time speeds up as we grow, or it feels like for me. Some times with motherhood, I feel the time really slows down again though... some days last forever. I feel very lucky that we've had the space to learn about our new lives here in this city... and in turn I've had so many funny days with Felix. He'll be three years old next week! For me, there's so much to say about living here... personally I feel challenged without my regular day job in radio (14 years long & fun career)... I have felt in flux; inbetween times. I do think about the Cure a bit with the Inbetween Days phrase... I'm often just floating around trying to find who I am and what I do (outside of the parenthood thing)... I like it but it feels very unlike me. Of course, having my blog, my writing and sewing has kept my even keel and that balance ...

It's Market Day this weekend! Also see my Birthday present!!! David Lynch floating above the world print! Squee! Have you made anything for a market before? I know lots of lovely creative types who attend the regular handmade markets in Australia... lots of lovely friends with great handmade wares! But I've never really sold my things beyond my etsy shop - now closed - or to friends directly! Until now! I'm involved in this: The lovely Shanghai Bloggers Society are just the best for networking and Line, the co-founder, has been checking in on me... and we're hosting a dinner together tonight for Bon.App and she mentioned that the Spotlight Festival is looking for vendors, and as I've been making lots of rope bowls lately, I just kept going this last week! A little more hardcore and thanks to She Sews A Lot from Perth/Instagram who suggested trying with fabric wrapped around the rope... I've sewn up most of these with my fabric scraps from this year's c...

Congratulations to Kathryn! Who is the winner of my Giveaway from last week! YAY! It was my birthday, and I want to thank you for ALL the lovely messages you sent from all corners of the world! So much love and gush! We're having a party this weekend and I'm planning on wearing my Sophia Holiday Vay Cay Dress (AKA the one with the planes) because my friend and I wanted to play dress ups, so we chose a red theme! A heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who left a comment, and some of you who didn't get to - grrrr Disqus, it's 2015, you should work on all platforms! (I also included Rachel/House of Pinheiro and Ali/Daisy Crumpet as well as they left me a note on twitter and instagram) And yay to Kathryn, who can now choose a Megan Nielson Pattern for herself (and don't forget you can choose one for me too! I have the nursing top in a storage box at home - so no need to choose that one!) and I'll send you an email so we can chat notions and fabrics as I'm headin...

This week is my BIRTHDAY week and I wanted a bright and cheery dress to wear out and about in Shanghai… but especially to wear a nice new dress on my birthday day. It’s my first time having a birthday in Shanghai, so I was looking forward to sitting on a rooftop sipping some bubbly and generally being amazing in the summertime… compared to wintertime birthdays in Melbourne. BUT, no one saw more TYPHOON weather coming! It rained all day Saturday & Sunday and even most of my birthday on Monday. Husbie was glowingly positive saying “Shanghai smells so beautiful and fresh thanks to all the rain!”. He was right, despite the wetness, the town was smelling amazing! So before we picked the little one up from kindergarten, we popped out for some photos but without a lot of covered areas near our apartment, we found a little corner near the cafe that was sheltered from the blustering wind and rain for some photographs! And can you see my birthday present from little ...