Sunshine on a rainy day

A very early progress pic of the Rainbow Dress I'm currently knitting for my daughter. The yarn I'm using is Gradient Dyed Four Bags Full Merino. As a rainbow fan, I'm in love with how the colours are so gradually changing as I work. Hopefully I can make some speedier progress on it. I'm a slower knitter than I am a crocheter. Maybe she'll be able to wear it before she's 16....

And just wanted to share with you a sweet corner of my studio from this afternoon. My favourite winter flowers, Paperwhites (Narcissus) and my favourite little donkey friend for the corner. The perfume is so strong from these flowers. They always make me smile.

Have a happy week everyone! May there be many sunshiny winter days for you this week.

Ticking things off the list...

A loooong time ago I attended a craft weekend away and began a project created by Melly & Me. It was a bag featuring some stitchery. I'm not a big stitchery nut so the gorgeous project kept being popped back into the WIP basket. This weekend I was determined to finish it. I think it might be a new knitting project bag!

Next in my radar might be some darning and mending items that may very well be outgrown by my daughter if I don't tackle them now.

And a secret squirrel project of my very own is in the works. I can say that it involves a new website for me!! More to come when it's all set up. I can see lots of late nights ahead working hard into the wee hours!

How do you follow an act like that?

After my rather serious last post, I have wondered how I would follow such a heavy post. I have a plan to approach next months' onslaught of seriousness and stress with ahem exercise. That's what the doctor ordered. Seriously. Can you imagine how that will cut into my crafting time!!?? The fact is, there is no easy way so I'll just note that right'o, that was a serious, real topic and now on with the show. More real to come though folks!

I've been busy crafting things for my wee poppet, although I can't really call her wee anymore as she's not even four and a half years old and I'm shopping for size 7 clothes for her! Tall, thin, leggy and blonde. Oh dear, the teenage years are going to be hard.

My girl loves a hat so I crocheted this lovely snuggly number from some yarn I had in the stash. The pattern is free and is Olivia's Butterfly by Valerie Whitten available on Ravelry. I crocheted this up in a day and a half working now and then during the day. Easy for a beginner and a very simple pattern.

Over the Mother's Day weekend, my daughter and I visited the Stitches and Craft Show in Melbourne. A lovely girls trip to Melbourne is fun but catching a 6am flight is not!! Anyhoo, we caught up with some of my very favourite bloggers, especially Jodie of Ric Rac. That woman is The Best. Absolutely. I love her style and recognise more than a little bit of her in me. During Jodie's talk about blogging the speaker next door came in to tell her to keep it down. This a) cracked me up to the point of hysteria and b) is so very familiar, the 'You talk too loud and are too silly' concept! Lots of lovely fabric was purchased at the Show and photos of that are to come.

Of course a young gal needs a new outfit if she is jetting off with her mum to Melbourne, the fashion capital. So before leaving I whipped up a new outfit using Rachel Measham-Pywell's It's Autumn pattern, recently featured on Quilt Fabric Delight's Creative Team blog. Forgive Nevada's look in the photo. It was cold and the poor poppet just wanted to get inside!

And I have been doing a bit of sewing for myself but it's top-level, secret squirrel, "if I tell you, I'll have to take all of your fabric" kind of hush-hush stuff. It has inspired me to delve into my stash and dare to use some of my vintage 1950's fabric and boy was it delicious to use something so divine.

So now my secret obligations are over, a little Silly Gilly crafting may take place over the weekend. New hair clippy ideas are forming and I can't wait to crack out the hot glue gun!

Till then!
Gillian.

The storm before the calm.

Sometimes things happen and make you think. About the real-ness of things. Like a very supportive email I received from someone I have badged a friend and refuse to let her think any other way. Like that same friend's talk she gave about the 'real-ness' of blogs. Like this last week that has just gone by. I have needed to stop and think and assess.

I live with PMDD - Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder. Well don't lots of women get PMS, you ask? Yes, PMS sucks elephant butts big time and I used to experience PMS and hated it too.

Since the birth of my daughter, after being challenged with Post Natal Depression, I experience, suffer, live through, hate, subject my family to PMDD. When I used to get PMS I would get a little cranky, get some belly cramps, eat maybe a little bit more chocolate in the week before I got my period, maybe get a headache too. Nothing too earth shattering.

Now the week before my period life is Absolutely Crap. To the point where I would much prefer to spend those 7 - 10 days holed up in a room by myself so I wouldn't have to deal with anything. I could just lie there and breathe in and breathe out and that would be it. I wouldn't have to deal with being a crap parent, crap wife, crap house keeper, crap friend, crap individual full stop.

Living with PMDD means the emotional and mindset changes are so overwhelming that my life is completely disrupted to the point that I get scared for myself. The emotional changes mean that I completely dislike, even hate, myself. My social world shrinks dramatically as I feel I'm not worthy of the friends I have. My eating patterns are completely disrupted (but that's another post). I manage to keep my parenting shuffling along on what I feel is a basic standard. After all, that is my main life measure. That is what I am here to do. To be a good parent for my daughter. I can lose my bundle on everything else but I can't lose it too much with her. That's just a tiny insight into what my experience of PMDD is like. I won't scare you all off at the starting post just yet.

And usually, the day after I get my period, my symptoms disappear and I'm back to normal. Well, as normal as I am which isn't so normal to start with! And life goes on until the next month...

So why am I talking about this on my Silly Gilly blog? As I mentioned before in this post and in my previous post, I have felt for some time that I have been wanting this blog to be more real. Less posts of the 'My house is always immaculately tidy, and I wear an apron all the time to keep my starched dress clean and I greet my husband at the door with delectable hors dourves every evening' type.

I have also been really inspired by Loralee who tells her story in the most honest and thought provoking way. Loralee writes without apology for her style or her words or her humour. I really admire her gumption. I respect that she tells others how her life really is.

So where am I at right now? On the slide out of PMDD week waiting for a doctors appointment (that was delayed a week due to a scheduling issue on the doctors behalf) trying to get back to some sense of normality and routine again.

Please know that this isn't an excuse. This isn't an excuse for anything at all. Simply an explanation as to why I do some things. Why there are lulls in my posting. Why I am not the friend I should be some times. And it's the start of me being honest. And real. And truthful to myself.

So how does one finish a post like this? Who knows!!?? Maybe I'll just end with that!

Somewhere.

Maybe it's the full moon.

Maybe it's the sleep deprivation.

Maybe it's the reading of these amazing women's blogs.

Maybe it's the nagging feeling I've had for the past many months as to the direction this blog should take. Should it be focussed upon the Silly Gilly store or should it be about my life and my experiences?

I find myself proverbially in a space which is not entirely uncomfortable but mostly weird. I want to change. I need to change. I should change (although should is a tricky word, don't like to use that one...).

The boofa that is Banjo has been a breath of fresh (but often stinky puppy breath) air through my home. She has forced me to refocus on my family and on keeping the house clean and tidy. A tidy house means less things for a puppy to chew upon. A clean house means that the layer of mud with which two dogs decorate my floor boards gets removed and replaced each day or so.

It's like having a new baby in the house in so many ways. Experiencing broken sleep for toilet breaks. The dog's toilet breaks that is. Teaching of rules and learning how to communicate with another individual who doesn't speak your language. Cleaning up poop and wee. Feeding multiple times a day. Being housebound whilst the vaccinations take effect.

All these new experiences have asked me to shift my focus from Silly Gilly and my ebay selling back to the home and my family and its new member. It's refreshing. It's giving me a break I didn't realise I wanted or needed. I'm not retiring or selling off the sewing machine, that's for sure. Just sitting back and allowing a new priority to take front stage for a while.

Reading back over this post, I started off in a 'I'm in a weird space' kind of mood. Now as I type I realise that I'm simply in the middle of change. A positive, happy, goofy (my new dog Banjo is seriously dopey and goofy) kind of change. And I would love to introduce some changes to this blog too. Less focus on selling. More focus on being. Being real. Sharing real things.

Hope you stick around for the change.

Banjo

Welcome home Banjo. You've come to the right place.

I have a feeling the Silly Gilly household will suit you just fine!

Please feel free to ooh and ahh and oh isn't she cute over our new puppy Banjo. I'm unabashedly proud and gushy and brain poppingly excited about our new Pyrenean Mountain Dog. She is 8 weeks old and already weighs 9kg!! There's a little bit of work to do in the 'learning to get along with another dog who already lives here and rules the roost' stakes but we're working on that.

Prepare yourself for more gratuitous puppy shots over the coming days. I've also been working on some fantastic secret squirrel projects for other people. Plus, that magazine might just be arriving tonight courtesy of Mr Silly Gilly. Then I can blog about my front cover!!!

On the subject of waiting

So what do you do during the school holidays when there is a inordinate amount of waiting to be done? Waiting for the magazine to arrive.... waiting for our new family member to arrive....

Go to the park EVERY day, go to the movies to see Nanny McPhee, take lots of photos to waste some time.

A friend asked today how I got the blurry background in some of my photos like those below. I use the macro setting on my camera. It's the one that very often has a picture of a tulip or flower on the setting selector. All that setting does is focus on things very close to you and throw the background out of focus. It's one of my favourite settings and a very simple but effective way to take great portraits.

I love taking portraits, be they canine or little person, right up close. I love the detail in their faces. Below are some shots of two very patient people in our family who have had the camera right in their face this week whilst I while away the hours, waiting, waiting.