Chucking a sickie

The "sickie" is a great Australian tradition.... taking advantage of sick pay and enjoying a day off. When you're self-employed and feeling too poorly to go to work it's not half as much fun.

The wee girl, however, thought it was GREAT fun - just like a weekend - to be home and having my undivided attention. She organised lots of activities for me. (I was kind-of hoping to get a book proposal written or a shopping cart tweaked... alas, it wasn't to be).

We checked in on last weekend's project (inspiration from here) and were happy to see our egg family growing wheat hair at last. There were discussions about a relocation to a sunny windowsill to help the hair grow a bit faster. It's cold outside these days!

There was a bit of blackboard action.

And a spot of painting. This artwork is "Worms in the Rain". "The dots are their tracks... do worms have tracks?".

We made pavlova. We smothered it in cream and grated mint chocolate (...and I ate most of it. Oops).

Inspired by this book, we made a wheat bag from scraps of Thomas the Tank Engine flannelette (from the pj's I made on the weekend). It was a real team effort.

My assistant cut the eyes and eyebrows (I was on nose and mouth duty... and helped a bit with the eyes). The wee one also helped to steer the fabric under the machine and was in charge of raising and lowering the presser foot. She filled it (BRIM FULL!!) and I stitched it up.

When it was finished we played throw-it-in-a-bowl and catch games ...and were equally bad at BOTH games! (I think she's inherited both my craft and complete-lack-of-sporting-prowess genes).

While the sewing machine was still out we whipped up a mini-Mummy outfit (read: no pattern skirt, hacked together polo neck top and super-quick leggings). We gave it a quick road test in the park.

PLEASE NOTE: Being in the SWINE FLU epicentre of Melbourne, I thought it wise to take all precautions and not share the love around (any more than I may have on the weekend). A trip to the doctor today confirms that it's a regular winter virus.

I think the "holiday" is over and I'll be back at work tomorrow. Sick days are more exhausting than any day at work, it seems. Oh, and I'm feeling much better now.

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PS. The top in the "sickie" photo (taken by my assistant as I tried to keep her amused at the doctors) was one of the no-pattern cowl tops I made at Sewjourn on the weekend. I'll try to photograph a few more bits over the next week or so (but if you can't wait that long I'm sure there'll be a few similar tops seen around the Ballarat area later this week.... and perhaps a few in Thornbury...?).