So I made a dress...

Hello guys - so I haven't really felt much like blogging lately, I guess its because I'm over winter and I just wait day light savings to start and spring to begin. I'm feeling a bit bleh. At least we haven't had any more earthquakes. Recently I made this dress - I don't have a fancy name for it though. Also we had to take these average photos inside as the sun had already gone down by the time I got home from work.

This dress is a simple tunic style dress made with knit fabric - I bought the fabric because I thought the print was kind of fun. It's actually the kind of print I would have wore back in about 2001, I think that's why I like it so much.

I actually cut the neckline of this frock a little bit big, it does have the tendency to slip off my shoulder a bit, but not too much. I do like wearing long sleeved dresses - lately I'm so over having to wear layers and layers of clothing!

 We tried to take one photo with a flash so that the pattern of the fabric was a little clearer - but it made my glasses look pretty weird!

I hope you all have been having a good week - its nearly September, which means its nearly spring - Hurrah!

DCM Bookfair 2013

I'm sure wherever you live there are annual events you look forward to all year - right? I always look forward to the DCM (Downtown Community Ministry) - I thought it might have been cancelled this year because it was on the Saturday after our most recent big earthquake, but thankfully it went ahead.

The book fair is huge (the photo above shows only a small part of it) and whilst I usually pick up a few novels and travel books, I'm mainly in it for the craft and fashion books.

Here's a bit more detail of the books I bought "Vintage Vavoom" is a book about decorating your home with all your second hand treasures. We don't own our own home and live in a pretty small apartment, so at this stage I'm just enjoying the beautiful pictures. It could become useful for home decoration inspiration in the future though.

I bought this costume and fashion book for the imagines - because that's what it is a book of beautiful pictures. It also comes with a CD ROM - old school!

I also bought a book of Victorian crafts because its adorable - I'm not sure I would ever make anything from this book, but it sure is pretty to look at .

Finally a slightly cheesy "quick craft" style book - I think its produced by Spotlight and whilst some of the projects are a bit cringe worthy it does have some good ideas.

I usually pick up some hilarious old craft/sewing/pattern books at this event, but this year it wasn't too be. All my new book are relatively modern.

I hope you have all had a super week - I am SO glad its Friday tomorrow!

Sophiia's Birthday Dressing Gown

It was recently my niece's third birthday and I decided I wanted to make her something, before she gets too old to think stuff her Aunty makes is cool and starts to think its super lame. 

There are so many options of things to make for little girls - but I decided to make something useful and sew her a dressing gown.

Recently I have been thinking a lot about sewing sleep wear, I'm not sure why. I guess its usually because I wear the same nighties for YEARS at a time, until the literally fall apart. I thought it would be nice to make some decent sleepwear, so when I came across "And Sew to Bed" when I was browsing shops one lunchtime I decided to treat myself.

I still haven't made myself anything from the book - but it included a few patterns for kids so I picked the "boys" dressing gown pattern for Sophiia. There was one dressing gown pattern for boys and one for girls - but the girls pattern was just wasn't right for Sophiia - it was so delicate and not really something I thought would suit a three year old!

I wanted to show you all a great picture of the dressing gown - but there aren't any three year olds around here to model it for me. I thought I could use a soft toy to model it, then I realised the biggest soft toy I have is Kuromi and she's really more of a pillow than a soft toy.

But as I didn't have any other "models" in the apartment - Kuromi was my model for the day. Here's the dressing gown in "action" - its not perfect, but you all get the idea.

It has a hood - which I think is pretty adorable. All dressing gowns should have hoods! 

The fabric is a simple fleece with paw prints and look - I sewed on some pockets!

This was a fun little project to make and I really hope Sophiia likes it. 

I hope you all had a great weekend and thanks for all your kind words in regard to the earthquake - we are safe and well and crossing our fingers that Fridays big quake will be the last big quake for a very long time.

My life and earthquakes

So a few blog readers have asked me a few things about earthquakes - so I thought I'd do a bit of an earthquake related post. You see I've pretty much always lived with earthquakes (except for my year in South Korea). Earthquakes are just a part of life in the areas of New Zealand I have lived in and generally they don't both me or anyone too much - in fact I don't notice a lot of earthquakes that happen. These latest two earthquakes all relate to a fault line in Seddon in the South Island.

The earthquake in Wellington was scary and a lot of media coverage has been about Wellington as it is the capital city - with lots of tall buildings and a large population. However, many smaller towns in the South Island were much worse hit than we were. Here's a photo of a house in Seddon after the most recent earthquake.

We didn't have any damage to this level in Wellington thankfully - you really have to feel for the people that own this house though. Image from here.

As I say I have always lived with a lot of earthquakes, in fact I'm not sure when earthquakes weren't part of life. You are taught from a very young age to get under you desk/in a doorway/under ANYTHING when an earthquake hits. So much so that's pretty much instinctive. 

In my home province of Taranaki we had quite a few earthquakes, however the earthquakes at home were more rolling and less violent. Often by the time you realised it was an earthquake, it was already over with and there was no need to get under your desk. Besides I spend most of my childhood concerned that the dormant volcano our whole province had been built around was going to explode again and destroy everything.

Yes it does look all serene and calm - but its dormant and not extinct. Scientists think there was last volcanic activity here approximately 350 years ago. Image from here.

Some people have asked is Wellington built to cope with earthquakes - the answer is yes as much as any city can be build to cope with earthquakes. 

Wellington was badly hit by the Wairarapa Earthquake in 1855 - it was the strongest earthquake recorded since colonisation had begun and it is thought to be between 8.1 - 8.3 on the Richter Scale. The earthquake literally lifted new land up from the ocean. 

There are a lot of fault lines running through Wellington - we often get warned about the potential of the "Wellington Fault" and the harm it could potentially cause the city.

Crush zone? That does not sound good at all....

So some of you may be thinking, with the threat of earthquakes and why would anyone in their right mind chose to live in Wellington? I have thought that myself from time to time, after all, I'm not a native Wellingtonian.

For my career - I really need to live in one of the big cities - Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch. I love visiting Auckland but its not somewhere I would ever live (its too spread out geographically and I couldn't walk everywhere) and well as I'm sure you all know if I want to move to avoid earthquakes then moving to Christchurch makes little to no sense. I would dearly love to live in Dunedin - but finding work there is just about impossible for me.

I do know that life isn't all about career - but you do have to do that you love. So in addition to my career Wellington has some of the best friends I have ever made and also there is also loads happening here and its also quite beautiful, so why would I live anywhere else?

Plus its only mother nature going crazy - in so many parts of the world people are tearing each other apart every single day. It's just nature and no one can control nature.

Here we go again!

Well it happened again guys - another fairly big earthquake - this time it was Friday afternoon around 2:30. I was at work of course and I work on the seventh floor of a twelve story movie. Our building moved A LOT and although I know that is a good thing it scared the bejeebers out of me and pretty much everyone else too.

Once the ground FINALLY stopped shaking (although the aftershocks just kept going) and the outside of the building was checked we were sent home. Rich and I live in the central city, so we had no problems getting home as we walk everywhere. But those who live further out of the city and rely on public transport (especially the trains as they were all cancelled) had trouble getting home.

But we are all fine here - kind of freaked out but fine! Rich and I went for a walk a bit later on in the evening and the city still seemed to be pretty lively. The night market was up and running despite the shake.

Here's hoping this is our last big shake for a while, I just got a text from my work saying I can actually go into work on Monday as our building isn't damaged. So I guess we will just all keep on doing what we do in our wee city. 

I hope you all have a super weekend that is completely earthquake free!

zoo fun times!

Basically every year I want to go to the zoo for my birthday and every, single year it rains and rains and rains. That's what you get when you're birthday is mid-July at the height of winter - Rich knew how bummed I was about missing my birthday zoo AGAIN due to rain, so a couple of weeks ago when it wasn't raining we went to visit Wellington zoo - hurrah!

I didn't actually take photos of ALL of the animals, just my favourite ones - well actually my favourite animals that weren't sleepy or snuggled up due to the cold.

First up is the Kunekune - I learnt this time round that kunekune means chubby or round in Te Reo Maori. Also they are the greatest pigs in the world - fact!

We went to check out the most excellent kiwi enclosure they have at the Wellington zoo - until I went to this zoo a few years back, I don't think I had even seen a kiwi up close and I had been to quite a few kiwi enclosures. I think this kiwi enclosure is pretty much the best one in the country - every time I visit I see at least one kiwi and this visit we saw two!

I don't even remember what kind of monkeys these are - but they are adorable and that's all that really matters.

Since we had last been to the zoo they had totally revamped the tiger and sun bear enclosures - it's now an area for awesome animals from Malaysia. The sun bears are my favourite - but they were sleeping.

The lions were one of our next stops - mostly because we could hear them long before we could see them. I guess that people who live near the zoo must get used to all of the zoo sounds (also if I lived nearer the zoo I would have a year pass and go pretty much every weekend).

In the "African Village" part of the zoo we met these two goats, who literally couldn't stop eating - they were pretty fun though. 

The baboons always kind of freak me out a little bit - but I did like the fact they included a mirror where you could check out your own butt!

I have to admit - I loved the art work at the creepy, crawly section and I love seeing the big spiders safe in the knowledge that none of the ones on display are native bugs I'm going to find in my apartment.

Finally I left the best for last - the meerkats! Basically I could just go to the zoo and watch the meerkats for three hours. They are my favourite!

Meerkats forever!! Well that was our wee day out at the zoo - hopefully I can go back again soon when the weather is warmer and more of the animals are out enjoying the sunshine. Enjoy you week xoxo