water lily dress, a raincoat, and a stripey shirt

05/04/2025 9:19 am \ 2 Comments \

hello!

I’ve been making a few more things lately…

first up; a dress!  I bought this screen printed linen a few years ago from the Injalak Arts Centre, the design is Mandem (Water Lily)  by the indigenous artist Eva Nganjmirra.  The pattern I used is an old favourite by now, Vogue 2900.

 

Something charming about this screenprint, I discovered; was the designer’s “signature” of sorts…of course, I had to carefully cut around this and place it some where semi-prominent.

I decided the pieces had to be highlighted in some way more than just mere seamlines, and utilised a method I have written about previously here… namely this is a bias cut strip that is inlaid over the pieces before joining together.  I had a small length of mustard linen, leftover from this dress, that I used for this purpose.

Unfortunately there wasn’t enough to do every single seam and edge like I have done in previous examples of this method but I just did as many of the more prominent bodice seams before I ran out of it.

I know I’ve used this pattern quite frequently but it really is such a beautiful dress design that I don’t see myself every tiring of it any time soon.  Of course I really should branch out more and I’m resolving to try more new patterns this year and not fall back so often on the old favourites.  In the meantime though, some of my recent as yet unblogged projects have failed this resolution already whoops.

I think my only, somewhat trivial criticism of this design is its lack of shape in the waist area.  I have a pretty high waist to hip ratio that isn’t really suited to this drop-waist design however I still stubbornly persist in wearing it.  Sometimes I think I should try to modify it to look less “boxy” but the bodice pieces are so beautifully proportioned in themselves I’m not really game to fiddle about with it.

 

I wore this along with my me-made mustard clogs out to a meeting with friends recently and managed to grab a quick street shot.  I’ve always liked to get a real world photo the things I’ve made if possible, but it’s sometimes difficult.  If the coast is clear, like this time, I can quickly prop my phone up against my bag on the footpath and take a sneaky timed photo!

My little grandson G randomly ran up to join my while I was taking my more staged photos, which was happily fortuitous since he happened to be wearing a little T-shirt I made for him recently using leftovers from another, s yet unblogged, project to appear here soon.  Once I get my act together!

I used Butterick 5510, a great little pattern that I should probably buy in a bigger size now!  The blue and white striped jersey was tossed out by my friend N during her fabric purge recently.  It’s quite nice stuff, if you don’t mind the suffering that comes with matching stripes in cutting and piecing.  Fortunately I don’t mind this toooooo much.  Maybe just a little, but only if it’s just every now and then.

I lenthened the T-shirt considerably because it’s really way too short otherwise. I don’t know if all my kiddies are just super tall or not but I’ve always found commercial patterns to be ridiculously short and wide.

Please note careful stripe matching.  Oh, another problem with this pattern was the rather small neckline.  After cutting it and subsequently realising it was actually pretty tiny, I recut the neckline, cut some extra neckline edging and pieced it.  One join is pretty good, the other less so… I’m pointing the two out here.  Hopefully they’re not too terrible!  I’m pretty sure G doesn’t mind though, and at least it fits over his head!

I also some leftover raincoat fabric from when I made my sister in law Sandi’s Mundering raincoat, back here; so I drafted and ran up a new raincoat for T.  He’s grown out of his yellow one, blogged here, which will be passed on to G this year.  I lined it with the breathable sporting fabric, a length of which I bought for raincoat vents years ago.  The zip, cord and eyelets happened to be in my stash already too, hurrah.

 

The pockets are just patch pockets. All seams are sealed on the underside using seam sealing wax that I bought for this purpose years ago from the camping and outdoor outfitter store, BCF.

I think he likes it!  He looks pretty cute in it anyway, and I think it turned out a pretty good fit considering I drafted it just using one of his T-shirts.  Phew!

 

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Why do I sew with striped fabrics?!

01/03/2025 1:51 pm \ 7 Comments \

rhetorical question, don’t mind me.  I actually love stripes, even though when I do sew with them I feel inextricably compelled to pin each and every stripe. It’s ok. A small amount of suffering is acceptable when it leads to nice things.

Anyway,  I made a new outfit for myself, in anticipation of the slightly cooler weather that heralds the onset of autumn, hurrah.  The fabric is a really nice, crisp, slightly crinkly, and reassuringly sturdy ticking striped cotton, ivory with steel blue stripes, and a silver thread running through.  I bought it years ago from Fabulous Fabrics, and it’s been one of those lengths of fabric that I’ve “saved” for really a nice project, one far off day. It’s always a lovely thing when that far off day finally dawns.

For the top, I used the new Fibremood Kristy pattern, a smart top with big patch pockets with arrowhead flaps, and a nice shaped collar, with the most rudimentary of collar stands.

I lengthened the sleeves by several inches so I could turn up a cuff, and I love how this looks.  There’s double topstitching just about everywhere although it doesn’t stand out since I used matching ivory thread, but you do pick it up subconsciously.

My skirt is, of course, our own Meelup skirt pattern.  I do feel a bit bad about my possible overuse of this pattern and have decided I really need to branch out a bit with regard to skirt patterns, well, ALL patterns really, but it really does tick all my boxes so well.  Maybe I’ll limit myself to just one of a pattern per year?  worth a thought!

I lined the skirt with ivory poly acetate lining fabric, also from stash.  This adds a bit of necessary body to the skirt too, making it nicer to wear.  In fact, the whole outfit is very comfy, and happily has a certain subtle chic afforded by the details on the Kristy top; I really love it a lot.

I also ran up an adorable little pair of shorts for my littlest grandchild G, using the very last of the leftover “public pool” cotton drill fabric designed by his mother, which I bought from her Spoonflower shop, here.

 

 The pattern I used is Butterick 5510, size M.  This is the biggest size in the envelope, so I’ve realised I need to use it a few more times, and quickly too, before G grows out of it!  I’d almost forgotten how much fun children’s clothes are to make, so quick and easy compared to adult clothes.  I traced out the pattern and finished the shorts in about an hour, tops!

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refashioning some things

23/02/2025 8:20 pm \ 1 Comment \

hello!  I’ve made a new outfit by refashioning some other previously worn old things…   from a skirt and old jeans, I’ve made a new/old tunic top and some new/old shorts.   I realise I probably I should be using some of the new fabric already in my stash instead of “already used” fabric – truthfully I am not very sensible a lot of the time – however if I really like a fabric but not the garment so much then I do feel like it just makes sense to reuse the latter if I can.  Actually, I have been making a number of things lately, and from my stash! but just haven’t got around to taking photos or blogging them yet.  For some reason, I’m finding taking photos to be the biggest challenge now.

Anyway, previously I had this skirt, and some of Mum’s old jeans.

I really love this fabric, but it was ultimately a bit on the flimsy side to be a skirt really.  I am, obviously, much happier with the new things.  To be honest it’s just a casual and fairly unexciting outfit but it is the kind of very comfortable and practical outfit that suits my lifestyle very well for the time being.

For the new top, I partially used a pattern from the Japanese pattern book, Stylish Dress Book, but just for the yoke.  I stitched up the pockets on the old skirt, cut out armholes and stitched it to the yoke.  The armholes are bound with the same linen.  The denim yoke is cut from old jeans, and lined with indigo-dyed linen.  I added a pocket harvested from off of an old pair of jeans.

I made the denim shorts using a heavily modified Pietra shorts pattern by Closet Core patterns.  My version is a lot more A-shaped than the original and there is absolutely no elastication at all.

My littlest grandson G enthusiastically rushed over to join me modelling here … he was so cute and funny! You just have to imagine his huge delighted smile here!  My legs are a little wider and I tapered off all pieces toward the top substantially to make it close fitting about my waist, and inserted an invisible zip in the centre back seam.

I cut the legs to be a little wider at the bottom edge, and substantially tapered off all pieces toward the top to make it more close fitting about my waist.  Closure is by an invisible zip inserted in the centre back seam.  The facings and hem edges are bound with pretty gingham printed cotton, leftover fabric from a very recently finished dress.

I removed the pockets from the jeans, unpicked all the old topstitching thread, and re-stitched these to the shorts back.  I had just enough burnt orange to finish the yoke and pocket on my new tunic top, and used a vibrant and sharp lemon yellow for the shorts.  These, along with the jeans in the first place, were inherited from Mum.

Worn above with my white Booragoon top, blogged here, and below with a matching Sorrento bucket hat in the same MaaiDesign wide checked linen, blogged here.

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tie dyed prettiness

25/01/2025 10:17 am \ Leave a Comment \

I bought this pretty raspberry/cream tie dye cotton? jersey from Stone Mountain fabrics in San Francisco during my trip over there with Yoshimi in late 2019… always with the intention of making a new lingerie set.  Five year later and finally, ta da!   I actually had it all cut out several years ago, and then it languished, and languished…  The fabric is a tad on the thin side, not too thin but just a little.   I think it might have some bamboo in, it has a slight hint of that tell-tale slipperiness.  Maybe that’s why I left it for a while.  Jerseys are so variable, it’s honestly quite amazing.

I used my old favourite, the modified Cloth Habit Watson bra and undies pattern. (see here for my usual modifications) and made my usual bra with two pairs of matching undies.

Because of the slight thinness of the fabric, I lined the bra band completely with a clotted-cream coloured cotton polyester stretch from my stash that I’ve nibbled away at, bit by bit over many years for lingerie purposes.  It has such a great sturdiness to it and it’s the perfect shade of cream.  The undies lining is from the same stuff, and for the cup lining I used more of the tie-dyed jersey.  I invisibly hand stitched the cup and lining together along the seam, for stability.

The elastic is a mix of white and cream colours.  I actually bought all new bits for this project back in 2019, something I haven’t done for a while!  and it was all neatly bundled up together in a little bag with the cut pieces, ready and waiting for me to sew up.  Past me was so considerate.  The strap elastic and rings/sliders were from Homecraft Textiles, the band elastic from a MakeBra lingerie kit, the rest from Spotlight.

This is the first time I’ve used some of this cream-coloured band elastic from the MakeBra kit (above) … it doesn’t have an obvious decorative edging like just about all the others I’ve used, but instead has one slightly thickish rounded ridge along one edge.  When I first bought this kit the lack of a distinct decorative edge confused me so I wasn’t really sure what to do with it but just decided to give it a go using that subtle ridge as the bit that shows.  I’ve decided I like the clean edge and it looks pretty nice actually!

When I first pinned on that white white white hook and eye closure it just looked so glaringly white I had to try something, so soaked it in a cup of black tea for a bit.  I think I overdid this a bit!  the colour turned out a little too strong.  Oh well, we live and learn!

I used a mixture of red and ivory thread for topstitching.  No reason, just that I had it and wanted to mix it up a bit.  I really like doing subtle little features like this.

 

I had a small amount of leftovers so ran up a quick pair of sockettes using the Sytt och Prytt Florens ballerina sockette pattern. (see here). I don’t always blog about these when I make them but I actually wear these sockettes a LOT: with shoes that need an invisible sock, also as a kind of “slipper” for around the house to keep my feet clean, and also over my tights on not-too-cold days to protect them inside my boots/shoes.  The heel and toe area of tights is always the first thing to go and I’ve found that having a thin sockette protects them from wear and tear just that little bit longer, so it’s worth wearing them.  I mean, they’re not gorgeous or couture or anything, but so handy, a good way of using leftover scraps, and very quick and easy to make.

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a checquered tale of a checkered dress

18/01/2025 5:19 pm \ 2 Comments \

I’ve made a simple little dress…  Now I have to admit that such apparent simplicity is actually the anticlimactic outcome of a long, convoluted sewing-and-unpicking, journey which I’m a little embarrassed to relate.  This is one of the failed projects from 2024 which I mentioned in my roundup, and just recently got around to fixing up.

I’d bought this quite nice, slightly spongy, heavily textured cotton check a long time ago now,  almost certainly from a Melbourne trip.  I’m pretty sure it was Tessuti and further have a feeling it was reasonably expensive thus why I really wanted to make something worthwhile from it.

Iteration Number One:

I started out making the Original Digby Cleo dress.  This is a lovely and feminine design, which involved stitching a LOT of self-made, bias-cut channelling for lengths of elastic, to mimic the look of a shirred bodice.  I had high hopes and the result was very pretty, but sadly in the end it was just too young-looking to suit me.  Cassie modelled it for me for these pictures here, but didn’t really want it either, and I wanted to make the fabric into something I could wear.  Out with the unpicker!

Taking off all those long (long) lengths of bias cut channelling took quite a long time, made even more painful with the memory of how carefully I had stitched them on in the first place to perfectly line up the channels with the lines of checks, as well as switching up threads depending on whether I was stitching on a black row or a cream row, this additionally making it more difficult to see the stitches I was unpicking.   I know, I wonder about my own sanity too, sometimes…

Anyway.  Iteration Number Two was essentially the same dress sans the elasticated channels.  I reused the same shoulder straps to be a halter neckline and allowed the otherwise unaltered dress to hang like so.  I actually quite liked it like this and wore it with a little T-shirt underneath a few times.

However, after about six months of this I finally realised what the fabric really wanted to be. I believe fabrics do tell you what they want to be, even if it takes a little time.  Some are shy and take years to let you know, but you just need to trust in the fabric, let it sit there quietly, and it will eventually let you know what its final form should be.  Out with the unpicker once again!

In the end, Iteration Number Three, the final iteration, was very straightforward to achieve.  I settled upon a modified version of a dress from the Japanese pattern book Stylish Dress Book by Yoshiko Tsukiori, specifically dress R.  My final version is more narrowed at the top end, and with the yoke also narrowed in width and the neckline substantially more “filled in”.  I also left off the sleeves through having absolutely no more of the check fabric anyway, and finished the armscyes with self-made black bias binding.  I removed the original inseam pockets – and a big thank you to past me for overlocking all the raw edges separately from each other! – and repositioned them appropriately for the dress’s slightly new form.  The yoke is black cotton denim, cut from the leftovers from my wide-leg jeans from last year, and lined with plain black poplin.  I did decorative white topstitching just for fun, and added a completely frivolous and not-useful-at-all coin pocket to the front yoke, also for fun.  I also reused the “made in 2024” tag that it had from its inception.

Small anecdote; I’d ordered new “made in 2025” labels from the same place Intensely Distracted, back in December.  They were taking a long time to arrive, and I was just starting to wonder what on earth had happened to them when they finally showed up 2 days ago.  Attached to the envelope was a big green “Opened for inspection by ABF” sticker, also inside was a little note explaining that my goods were opened and inspected by Australian Border Force and found to contain no problematic components so were being forwarded to me in full.  Amazing that this very innocuous packet of sew in labels was suspicious enough to get yoinked out for a personal inspection…

Anyway, the dress!  I’m so happy with its final iteration.  I feel like such a bold check is most perfectly suited to a very simplified style like this, much more age appropriate, not too fussy and a lot more me.  And it feels so lovely and light to wear.  I absolutely love it!  I first wore it just the other day, when I took my oldest grandson Arthur shopping for his 5th birthday present.  I know, 5 already!  I can hardly believe it.  We had such a lovely morning shopping together, just the two of us, choosing something he liked.  It was so funny because he liked literally everything! and it was actually quite difficult to narrow it down to just two things.  Then after we got home we spent a bit of time playing with his new toys and it was such a nice time.  I love being a Granny!

 please excuse the totally gratuitous Clara pic…

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pool

10/01/2025 4:04 pm \ 1 Comment \

how beautiful is this fabric?!  My daughter Cassie designed this very pretty, inviting and perfectly summery scene and of course her proud mother had to buy some.  The name of the print is “public pool”, available in her Spoonflower shop here, and the fabric is a very nice lightweight cotton drill.  I’d bought it several years ago, before my self-imposed fabric-buying ban … I have bought a few pieces of fabric from Spoonflower over the years and love using their fabrics; it’s a little expensive but the quality is really good, and I really love it!  I still have a few more of those pieces hanging around in my stash. #embarrassing

I finally decided on a little skirt and naturally chose our own Meelup pattern, my current favourite.  I apologise for being repetitive, but I just find it very easy to make, super comfortable to wear, and I love the pockets so much.  This is one of the four unblogged projects from last year that I mentioned, actually from about April or May or somewhere about there… but I didn’t get around to wearing it straightaway because winter was almost upon us, let alone blogging it, then decided to leave it until summer.  But then I sorta lost track of blogging for a little while in there.  Anyway, here it is.

I lined it with a pale green polyacetate lining fabric, a long term stash resident.  Rather than photos, I actually made little making-of video, for fun, and Cassie made the last frames with our pattern cover cleverly transitioning in like that.  I like making videos but it does take up a lot more time obviously. I really admire people who can make them so effortlessly and would really like to be better at it.  If I can l’ll try to improve myself in this area.  I hope you enjoy it!

             https://youtube.com/shorts/URnHXyaBYpM           

Deets; I’m wearing it above with one of my Booragoon tops, and clogs I made myself using a kit from Leather Needle Thread

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pink gingham

03/01/2025 12:13 pm \ 2 Comments \

hello! I’m pleased that I made productive use of the Christmas break and managed to make a new thing…

I used the very last of my “made in 2024” tags in the little breast pocket.  Honestly, the dress was actually cut out in and partially made in 2024.  So, 2024 or 2025?  It’s kind of a “saddle” project really, spreading itself from last year to this one.  I think I can use the tag with a clear conscience. 🙂

I used our own Carolyn & Cassie Pattern Co. Yallingup dress pattern, which I love wearing during summer. It’s the perfect breezy casual beach dress, imho.  I used a rather intense hot pink gingham-printed Japanese cotton, bought using a Fabulous Fabrics birthday voucher from my friends.  Also, please excuse me while I go and correct my recent retrospective post, I forgot that this fabric was also purchased new last year, whoops!  At least all my purchased fabrics got used in the year they were bought.

I laid the dress pieces on the cross, and the front overlay on the bias, and used some of the leftover bits to cut extensions to the front overlay so the ties are a bit longer, about 10cm or so.  I really like them this longer length.

As per our pattern, I flat felled the side seams, which I always think looks really nice.  You can see here that I used red thread to sew the dress up; this is because it was in my stash already and I didn’t want to buy new thread.  I thought this would be fine, and it is really.  I hand-stitched the hem.

A casual passerby would never see any of the bias binding finishes on the inside of the dress, but these give me a lot of joy too.  I bias-bound the pocket edges, and the back neckline and armhole edges are bound according to the pattern.  Gingham makes the prettiest bias binding! Because of this I actually cut up the entirety of the leftovers and made it into bias binding that I can use on a future project, so please look out for that!

It was hideously windy on the beach this morning which makes the above pictures a realistic portrayal of my day, however it does make everything look a little wild.  Thus, a still picture where the dress is not being blasted to bits.  Honestly, the things I do…

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2024; a retrospective

31/12/2024 3:58 pm \ 16 Comments \

Hello!  it’s the very last day of the year, which for this blog is the day that I look back on my year of making/creating/wearing and summarise such things… first off, here’s a favourite outfit/photo from each month of the year.  Every thing that I’m wearing in every photo is made by me, only excepting the winter boots.  May has two just because I couldn’t choose between them. I always do me-made May so I always have too many pictures to choose from!

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

sooo… I just checked out my last day of 2023 post and was kinda amused that several outfits from this year’s retrospective were basically identical or near identical to last year’s selection…   all I can say is who even am I?!  I actually barely took any photos this year.  Anyway…

what did I make this year? 

I made 52 items this year which includes 5 things for others.  The total includes; 5 dresses, 4 skirts, 3 knitted children’s cardigans, 1 knitted child’s beanie, 1 simple jacket, 1 sewn jumper, 5 knitted adult jumpers/cardigans, 1 knitted neck warmer, 4 knitted cushions, 2x prs knitted socks, 10 shirts/tees, 1 pr pjs, 1 pr bathers, 2x lingerie sets (“set” comprising 1 bra + 2prs undies), 2 prs jeans/trousers, 1 bunny plus bunny outfits … and also 13 full items in testing my patterns – I don’t usually include tests in my numbers but I’ve decided they should count since I finish everything off following the pattern faithfully to test it.  I usually use sheets to make these and there have been very few that get added to mine or anyone else’s wardrobe afterwards!

Looking back over my tally I can see there are 4 things in there that I haven’t even blogged about yet.  Oh dear, so slack.  I will photograph and blog those 4 things soon.

In pattern making, Cassie and I released our Karijini dress pattern for our Carolyn & Cassie Pattern Co.  This is possibly our most advanced and difficult pattern so far and I’m so happy and proud we finally got it out there.

how is the stashbusting going?

I’ve done pretty well with stashbusting this year! and have bought very little.  I used a birthday voucher to buy some denim for my new pair of jeans and a length of cotton for a dress, flannelette for my pjs, and I bought one piece of souvenir fabric in Japan.  I’m very pleased that every single other thing I’ve made has been from my existing stash.  Obviously I will continue to use my stash, and hopefully it will be reduced to nothing by the end of 2025?!  I think I’ve been saying this for several years now!  I wonder when it will actually happen?

Also this year I embarked on a plan to stashbust my wool supplies too.  See, at some point I foolishly accepted my Mum’s and others leftover yarn and over time it accumulated bit by bit to about three rather large bags, very little of which I had bought or chosen for myself.  I pledged at the beginning of 2024 to knit one project per month, and I somehow managed to achieve this too.  phew!  To be honest, this was a pretty demanding challenge and I found it quite exhausting.  And I still have a largish bag of leftovers to get through! There’s still some wool in there that I actually like and will try to use next year, however I’m going to be a bit kinder to myself and throw out some of the no-so nice stuff.  Trust me, there’s a lot that is not nice at all.  I really can’t get through one project per month again, but I think I can manage one per two months?  Let’s see how that goes!

favourite makes?I’m extremely happy with my polka dot Karijini dress above, and my new wide leg jeans below.

Favourite knitted item is actually this funny green/blue striped jumper.  Kinda hilarious since I genuinely worried while I was making this that I was going to hate it.  Ha! There’s just something about it that tickles my fancy and I absolutely love it.

any fails?

I guess something that has me going “meh” a bit was this top…  I’m sad about this since I initially thought it was wonderful.  In the end I think the mix of fabrics doesn’t really work and paradoxically it doesn’t really go very well with its matching skirt.  If I ever see the tartan fabric again then I would like to buy just a bit more to remake the top in just that fabric, and I’ll use more of the cream fabric to complete this one.

Also I have to confess that two of my unblogged items were fails, there’s no point in sugarcoating that, and no doubt why I haven’t had the enthusiasm to blog them yet.  I am in the process of renovating them in order to save them, so I will blog about that when the time comes.

what did I wear?

my most worn items of clothing this year can be summarised in the following ootd pics:

Individually, my most worn clothing items this year were my black/mustard cargo skirt (29 wears), pink Jade miniskirt (24 wears), blue/grey Jade miniskirt and my new pink Jasper sewn jumper (both with 21 wears each).  This excludes my black tights, socks, nightwear and underwear, all of which of course get the most wears of all!  I’ve also stopped counting my me-made raincoat, which gets a lot of wears.

I think particularly during winter I went through a bit of a slump and a symptom of that was me just grabbing the same things over and over again and generally feeling uninspired.  Next year I really want to pull up my hand knitted socks and hopefully be a little more engaged.  I do believe that your clothing, or your public facing armour if you like, can help to lift your mood, and if you’re feeling a bit down then it shows.

So, decision….I’ve actually decided to go back to taking a mostly daily outfit photo.  I know, surprise!  I won’t put too much pressure on doing it every single day… but I think I’ve realised that funnily enough, taking photos spurred me on to making a bit more of an effort, and reflected an inner feeling of caring more.

other things in general

I’m still studying Japanese every day, in fact during 2024 I finally finished the Duolingo Japanese course!  I’ve moved onto reading some books that I bought in Japan during our visit, which is another challenge in itself.  I’m always coming across kanji that I’ve literally never seen before… to be honest this is sometimes a little disheartening.  I honestly think I will never be anywhere close to even halfway fluent in my lifetime.  Oh well, it keeps the brain working, I suppose!  In 2025 we will be going to South Korea for the first time, and Japan again so I’m really excited to see Yoshimi again and to further practise my Japanese.  We also plan to go hiking in Italy and Norway too, so please look forward to some more Travel Wardrobe blog posts!

In looking after my physical health;  at the beginning of winter I started swimming in our pool, first thing every morning, which feels amazing!  At first it was bitterly cold and I could only stay in the pool for about 5 seconds or so before leaping out!  Well, it was winter and our pool is unheated!  Very soon though I worked up to a few minutes, and now I do laps.  This has felt like a really amazing addition to my daily routine and I can’t do without it now!  I still walk a minimum of 12,000 steps/day and next year I will be taking up pilates.  Aaaaand I suddenly realised I have no bonafide exercise gear.  Maybe I need to make some, straight away?

So that’s all, I think!  To conclude, for those who are still reading, then I would like to thank you very much for doing so.  I really do appreciate everyone who reads this silly frivolous blog and leaves a kind and generous comment every so often; each and every comment really does make me so happy.  I’m truly thankful for every one.

I know 2024 has been challenging for lots of people, so I hope most of us are able to look back on the year that was with some happy memories in there.  And I would sincerely like to wish you all a healthy, rewarding and creative 2025 to come!

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