making

im just going to begin typing words and see where i end up...

 ive been back making ladies wrap dresses again. playing around with embroideries and placing deep pockets on an updated folksy style. im loving making these once more plus they are selling faster than i can make them, which helps, only thing is i cant seem to stop, and neither are the orders. ive never stuck at making something for so long before now. i usually move on very quickly.

 just between you and i, ladies have been waiting for me to make more of this wrap style

 as far back as october last year. eeek

and i didnt feel like making them. double eeek.

 well im so glad thats all changed around now and ive got my sewjo back in full swing.

can someone please come up with another word to replace sewjo?

ill be most grateful.

i got this red fabric overseas when i was in a holiday mood. can you tell?

its not my usual type of print is it...

realising that mexicana is in trend right now im going to part with some much-coveted-by-me embroideries

for some dresses, however ive been saying that for about a month and have yet to cut one up.

this was one that sold before id finished making it. boy thats a terrible blurry shot (sorry).

the whole peter pan collar thing is not me, but ill now happily make them for others. only not joyfully or gleefully.

i had been fighting against doing this type of doiley placement for so long, but ill concede and give you ladies what you want. give me the folksy vibe over twee anyday.

this shot is from a day of making on instagram.

join me on there as smallforestshop if you like :)

see... im even doing smiley faces in here now because of its influence!

catch you!

sorted

 

 

 

hello people who have been waiting for me to get sorted, (waves)

and a welcome hello to a smattering of new followers (jumping and waving)

 

yep

here i am awake in the middle of the night with possibly too much on my mind, even for me,

 so have finally updated the fabric sample page. well... who would have thought hey? definitely not me thats for sure.

this has been needing serious attention let me tell you, but its been so sooo long that ive forgotten alot of blog basics. like how to set one up with certain links in place as a page attachment, like i said.

the basics. 

which makes me get more annoyed with myself for not keeping up with this space. but it couldnt be helped with all the upheaval of this last year. were still not quite settled in tot his new place so when you see me homemaking and rearranging its my attempt to ground myself and feel nestled. especially when im in the garden which is my happy place right now. the mr's too!

 

 

its time to get back on track and, as always, with the changing of seasons its easier to get back into the swing of things and breathe fresh new life into something neglected.

 so here is the link for those of you who would like to see whats in my stash right now.

 

and ive just heard the first kookaburra for the day so should go back to bed while i can.

mum and i have a girly day planned around appointments so you just might see some pictures of what we get up to...

 

 

making this home

ill try to fill you guys in. 

heres the as-short-as-is-possible-for-me version of life for the last six months.

wait, seven.

weve been in this house in country victoria for around five months. 

being us, we slowed right down with all things normal and decided to do the unusual for a while. lots of odd things that had been on hold. both of us got highly creative when we first landed. which only made us frustratingly disfunctional with the everyday stuff, but most times choosing to laugh about life as we know it now. 

to further explain why i havent been here-here,

all the usual technology wasnt up and running at first so i couldnt get back to the blog right away like i had planned. 

to add insult to injury we get incredibly bad tv reception which i dont really mind, unless i want to watch Grand Designs or garden shows, but if i never know when they are playing then i really dont miss them.

i would like to watch The Block. ive only seen the first season.

  

we went away a couple of times, because you can when you dont have anywhere to live.
one of those times to meet our sublime

new grandson in perth. this boy is perfection. although he is rather large and is wearing the same size clothes as his almost two year old sister.

up til now our main income has been my clothing business so

over the summer holidays i booked myself into way too many markets. way more than i could handle. 

 i hung on crazily restocking in between weekends, which wasnt difficult when the mr went way beyond the boundaries of required support. always coming with me on market day, but this simply added a bit of fun. i like having him with me.

these days things are slowing and settling down nicely. probably because the markets round up soon

i started setting the table for breakfast like my grandparents used to do. 

im almost, almost in a routine. but fighting it just the same. 

i forgot to mention the main choice of this country move. to be closer to my mum. 

she pops in everyday and its wonderful to be nearby sharing the everyday stuff. 

theres the deepest linen cupboard here imaginable and blankets fit on the floor inside. not the ones ready for the chop. theyre upstairs in another deep cupboard. 

the storage in this place is a womans dream as its hidden cleverly inside walls but the house itself has only one drawback. theres no bath. 

and we are big bath people. i want to put one in the garden

im still moving things around and am

doing a bit of reshuffling this weekend, while the mr is away on a family fishing trip.

i didnt want to go, even though the grandbabies would be there. i simply wanted to use this time to clear some long overdue designs from my head and get them to the cutting table.

i like having the solitude plus i still have college for another few months.  

the real bonus is that we have a green house. 

its what caught my eye when i was scrolling through real estate.com late one night 

when all the rental houses were starting to look the same. 

im still almost pinching myself of a morning that we're finally here and

 making this home.

thanks for waiting out there for me to come back to. it would have been really weird of you werent.

thankyou!

thankyou!

im just in here saying a huge thankyou to you wonderful ladies

 who popped in to leave me a comment,

for finding my blog for me,

and basically just letting me

know that all was not lost.

ive been trying to get back here forever!

 and i mean 

f  o  r  e  v  e  r  !

i dont know where to start to explain so i wont.

but im very, very grateful that you are all still here.

so...you may have noticed,

ive done a little house rearranging with the new name and all, and ill be filling in the blanks

soon enough, with updated links to the side bar to get things back on track. 

boy i have missed the way

 this place helps me sort my daily thoughts, giving me the creative focus that someone such as me craves, 

not to mention all of you there to listen to the ramble. 

i cant find anymore words at present so im outa here for tonight. 

but

for now im simply happy to be back.

 

its been real let me tell you.

ps. for those of you who popped by the other day, ill be emailing you

personally with a little surprise i have in store. so please make sure ill be able to contact you via your profile

catch you tomorrow!

help needed

im in need of some assistance.

if you are able to view this page then hooray! 

thats wonderful, for i myself am having issues getting into my own account, so am having to perform a bit of problem solving.

If you are able to read this and have the time i would very much appreciate

your help by way of a comment so that I know if you have been and that access is possible, 

but mostly to give me a glimmer of hope. that im on the right track.

i did something silly and changed the name of my blog around a week back to 

Small Forest Shop Blog

and 

since then things have been weird.

so im going to say thankyou in advance and ill be keeping my fingers crossed!

a very unusual happening

a very unusual happening happened. 

unless you are on Instagram (i am well and truly on it) you may not know that

a bit of dressmaking has been going on in the new studio this past week. 

summer dresses for women is what ive been endeavouring to achieve all summer and hadnt, which led me into today when a customer unwittingly forced me to return to the blog and post a sample page. til now i never realised how it might be possible for someone else to make this happen, for as far as i was concerned i would remain the master of my own fate, no matter how seasonally challenged i had become.

i have been trying to get back to here since the beginning of this year which is, or now was, a self imposed deadline that was never meant to be.

and now im here again, not quite finding the words of proper return but ill muddle through anyway.

the ladies wrap dress samples are below.

i do have more, as any of you who are on Instagram are aware, if youve seen the studio makeover that just happened, so i will try to update again within the month.

for now happy browsing and please leave a comment to place an order...   

    

www.piecebywendyhill.etsy.com

housesitting

for the moment we housesit this house that we found out about in the eleventh hour.

two days before we moved, one day before the mr heard he had at long last received his redundancy.

happy doenst even come close to how im feeling since the big news. we are both over the moon with the possibilities that this life change will bring. the mr turns fifty next year so the timing couldnt be more right.

i have a tiny little table to one side of the living space to sew at, and sitting here stitching away at clothes for the shop, ive found im allowing myself to dream up all kinds of wonderful. for as long as this housesitting lasts 

i will continue with the dreamy because ive decided that it is a good stage to be at. life, for a while there, had been too much about getting things done and writes as a big blurry smudge on the page of my year.

this is why i wasnt able to be present to this space that i have always loved and relied upon.

no words were forming some days. most days, i admit.

coming highly recommended by my friend eleesa, i found that the ease of instagram was the fast fix i turned to although the last thing i wanted was yet another challenge. its easy, fast and it fixed me by filling a void while i couldnt blog. three days in a row ive been back to here and i think im getting back on track with a little bit of normality. 
heres hoping! 

making

i didnt feel like i wanted to close shop during the move. so i didnt. instead i placed an announcement on the shop page over at etsy, that i wouldnt be taking orders until we were settled in again, however i somehow never counted on no-one seeing it, even though its there for literally all the world to see. 

so then, me being me, by the time the seasons began to warm, so did i (to the idea of sewing custom items), and the orders that have begun coming in thick and fast are welcome. 

but im left wondering why they are orders for more jackets?!

if youre loving the blue dress above its available in the shop. i cannot take credit for this lovely piece as i kind of placed my own order for it with a good friend who made it for me while i was side tracked with all thats been going on. 

if you look closely, the jackets above are still buttonless at the time of photographing them for their listings, such is the way of things at textured leaf studio for the moment!

homely

here are a few bits and pieces of our old home that we have left behind now. shots quickly taken before the final moving day, which we're still reeling from by the way.

it struck me while i was packing up, especially when i stopped in my tracks at seeing this blanket label, that things would not feel homeleigh for a while yet.

 im missing the old place daily but focusing forward on what the next adventurous weeks will bring. and i mean adventurous.

we will soon be heading off to cambodia again (its been a whole year already),

which will give us plenty of time to unwind and sketch out some sort of plan for our next year or two, and since the mr has just taken a long-wished-for redundancy, there will be just the perfect amount of adventure i think, dont you? 

speaking of the mr, he flew back to his home country new zealand in the wee hours this morning, while im left behind to hold the fort, studying, keeping the shop updated (barely) and somehow saying goodbye to navarh, adelin and violet, who move back to perth this week to be closer to her family. but before you all go wondering how this must be sad for me, im so overjoyed for adi's mum to have her only daughter return home that i find im not sad. not yet anyway. 

tomorrow will be our last day together for a few months but with new baby almost here things seem exciting enough and the distance doesnt seem to matter. im going to become very good at skype.

one day in the not too distant future you will see me setting up studio in a whole new place.

hopefully with some new inspiration to add to my line. after all, theres nothing like a new baby in the family for inspiration.

i dont quite know what the next few months will bring or where we will end up settling, but for now i have to be settled being content.