January stuff

Stuff I've been making

I've finished making a pair of shorts based off the Deer and Doe Acajou pants. Pants are a pain in the ass to fit properly so now that I have a somewhat decent fit on these I'm using them as a base. I already had a pair of shorts in the same fabric but they were just my mockup pair of pants that I cut shorter, so these were done a little bit more properly and hopefully will last a bit longer!

I've picked up a project I started mid last year but didn't progress much with because it was hard and a lot of maths and self drafting, and something I haven't made before: a backpack!

Specifically, this is going to be a backpack for my roller skates and skating gear, to replace the shopping bag that will surely disintegrate if I keep using it to carry my heavy gear every week.

It's based off the Fjallraven Kanken backpack which you've probably seen everywhere, but with a few modifications, namely adding an extra flap on the front that I'll add some clip to, and the skates will be able to be contained in there. I was inspired to do this by Emily from Self Assembly Required who has done something very similar.

I also intend on making a normal sized Kanken knockoff, as it has become my favourite bag to take on trips - it's a great size for fitting under plane seats, lightweight enough to scrunch up small, and fits a ton of stuff.

I've been using a combination of a few different tutorials online to muddle my way into drafting the pattern and figuring out it's construction:

• This German blog one has some great pictures on constructing the front pocket as well as helped me finally understand how to do the zipper flap
• This WithWendy video has some well filmed parts that helped me figure out parts of the construction, but some of the construction felt a little sloppy so I needed to figure out different ways to do it. It has a pattern though if you're interested in making it yourself
• And finally I found this video of someone upcycling a jacket to make a Kanken which had some good construction bits.

I finished making and ripping apart (and making and ripping apart...) my mockup backpack that you can see in the pic yesterday (the one with all the crazy scrap fabric pieces joined together), and have drafted all the pattern pieces and just squeaked through in cutting out the pattern pieces from this leftover scrap of teal kitty fabric. I'm just waiting on all the other notions to arrive to continue that project.

If anyone is interested in a copy of my pattern/instructions let me know

While procrastinating I also made myself a new myki card holder out of this cute Japanese Salaryman Cats Commuting On The Subway fabric I got a few years ago

Garden stuff

It's been very dry here, and we've been wanting to work on making our front yard more water resistant and bird friendly by replacing some of the European plants with natives. We have a loose plan where we want to remove a bunch of the grass, put up a fence at the front and have some native shrubs for privacy along the fence. We also want to make the path go down the centre to the front door, for some reason the previous owners have a pat to the left which only meter readers seem to use cos it's super inconvenient (and overgrown haha).

We do have some native birds hanging out, including a family of magpies that like to chill in our big tree. I was standing under there the other day and looked up and there was like 5 of them quietly sitting right above me. We also had a juvenile rosella parrot hanging out in our fountain out the back having a bath which was very cute.

In terms of veggie garden, my large tomatoes are struggling with the weather and haven't been very productive. But I have some great cherry tomato bushes that are full of fruit so just waiting for them to ripen. I did grow one that looks like a bum though (see above pic) which is always a win.

Other things I did

It was Henry and I's anniversary last week so we had dinner out at a nice local Thai restaurant which was great. We then had dinner with friends at another Thai restaurant a few days later, so really feeling the Thai this week haha.

We went to a local native plant nursery to check out what they had (which was a lot and we were overwhelmed with choice). They also had some nice scones and drinks and a little cafe area to sit in in their garden, and some miniature donkeys and a Cockatoo! (Real and a carved wood simulacrum)

We also went to a special live audience taping of a very niche thing that Henry and I are fans of called Gamey Gamey Game - a video game review/chat show hosted by a bunch of Melbourne comedians (they don't often talk about the game much at all haha). It was a really nice vibe, and fun to see the behind the scenes of how it all comes together.

What I've been watching/playing

• 🍿 Conclave - pretty good movie, got a little bit silly/fantastical at the end which felt quite different to the whole rest of the movie. I wouldn't want to live in those dank lil rooms so I'm not applying to be cardinal anytime soon
• Severance season 2 is out and I forgot how good it is
• 🎮 I'm playing Stardew Valley for the third time because sometimes you wanna farm and chill and not think about the state of the world