Stocking tomorrow

The stocking of new nappies and dresses will be on tomorrow (Tuesday September 21st) at 8pm Central Standard Time. All items can now be previewed on the site. Hope you get smething you want! Remember for locals you can pick up your items and not have to pay postage, just click request totals and send me a message to let me know.

Finally.....mangolime dresses

I cannot tell you how much fun I am having making mangolime dresses. I have been pondering this for a long long time, and experimenting, and sourcing and accumulating fabric (my top skill), and have finally got to the point of actually making some dresses. I tell you what - I am on a roll. I love making these beautiful, wearable, pieces of art. Mostly they are a walking ode to Etsuko Furuya, my favourite designer of all time. The full details will be on the mangolime website in a couple of days when I stock (I have not yet put them up on the site), but the two styles are a peasant dress and a pinafore style, both of which can be worn as dresses or tops. I have done a couple of photo shoots with my beautiful little friends and nieces and feel ready to launch this new line! I hope you like it. I am starting off with 5 special dresses, and have so many more fermenting in my head. These will be available at the next stocking along with a new batch of nappies, which at this stage, depending on Mr Mango's imminent return and hence return of some me-time, is looking like Tuesday night.

(Don't those little pudgy arms just reach out of the screen and say "squish me! you know you want to!"???)

Am loving this function on our new camera bought in Singapore - Did I tell you we went to Singapore? The function highlights one colour of your choice, which doesn't give a totally accurate image of the product as it leaves out all the other beautiful colours, but it makes for a gorgeous nostalgia shot, especially with all that coordinating bougainvillea!

and just because i can't resist another one of my littlest niece Amelie, the easiest baby in the whole world to babysit:

Singapore - the land of breakfast, breakfast, lunch, lunch, dinner, dinner....and tiffin

Mr Mangolime and I had such a good time in Singapore. It is amazing to just be a couple again, without all the non-stop super-consciousness necessitated by having kids. We felt so indulgent and selfish, sleeping in, walking lots (no little voices: I'm tiiiiiired), looking at museums (no little voices: I'm booooored), eating (no little voices: this is spiiiiiicy and yuuuuky), shopping (no little voices: I just did a wee on the floor!), and lots of other fun stuff. The children had a wonderful time with their beautiful cousins and lovely aunties, uncle and grandparents - we are so lucky to have such support. 

Singapore truly is the land of good food. How can you not love a city where every time you turn a corner there is another food hall? It is my perfect place. We gorged on masala dosa, vadai, vegetarian thali, yum cha, more masala dosa, banana prata, all washed down with lassis and lime juice. Yum.

In between meals, I did search a bit for fabrics. Apart from Malin Textiles which had some cute Japanese stuff, most of what I saw was synthetic. Oh well.....looks like I may need to go to Tokyo next!

a plumber's house is always leaky

I'm sure its the same for anyone else who makes stuff to sell - their own kids run around in shabby crap and they wear whatever is not in the wash. People expect me and my kids would have a beautiful handmade wardrobe, but the reality is Little Mr A gets all the nappy seconds and the pile of beautiful fabrics that I want to make into skirts for myself just keeps getting bigger and bigger....one day. Sometimes it takes a last minute clothes crisis to spurn me on, and a national conference at which I am giving the opening welcome was just the thing I needed!

I love this hand screenprinted fabric from the Babbarra Women's Art Centre of Maningrida in East Arnhem Land, featuring long necked turtles and lily pads. I have some more fabric from the Centre that I will whip up into skirts, next time I feel the pressure! And yes, that champagne went down VERY well....