Red and white blocks for Clare

I made two blocks for Quilts for Leukaemia at Easter, with the promise to make another couple soon. Well soon turned into two months, later but here they are all finished! It was working with all that red and white fabric for mum's table runner that spurred me on! (And yes, those are my husband's not-so-sexy knees you can see in the corner of that photo!)
I made up the butterfly block myself, using templates, as a trial run for the two hungry caterpillar quilts I want to make next (one for Rom and one for Bub#2). They were moderately successful. Clare, I hope they're acceptable!I also managed to snap a photo of Romily wearing her new dress yesterday. Doesn't she look pleased with herself? Unfortunately it's a bit blurry - I was lucky to get that photo - she just goes nutso when I'm trying to take photos of her these days.

No sewing here this weekend. Have been busy with dinner guests last night - we haven't seen them for months - and a playdate for Romily this morning at my friend's place. Romily and I have had long sleeps together yesterday and today, which is lovely, but boy it chews into your weekend!

And I'm sorry I've been so slack keeping up with people's blogs. 512 unread posts, according to Bloglines. I've been so tired that getting onto the computer just hasn't been happening. I'll get there eventually :)

Only nine weeks left at work and then I'll be on maternity leave awaiting the arrival of #2. Bring it on. There's so much going on at work I am just wishing the next nine weeks away! I hope the bub lets me have a least a week at home putting my feet up!

Happy Mother's Day

Okay, so I'm a day late, but hey! Happy Mother's Day to all the mummies out there. I hope you all had a good day. These flowers came to me the week before mother's day - a present from Carl. Isn't he wonderful?

My day on Sunday was just lovely. A card and special Bruno's truffles from Carl and Romily (the card came complete with a smiley face drawing by Rom) was followed by breakfast made by Carl (Rom will no doubt be all over that next year!) and then a trip to the zoo.

Romily helped me make a carrot and walnut cake, which we left cooking while we had a sleep together. Carl took it out of the oven for me while we were still sleeping. Unfortunately the thermostat on our oven is stuffed and no matter how much I reduce the temperature and cooking time by, it burns the tripe out of the top and sides and leaves the middle uncooked! I ended up putting the cake in the microwave to finish it off, but of course that dried it out. I iced it with cream cheese icing anyway and we're eating it over the next few days! No more cakes here - I think I'll stick to muffins and slices! I will post a copy of the muffin recipe I'm using in the next couple of posts...just have to type it up!

Then we went round to our friends' house for a late afternoon tea - I didn't end up taking my poor excuse for a cake - a good thing too, as there was oodles of cake already there!!

Romily was on her best behaviour all day and was an absolute delight. Bub#2 got in on the act with some kicking during a Braxton Hicks contraction. That was not delightful! A reminder of what's to come in three short months!

I quite enjoyed the course last week - it was probably the best leadership course I've been on, as it was run by a couple of really fantastic faciliators and tailored to the Australian Public Service, which is a peculiar beast and has plenty of foibles! They really got us to take a long hard look at our lives and realise that family is far more important than work could ever be...it put what I'm doing at work in perspective and made me realise that I'm devoting way too much energy to things I can't change at work, not leaving me with enough energy for what's most important to me - my family. I am working towards destressing about work and just doing my best every day without taking on everyone else's work! Let's see how long I can keep that up. I finish up work in less than 10 weeks now, so I won't have a choice soon :)

Here are a couple of photos of the table runner I made for my mum for mother's day.
It's also from the Denyse Schmidt Quilts book - in the book it's a full single bed quilt, but I thought it would make a really interesting table runner and it did. I did simple hand quilting on the red fabrics - I think it really works. Might even be tempted to use these blocks again (there are three in this table runner) for a full quilt one day.

Dress for Romily

While Rom was more than happy to help out with drawing a winner for the giveaway on Sunday, the little bugger, er I mean darling, would not, point blank, try on the dress I made for her! Little so and so! Nearly three and full of independence...I just don't know where she gets that from...

So, a photo of the dress on a hanger will just have to do.
And yes, the decorations on the box were Romily's work! She loves 'decorating' things, and talks about when she gets bigger she can have her own 'chine' (sewing machine) and pins and will make quilts for her little brother. Gorgeous! Another quilter in the making :)

We received some more wonderful mail during the week. The very generous Doodlebug Gail sent Romily some more Dora the Explorer books, some stickers and some Dora band-aids! Gail's daughter thought the 'little girl in Australia' might like some - oh yes she did! Thank you so much Gail for thinking of us on the other side of the world. Although it is a bit strange explaining to Romily why some of the words are in Spanish! I love it though, as I would hope that Rom learns a language or two just as I did. I never learnt Spanish, but studied French and Italian at school and at university, so I can understand a lot of Spanish and was able to pick up a bit of conversation on my two visits there. Hopefully one day I can get to South America and learn a bit more!

I'm heading off for a couple of days this week - I'm on a leadership course as part of my professional development with work. I'll miss Rom and Carl terribly, but it will be nice to have some time out!

I am taking with me a table runner/bed dresser that I'm making for my mum for mother's day, which is this coming Sunday. The pattern is another one from the Denyse Schmidt book in my previous post. I have finished it bar the hand quilting. I hope to get some work done on it after the group dinner each night. Mum's away in Tasmania for a couple of weeks, so if the present goes into the post early next week, it'll be waiting for her when she gets home. It's looking good, so I'll post a photo on the weekend when I return from my travels.

And the winner is...

It was all excitement here this morning, as Romily helped oversee the drawing of the winning name for my first ever giveaway!
All the names on little pieces of paper folded up inside the box...
Here comes the winner...
Hey, how does this work? Oh it's upside down - the name is Gabrielle!
And Gabrielle, who has just announced she is pregnant with number two, is the lucky winner of two quilted oven mitts.
These adorable creations are from the Denyse Schmidt Quilts book, made with Denyse Schmidt fabrics. I hope you enjoy using them as much as I did making them Gabrielle. Email me with your address and they'll soon be on their way :)

A little giveaway and a finish!

To mark 300 posts on this humble little blog, I am launching my very first giveaway! Leave a comment by Thursday night and Romily will help me draw the winner of a mystery prize :)

We've been busy since I posted last - 10 whole days ago. And I've been tired too. We've also been moving furniture - our computers and all the junk that goes with them from the top floor to the bottom floor, built a new chest of drawers for Rom (well, assembled would be more accurate) and moved the old chest of drawers, which doubles as a baby change table, up from our bottom floor to the top. All this physical work has tired me out! I guess that's allowed at 25 weeks pregnant!
I have also managed to squeeze in a little bit of quilting time, finally finishing 'Spring Breeze' - my little quilt for the Four Seasons Quilt Swap - it'll be on its way to the US tomorrow. I am quite happy with how it turned out - although I am not sure I would have done such a complex quilt (for a beginner) if I'd realised how complex it actually was when I started:

1. First time I've used organza/gauze over the fabric and under the quilting (centre panel)
2. First time I've tried quilt as you go (and it was a bit rough)
3. First time I've tried perspective
4. First time I've tried a pieced border (not perfect, but hey!)
   

Click for a close-up of the effect the organza gives - quite effective! Learnt this trick at the Beth & Trevor Reid workshop I did recently...and the free motion quilting techniques!

Probably too many firsts for a 19 1/2" square quilt! Anyhoo, it's done now and I hope my swap recipient likes it - she asked for 'brights no pastels' and her favourite colours are lime, turquoise and purple. I'm thinking this meets those 'criteria'!

Click for a close-up of the quilting on the reverse side

I also finished off a dress I made for Romily, although my little model was being less than cooperative today, so that photo will have to wait. Meanwhile, you can see from this sequence of photos that Romily has taken to playing dress ups with her own clothes. There are four t-shirts and two pairs of track pants on in these shots. Goodness knows how she gets them on, but she is a determined little minx :)
I had some more wonderful mail during the week. The notecards I ordered from Doodlebug Gail arrived in super-speedy time from Canada - they are gorgeous! And one is on its way to the US! Talk about round-the-world mail :)

And the very, very generous Sarah over at Quilt Fabric Delights sent me a huge satchel of fabric she had left over from making clothes for her gorgeous girls. She refused to take any money for it - she said she'd be satisfied seeing it put to good use. I will make sure that happens!
We've also managed to do a bit of baking, with Romily loving helping me make these muffins. My goodness they are good! Jammed full of peach, coconut, white choc bits and brown choc bits. Yummo!Romily and I are continuing our crazy scrambled eggs tradition on Sunday mornings - experimenting with food colouring to make all different whacky coloured eggs. While they may look revolting (except to mad-keen Dr Seuss fans), they taste exactly the same! We still haven't worked out how to make blue eggs - the yellow in the egg yolk turns all of our combinations green! We tried for purple last week, only to end up with brown...hmmm, I definitely tried NOT to look that particular day :) So if you have any tips on how to make yellow into blue, please leave a comment!
Early yesterday morning (6.30am) we braved the cold and a pea-souper fog - our first for the year - to head down by the lake for the annual Canberra balloon festival. It was very cold and after an hour Rom was asking to go home...the balloons can't take off in fog, so it would have been a very long wait to see them take off. Fortunately we had hot drinks and some yummy muffins with us for breakfast - they helped, but it was still freezing!We also managed to squeeze in a visit to the biennial Queanbeyan Quilters show last weekend. I only took a few photos as I wasn't too impressed with the quilts I saw and my camera battery died anyway! But I'll save those photos for the next post...I think I've rambled on for long enough!

Ooooh good mail!

I came home to some wonderful mail yesterday!

First, there was my Four Seasons spring quilt from the lovely Tracy - very funny two Aussie gals making spring quilts in autumn! Look at the lovely tulip block - very spring indeed!
And Tracy spoiled Romily with some hair clips, hair ties, sticker ladybugs and a magnifying glass (which you can't see here as Romily has claimed it all for herself already!) all in a cute zippered bag. Thank you Tracy!

Then there was my fabric order from Virginia Quilter - yes, Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric. A centre panel x 2 and four metres of matching fabric. I am planning on making matching quilts for Romily and Bub#2 - a single bed quilt for Rom and a cot quilt for the baby. It's very cute fabric - the colours are exactly as you'd expect them to be!

Also last week a beautiful book arrived from the Book Depository - the Alabama Stitch Book. It's a wonderfully presented book that shows you how to recycle old t-shirts and make them into things of beauty. Lots of lovely ideas in here - and everything, I mean everything, is stitched by hand :-o - I was inspired to buy this after seeing it on Blair's Wise Craft blog. Gorgeous.
Finally, and by no means least, I have ordered some gorgeous quilty notecards from Doodlebug Gail. Get ye on over to her blog, where she's having a giveaway of some sample packs of her lovely cards. She's such a generous woman and now she has some fab notecards for you to buy and share with all your quilting buddies :)

No more progress on my Four Seasons quilt - better get a wriggle on! I have just been too tired to do anything. Tonight is the night - I MUST get that appliqué happening!!

Some Spring Breeze progress

LOL I just read over my last post...methinks I was a little too tired when I wrote it - not sure if it actually made all that much sense! Thank you all for your too-kind 'yummy mummy' comments - I just don't look too closely and I can almost believe it!

I was just cleaning up some photos in the huge photo gallery on my computer and came across photos of me pregnant with Romily - there are only two weeks (and three years) difference between due dates, so it's easy to compare how far along I was last time with how big my belly is now...I feel a lot bigger this time, but apparently I'm not! Gosh I was big from five months last time too! I can feel all my abs stretching up near my ribs and I know I've got a long way to go. At least I'm well past the half-way mark now :) I might even risk a side-by-side belly shot comparison one of these days!
I have made a bit of progress on 'Spring Breeze', my little quilt for the spring round of the Four Seasons Quilt Swap. I pieced and quilted the borders and was going well with the first two borders! I hand-stitched the back down where I joined the two quilted panels and all looked great. But then disaster - I had somehow mucked up my measurements and the two side borders were too long! I'd also mucked up the measurements of the corner blocks (which had already been quilted), and, because I'm doing quilt-as-you-go by-the-seat-of-your-pants (!), I had to 'unsew' the whole lot, remove one of the 'piano keys', get new corner blocks and sew the whole thing back together! Well, finally the borders are complete. I could really have done with some more practice in free motion quilting...I just hope my swap recipient forgives this novice machine quilter. Now to appliqué on the towels flapping in the breeze and then bind the whole thing. I hope to be finished by this weekend.

I've also started a little pinafore dress for Romily, which has some appliqué flowers and embroidery - that should be finished on/by the weekend too.

I've also realised something this past week. I have been taking classes and ordering more fabric (from Virginia Quilter - oh my! I'll post a pic when it arrives) as a way of procrastinating! I am a master procrastinator from way back and this is my quilty way of avoiding quilting! My 4SQS spring quilt has been a lot more work/harder than I'd anticipated, so I have been successfully avoiding more work on it by starting/imagining new projects!

This realisation dawned on me late Friday night when I was attending a 'strip' class at my LQS - they were basically teaching the class how to use a pattern designed for 2 1/2" strips, and flogging some of the fabric they were finding hard to shift! While there were lots of willing participants, I sat there realising I didn't like either the fabric or the pattern! I went with a mate from work and she had the same look on her face as I did! The class was a bit disappointing, as I think we were both there to learn new techniques and came away without much from it. I should have been at home sewing! We did both decide, however, that we were in love with Moda jelly rolls (which we fondled keenly in the shop after the class) and that we'd both find a way to use them! LOL - another project!

So, less time surfing online fabric stores and more time sewing is the answer here! Hear, hear!!