Swap quilt received and stash boosted!

Finally arriving all the way from the UK, much to Faith's relief, my Spring Blooms swap quilt is here. There was much excitement in our house when the parcel was picked up from the post office, especially from Romily who helped open it. (Click on photo to see a bigger version, as always.) Inside was one of the most extraordinary quilts I've ever seen. Faith has put many hours of work into the quilt, hand dyeing fabric, painting fabric, embroidering and appliqueing. It's a truly original design and completely different - one of the things I love about quilting: no two are ever the same and it's a medium that lends itself to so many styles and interpretations. Many thanks Faith!

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I have been on a fabric ban for a while, with many UFOs awaiting my attention and a large tub full of lovely fabrics. However, when my favourite quilting store, Addicted to Fabric, had its private sale yesterday, I was happy to break that self-imposed ban! I ended up with 15 metres of beautiful fabric, all of which is destined for projects other than quilting! Well, some of it will no doubt end up in quilts, but most of it will be used in dressmaking for Romily, as well as some crafty take-home book bags for the little guests at Rom's forthcoming birthday party, and presents for other little people in my life.

I bought some beautiful fabric from the Patty Young 'Mezzanine' range (I see a couple of dresses and skirts with matching applique tops).Some groovy orange floral and houndstooth Urban Chiks fabric.And some of the Prints Charming 'Rainbow Garden' range in the blue colourway.And the pink.I also grabbed some more Aurifil in white and some Superior Threads variegated blue machine quilting thread for a lap quilt I'm about to get started on. It's for my father-in-law's companion, who turned 80 last month. I made her a table runner for Christmas and the laptop is from the same fabrics. I need to get it pieced, sandwiched and quilted by Wednesday, as I'm taking the kids down to Melbourne/Bendigo for a week. I'll get the binding and label on while I'm at my parents' place in Melbourne and then we'll be able to give it to Robina on Monday week when we head up to Bendigo for the day. No pressure or anything!

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And some recent photos of my two lovely children (who, touch wood, are both healthy this week at least!).

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Finally, happy 4th of July to my US readers!

Ballet girl

I had to take the kids to Spotlight the other day, complete with baby in pram, which I usually dread, but to my delight, Romily was exceedingly well behaved! So when I spied some purple tulle and purple organza I decided on a whim to make her a 'dancing skirt'. I asked her to choose a colour (there was every colour of the rainbow and I hoped she wouldn't choose the bubblegum pink) and happily she also thought the purple was great.I just folded the tulle back on itself and sewed a seam and then did the same with the organza. I attached elastic to the top of the tulle, cut it open at the bottom and repeated with the organza over the top. Romily tried it on and it fit perfectly. She did say that the tulle was digging into her a bit (now I know why the tulle on tutus is attached to some muslin!), so I decided to add a purple ribbon to the top. I'd had the ribbon sitting in my stash since she was a baby, so it was lovely to finally use it. Unfortunately all that stretching and sewing into the elastic made it lose its elasticity! The skirt no longer fit. Damn, damn. Fortunately, by adding the ribbon I had created an accidental casing, so I ended up unpicking a short stretch of it and inserting more elastic. The skirt now fits and looks very cute.Romily insisted on wearing it to playschool today, although I did pack another skirt for her to change into when it was craft time. Here she is dancing for me/the camera just before we headed off this morning. Check out 'dancing face' in the last photo!She's starting dance classes next term and has asked me to make her some more skirts. Well, if you insist :)

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Tristan is quite a lot better this week, although he's managed to pick himself up another cold. Sleep is also now for the weak, with him deciding he should just party in his cot or pull up on to his knees and cry and cry until I come and get him. Unfortunately if I just leave him, he doesn't cry it out and go to sleep, he just cries some more. It's a bit heart-breaking and also very annoying! Why don't babies understand that sleep is actually good for them?

What a week

It has been a pretty lousy week. Late on Wednesday afternoon Tristan managed to pull two heavy pictures down upon himself - one minute he was where I thought he was, I got distracted by Romily, and the next moment - CRASH! Poor thing had his fingers jammed under the pictures and he ripped them out before I could get to him. He nearly ripped his fingernail off one finger and there was a lot of blood. I managed to get a tissue onto it and compress the finger with one hand while racing upstairs with him to give him a dose of paracetamol. He calmed down pretty quickly and a breastfeed made things a bit better. I put a bandaid on, which, of course, he pulled off several hours later. But it did stop the bleeding. What a terrible thing to happen to a little bubba (of course, being a boy, this is, no doubt, the first of many such accidents!)

I woke up Thursday morning with a splitting headache - not a good omen. Then when Romily was at Gymbaroo, Tristan came down with a high fever. As it was all happening, Carl arrived to take over parenting duties so I could dash off to uni to sit my exam. We gave Tristan a dose of paracetamol and hoped he would be okay. We weren't sure whether it was a fever or whether his finger may have become infected. I went off to the exam with a heavy heart and a heavy conscience, trying to put a miserable baby out of my mind and concentrate on the task at hand. Despite my headache growing steadily worse, I managed to answer the required four essay-style answers. I have no idea how I went - 2.5 hours of mad scribbling does your head in!

Tristan was still not himself when I got home, but seemed a bit better. I fed him some dinner, but it all came back up just as I was giving him the last spoonful. I got him into bed and asleep and was also in bed myself by 8pm, hoping that a few extra hours of sleep would see my headache disappear. Of course this was not to be. Tristan had a dreadful night, with a head full of mucous, waking every hour from 8pm through to dawn. He spent half the night in my bed, tossing and turning. Carl and I got very little sleep.

I woke up Friday with my brain still in the vicelike grip of this headache (I still have the residual headache as I type), but with a baby who seemed much happier. As we had tickets to Justine Clarke, off we headed. Tristan was fine until about 15 minutes before the end, at which point he became unconsolable except when I was standing up and rocking him back and forth - thank goodness our seats were in the very back row! I got the kids home and tried to get Tristan to sleep, but he just would not go to sleep. Back in the car, we headed off to the clinic and after a 40 minute wait (this was very quick!) we got in to see one of the docs. He had a look down Tristan's throat - would you believe it? Tonsillitits on top of a head cold! No wonder he wasn't happy.

A prescription of antibiotics later and we headed home. He had a much better night last night (despite a big spew in my bed after a feed) and is considerably happier today. He's mercifully asleep again and breathing much easier. Let's hope those ABs work their magic nice and quick!

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Thankfully some nice things also happened during the week! I ordered three (yes three!) birthday presents for myself and they all arrived within days of each other.

A new thimble for handquilting - inspired by this post from Jan @ Be*mused. I bought it from The Scissorman.The official McTavishing bible. I hadn't heard of this until Emma showed off her version. Can't wait to try some of this. It will be much better than my straight line quilting!And 'Story' by Hollywood screenwriting genius Robert McKee. I couldn't get to one of his last ever seminars run this weekend in Australia (he's retiring), so this is the next best thing. It will be a great read, although it will have to wait, as I have many other books already in the queue!I am very glad I treated myself. Turns out I really needed a lift after what's been a very trying week.

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One more thing. I was saddened to hear of Michael Jackson's death, but at the same time I felt a bit relieved. What a tortured life his became after such bright beginnings. Makes me all the more determined to help my children enjoy their childhood. It's so important that they be allowed to be children.

Groovy pants for a groovy chick

In a last-ditch crafting frenzy before downing tools to study for my exam on Thursday, I finally cut into the lovely cord fabric I've had in my dressmaking stash that I posted about here. I made some 'Katri' pants from Ottobre 1/2009 (#13) for Romily. She doesn't have many warm pants for Playschool, so I thought these would do the trick. They were easy to make, apart from all the fiddling about with 28 pintucks around the pants leg bottoms!She likes them a lot and thanked me for making them for her. She also told all the teachers at Playschool that her mum made them for her. God love her! It's nice to have an appreciative model :)

(Note the fog! It was the foggiest day we've had in Canberra this year to date.)

So now it's time work through my notes from the past semester and do lots of handwriting to get my hand and arm muscles used to the idea of holding a pen again. The exam goes for three hours - ouch! We have four questions to answer out of six, so it will be a word frenzy! I will be glad when 5pm Thursday rolls around and I am free! Well. For a few weeks at least :)

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And, if you're a fan of Oliver + S patterns, head on over to Novy's blog for a giveaway.

Bloomin' Lovely

A finish feels so good, doesn't it? This little baby is due in the post by Monday and I am very pleased to meet the deadline. I am very happy with how this turned out. My FMQ is a little bumpy, but, as the whole thing is pretty liberated, I don't think it matters too much. The overall effect works and, for me, that's what really counts. I've called it 'Bloomin' Lovely'.

The quilt was foundation (the sky) and free pieced (the grass). The flowers were raw-edge appliqued and the stems, leaves and caterpillar were embroidered. The free-pieced grass was inspired by Tami's 4SQS5 quilt. I heavily quilted the sky, but left the flowers and the grass unquilted to give a really textured feel. I think it really works. The backing came from one of the FQs I received last year during the EB Birthday FQ Swap. It's a fabulous print from Valori Wells. Very suitable, don't you think?

Here's a close-up of a little caterpillar.And one of the flowers. Although the binding looks a bit weird here, the quilt is actually 'square'. Well it's 17" x 18", but you know what I mean!

It's off to the United States of Obama. I hope its new owner likes it. I enjoyed being part of the Spring Blooms swap and I can now look forward to receiving mine :)

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And here's a photo of Tristan, who, today, decided to give crawling a try! Well done Tristie!!!! He's been trying for a while now, but not really putting it all together. He now does about three 'crawls' and then pushes back into sitting. He thinks he's pretty clever and gives himself a clap. Too cute!

Birthday baking and cutting some grass

Danananananana

They say it's your birthday
Danananananana
And it's my birthday too yeah
Danananananana
We're gonna have a good time
Danananananana
Well happy birthday to you!

(Courtesy the Beatles)

Actually happy birthday to me :)

I had a lovely day. A mini-sleep in (until 7.30am), woken up by Romily, Carl and Tristan bringing me my birthday present - two books: Breath by Tim Winton and The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas. Both much wanted and I look forward to reading them.

Carl headed off to work and after Tristan had a sleep and we got ourselves ready, I took the kids to Monkey Mania at the new DFO in Fyshwick. They both had a great time - so much so that they both had a two-hour sleep at the same time. Anyone who has/had two young kids knows what a blessing this is! A second birthday present :)

I spent some time catching up on blogs and baking my own birthday cake (Carl's done it the past two years, but I was more than happy to make one this year - especially with Romily's help decorating it). It's a Treacle Butter Cake with Coconut Ice Frosting (both from the fabulous BAKE cookbook I posted about here).

Then I put a lamb roast in the oven and spent a little while playing with my two gorgeouses. I also opened a bunch of birthday cards and a couple of parcels. Thank you Bill & Kate for the very generous voucher for a local day spa. Very nice! And a wrap and recipe organiser from Jim & Jacinta and the boys. Thank you!

And thanks to my parents and my father-in-law for contributing to Lily's Overlocker Fund. It's getting closer!

Also arriving by coinkydink today was my subscription to Meanjin. It's the third time I've subscribed and I hope this time I might get up enough courage to actually submit something!

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And I think I mentioned there'd been some crafting going on here (finally). Here is the design for my Spring Blooms doll quilt (excuse the magnets - I had to put it on the fridge to show up the design in the photograph!). I drew the design full size onto sew-in interfacing which I'm using as the foundation. The 'sky' will be foundation pieced and then attached to the grass, with the flowers raw-edge appliqued and the flower stems and petals embroidered. The grass is free-pieced. Here's a sneak preview! I hope to have the piecing and applique finished by lunchtime tomorrow and then to do the quilting and embroidery tomorrow night and Thursday. I should be able to get it bound and labelled over the weekend and then posted by Monday, which is the deadline. Cutting it fine, but with all that's been going on around here, it'll be a good effort!

New York Cheesecake yum!

You might remember my darling husband totally spoilt me on mothers day with a new K Mix...well, his reward was this!
It's a baked cheesecake with berry drizzle and boy it is goo-ooo-oood! You can find the recipe here and make it yourself.

YUM!

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Breaking news:
* Essay is done!
* Romily is getting better thanks to another batch of antibiotics
* I have actually been crafting - I have started piecing the top for the Spring Blooms doll quilt. Woohoo!

Nothing like being outdone by your Mum!

My mum, who is a crafty crafter from way back, decided she'd give quilting a try after seeing me muck around with fabric. Look at this. This is her FIRST EVER QUILT. She chose the design and colours and the lovely ladies at Amitie helped her choose the fabric. Mum's basting it by hand and plans to handquilt it. It's queen size and destined for one of the spare beds in the house she and Dad are currently building on Bruny Island in Tasmania. *Sigh*Do I quit now? Just kidding. But gosh it's good. Years of sewing and crafting and a great eye for colour. Well done Mum!!!

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Meanwhile, we continue our horrible run of sickness. It's Romily's turn again, with a horrible tummy bug yesterday and today (and a night in between that I'd rather forget). Meanwhile, my major essay was due today, but my very understanding lecturer has given me a week's grace. Thank goodness. That means no crafting is going on here until I get it finished. But then - boy do I have plans! My exam is on 25 June and then I have several weeks' break until studies resume. Better make a list!

Fabric Shopper giveaway - good lord!

Who wouldn't want to win this????? Crikey! Count me IN!!

Daniel's quilt all wrapped up

After a three-month delay, I also finally finished the quilt for my friend's baby who was born in January - I posted a pic of the finished top way back in February, but unfortunately I wasn't able to get it finished until last week. I'm sure Jo and baby Daniel will understand! Daniel is Jo's second baby too.
I am very happy with this quilt. I am sure Jo will like it too. It's just in time for winter anyway!

I'm not the only one who loved the Tula Pink Full Moon Forest fabric. Check out AJ's and Nicolette's (4th photo down) work - more examples of how fabric can be used in such totally different ways to make beautiful quilts!

9 months

While our PC was on the fritz, Tristan clocked up nine months on the planet. As much time out as he had in :)

He's a beautiful bubba, but I'm finding it quite hard to believe that he's going to be one in less than three months time! Here he is, trying to pull himself up on furniture. Slow down, Tristy - you can't even crawl yet!

And here's one of him with his cheeky big sister.And one of Romily feeding the birds down by the lake.Check out a very rugged up boy (in his fabulous EB Quilters quilt).

Plum Cobbler

Finally! Our computer is back. My files are back, and, after a bit more twiddling and tweaking and new software (ouch $$$), my emails are back. Phew. Enough said!

Anyhoo, I can finally show you the 'secret surprise' that's on its way to Margaret. It's a miniature quilt, about 20" x 20" and I'm calling it 'Plum Cobbler'. I am really into purple and white at the moment and I had quite a few lovely purples in my stash calling my name. I love how this little quilt turned out and I hope Margaret likes it too. It looks like it could be quite at home in the monochromatic challenge round of the Four Seasons Quilt Swap, of which Margaret is the swap mama.The border fabric is a lovely, dark, plummy purple from the Jinny Beyer Palette range. Yum.

And here's the label - more of my learner's embroidery!

Computers grrr

Apologies for this break in transmission. I won't bore you with the details, other than to say we've had two computer techs try to fix it and we are still unable to use our PC. Of course, we're many $$$ poorer for the experience and still don't have a working computer! Therefore, I can't show you any of my crafty progress and there has actually been some quilting going on. I'll post some pictures as soon as I can.

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Romily continues to sleep like an angel, with the operation being a resounding success. It was Tristan's turn yesterday. He also underwent day surgery (secret boys business) and was a bit sad for the rest of the day. He's pulled up really well today and is almost back to his usual happy self. Thank goodness for infant paracetamol and ibuprofen and the natural wonder of breast milk. It's making his recovery much easier (and therefore mine!).

It's been a rough month healthwise, but the end of May is nearly here and we have all come out safely on the other side.

We have a winner!

Congratulations Margaret! You have been chosen as the lucky winner of my giveaway, being commenter number 18 out of 27. Please email me your postal address. I know you have mine! It's funny that Margaret is going to receive the doll quilt - she's the hostess with the mostest for the Four Seasons Quilt Swap :)

Sorry I can't upload a picture of the doll quilt Margaret's receiving, but our computer has had a complete meltdown, aka "Blue Screen". A tech is coming this afternoon - let's hope he can fix it. I have an assignment I need to get cracking on, not to mention that the computer is my lifeline to the outside world! Hopefully I'll be able to load a pic over the weekend. (I am currently working on our old and very dodgy laptop that's missing a shift key and has no USB capability, so I can't download my photos, etc.)

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Apart from the PC malfunction all is okay here. Tristan has another cold and had conjunctivitis (gone now), but that's par for the course at this time of the year. Romily is doing extremely well. You'd never know she's had an operation this week. It's really hard to keep her quiet, because she feels normal. I'll let her off the leash a little next week :)

Something for Kate...finally

Happy days. I have finally finished Kate's patchwork cushion. It's based around her favourite photo of Pete, and has one simple word embroidered beneath the picture: Smile. We discussed the design together, so it won't be a shock to her when she opens her parcel once it makes its way across Bass Strait. I hope it brings a little bit of comfort and joy, as it's a reminder of what a beautiful man Pete really was. They were such a beautiful couple and made the most of the time they had together. I hope she likes it.

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And a belated happy Mothers Day for Sunday to all those mums out there celebrating last Sunday. I had a superb day, with beautiful cards made at Playschool by Romily (she made three and kept them well hidden during the week - I had a whole week of not being able to look 'in certain places'!!), and an over-the-top present from Carl on behalf of the kids - a Kenwood K-Mix! I was over the moon. I had mentioned to him that I'd love a new mixer one day, as my old mixer, which my mum bought for me nearly 20 years ago, just couldn't cut the mustard any more...actually it couldn't cut butter, but that would be a mixed metaphor. ANYWAY, here is a pic of the K-Mix. New York Cheesecake, here we come (it came complete with recipe cards!).After breakfast we headed out into the countryside south of Canberra, where there's a great adventure playground at the Cotter Reserve. Romily had a great time and found lots of other kids to play with. Tristan played on his mat and managed to find several leaves to try to eat. It was a gorgeous day and lovely to all be together outside in the fresh autumn air. Then we headed to the space tracking station at Tidbinbilla for lunch. Just past the tracking station we spotted a mob of kangaroos and a flock (?) of emus grazing in a large grassy area - we stopped for a couple of photos before Romily worked out the fence in these photos actually had a charge running through it. Poor thing got a zap off the fence - thank god it was low voltage. We couldn't belive there were no safety signs on the fence, but as we drove off down the road we spotted some. We had managed to pull up at the only section of fencing that had none...

Both kids fell asleep on the way home, which made a perfect end to the day. Well almost, for dinner I had my all-time favourite: roast chicken with roasted root vegetables and gravy. See, I'm a simple girl at heart!

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Don't forget! My 400 posts giveaway finishes on Thursday.

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One more thing. Romily had surgery yesterday to have her adenoids removed. She was such a little trooper, did everything the nurses and doctors asked her to do, climbed up on the operating table without any fuss, breathed in the gas without any fear and recovered quietly and peacefully over the next couple of hours. Poor thing had a chuck in the car on the way home, but immediately felt right as rain. Of course, I was the one who shed a quiet couple of tears at seeing my beautiful girl unconscious in theatre, but that's completely normal :)

I'm so proud of her. She listened and understood everything that was going on and accepted it all with grace.

She, now, of course, is getting a bit frustrated at not being able to run, hop or skip for the next week or so, but we have lots of 'slow activities' to keep us going. First cab off the rank is to make 'Huppa' (my Dad) a birthday card for next week out of some beautiful autumn leaves that we collected and pressed last week.

400th post giveaway!

I can't quite believe that I've made 400 posts to this little blog of mine. To celebrate, I'm having a giveaway. Leave a comment before 5pm Australian Eastern Standard Time on 14 May and you'll be in the running for a secret surprise!

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Good news: hard work pays off. I received 90% for my paper. Too bad it is only worth 20% of the overall mark! Now for the second paper, due in three weeks - this one's worth 40%. Let's hope I can do as well.

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And in crafty news, I've finally made a start on a long-promised cushion cover for my friend Kate, whose beloved husband died in November 2007. It's a photo cushion and I've found it very hard to get started. I keep putting it off for some reason - it's very confronting having his face staring up at me from my table, now that it's printed out on fabric. I need to get this finished and sent down to Kate. She has forgiven me so far for being so tardy in making it, but I feel terrible for not making it sooner. I had better go and get it finished then, instead rambling on in here!