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!

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!