New Fabric and Sweet Smiles!

Some Green and Orange Park Slope to make cushions for my lounge room, The kiwi dumb dots will probably get used for this too, The garden pindot in cherry, just because. The Wonderland layer cake is for a quilt for my bed! All purchased with fantastic service from the Twiddletails Store, Her blog is here too!

And a pic of Jocie at 7.5 mths, She was so excited, she was commando crawling trying to get a hold of my camera lol!

Not a lot of sewing going on....

Between school holidays and a huge list of home improvements that need to be done, there hasn't been a lot of sewing going on at all! I have managed to sandwich the green and brown quilt, and I started quilting it, but not enough to bother showing yet.

I also spent a lovely hour with the two biggest girls, Charlotte and Imogene, making these cute little felt brooches that Charlie got as a kit for her birthday.

This dresser was once owned by my Great Grandmother, It lived in her bathroom apparently!, Anyway it has been mine for the last 21 years (ish), and hadn't been repainted in that time, I didn't think to take a "before", but it was an off white, creamy colour, with bright red round handles, It looked like it hadn't been painted in more like 50 years, it really was in a state. So over the last couple of months, Mark and I have been stripping paint, sanding, and applying undercoat, Finally this weekend we managed to get the two coats of top coat on, and screw in some new handles. I think it turned out O.K and I'm looking forward to being able to put it back into use, this time round it will hold the kids boardgames, colouring in stuff, and wrapping paper etc. (In other words, desperately needed storage!)

Last weekend, we finished putting the light fittings in, This awesome bright orange pendant, now hangs over my dining table!!! So much prettier then the bare bulb we have been used to for the last 3 years!! The wall that you can see behind it will be painted green some time soon too, I can't wait!

Hopefully I will get back into the swing of posting and crafting, once school goes back, till then I hope everyone reading this had a great weekend!! Let me know what you got up to........ I love reading comments!

Bits and Pieces

Charlotte's Quilt, Coming together slowly, I have made sooooooo many mistakes on this quilt, all of them to do with seam allowance. But it will still look O.k.

My Hexy Blanky, is coming along too. I am really loving the colours in this (blue, pink, green and white, the photo's not great!)

I started making Laura a twirly skirt and jacket, before winter, Last year, and as you can imagine, there was no way it would of fit her this year!, so a bit of cutting here, a bit of sewing there, and Voila! a warm winter dress!

I used bias binding around the neckline and in the armholes, and added a cord Yo-yo to the front, actually the whole dress is nice fine cord from spotlight. Most importantly Laura absolutely loves it!! She nagged me the whole time I was sewing, because she wanted to wear it and do "ballet" lol!

Eight

On Saturday our eldest girl, Charlotte turned 8........ Not quite sure how that happened, surely it was only yesterday that she was tiny little newborn..........

I didn't make anything for her this year, but I did get her the most gorgeous dog softie from Amy at Badskirt! His name is Mercs, and as you can see Charlie is already in love!

The cake was really last minute, as I couldn't decide whether to make one or buy one.

This is a Triple Chocolate, brownie fudge cake, with Milk chocolate ganache, and Triple chocolate biscuit topping..... I served it with whipped cream, and it was delicious!!! (Thanks to "Betty Crocker"!)

Charlotte had a wonderful day, and as she says, She will be nine next year, eek!!

My First Softie

Introducing...........

Ringo Chimp!

I made a few little mistakes, and he looks a little lopsided, but he is cute and I love him!

Made with the pattern "Cheery Chimp" that I won from Jhoanna at One Red Robin.

WIP's and a Finish

A stack of stacked coins for Charlotte's, pink and green coin quilt.

A stack of strips ready to be cut into squares for Imogene's, pink and green Pinwheel quilt.

My Cheery Chimp is coming along, slowly but surely.

The Green and Brown quilt is ready to be sandwiched, I finally finished the backing and the binding is ready to go too.

And a Finish!, Just a quick patchwork scarf using scraps of Full Moon Forest, and some wool.

I really, really need to wash my windows.......

We found him last week, slowly pulling himself and his cocoon up the window.

Then a few days ago, I was informed that he was on the move again, so quickly grabbed the

camera.

The cocoon is about 15 cms long.

Anyone have any idea what he is? He has moved along now, Into the jungle that is supposed to be a garden, I'm hoping I will spot him again! But at least now I will be able to wash my windows!

Also I forgot to mention in my last post, SEWN is up and it looks absolutely fantastic!!!

And, I won two of the giveaways in the launch party!! Some beautiful fabric from Cathy at Cabbage Quilts! Thank you Cathy!

And a book, "Textiles" from Sarah of SEWN and The Last Piece for the participating bloggers draw!! Thank you Sarah!

And just to add some more randomness to this post, My girls made me a "cake"!

Pants and Tantrums

So I finally worked out why Imogene could never keep a pair of pants up, She has a long torso, no bum, and short legs, every pair of pants I've bought her since she has been out of nappies would just fall down, belts helped but were annoying. So I finally worked out that the pants in the shops all had too low a rise. For some reason I've never made a pair of pants for Imee before, but this year I had to! I pulled out Burda 9706, which I've used a few times before to make pants for Charlotte and Laura, Pulled this fabric out of my bulging box of dress fabrics, I think its a cotton ripstop but I'm not 100% on that, and got to work.

Verdict: She loves them!! and the very best bit, I don't have to follow her around saying "pull up your pants" every 5 seconds!! The rise in these pants is quite high, so perfect for Imee! She also loves having her photo taken, such a poser!!

Laura also needed new pants, The ones she had been wearing, were turning into 3/4 pants! For hers I used up some lovely soft lilac cord that had also been languishing in my stash, with a cuff of the same material I used to back her doll quilt. Unfortunately she was not in the mood for photos.....

Here she is when I first turned the camera in her direction.....

Then she bolted.....

I don't know where she thought she was going, but I finally got an O.K shot of the pants!

Then she bolted again, I handed the camera too mark and took off after her as soon as this shot was taken because I realised she wasn't going to stop! That's Charlotte in the foreground there. After this photo when I caught Laura the tantrum kicked in big time, she screamed all the way back to the car, she is 3, I really dislike this aspect of 3, but she will grow out of it!

And to end on a happier note, here is Jocie, at 6mths, laughing at funny mummy with the clicky thing! She is such a lovely baby, and getting mobile now too, she is rolling and shuffling around on all over the floor, she is also trying to crawl, eek!!

And the Winner of the SEWN Giveaway is..............

Drumroll please.......Congratulations Helen! I've sent you an email!

If you haven't been to Helen's blog before go and check it out, Patchy Work of Mini Grey

Thanks everyone for visiting, I had so much fun I can't wait to do another giveaway (give me a little time to recover first though!)

A Doll quilt for Laura....

I'm pretty happy with it, Laura on the other hand absolutely loves it!

I had no plan going into this, and I've decided that I really don't like working that way.

Being a beginner though, this quilt gave me a chance to try out a few things, some bubbly quilting on the Beatrix Potter patch, which made the characters really pop.

I also did some leaves around the outside border from a template, which worked out a lot better then I thought it would, I will use this template again on the green and brown quilt.

I really liked the effect that the square spiral gave in this block.

And I love the backing fabric! (even though I oriented it the wrong way)

Don't Forget to leave a comment on This Post, to enter my giveaway for the SEWN Launch! Comments close tomorrow at 1pm AEST! And head over Here, to find 140+ other blogs that have joined the party!!