Time goes by...

Hi all! Life has been getting a bit too much for me again lately and so there has been no sewing here lately. And funnily enough, once I had gotten out of the habit, I've had real problems picking it up again. Every time I tried to put some stuff together I kept doubting my pattern/fabric/colour choice and it would go no further. Frustrating stuff! However last weekend I decided to make an apron for a soon-to-be sister-in-law's kitchen tea. The invite said "Let's make A a domestic goddess", so I thought I would make it a bit 1950's retro..when the world was full of domestic goddesses. So I made this to put in a present with some blue teatowels and tray. Looked quite cute all together really.

The pattern is Flirty Skirty Apron by the Apron Lady Designs. You should have seen how much fabric I had pulled out before I chose these two. Actually these were my second choice as I originally had some great pears/apples fabric..but managed to have all the apples and pears upside down! Darn it! Have a good week! Ps. Still looking for answers on how to get paragraphs to happen in my blogposts. They are there when I type, but when I type publish they disappear..bit like my waistline....(that's my daughter in the pic!)

A revolting story made cute (?) by illustrating with Giant Microbe plush toys from Fishpond.com.au.

For the last few weeks our family has been battling this

Flu ..and just when I thought we were over it and back to a state of wellness we were visited by..

stomachache ..and...

I'm not going to name this one but maybe you can guess! With three boys sick it has been a long week. Meanwhile nothing has been done around this house. No sewing, no housework to speak of. So this week I have to tackle getting rid of these visitors..

dustmite ..and in my bathrooms..

mould and get back to my exercise routine to get rid of..

fat cells But in the spirit of Pollyanna, at least we weren't visited by...

gangrene and

flesh eating virus Hope you have a good week. PS...is it just me, but who would buy these toys for their kids??

When buying online comes back to bite you...

I buy a lot of my feature fabrics online as they are a lot cheaper and mainly because I don't have to drag kid's into quilt shops...it really ruins the whole experience! And I can do it at 11.30pm at night, when I have time to think! But unfortunately there is nothing like being to hold different fabrics up together to see it they really 'go'.

I bought these three fabrics to make a quilt for my little boy. I thought the bugs in jars fabric was really cute, but not too babyish, and so I bought a blue solid and some little leaves to go with it. However, the computer screen doesn't always show true colours... And the scale is very hard to pick.... So this is the fabrics when they arrived.

As you can see that blue doesn't go at all..it's very turquoise really and the scale of the leaf print is way off! So back to the LQS I go in search of the perfect blue...and might have to rethink those leaves... *sigh* But on a cheerier note, I think I've enterred a new stage in my life! I really dislike trying to make a decent looking birthday cake, and the fact I seem to do them at midnight. Well Sunshine Boy had a birthday and my daughter not only made the cake, she iced it too! Yay! I'm intending to never make another birthday cake again (is it wrong to make a child make their own birthday cake??)

I think she did a good job..shame there is no such things as blue Skittles ..(and it had to be dairy -free so we couldn't use Smarties) Hope you're having a good week!

All sniffly here....

Just checking in so that you know I'm still alive, but have nothing to report after 2 weeks of having a house full of sickies. Be back sometime soon hopefully!

Next Generation quilter...

I've done no sewing or crafting myself in the last week, so I thought I'd show you Gorgeous Girl's quilt that she finished. Made from a jelly roll of Summer House I think she's done a great job. It was quilted by Jeanette of Gone Aussie quilting, who's done a great job of quilting a little rosebud pattern.

Bound with one of the stripes from the same range. Gorgeous Girl entered into the Bourke Show where she received a first, and was suitably chuffed. Hope you're having a good week!

A weekend away..

Last weekend I went away for a Christmas in July retreat with my good friend and a bunch of lovely quilters. As I left my hubby was making jokes about the weekend being all about eating and talking, and unfortunately I forgot to take my camera with me, but to prove I actually made something, here are some photos. I finally got my Spiked Wheel blocks together from the Travelling Circle Quilt Bee. I chose to do a pieced green and grey border with a blue square in between.

And here is a photo of the quilt in it's entirety..the colours aren't so great in this photo.

I'm still trying to figure out whether I add more borders, straighten up the edges, etc etc My friend and I also organised a Christmas project for everyone to do. We had bought some gorgeous Theodora Cleave buttons and this is my finished project.

But now it's back to reality as I wash my third load of washing, and finish off cleaning the bathroom.I hope you have a good week!

Quick Curve Ruler

After seeing some great quilts around, added to my love of a "gadget", I bought myself a Quick Curve Ruler. I've been having a play with a layer cake and a pattern called Urban Birthday, and these are a few of the blocks layed out. (does anyone else have to take a picture of their layout in case little people suddenly run through the middle??!)

And here they are sewn up......

It probably needs a border of some sort but I will contemplate that for a while. The curves were quite easy to sew and the squaring up of the blocks help it all come together, though I must say that getting the lines to meet up between the blocks was quite a challenge.(for me, anyway..maybe for the less slapdash personality it would have been fine!) But the block I really want to try with my new ruler is here. I think that looks amazing! Hope you're having a good week!

Some photos..few words

Hexagon flowers for the latest round of the Travelling Circles Bee. Very scrappy and lots of fun. The flowers that I was presented with as I got off the plane after going to Darling Harbour Craft Show with Gorgeous Girl again this year (no photos of the actual trip as we forgot the camera!) Iron Man made from Duplo by Sunshine Boy A quilt now winging its way to the US for a friend's wedding present. (One of her favourite colours is burgundy) My takeaway coffee cup..no wondering it kept dribbling down my chin! For someone who normally wears their food down their shirt anyway, I think this was just cruel!:-) Hope you're having a good week. Our school holidays start on Friday and we're off to my parent's farm for a week or so (or until basically the grandparents start to look a little "frayed").Catch you when we get back.(and if anyone can tell me how to get the formatting back on blogger..ie paragraphs, labels under photos etc, I would greatly appreciate it!)

Looking for a free tutorial....??

Looking for the free tutorial for the sewing caddy, that according to Coats and Clarks, I have posted, well sorry you're out of luck! It was actually from a pattern that I bought from here Think they got a little confused. Please visit Bloom and feel free to buy her pattern and look at her other gorgeous creations!

Due to technical difficulties...

Hi all! Still trying to figure out the home computer situation but meanwhile I will do my best on the IPad and see how I go! Expect lots of typos, as I miss my full sized keyboard. Well the last months have passed in a blur as we finished building hubby's new work, then moved..amid chaos and tardy tradesmen...and then have suffered through the settling in, fighting with Telstra,organizing ourselves period. My only sewing through this time is a couple of bee blocks for the Travelling Circles Bee. Here are two photos out of the three blocks I made lately..forgot to photograph one before I sent it, oops! Yo Yo's made in Pez Prints! Dresden plate blocks..each one has a different colour of the rainbow for the centre..will look great! And since there was Mother's Day since I last posted, here is my breakfast that my kidlets made! The other excitement around here was that there was an earthquake last night. Unheard of in our area, the last one occurring in the 1960's. It was an interesting experience-we initially thought it was a jet flying down low. Have a great week! I'm off the the Quilt and Craft Show with Gorgeous Girl again..yay! (Unfortunately this post appears to have no formatting..not sure why?)

Lost in Space...

Due to computer problems (ie. It just won't turn on, on demand, but will sometimes start 4 hours later) I haven't been able to blog. So catch you later when either a)it miraculously fixes itself, b) we find the money to buy a new one c) I figure out how to upload photos to my IPad... Bfn

Easter sewing...

Anyone got chocolate overload today?! Think I'm due for a long walk today!

I've been promising the kids new PJ pants for ages. The joys of four kids is that you promise to make one child a set of pants after finding, say, some Star Wars fabric, and before you know it you have four to do..it's got to be fair apparently!

So here's the fabric, before...

And here's my attempt at photographing four kids, of different heights, in their new PJ's, without showing their faces. Pathetic photos, but anyway!(I spared you the butt shot!)



I just pair the pants up with a cheap shirt from Kmart..probably do some applique on them at a later date.

So for about $10 they all have new PJ's and the thing I like best about these is that my 7 and nearly 9 year old boys aren't in Pj's that have skulls, graffiti, etc on them. Why does most boys fashion have to have these things??

And I finally got my March block done for the Travelling Circle Bee I'm in. Cute hey?


Hope you're enjoying your 4 day weekend! I'm spending an exciting morning grocery shopping and planning a new reception desk for hubby's new work (I tell you it never ends!)

Happy Easter!

(Sunshine Boy's Lego creation)
Hope you all have a great Easter - we had a very early start with much excitement about Easter eggs!

We are now on the four week countdown until our new work building is complete. It is totally taking up all our spare time PLUS! Choosing colours of cupboards by poor light at 12am sounds like a bad plan, but sometimes it's the only chance we get to make decisions.

I haven't been doing any sewing or crafting. But I have been buying some fabric, so I hope to get a chance to play with these soon!


(some re-released Heather Baily Freshcut and I think the other range is Ooh La La??)

Have a great week!

The local show

We headed off to the local show. Our first stop was the Pavillion with the kid's art and handicraft. Gorgeous Girl got two Seconds for the bag and pillow she made and a First for a drawing. Boo's class came second with these really cute bees..

Another "must visit" is the animal pavillions.

And only at a country show could you get a sign like this! ;-)


Hubby is currently building a new work building so every waking moment seems to be taken up with choosing lino/carpet/cupboards. Seven more weeks until completion and then maybe life will be more normal?? Sorry if I'm not around much for the next while...

Procrastination..

For February the block for our Travelling Circles bee was a Flying Geese Circle block...that's right, paper pieced.

Now I had tried paper-piecing once before with a completely disastrous result, so when I saw this block I just sighed..and put it on top of the piano (my dumping ground for current sewing projects). And every couple of days, I would pull it out, look at it..then quietly put it back in the bag and ignore it again. (To be afraid of material seems a little irrational but it's been a really crap month!)

This continued until I was way late. Now I'm a fairly punctual person and so now I was no longer just afraid of the block, I was letting other people down. It was driving me crazy.

So finally, with some good advice from the lovely blogger at Gone Aussie Quilting(who doesn't know me but who I begged advice from), I set out and made a test quarter block. It went..ok...

Then with a little bit more confidence I finally made my block. Yes, I did a lot of unpicking and yes I made a few mistakes that the other poor quilter will just have to live with (ie not trimming back two seams and noticing it after I had pieced all the quarters!)

But it's done and that's the main thing. Yay! And I'm sure there's a metaphor for life in there somewhere but my brain is too full of school fetes, kid's activities, and work to figure it out.

So have a good week.

The week that was..

This week I have made/created/assembled....

One rasperry and white chocolate slice. Yes, it is necessary for the cook to sample the dish! (and Jay's stuffed giraffe apparently ate all his, so he had to have two pieces!)

...one basketball hoop (created in the near dark, being eaten by mossies and with no real knowledge about nuts, bolts, stays etc.)

..and 840 tags for the over 800 gifts being created for our school's Mother's Day Stall. First 400 were pretty fun...last 400 +, not so much...

Have a good week!

I've got the blues...

Life's been too busy, too tiring,too overwhelming to do anything but the basics needed to survive(and keep the children from whinging too much!).

Consequently I have a bad case of the blues.

So I think I will just crawl into my burrow and hide for a while.

Talk to you when life feels a bit more rosy!

Banana Coconut Muffins

More squishy fruit recipes! I don't know about you, but here at the moment I buy bananas..one moment they are all green, the next they are all heading towards being over-ripe!

So here is a favourite recipe of the moment.

Banana Coconut Muffins
1 (1/4) cups SR flour
2 very ripe bananas
1/2 cup butter, melted (also works well with dairy-free margarine if you're lactose free)
2/3 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup dessicated coconut (set 1/4 cup of this aside to use to sprinkle on top)

Set flour, sifted, aside. Mix all the other ingredients with an electric mixer (can do this by hand if you can't be bothered to get out mixer..still works ok!). Fold in flour mixture until just combined and divide between lined muffin tins. Sprinkle with lefover coconut (if I want to make them "fancy" I put that shredded coconut on top instead) Bake for about 25min at 180 degrees Celcius. Especially yummy when eaten warm!

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We've had amazing summer storms here in the last week. I took this picture of the clouds above the house the other day!

I think God was having a particularly artistic moment!
Have a great week!

The eternal quilting optimist...

In life I am quite the pessimist. I justify this by thinking that by preparing for the worst I am being well prepared for whatever life may throw at me.

In quilting I am the opposite. What I think I can achieve over a day/week and what I can actually fit in, are two very different things!

So last week when I said I would be back with a quilt top 'in a week or so' - that was me being delusional. :-) (and just quietly I thought I could get the quilt top finished, start a Swoon quilt (as I just joined some quilt-along) and thought I could catch up on my Some Kind of Wonderful quilt.) Yep, delusional. I think I might have forgotten that I had four kids, that BAS's are due (tax stuff)and not quite expected the 180mm of rain...

This is what I actually managed to get done this week..

..and so..being a bit more realistic..expect me back with a finished quilt in about oh, 4 weeks or so...

And on a good note, Jay (my youngest) made it to pre-school and managed no 'accidents' and has had a really good week, as far as the toilet training goes. I'm am starting to see a future with no nappies...which will be the first time for about 11 years! I'm looking forward to it..and the added money into the budget!

Hope you have a great week!
PS. A quote for the week - Unless life also gives you sugar and water, it's going to be pretty crap lemonade! :-)