that's not all

And just when you think that all I have been doing is baking and eating, here is a little peek at my latest W.I.P.
Of course the Utter Puffery clips and elastics are always a going concern, but I'm up to date with stock to keep people happy on that front.
I decided to make a stash busting red quilt to use up some of the plethora of red bits I have cluttering up my less-than-expansive fabric storage nook.
That's all very well and good, but I hear ya.
It's never enough!
I made these strips of red, thinking of the Stacked Coin design idea and couldn't quite handle them abutting eachother. I needed something to strip between them.
I also had no idea of how big it was going to end up or, as a friend sensibly pointed out, what I was going to do with the finished product.
So I took myself down to Amitie and laid out my long red strips on the counter, then tried out about ten different grey/black combinations, before falling in love with this gorgeous hand drawn floral look. It's not exactly black and it reminds me of chalkboard drawing.
In my opinion, it gives the red strips a zing and pop that I love!

In answer to my cynical non-crafting friend...I will drape myself in this quilt when the proper footy season starts and my Saints going marching in to glory.
So there.
I will be on the couch, wine in one hand, book in the other, looking up every now and then to cheer!

yippity-doo-dah

I finally finished my pink and pretty quilt. While the kids were out visiting their friends and D was master of the washing line and the chief shopping list writer, I stitched on...and on...and on!

And it is done. I named this quilt Lorna. It was already on the go when I heard that my friend's wonderful mother had died. She was the sunniest, smiliest and friendliest Mum around. She loved her own bit of craft and tried her hand at many many different projects, quilting included.

Later when the horrible finality of clearing out her home and belongings was under way, my friend asked whether I would be able to use any of her leftover fabrics. Well, der...of course I could! As it happened, there was only one fabric that caught my eye. It was a soft limey green silky curtainish fabric and it jumped right out and became one of the many square blocks in my quilt.

So for Lorna, thank you for your inspiration and I will surely take some photos for blogging tomorrow.

I know, it's been ages hasn't it?
I just haven't had anything to say. I still don't really. Everything's just rolling along. Kids are good. The big high school boy is cruising in towards the end of first term and gradually coming to the realisation that HE is actually responsible for getting his own projects done. For example, when the teacher sets a piece of work that they can hand in at the end of term....it means that the project should in fact take ALL term to complete to the satisfaction of the teacher, not..here's a project for you to start and finish in the final week of term. Or how about this curly one? It's not FAIR, when you fall behind in the maths homework, they just KEEP GIVING YOU MORE!!! Shock horror. They don't magically make the overlooked homework disappear. Last week apparently Year 7 was EEAASSSYY. This week, mmmmm not so much. He was pretty proudly telling D that he had completed the entire Simpsons game on Nintendo DS. But I think maybe just maybe he should have been doing a bit more homework. I know that a lot of parents don't believe in homework. I am a bit of a girly swot in that regard though. I know I did many things to avoid doing homework but I worry about that feeling of falling behind. I HATE the feeling that things are building up and up. There is a lot to be said for chipping away at the big jobs so that they don't overwhelm you.
Pepper the girl. We have discovered a technique that so far is enabling her to remember her spelling words! What a revelation! Last week she got 10 out of 10 for her spelling. This week the words are much harder, all those tricky 'ie' and 'ei' words. I have my fingers crossed for her today. She had a big project last week that required a few big sessions to complete. I was so proud of her when she took it to school last week, all finished, and heaps of the other kids had to have the due date extended to allow them to finish over the weekend.
In other news, we had a lovely but chilly camping weekend down at Skenes Creek for the Labour Day weekend. There was a flurry of trips to the op shop for socks because I took this book away with us. It's available at Dymocks in Collins St Melbourne (along with lots of other fab books of course) Good fun. There are no finished sock friends at our house for me to show you.
I have been whiling away the evenings with quilt on knee. The pink and pretty quilt called 'Lorna' is coming along very nicely. The hand quilting is almost complete. I estimate one or two more nights might get it done. D has discovered the joys of playing Carcassonne online. It's very time consuming and exciting. Certainly keeps him very quiet. So, the quilting is the perfect background activity. Here are a few shots of progress.

rye op shopping

We only did one of them on Saturday morning but it was pretty good.
Didn't buy much, but it's tricky when you are moving in a pack of two mums, two dads and four kids aged 5, 7, 9 and 11.
Pepper chose a very cute long sleeved t-shirt with a print extolling the virtues of the colour blue and I lingered by the counter and found these buttons.
The last thing I need is more buttons but who could resist?
I really need to get going on a new project. The pink & pretty quilt is calling but I haven't decided how big it's going to be yet. Maybe I'll need a few more scraps. Or WHITE. I think a little white to break up the pinkness of it all might be a good idea.
I haven't had a good run of free time to work on it for a while. I've got to stop blogging and get to work!

all good

On Friday night we had a very last minute catch up with a friend for her birthday which had been buried under the silt & sediment of real life.
So it was belated & all the usual crowd were not in attendance. The birthday girl was about to have a big drive so couldn't indulge heartily.
BUT...
The weather was kind & lovely enough to permit getting together outdoors in our close & favourite little park (scene of MANY a Friday night pizza & beers event).
Kids and dogs ran amok and nibbles were nibbled.
I had to make a cake. It would have been poxy not to have had a cake, so I used a recipe (yes, I really did) from the Delicious magazine which promised "idiot proof" yumminess. It was delish indeed, especially covered with lashings of fresh cream and sparklingly luscious strawberries!
Then Saturday was my darling Dad's birthday and we celbrated by having a roast chicken dinner with him and then rushing out to celebrate another friend's 40th (and leaving Dad to babysit!)
Sunday, Father's day, was a lavish hot brekky with bacon, eggs, mushrooms, tomato & spinach. Yum.
Stomachs still groaning, we headed off to a family late lunch and got to meet the newest arrival, baby James! And the last, I promise, photo of his quilt.
It was a great weekend! Hope yours was too.

this week..

As a bit of an alternative to the "on my desk" update that goes around....in honour of the extremely cold weather, I am posting what's ON MY BED. I can't get a photo of the evil cat, so here are the quilts that are on my bed...though my bed does not feature in the photos! Just a very sunny day which seems a long time ago.
The purple-ish one is regally titled The Quilt Of Love. It is just double bed size, and very velvety, silky and satiny. It is hand quilted with gold perle cotton in hand drawn hearts. I made it a couple of years ago.
The other one is my absolute fave, called The Beach House Quilt (to go on the bed in the beach house I haven't got, but would like to have) It's some random size I made to fit a bit of batting which was left over from another project. It is hand quilted with white quilting thread in hand drawn spirals like shell patterns, or swirls in the sand. I don't know why I named them, it seems a little silly in retrospect, but too late now!
In the absence of a bloke, they are trying to hold in the electric blanket warmth.
In totally unrelated news, a tall handsome-ish (I guess...but I'm married so I didn't notice) fellow in the bookshop today commented on my earrings. He said he liked my earrings. Is that unusual? I can't say it's happened too often to me of late.
They weren't overtly novelty earrings, just fine silver starfish. I like them too.

Oh, I am so busy today..

It's been a while since I seriously spent any time on crafty stuff (apart from "puffing" away on my tram trips).
I have recently finished a baby quilt and I'm very happy with it. Today, because the kids are out & about and we're relegated to dog-sitting duty (already!??) I have made a little soft friend to attach to the quilt.
Have a look!
I swear the second I turn on my camera the dog gets up and walks off or enthusiastically licks her bum. I've tried sneaking up, waiting til she dozes off, or the sitting very still technique. Nup.

show and tell

As lovely as it is to see the flashback friday photos, I fear I am thoroughly sick of looking at my bowl-cut! Even though I've got nothing much to say, I'm posting a new photo, just to get past that OLD one.
Pepper's pink quilt was the first one I ever made. It wasn't until I had been sewing triangles together for a few months, that I realised I was making a quilt. A wonderful customer in the shop, with whom I felt a very warm connection, was a mad keen patchworker & she urged me to try my hand at piecing. She was so encouraging and clearly passionate about the craft that I agreed to give it a go. I'm sure you are all very familiar with the thrilling feeling of actually "getting it" and I blissfully pieced a bazillion little triangles until a big single piece was spread out proudly. I kept up with the hand sewing for the border triangles, but then machined the strips together and with fear and trepidation quilted in-the- ditch! Wow I was even learning the lingo.
Well, I was so excited, I had to make another one.
The next one is Macklin's. There was a lot more focus and planning involved. And he was in a hurry to have it too. Now that I was a quilter, I had to go and buy FABRIC, and of course a ROTARY CUTTER, and a cutting mat. I machine pieced all of his. It was so fast and easy. It seemed almost like cheating after my first effort. So I compensated by hand quilting it. I used different decorative stitching on the various panels and again I was very pleased with myself. There are many wonky bits, as there are in life. Bits that don't measure up and don't connect perfectly, bits that overlap and buckle, bits that come undone.
All I want to say is that crafting, and some of the people I've met through these pursuits are rich and fabulous things in my life.
Yep, that's it.