Catch up

Hi all,

I guess it has been a few weeks since I did my last blog post. So what have I been up to?

Well I made a couple of coats for my boys. I used black corduroy and lined them with a really cool tech print patchwork fabric.

I used the Spring Showers Jacket pattern by Elegance and Elephants. They went together really easily, the only issue I had was with the length of the zip but I fixed that by using a piece of ribbon to cover the cut edges at the top. I made a feature of it and used different colours on each jacket.

Then I got horribly sick with pneumonia and didn't do anything for about a week and a half. But when my sewjo came back it was back with a bang!

I played around with the Hex-n-more ruler and came up with this quilt. I love it! It does have Y seams but they really aren't that scary anymore.

And last weekend mum and I got together and made Sew Together Bags. I had a great time!

I went a little crazy with my fabrics and used a different fabric for everything but I love it!

Right now I am working on the Gypsy Wife quilt and I have some dress fabrics washed and ready to go...so stay tuned!

Bye for now, Jess

 

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Celebrating 13 years!

Hi guys,

I have had the most wonderful weekend! I wasn’t sure if it was going to happen with me still on antibiotics and my littlest fella getting tonsillitis. But we rolled with it and left the boys with my parents for 2 nights while hubs and I hit the Sunshine Coast for our anniversary.

There are two things that I love to do when I go to the Sunny Coast….

If I am going anywhere near Forest Glen I have to stop in and see Penny at The Patchwork Angel. I love this store! They stock Tula Pink – need I say more!

The other must do is the Eumundi Markets. Which I didn’t take any photos of but it was lovely to wonder around without kids dragging me here and there. I got some fantastic smelling Lavender massage oil to try on the boys at bedtime to see if it helps them sleep. And we discovered an aussie artist, Michelle Pike, her work is really fun and so Australian! We only bought a puzzle this time but I am thinking about buying her calendar for next year…if only we could afford one of her canvases!

The unit we stayed in was across the road from the beach and had fabulous views.

We could walk to restaurants for dinner, which was so great!

The first night we had Indian food at Hathi Restaurant which was right next door. We both chose Chicken Tikka Masala except different heat strengths, I think next time we will get different curries so we can mix and match a bit more.

The second night we had pizza at Capone’s Pizza and Pasta, it was delish!

When we got home yesterday I couldn’t resist playing matchmaker with some of my new fabric -

This is what I am thinking for my Midnight at the Oasis quilt which I hope to start soon!

And since today was our actual anniversary we took the boys out for dinner to a local restaurant The Roadhouse Grill which was great too. Fantastic atmosphere and the food was beautiful!  

So now 13 years has passed since we said our vows…I wonder what the next 13 will hold? I hope for good things!

Bye for now, Jess

A new adventure!

Hiya,

I am still here! And I have been busy sewing, but I can’t show you what it is just yet!

Something BIG came into our lives today….

This bus has been something we have wanted to do for a very long time, so when we got the chance to buy her we jumped at it. She is already partly converted to a motorhome and a lot of the major purchases are already taken care of. We still need to do a lot of work but hubby is very capable.

We are going to start a blog especially for our bus adventures, when we come up with a name I will share the link here in case anyone is interested.

I promise I will stick to my regular creative content on this blog!

Finally finished something!

Hi all,

On the weekend when it was raining – really, when is it not raining! I got out my pack of Sharpie Stained markers and gave my boys free rain (no pun intended LOL) with them and a piece of white fabric each.

Trucks are quite obviously what they love and they are becoming quite good at drawing them. These trucks are in the rain.

I seem to be colour coding my kids…do you do that? Always blue for one and green for the other. Just check the towels in the bathroom and you will see how bad I am!

These are library bags, I think I made them about 16” square and lined them for extra strength. Now I just need time to take them to the library!

Little helpers!

Hi all,

A little story.

My 4 year old is sitting on the lounge watching the Lorax, I notice it only has 10 minutes or so left so I think I will let him finish the movie before bed. What should I do, Oh I know, I will do some more work on the next block for the Afternoon delight quilt, I might get the block finished tonight I think hopefully….where is it, oh it as fallen on the floor…I pick it up and gasp in horror.

Hmmm, I show it to the child, “who did this?” I say with dismay and anger in my voice.
”I did it” he sheepishly admits. I turn off the movie and do the bedtime routine early as punishment.

It is hard to stay angry when he admitted guilt straight away and has said sorry repeatedly while brushing his teeth and going to the toilet. And this is not the first time this has happened, No 1 son did the same thing at the same age to the appliquéd border of my Baltimore quilt – it now has a pieced border.

Moral of the story – don’t leave your sewing in the lounge room were little hands can try to help!

On a brighter note, I finished putting together the top of the American Beauty quilt.

It is huge - 90” x 110”. I have to admit I forced myself to finish it today…I wanted to start other things but this was in the way. I am glad I finished it because it feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I have that “what will I start now?!” excited feeling!

Crazy Times!

Hi all,

Well, isn’t Australia having some crazy times just lately?!

If it isn’t fires, which are apparently still burning in Victoria. It is flooding rains…Personally we haven’t been really affected by the rain and wind other than not being able to get into town because of water over roads, until this morning when we lost power. Fortunately we have a good generator set up which provides us with enough power to run the household almost as normal!

We have our own little waterfall when we get heavy rain! At one stage our driveway was completely covered in water, this photo was taken after the rain had eased off a lot. We went from having empty tanks to over-flowing in a couple of days!

Although I am very grateful for the rain because it has saved us from having to buy water, I really feel for all the people who are getting flooded again so soon after the 2011 floods. I hope all my bloggy friends are keeping dry.

This is the finished quilt I made for the Tassie Quilt Appeal which is organised by Jess. With the constant rain for a couple of days I was able to get a lot done!

I love this Rocket Launch Club print from the Children at Play by Sarah Jane range…And the orange chevrons go perfectly! I quilted it on my SIL’s short arm quilting machine in a freehand stipple pattern.

I thought I would just put a simple label on this quilt so I sewed a twill tape label onto one corner.

A great quilt for a boy I think!

In the background you might be able to see that the bank has collapsed onto the driveway….this happens every time we get heavy rain. Now we just need to wait for the driveway to dry up a bit so hubby can get the bobcat out and clean up the mess!

Binding your QAL quilt

Hiya,

Tonight Jess has shared some pictures of some of the quilts that have been made as part of the QAL, as well as her tutorial for binding quilts.

You can check it out here.

The quilts are amazing! And Jess’ tute for binding is really good too! I couldn’t improve on it as it is basically how I do it too. Although I do have a nifty way to join the ends together at the end (I will see if I can find a tute for you or make one up myself) and I prefer to hand sew the binding down on the back of the quilt.

The link up will start next week on the 11th and will be open for a week. I think this will be done on Jess’ blog. And then the winners will be drawn randomly from each category.

I have to admit I have been slack today and that is why I am linking you to Jess’ blog rather than doing a binding post as well….but there has been a little bit of drama here today.

My youngest little fella, who is 4, had a run in with a stanley knife and required a trip to hospital for a couple of stitches. The perils of renovating with kids around. He was a brave little guy and handled it well. The pain fuelled “I hate you” that I was getting lots of in the waiting room quickly turned into “I love mummy and daddy and my brother” with a bit of happy gas.

Anyway, all is quiet at the moment. Which is bliss!

End of the school year!

Hi all,

Wow! Can you believe it? Where did this year go?

My biggest little guy finished year 1 today, it has gone so quickly but he had a great teacher and there was a teachers aide again this year so I think he has had lots of learning, encouragement and guidance…which I thought couldn’t go unappreciated! So I made them something each that I hope they love.

Lunch bags! The pattern is free over at the Pink Penguin blog! I love this bag, I have one myself which I use to carry around hand sewing.

These are lined with a food safe waterproof fabric which was lovely to sew with and looks really neat. And for the wadding I have used a layer of Insul-bright to insulate them.

Now we have to start getting ready for next year which will be very exciting and scary too. The biggest little guy will be in grade 2 and the littlest guy will be starting kindy. I have a feeling kindy might be a bit of a shock to his system – with the sharing, separation from mum & dad and new rules to follow. Hopefully it won’t take too long to for them both to settle in.

 

Swimming Bag

Hi all,

What do you use for kids and their swimming gear?

Well, my oldest boy is doing swimming lessons with his school starting Monday….everyday for 2 weeks! I think it will be a bit full on but who am I to argue!

Anyway, I thought a swimming bag might come in handy…It wouldn’t look good if he took his stuff in a grocery bag!

So I started with the Noodlehead tutorial for a drawstring backpack.

I changed the dimensions of the bag and made it bigger. To make one the same size as mine cut your bag fabric to 17” wide x 19.5” long.

The other change I made was the pocket….

This is what I used! It is the plastic packaging from a set of sheets we bought….reduce, reuse, recycle!

It really was the cheats method…The zipper was included, I just hope it lasts. I finished it by putting some nice twill tape around the edge.

I like the clear pocket because he will be able to see what is in there and you can also see that fantastic fabric underneath!

And I can slip a piece of card with his name and info on it into the pocket already on the plastic. The shop label won’t be staying in there…

I can see I will need to make another one too!

Holiday fun ….

Hi all,

Last Friday we packed up the caravan and headed south to Wooli, NSW. What a beautiful location…only we have been chased home 2 days early by the tiniest little bugs – sandflies. BW seems to attract these types of bugs and has a bad reaction to them. Imagine a frustrated 3 year old who is itchy all over, scratching all night, not getting enough sleep….not fun!

Anyway, here are the highlights.

Riding scooters at the caravan park.

Pancakes anyone?

The beautiful beach at the river mouth!

I love this photo! Taken at the river mouth.

Those of you with a well trained eye will recognise what is in the background….yes we found a patchwork shop! Grafton Textiles! Nothing like a little retail therapy while on holidays especially when the kids sleep through it!

Canoeing on the river, it took the boys a while to get used to the canoe. BW had to be let off after about 30 seconds (screaming in terror), and TP lasted about 10 minutes (scared after daddy tripped and nearly tipped us out) but we managed to get them both in and enjoying it in the end!

Mini golf!

Jumping pillows and making new friends!

The view from our caravan site! We could sit and watch the water….it was really beautiful…damn the little bitey bugs for ruining it.

And one last photo that I love -

This and That

Hi all,

I feel like this week has flown by…filled with drama.

Our car has died, this is quite a problem for us because we only have one car and we live 15 minutes drive out of town so it is too far to walk or ride anywhere. Fortunately we live in an almost commune with hubby’s family so we are able to borrow a car to get to school and other important places while we work on fixing the cars engine.

TP is on his second day off school. He started running a high temperature with headaches early yesterday morning – like 3am ugh. He seems to be a lot better today, not so hot and he has a bit of an appetite again. Hopefully the rest of us don’t get it.

Anyway, what do you do to entertain sick kids?

I just go with whatever they want to do, TV, movies, colouring in….today they wanted to do some glueing.

BW is doing collage and TP is making red submarines in the blue sea.

I am looking at a book I borrowed from the library -

This book has some great blocks and ideas in it! Might have to try a few of them and it might be one to buy!

And I have been working on some things for my little shop -

These should be listed soon!