Work in Progress

I just wanted to stop by and let you know I am working on some patterns.  I must admit it is harder juggling the business with family life.  My youngest has so much energy I wish she would give it to me because by the time I am done chasing her around during the day and cleaning up the last mess of an evening I am ready to crash!

Here is a snippet of what I am working on at the moment.

I have a bunch of quilt designs drawn up in my sketch book ready to become patterns if only I can find the time to write them up and test them.  Wish me luck ;p

And yes those are the last of the girls Easter eggs I ate :o.  Actually the smaller eggs were the girls for the fun of collecting and mums and dads for eating ;D

Easter Morning

I know this post is late in coming but I just wanted to get it recorded.  Given that hubby was away over Easter the girls and I asked my mum if we could sleep over at grandmas house.  This then meant letters needed to be written to Easter bunny to let him know where to deliver the eggs prior to going ;p.

It was great to be able to share the excitement of collecting the eggs left by Easter Bunny with mum as it is something she misses out on these days.  The girls had a blast and I let them eat as much chocolate as they wanted (and what was left would then be rationed).  I was actually surprised to see our eldest princess hand her half eaten egg to her sister saying "I've had enough sugar Sarah can have the rest of my egg".  Ah no sorry princess she has enough sugar herself - our littlest princess eats EVERYTHING so adding more chocolate to her stash wasn't an option (the crash would be awful).

During the morning we practiced Chloe's talk for Primary at church on the true meaning of Easter and Chloe also taught grandma and I a song she learnt at school sung to the tune of Humpty Dumpty.
"Easter Friday Jesus has died,
All his friend are sad and they cried.
Easter morning what a surprise!
Jesus has risen,Hooray he's alive"

I hope you all had a fantastic Easter.

Our Easter Friday

This Easter was not your typical Easter for us as a family because hubby was away from us.  He spent the Easter on what us Tasmanians like to call 'the mainland' while we stayed in Tassie.

This year for Easter Friday hubby's side of the family organised a fantastic day at Bakers Beach.  I had never been before so when it was suggested that we would be going for a walk and have a BBQ I envisioned I would be trying to carry all the equipment required for the beach along with the picnic gear and possibly the littlest princess (maybe both).  This was not the case (although I did carry the littlest princess on our walk as she became exhausted from walking and eventually fell asleep in my arms.  The BBQ area was right next to our cars and we had an awesome grassed area to ourselves for most of the time so the kids were able to have a blast collecting the little eggs scattered around on the easter egg hunt.

My mother in law had come prepared with 'minute to win it' games for us all to play most of which I had never seen before but they were loads of fun for adults and kids alike.

There was a marshmallow game where you use chopsticks to transfer as many mini marshmallows as possible from one plate to another in a minute and the winner is the person who has transferred the most marshmallows.

There was a smarties game where you use a straw to suction the smarties up and transfer from one plate to the next finishing by making a smiley face.

A balancing dice game where we needed to balance as many dice as possible on an icy pole stick in your mouth without dropping them.

A knocking down the cup game with the aim being to be the first to knock the cups over in your row using a trunk made from a tennis ball inside a stocking and put on your head.

A biscuit (cookie) game where you had to get the biscuit (cookie) from your forehead to your mouth without using any hands  (no photos of this one sorry).

We had so much fun despite the weather becoming quite cool and not making it to the beach.  I can see more trips to Bakers Beach in the future :)

 
 

Making Easter Bunny Bags (a tutorial)

I can't believe it has been almost a month since I last posted!  I am sorry.  It is mostly because life has been kind of ordinary around her with nothing too exciting to share.  I have been filled my days mostly doing mum things (I often wonder if you really want to hear or even care about the mundane happenings around here).  My littlest princess is very different to her big sister and is certainly keeping me on my toes.  She is into all sorts of mischief and can turn the tears on and off in a second!  Yeah sometimes it is so much fun being a mum!  ;p  (It is seriously all worth it and I wouldn't change it for the world!


Anyway I wanted to share the Easter treats my biggest princess made for her teachers at school and church.  She really wanted to give them something after seeing mum give some treats to some lovely friends while VT so I had a little think about what we could give that would be quick and easy to make and made mostly by her with minimal help from me so I decided on these little bunny faces.

How to make the Easter Bunny Bags:
All you need is some small plastic bags, scissors, double sided tape, black and pink buttons, white/cream card, paper squares cut to the size of the plastic bag and a pen or marker.

• Trace some 'ears' onto the wrong side of the white/cream card and some smaller ears onto the wrong side of the pink.  Give to your child to cut along the lines (it is OK if they can't cut exactly - it adds to the charm).  Stick the smaller pink ears onto the cream/white ears using double sided tape.

• Draw a rabbit mouth in the center of the page about 1/3 from the bottom of the square paper (I actually had our princess trace over one I did as she kept drawing it too high)

• Stick a pink button for the nose at the top of the mouth and the eyes into position using double sided tape.

• Fill the bags with treats, seal and stick the ears to the back of the bag using double sided tape.

They are ready to give as gifts.  I love how they are each different and a little quirky :)

I hope you all had a fabulous Easter!!! (I will share more photos of our Easter happenings a little later)

Balancing Elephants

One of my patterns that I love stitching up at the moment is the 'Balancing Elephants' messenger bag.

I think because it is such a wonderful quick sew (by comparrison to quilts)!  I have a few elephant panels already traced and because they are nice and small I can take them almost anywhere to sew while I am waiting for Chloe to finish swimming, at the doctors or watching TV (but not during The Block - that gets my undivided attention ;p)

Anyway I just wanted to share my latest made from Emily Taylor's Avignon line of fabric which I got from here.  I just love this fabric line!  It is bright and I love the citrus colours and the refreshing...blue (surprise surprise hey?!)

I also uses Riley Blake's Mini Pom Pom trim which I got from the same place here. 

I love how different the bag looks when sewn in alternate fabrics don't you?!  Have you sewn the Balancing Elephants Bag?  Do you have any photos you would like to share of this or any of my other patterns?  I would love to see them :)

Chloe's Quilt

Quite some time ago our eldest princess decided she wanted to make a quilt (see here).  So after handing her a pile of 5 inch squares to arrange she came up with this.

We pieced it together, her sitting on my lap to take out the pins and me helping her to guide the fabric through the machine. 

It then took me quite sometime to get into gear and quilt it!  You see I wanted to hand quilt it to make it extra special for her.  But there just never seemed the time so while hubby was on Christmas holidays I set myself the goal to do it.  Well... on his last day off I picked it up and not too much later it was done!  Yippee Yay.  I used Perle 5 Cotton to quilt it with to add an extra design element to it.  My mum machine bound it so its kinda really special being made by three generations ;p 

I have just got to get into gear and put a label on it now (one day).  Speaking of which do you label your quilts?  It is something all quilters 'should do' to tell the story of the quilt but I have only ever labeled my quilts once before - when it was going as a gift to a friend.  This one quilt I want the story to remain with . :)

 Side note:  Is anyone interested in a tutorial to make it?  It is the perfect beginner quilt.  I taught my sister in law to make it when she was down over the Christmas break and she did the top in a day and even machine quilted it herself while she was over (she had never made a quilt before)!  If I get enough interest I will write a tutorial up for you.

This was a quick on the go photo to show positioning of fabrics for my sister in laws quilt

 

Happy Sewing!

A Quilt for a Friend

Recently a friend of mine was given the terrible news that she had cancer. 

Knowing it was going to be a long road ahead and how 'sterile' and often cold hospital rooms are my sister, mum and I wanted to make her something that could keep her warm, lift her spirits and let her know we are thinking of her and what better way than with a quilt right?!

With my sister sussing out her favourite colours and choosing a pattern ('So Sweet) we set to work raiding the fabric stash to make the quilt. While we used the so sweet pattern we did juggle fabric placements for each block in order to get the most from the fabrics we had on hand (we had some larger pieces and some quite small pieces to incorporate).  Purple is not a colour I  have much of in my stash so we also ordered some stars and chevron from here to help get us through.

Then it was sent to my amazing quilter Sarah who was a powerhouse and got it back to me in a week!  AMAZING!  We choose the same paisley that Sarah used on the first So Sweet quilt but this time opted for looser quilting so it would be nice and soft to snuggle under when undergoing treatments or feeling low.

My mum machine bound it before we made a quilt label and gifted it to her.

It was so nice to make this quilt together for our dear friend and hope she can feel of our love for her as she  faces this trial with positive determination.