bento box baby

One of the great things about the Christmas holidays, is having husband home for a couple of weeks. The boys love having outside daddy time, and as such, I’m freed up to get all creative-like while baby girl is sleeping. One of the projects that I finished before New Years, and have just been too slack to blog, is a little Bento Box pram quilt for little miss. For no other reason except to give me an excuse to sew with pink!

 

It’s a handy little size to pop in the nappy bag, for emergency changes, or for somewher for Butterfly to squeeze in her tummy time when out visiting. Or even just hanging out on our deck, watching her big brothers playing.

 

 

Another weekend is here already, and with the house clean, and the boys playing happily outside, I’m hoping to get the sleeping babe in my arms transferred to her cot, and then finish her top – just button holes to go! Then some scrapping. Some painting. Some renovation admiring, dreaming, planning. Stories and playdough with the boys. Maybe a spot of baking. Packing every minute with as much fun as we can.

 

Happy Saturday everyone!

The Island of Sodor :: the quilty version

There’s a very special little boy a few hours north of here, that holds a very special place in my heart. A sweet, chubby cheeked little boy, who, just like my boys, loves to play trains.

It was his birthday recently. Ok. It was his 1st birthday at the beginning of the year. You may remember my laments about FMQing back then. We were off for a visit, and wanted to give it to him in person. I busted my chops, got it quilted, binding attached, and hand-stitched for three hours in the car. But failed.

So back home came the quilt. With four inches of binding to be stitched down. But the more I looked at it, the less I liked the look of the quilting. Or the 5000 ends that needed stitching in. So with a bit of help & advice from Emma, I unpicked & re-did the quilting. Not as fancy as what I’d planned, but more in keeping with my level of “skill”.

And so, it’s done. My first bargello quilt. I was aiming for a “Bay of Sodor” feel, with the green meadows for the trains to play, and a beach, for Toby the Tram to ferry his passengers to and fro. I’m reasonably happy with the results. With more time (and fabric!), I would do the strips thinner for more “natural” looking curves, but I was limited in the number of seams I could do, and still produce a reasonable sized play-lap quilt from a single width of fabric.

Today, we’ve been shopping. There’s a layer cake calling my name. An urgent work project keeping me away. Some housework to do. A cubby house has taken over my loungeroom. Plans and dreams have taken over my head space. And time, what’s that? Five minutes more would be nice. Or maybe just a cup of coffee and some of that orange cake we baked yesterday. Mmmm…. coffee…. Short week Wednesday, love the possibilities. Let’s do this!

so this sucks.

Right now, there are two things that suck. The first is my FMQ ability, or lack there of. The second is unpicking said FMQ.

I have 24 hours before this quilt needs to be done. Yikes. I should probably be unpicking rather than posting about how sucky the unpicking is, shouldn’t I? Ok. Deep Breath. Let’s do this.

Back to real life…

Two weeks ago, we were waking to a beautiful sunny day. Our first day of holidays, of playing & laughing, reading & cuddling. Then, Christmas came & went. Visting family, catching up with friends. Suddenly it was New Year. And in the blink of an eye, those two weeks seem like two hours, and we are back to real life today.

A little side bonus of having daddy at home was unencumbered fabric shopping. After a morning of running errands together, buying magazines, looking for a cricket set, regularly casting an eye sky-ward to check if the rain was gone yet, I shyly suggested we maybe could go via the fabric shop on the way home. With assurances of pre-planning, of a brief, 5 minute stop, we all piled out of the car and into the store. The children were quickly ensconced in the play area, and I started pulling bolts of fabric from the shelves. Yep. Yep. Mmm, not sure. Nope, deinately not. Husband prowled around, dividing his time between the children and me. How many are you buying? How much is this going to cost? Don’t you have enough yet? Will you be much longer? I simply rolled my eyes & sent him back to the children. Maybe the store should install a husband’s play area, he seemed to find the outing much more stressful than the children!

And my haul? A delightful rainbow of fabrics, fading through one colour & melting into the next.

And my little bundle all sliced up & ready to become a bargello quilt

The main part of the quilt quickly came together, and I must admit, I am quite pleased with the results, especially as itw as my first attempt at bargello. It is currently hanging behind me in my studio, waiting to be trimmed, and a border added. Then, when I feel brave, I’m going to FMQ it. The whole lot. Mmmm…

With life slowly coming back to normal, 2010 is starting out on the right foot. 6 loads of washing done & hung. Sandpits played in. Bikes ridden. Stories read & cuddled shared. Lego towns built. All the little moments that make life so wonderful. While they sleep, I’ve got a creative itch that needs scratching. With what, remains the question. Sewing? Painting? Scrapping? Maybe justa  quiet moment with a coffee and a book. Hello Monday, good of you to play nice. Let’s do this!

#quiltinaday

I’m always quite envious of those annoying productive types who seem to punch out a king-sized foundation peiced quilt, then FMQ’d in various colours & layers of complicated designs, and get it all done in the blink of a toddlers nap time.  Plus blog it. With mulitple perfectly staged photos. You know who you are.

But yesterday, I made a decision. To make a quilt in a day. If my little project was going to find it’s intended purpose with it’s intended recipient, it needed to be finished by 1pm today. So started the “quiltinaday” project.

After a moderately quick stop at the fabric store (well, quick by fabric-store-standards!), the children were fed, watered and put to bed, the air-con in the studio turned to “Arctic” (hey, it’s was very flippin’ hot here yesterday, then add in the iron, plus me working up a sweat churning out this quilt…), and it was time to get cracking.

The key to success in this project was simplicity. I decided on a simple 3-fabric disappearing nine patch, which I could strip piece. And, so, that is how I managed to go from:

1.42pm Monday

to this:

12.38pm Tuesday:

It’s not a masterpiece, but it is already well-loved. Quilting is just straight lines, rather than the FMQ that I think would really bring this design to life. It is only a small lap quilt, around 42″ across, with very nice bamboo batting. So lovely & soft, that stuff is. The little cream border between the green inner border and pink outer border is actually a flange sandwiched in the seam, inspired by the very talented Emma.

I did it. I made a quilt in 24 hours.Proof that dreaming big actually works. Just don’t ask about the state of my house… So, this afternoon, instead of painting, or drawing, or sewing, or any other variety of creating to make messes in my nice clean studio, I am playing catch-ups. And nursing a ruptured eardrum. Ouch. Maybe I’ll just pass out in front of the air-con and watch a movie with the boys. Thanks for playing nice, Monday. That was a fun project. Let’s do it again sometime.

Houston, we have a quilt!

 

Well, not a quilt, but it’s getting there! I’ve got almost all the fabric for Baby Bear’s cot quilt cut (I need to go buy some more of the red, fingers crossed my LQS has some left!). If it looks familiar, that’s because it’s the same fabric as Bear’s Jacobs Ladder quilt. I’m hoping to swing a bit of sewing time to start peicing it today. And yes, I know it’s a bit late to be making a cot quilt for a 6 month old baby, but in my defence, our cot converts to a toddler bed, so the quilt will get quite a bit of use. I do need to get it done now, as it is getting quite nippy at night, and it won’t be long before the small one needs more than winter pj’s and a sleeping bag. The plan is to have it sandwiched by the end of this week and get it quilted over the weekend… hmmm… best laid plans and all that!

 

It’s shaping up to be a productive day. The house is clean, the washing up done, and I’ve even managed to cobweb a couple of rooms. I’ve had half a cup of tea, read some stories, a couple of rounds of ‘The Duke of York, and it’s not even nine o’clock yet! On the horizon for today – a wander to the shops for said fabric, a spot of duck feeding, maybe a babycino if the small one behaves, and then swing by the library on the way home and grab some new books for the 50/50 challenge. Some quilt peicing, a painting that came to mind this morning, a coffee I can finish, a new batch of bath fizzers, and 5 million loads of washing.  What a list! Let’s do this!

Baby gifty crafty things

My cousin recently had a baby, so as part of her gift, I made her a change quilt (I was a bit absent-minded and forgot the nappy pocket – oops!).

 

And to wrap it, I grabbed a piece of brown paper I had lying around, and, coating toddler sized feet in various shades of blue paint, let the boy run wild!

I did try getting some baby prints on there too, but the small one wasn’t too keen, so he lay on a towel nearby & watched the fun. Unfortunately, the toddler failed to grasp the concept of “sit still and don’t touch anything with your feet”, so our back concrete is now also decorated. Oops. Hopefully it will come off… Or else we can just enjoy blue concrete until we get around to doing up the back yard!

 

Bear really enjoyed making this paper, so I’m tempted to grab an old sheet & so paint & let him go wild – then use the sheet to either make a tent, or just chuck in “cubby house building” pile – depending on motivation levels!