A Wedding Gift & The End Of An Era

You know what I love?  I love when I make something and post a photo on my Facebook page, that someone else loves it too and immediately orders one!  That's exactly what happened a couple of weeks ago when I finished the ring bearer's cushion for my brother-in-law's upcoming wedding!

The customer requested specific fabric for the cushion - which I had none of!  Lucky for me, I'm in a few fabulous FB groups, and put a call out for scraps of Sugar Flower.  Even luckier for me, a couple of lovely women came to the rescue!  And yesterday, I spent the afternoon putting the order together.....

I adore this little paper piecing pattern by Quiet Play.  I already have another one printed out, ready to make a third!  I used the old faithful Aurifil #2024 to piece and quilt all the little pebbles on the front.  I'm getting pretty damn good at those damn pebbles!  It's taken a few projects to get in to my pebbling groove - proof that practice makes better.

Can you believe the back of the cushion is made from two scraps?!!?!?  Thanks Toni!!!  I love how bright and sunny this print is.

I heart hearts!

My favourite, but most nerve wracking part of these cushions, is the stamping.  I bought these divine little stamp sets before Christmas, not having any purpose in mind - just because they were cute!  And they have already been used twice!  Who knew!??!

And just because I've been talking about it for weeks now, Chloe started school today!  In what I can only describe as "an end of an era", today ended 15 years of having a child/children home with me.  Whilst I can confirm I did not cry when we dropped her off, I cannot deny my throat closing over and choking up last night when I got her uniform out.  And I can also not deny the tears that were shed this morning whilst I was by myself.  I'm sure there will be more tears over the coming weeks and months, when I find myself wondering where my little quiet companion is?

The four most precious "little" people in my life.

And the fifth, who started work late so he could continue the tradition of taking our kids to their first day of school.

THIS is what I will miss!

I'm linking up with Pretty Bobbins and Quiet Play - You can too!

A Pram Quilt

The end of 2013 heralded the arrival of a new baby boy!  My husband's cousin had her little man a few weeks early, a few days before Christmas.  So I pulled every single blue fabric I owned off the shelf and then edited myself.  I also grabbed a couple of divine Bella & Boo prints (the pirates, indians and cowboys), and made a very simple patchwork quilt.  This is pram/bassinet size, and I can't remember the dimensions!  I also forgot to take photos of it before I took it around to deliver to little Archie!  So I have to give cudos to his clever Mummy, Larissa, for these fabulous photos!

I backed it in these gorgeous little blue elephants.  They came all the way from Japan from my Tokyo BFF.

I kept with the simple look by quilting it 1/4" either side of the seams using Aurifil 50wt #2810 which is a divine bright turquoise/aqua.  And possibly my favourite part of this quilt is the binding and the few grey/white squares used.  I got out the scraps of Paloma from my Isosceles Triangle quilt - because this little man is the brother of Georgia, who sleeps under the triangle quilt!  Make sense?  Hahah....

So this was my final finish for 2013 - and today heralds the start of the school year - for 3 out of 4 kids anyway.  My littlest starts tomorrow - boohooo!  Which heralds the start of new quilts and the finishing of WIP's!  Hoorah!

I'm linking up wherever they will have me - You can too!

Sunday Stash - The Holiday Edition

I arrived home on Friday afternoon after five glorious days away, to find a few fabulous little parcels awaiting me.

I put a call out to my quilty friends in a couple of FB groups, and the lovely Anorina came through for me!  I needed some Sugar Flower scraps for a wedding cushion, and given that it's not my usual style, and I only needed a teeny bit, I am very grateful for the generosity! xxx

You may remember my post from a week or so ago, when I proclaimed I needed more Terrain after delving in to my scrap stash?  Well, I went on a bit of a search, and these delicious fat quarters and a little yardage arrived too!  SOOOOO thrilled!

And just because it's AUSTRALIA DAY today - I'm sharing with you some snaps of our little getaway last week.  It's a beautiful part of the country/world.  My husband has been holidaying in Sandy Point for his whole life.  I've been lucky enough to share it for the past twelve years.  If you haven't heard of it before, it's about half an hour from Wilson's Promontory - the southern most part of Australia!

I'm sure that when we tell people we are heading down to the beach house, they have grand illusions of a big white house on top of a sand dune!  Nope.  This delightful little three bedroom home is just perfect, nestled amongst the trees in a quiet little hamlet.  The kids can ride their bikes around the streets without us worrying about them getting hit.  And our little Chloe learnt to ride sans training wheels this trip!

In all the years we've been down there, not once have we ventured to "The Prom".  Well, I lie.  We went the first time I visited - heavily pregnant with Chelsea.  Andrew and I planned to do a walk, but as soon as we got there, it pissed down with rain, so we turned around and went back home!  Anyway - we took the plunge and headed there this time - and what a day.....

Wilson's is a huge national park, which means it is protected from all the crap humans do to the rest of the unprotected parts.  It is a truly pristine destination.

There were some pretty nasty bushfires there in 2009, but the rejuvination is amazing.

We had never bush walked before, so it was a bit of an adventure.  We chose an "easy" walk - the Lilly Pilly Gully walk.  The first part was all flat, and included this gorgeous boardwalk through a rainforest section.

All Chloe wanted to see were some animals.  She had to make do with wombat burrows and poo......

After breaking for lunch, we headed off in the direction that pointed us towards the car park.  3.2km it said.  After about 500 metres of uphilling it, we realised the entire 3.2km would be the same.  Chloe climbed aboard Lochie's shoulders, and he took her the whole distance.  We made it to the top......

And were rewarded with this spectacular view of the coastline!

And straight after the walk, we jumped in the car and headed to Squeaky Beach.  Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!

My favourite part of our trips to Sandy Point are the days when it's not too hot or windy, and we can head to the shallow inlet.  As you can see, we hit the jackpot on our second last day!  Perfection.  No waves for me to worry about the kids, and Andrew brought the fishing rods and attempted fishing before they all became bored with that and continued swimming!

And my favourite shot from this holiday.  My beach babe.

With only three more sleeps until the kids return to school, and four sleeps until Chloe begins Prep - I am well and truly rested, and have thoroughly enjoyed these school holidays. I'm now looking forward to returning to our regular schedule and routines - and a clean house!

I'm linking up with Sunday Stash - You can too!

Weekly Round up #2 - The Heat Wave Edition

As I sit here with leggings on (don't judge me - my top is covering my arse) and revel in the cool breeze, I can look back on the week that was and say "THANK GOD THAT IS OVER!"  You see, us Melbournians (and a few other parts of Oz) suffered through an exhausting week.  Five days in a row over 40 degrees (104+ farenheit) and we were all pretty much ready to crawl in to a rabbit hole and expire.  Thankfully the husband and I took the plunge a few months ago and invested in refrigerated cooling in the house.  We may be broke, but we were cool.  When inside.  On the few occasions I had to venture out, it was hideous.  Absolutely hideous.

Anyway.

I did manage to make a few things, buy a few things and ponder a few things.  For your viewing pleasure....

I ordered my divine Botanics bundle before Christmas.  And I seriously nearly hyperventilated when they arrived this week!  The colours and textures in the prints are just to die for.

Just because I don't have anything else to do, I decided to jump on board the Aurifil Designer of the month challenge.  Pat Sloan is the hostess with the mostest, and has a fabulous Facebook group! I fluffed around for a few hours trying to decide which fabrics to use, and then stumbled across my much loved Terrain scrap bag.  And that was that.  January's block can be found HERE.  It is a fabulous spool block, and I loved putting it together!  It also reaffirmed how much I love Terrain, and sent me in to a tailspin trying to track down more, so that when I've finished the full year of monthly blocks, I can put a quilt together.  I grabbed a bundle from #thegreatfabricdestash on Instagram.  Oh. My. Lord.  Did you all see that fascinating spectacle???  I swear I wasted at least a couple of hours that day cruising through everyone's destash photos, and freaking out at how big some people's stashes really must be?  Anyway, I also managed to find a fabulous store in NSW for us Aussies, who also has Terrain available, and at a very reasonable sale price!  You can find it HERE.

The freaking out continues as I put together all of my little Chloe's school items.  I was uber impressed with her fabric choice for her library bag!  I was gifted this gorgeous butterfly print from my Tokyo Bff.  Chloe was most impressed with my choice of pink Aurifil thread to free motion her name tag!  Win win!

My search for the perfect bee block continued.  My month as Queen is March, and I wanted to be organised.  I kept coming back to the block that was designed by Kate Spain for the Fat Quarter Shop's mystery BOM.  I made the block a few weeks ago, which you can see HERE.  So I took a leap of faith and emailed Kate last week, asking her permission to use the pattern for my bee.  Got a lovely reply, and went forth to experiment!  Now, if you just saw the original block, you would agree they look COMPLETELY different!  My vision for the bee blocks is for each bee member to choose a colour, and make this block in the different tones radiating outwards, from light to dark.  I wasn't sure if it was going to work, but I am really really happy with how my aqua/blue block turned out!  I spent some time last night searching online for a version of this pattern that isn't on paper.  If you have seen it on the interwebs, please let me know!  It would be far easier to point my bee to an online version, than scanning the paper pattern or re-writing it in PDF form!

And last BUT definitely not least in my week....... I received my Wombat Stew Secret Santa gift!!!!  Yes, it's a little late, but given that my Santa had an international move to contend with over the holidays, I was very patient.  That doesn't mean that when I saw the package in the post box and saw Gemma's name on it, I didn't run, hands flailing in the air, then ripping the parcel open?  No, not me.  What can I say??  Gemma is one of my closest on line friends, and she has made me the most beautiful sewing machine cover ever made!

Every single part of it is divine.  I spent last night staring at the free motion writing on the sides, writing down the words Gemma had shared.  Some of them I have had to write ? because they've disappeared in to the binding, but like a true sleuth, I shall deciper them!

 

This is the INSIDE!?!?!?  WHA??!?!?!!?  As usual, Gemma has managed to incorporate her beautiful free motion quilting in to the project.  Sigh.

Thank you so much Gemma! I absolutely adore my gift, and I look forward to another fabulous year of being a wombat, and getting quilty with you and the other ladies! xxx 

So that's it my friends! In a nutshell. Another weekly round up, because school holidays are still in force. ONLY TEN MORE DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm off to the beach house (sounds fancy yes?) tomorrow, with the six of us stuffed in to our car, and trailer full of bikes and crap behind us. Five days of relaxing and sitting around. Who am I kidding? Five days of refereeing children at a different location..... I AM looking forward to it! Have a wonderful week, and I will see you all back here next week with another round up! I'm sharing this all over the place, cos I can! You can too!

Weekly Round Up

We are nearly half way through the Summer school holidays here.  And this week - Summer arrived!  We've had a very unseasonally cool few weeks, so we have taken advantage of the sun and heat and spent some time outdoors.  I thought I would share some evidence of such frivolity.....

We don't get to the beach much, it's a minimum 30 minute drive, but one of my best friends lives down near the sea, so we traipsed down there!  It was brilliant!

Chloe received this sprinkler fun set for Christmas.  Now up until a year or so ago, my kids had no idea what a sprinkler was!  You see, for many years we were on water restrictions here in Melbourne, so no sprinklers allowed!  We've had plenty of rain this year - so it's fun for everyone!

My husband plays cricket every Summer.  Yawwwwnnnnnnnnn.  I try really hard to make a concerted effort to get down and watch him every now and then, but really, I have sewing to do.  Anyway, my youngest son goes with his Dad every week, and is sort of like a club mascot.  He has his own club shirt etc, and is water boy for the team.  He takes this very seriously.  I don't.  This photo was taken yesterday, when I took the girls down for an hour or so, and I was laughing at Cadyn's enthusiasm.  God love him.

Anyway, I wanted to show you how I've been spending my time and exhausting myself, and why I haven't been blogging!  So I'm putting all the pretty photos in to one post to display my week of sewing!

I'm taking part in the Sweet Pouch Swap, hosted by the lovely Ros from Sew Delicious.  I've missed out the first two rounds of the swap, so am very excited to be joining in this time round!  I've been partnered up with Barbara from Germany - you have to go and check out her blog HERE.  Click on translate or just enjoy the beautiful photos!  Given the deadline for posting our pouches is the end of this month, and I am working quite a bit and will be going away for a week - I deliberated for a few days on what I would make, and then got it all sorted the other day.

Here's a sneak peak at the finished product.  Now to fill it with sweets!  I will do a big reveal of it once it's arrived in Germany!

The other project I've been working on is my Waterfront park quilt.  I finished another three blocks yesterday and then laid it all out to see what I needed to do colour wise for the remaining blocks.  It did my head in.

But I kept going and got another six blocks finished today!  Phew.

And last but certainly not least - I got my January block done for Fiona in our Wombat Stew paper piecing bee.  Now if you can't figure out what the theme of Fiona's blocks are, I'm in trouble!  This little beast was very fiddly, but I got through it!  It's another fabulous pattern by Kristy at Quiet Play.  All of her Star Wars Lego patterns are free - so head over and check them out!

And that's it.  I'm working the next few days, then have Thursday and Friday off before working all weekend - but am looking forward to then heading down to the beach the following week!  SO much to do - SO little time!

I'll be linking up with a bunch of peeps this week, when their linkies open up!