Happy Easter!

I made the mini rabbit dress 

which matches my daughter's Piccalilly dress.

Making rabbit dresses! It must mean it's Easter!!

Wishing you all a happy one xx

Hello Blog My Old Friend....

.....It's time to talk with you again!

I don't quite know what's happened to me.

I've always been busy, but my life has reached new levels of busy-ness.

February just flew by with a trip to sort out my Mother's flat

which turned out to be a mammoth task...

We're awaiting a shipment of sentimentality soon...

[I was reading with Miss Kalico the other night

and she saw a picture of an aeroplane and she said:

"Mummy went on an aeroplane to Africa. It was sad" :'( ]

*****

I keep wanting to take photos of things I'm doing,

but the change in Seasons means that if you blink you miss photo weather....

(Spiderwebs get worked on now and again....:)

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The biggest change after my Mom passed away

was that I got a part time job.

I needed a job, the lack of sleep 

and the horrible flashbacks were making the days and nights very difficult.

I think Mom would have been pleased....

It's just a few hours a week with a lovely bunch of people

and a great boss (this may sound a bit creepy,

but when you've spent the last decade looking after your kids

you need a special job with great workmates 

and an understanding boss to break you back in ;o) )

Sewing has taken a bit of a back seat,

except I still sew pretty much every evening (as I always have).

I have been working on 2 tractor quilts....

And I finished my 'Luna Lapin' kit

from coolcrafting.co.uk

 I don't normally buy kits, but this one is so cute.

She's been adopted at work,

so I have made her a 'work' outfit:

 with fabric from our Spring/Summer ranges....

and tiny heart buttons on the back.

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There has been much Easter crafting in this house:

And Easter baking:

I love letting Miss Kalico decorate the cake herself:

And 'to the victor the spoils' so to speak

*****

I will try not to leave it so long.....

.....until next time xx

Spring has NOT Sprung here yet!

I laid out all my blocks for my Purple Oceans quilt...

And have pinned them together to sew.

Borders are cut and I'll do them

as soon as I've got these together.

How I continually fail at quilt maths is beyond me :)

3 extra blocks!!!

ALL in the purple/brown colourway!

*****

Spring sadly has not arrived...

The sheep still shiver and snow lies on the ground

where it just will not melt away

nevertheless, it was Easter
and eggs were to be found!!!

The boys still had their Easter baskets

I made them years ago,

and of course Miss-Kalico had to get one made too!

She got lots of help

and lots of loot :)

Happy Easter to All!

Brrr! Cold Weather Crafting

I have loaded my first practise quilt on to the machine,

And I'm using a pantograph called stars and loops...

It's fun to do

and I'll hopefully start making a dent in my UFOs!

*****

But it's been bitterly cold out.

I missed getting photos of the snow drifts

as I was tucked up inside,

but the snow went right up the walls I was told...

While inside, ... I laid out my Scrappy Trip blocks

to see where I was with them...

Just a few more to make a picnic blanket for a friend.

I cut a pattern for and made an Easter Bunny...

And did some Easter crafting with the boys...

This is my youngest son's egg.

He likes things just so.

No help from me besides supervising the glue tube

produced a really pretty egg...

My older son is much more random

and definitely not as fussy

as to decorative element postitioning :)

This is my elder son's Easter 'Bonnet'

I had some lovely green bobble trim

and he just snipped all the bobbles off

to glue them randomly on his hat :)

My younger son of course was into symmetry...

Each decoration placed with care.

Two children so so different.

Happy Easter

Cheeky Little Monkey

My little monkey quilt for our friend's baby girl is ready to be delivered...


I phoned to check the spelling of her name for the label and learned that they had decorated her room in non-gender specific colours i.e. reds and creams, but I love that this little quilt/playmat... is very gender specific. I think for Mom's like me, who only have boys it's nice to make something pink once in a while!!

The back is beautiful soft flannel from the same range of fabric and the fabric is all (except the shocking pink) from my win on VickW's blog way back when. I made the label from a scrap piece of pink monkey fabric...


I do hope she likes it enough to use it, throw up on it etc etc - :-)


My Double Delight is back from the Longarmers. It could have been here months ago, but I guess not every one knows that you should never leave a message with my husband if you want me to get it :-)))


I still need to unpack it and to decide on the binding for it, but I can't wait as it will live on our bed as soon as it's done!


Yesterday we did an Easter Egg hunt with the boys in the garden. I love this photo of what looks like a strategy meeting :-)


And they liked the baskets I made them too!

Happy Easter

We have not had any sun to take pictures since I finished the Monkey quilt so I thought I'd show some of the Easter crafting we've been up to in this house instead...

Normally I wouldn't craft specifically for Easter, but the boys had to make bonnets and eggs for school.

(DS2 refused to wear his so DS1 modeled both!)

Four cracked eggs later...


We ended up with 2 eggs for school....

Hopefully lessons were learnt that you can't play with them or hide them in your room!

One of my online groups had a challenge for March which was making fabric eggs.


The pattern can be found at: http://retro-mama.blogspot.com/2009/03/easter-is-in-air.html

Of Mothers & Others & Hints of Spring

The boys were talking about Easter the other day and of course they remembered hunting for eggs last year with their friend Luca. I had some Easter fabric bought at Birgit's shop absolutely yonks ago and decided to make them each an Easter basket for collecting eggs. (DS1 wanted to know if I was going to put a Bionicle into it!!)

I was going to do a tutorial on how to make an Easter Basket, but to be honest it's basically just a simple interfaced tote bag with a bit of 'Cheater's Binding' around the top...



Here on the farm we have some lambs...


And the Crocuses are out...


So it's starting to feel very Spring-like indeed... :-)))))

It's still a little on the chilly side, so I just had to include this photo of Granny C showing DS2 how to keep his hands warm when you go out for a walk :-)




Last Sunday was Mother's Day in the UK and I was lucky enough to spend it with my Mother and my Mother in Law. In fact, I was lucky enough to hobble around and cook a roast dinner for 8 adults and 2 children! :-) It was a really nice day and the day started with 2 very excited little boys wanting me to get out of bed at the crack of dawn to be given some presents. At school, they had both made me cards and cute boxes (filled with iced cupcakes). And they were so excited and sweet. Silly really as everyday is Mother's Day - when you have kids there truly is no rest for the wicked :-D

DH bought me these seeds for Mother's Day:


He clearly has high hopes. I was hoping to start small. A few tomatoes, maybe some pumpkins, but it was very kind of him to show such faith :-)

I made my Mother, MIL and SIL a coin purse each...


My MIL & SIL are off to Disney for Easter so I popped in a few spare dollars from my last trip to the US which was also ages ago (definitely pre-kids!!)


And here's a parting shot of a parcel DH ordered last week. Actually he didn't order a parcel, he just ordered the washer, but it came all the way from Germany in this box!


We had a good laugh about it especially as the delivery chap insisted I sign for it!