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!

Love is...

Love is...

... being able to use my sewing machine again for very short periods (until it gets uncomfortable to sit or until my 'bad' foot starts feeling weird and cold LOL)

Love is...

... making 5 heart blocks for bedside table toppers. All our beside tables need toppers so I thought I'd make them with some of the beautiful reds I recently received.

Love is...
...Lots of sunshine
...New lambs on the farm
...Blue eggs from our neighbours

Love is...
(fill in the blank!)

Bish-Bash, Lilies and Gifted Stash

I have now completed 2 whole Carolina Lily blocks with many others in parts. I am still not sure of my final layout, but I think I will make about 8 blocks and then decide :-)
Each block is about 18 inches in size.
I took this photo to show the back of a block too so that the papers can also be seen...

I swear my stems are worse this time round!!! I shall have to start taking some of the good advice I have been given on how to do them especially as I fancy some more applique after I've finished these Lilies.


I have some very overdue thanks! Andrea sent me these fabrics while I was still in the hospital (6 weeks ago! Sorry!)


Thank you Andrea, I remember them brightening my day, they are so cute and will be great for some of my Linus projects. Plus a friend has an eye on the cats, so I shall have to make her something fun with that fabric. The owls are my favourite.


Jenny (no time for a blog) made me this gorgeous needlecase as a get out of hospital gift.


It's lovely. Thanks Jenny.

Kandy and Vicky made huge contributions to my red and green stash!!
Thanks Kandy!:


And Vicky C!:

(This is just a small selection of what Vicky kindly gave me!)

Kate sent me 2 African blocks for our swap. Now it's my turn - eek! Perhaps I can handsew them?

Kate also included some gorgeous rose fabrics and 2 magazines that were gobbled up immediately. (They are next to my bed and I'm not crutching up and down stairs just for a photo!) Thanks Kate!

Josie (my patron :-D) sent me the most lush reds and this beautiful sheep fabric. Thanks Josie!


Josie said the fabric reminded her of where we live.

A while back I drew a sheep wallhanging idea on the back of an envelope and this fabric has got me thinking about that project again... Then Anne sent me some green fabrics this week and I'm thinking that some of her green fabrics with the sheep fabric would work really well in realising that scribble on that envelope!!

Thank you so much Anne:

Such a wonderful selection and some tasty hand-dyes too!

I hope I haven't missed anyone, but I can honestly say that I am blown away by the kindness of fellow bloggers and friends! Thank you.
Thank you also for the kind comments when I was feeling so low. In the end we discovered that perhaps I wasn't ready to come off all the pain medication so soon and that the pain was indeed counterproductive. So I am back on a some pain relief and suddenly the whole world seems brighter. (I'm very tired again, but comfortable at least!)

And now for the bashing!:


We like to help Dad especially when it means we get to swing a hammer around! DH is making dust again, but at least it means the old kitchen will finally become a new bedroom/play-room or office. I joked it would be a great sewing room, but I think it was a no LOL!

Book Review: A Quilt for Baby

~Especially after my last post I am happy to confirm that this book review is not my way of blogging any significant news! :-) ~

I took photos of this book, "A quilt for Baby" by Kim Lewis, absolutely ages ago, but never got around to blogging them. This week, the boys needed baby and family photos for a family tree project at school and while I was hunting for those photos, I found these...


My dear friend Josie sent me this book about 4 years ago (I think I was pregnant with DS2 at the time). Thanks Josie!


I had grand plans to make a similar quilt inspired by the one in the book, especially as we live on a farm, but you know about grand plans ;-)))
(Which reminds me of another favourite joke:
Q: How do you make God laugh?
A: make plans!)

I like the illustration where she is still quilting it AFTER the baby is born! That's my girl LOL!!:


Anyway, it's a gorgeous book and the illustrations are lovely and perhaps when I'm old and grey and looking forward to a grandchild from one of my boys, I may dig it out and think about making such a quilt again... We'll see. I better not make any plans about it though! LOL

Sewing therapy

Q: Why did the banana go and see the doctor?
A: Because he wasn't peeling well!

This is my 3 year old's favourite joke and because it makes him laugh so much, we have to laugh too. Today I don't feel much like laughing. The sun is shining, my operation is 6 weeks behind me, but I'm so low. Not because after today's x-ray I still can't weight bear on my leg, not because I have to rely on everyone to carry stuff for me, not because I can't just get in my car and do something different or fetch my kids from school. No, I feel low because of all of those things, but probably more because I miss my sewing machine. I miss my foot on the pedal, my brain on the task and the way that makes me feel about my troubles!

I have physiotherapy every week, but what I really need is some sewing therapy!

Colour Therapy

I am just desperate for Spring!! Then being stuck in with these crutches won't feel so grim!

I was looking at some old photos and found these which were taken by my late father-in-law when he and his wife visited us in South Africa...

Hermanus:


Bo-Kaap:


Langebaan:


Bo-Kaap again:
South Africa is so full of colour. (I remember walking home from school, after spending my train fare at the tuckshop, that I used to get called a 'whitey'! LOL)

Hurry up Spring with your colour palette of new life!

Carolina Lily by hand

I have completed one full section by hand of my Carolina Lily project.


The flowers and white sections were English paper-pieced, the binding was made following the instructions (I think I may need another way to do this as I am not finding it so easy this way - this may be due to it being my first time at stems) and the leaves were appliqued over paper (my favourite way). As I will have to remove the papers at some point, it will be no extra bother to remove the papers from the leaves too :-)

I did manage to sit at my sewing machine for about 5 minutes to sew these few binding strips, but it was not fun. My leg is still learning to do normal things and it may take some time before I am running my sewing sweat shop again LOL.

I had the staples removed last week and nearly fainted. I shouldn't have looked, but they had such an interesting gadget to take the staples out that I was riveted for about the first five staples and then nauseous for the last twenty (or goodness knows how many there were!) Edit: there were 36!

I am pretty much set for reds now, with extra special thanks to Kandy, Vicky and Josie who gave me the most amazing amount of fabric that my mother (who doesn't get this fabric thing AT ALL) thinks I should open a shop. Thank you so very much. Now who's got some greens LOL.

Carolina Lily Crazy

I have always wanted to do Marti Mitchell's Carolina Lily quilt pattern. I bought the pattern last year, but have only gotten around to starting it now.


Of course, I couldn't do it as per the instructions. No, I had to make the templates a different size AND I had to do it as an English Paper piecing project. i.e. it will all be done by hand. (I have only managed 2 segments of the first block - each block is made of 4 segments and needs applique too!)


Well, I do have time on my hands and space on my lap...



Between two hospital stays for my leg in 2 years (and a bit done at home here and there), I have finished the applique on 80 die-cut hearts that my friend Donna sent me a few years back...


I have plans to make 3 quilts out of the 80 hearts. They now need machine work, but I am unable to use my sewing machine at present, hence the Carolina Lily's which will take me several years to complete.



I have aslo been sewing spare hexagons into a small panel to try a bag out. So I am keeping those fingers busy.

I'm on the lookout for red on red fabrics for the Lilies. If you have any you'd like to swap please let me know.

In the meantime, they should be taking my staples out this week. As someone who sews, I was highly offended that they stapled me instead of stitching me back together!!

Learning to walk again (and again and again..)

It has been a blur of pain medication in insufficient doses, interrupted sleep by blue uniformed nurses, hospital food of questionable flavour, needles and cannulas, bandages and staples and not very nice revelations...:


On admittance I was informed that the current corrective procedure probably now needs to be done in 2 surgical phases and we will need to see if this first correction heals satisfactorily before proceeding with the second corrective surgery later in the year. The second phase will in fact be a reversal of one of the initial corrective surgeries that I had in Germany (which at the time was necessary just to get me walking again).

So it has been quite an ordeal to say the least and to know that I will probably have to be this sore later in the year again is not a thought to be relished. However, I am home, I am alive, I can walk a bit, albeit very painfully, with my crutches and my hands can still sew, so I will sew and read and heal and love my boys (and Mom) and be happy to be home!

Oh Mickey!

Just one more before I go...


My 4th finish for 2010 and probably my last one for a long while now as Monday I'm off to the chopping block for my 3rd bout of corrective surgery on this gammy leg of mine.


I am so pleased to be able to give both boys a quilt before I go into hospital so this was a race to the finish. I machine quilted a grid and then big stitch handquilted around the stars...



Labels are on both this quilt and my Mother's butterfly lap quilt (shown finished in my previous post) and as my computer is now working (yes, you read that right! Not for long according to the copmputer shop LOL, but I'm not complaining!) I managed to find some photos of the Butterfly quilt, that I made for my brother and his wife, which produced the bonus triangles for Mom's quilt...

It lives in South Africa...

Along with all the wonderful swap gifts I got for Christmas, my lovely hubby bought me a 'posh' phone. As I usually get by with the cheapest phone the supermarket has to offer, I have been having a few issues with the technology LOL. He suggested that I make a case for it so I whipped up this one in the most awesome fabric aquired in South Africa from Shine Shine.


I think I love the case more than the phone LOL and I am working on a laptop cover in the same fabric, but I doubt I'll finish it before Monday. I have bought wool to knit beanies (the sum total of my knitting repertoire) and have lots of handwork lined up including a trial of a Carolina Lily block done in the English Paper piecing style. In fact, I have so much handwork, I doubt I'll get through it all, or at least I hope not!!

Butterfly Bonus

Another finish - My third for 2010! This crazy nervous energy has an amazing effect on my productivity. These are the bonus triangles from the Butterfly Blossom quilt, that I made for my brother and his wife, which was basically Bonnie Hunter's Pineapple Blossom quilt done in butterfly fabrics.

This lap quilt is for my Mom, who has had a change of heart and will indeed be coming to help me get over my op... yay!



It's backed with fleece and I hope it will keep her nice and warm...


It just needs a label.

And this is a quilt for Linus that went to Vicky last week.

(It had been finished for a while, but ahem, it got lost in my stash... )

One Mickey Mouse quilt coming up

I had these Mickey Mouse placemat panels as the starting point for Ds2's quilt, but I wasn't feeling too inspired with their shape. There were 10 rectangular panels and I wanted a 3 x 4 layout so needed 12 blocks. I cut the panels into 12 inch squares and managed to squeeze 12 blocks out of the 10 panels.

Then I laid them out. They needed something....
I remembered the beautiful star quilt from the book 'Quick Quilts for Kids' by Elizabeth Keevil. I have made one of the other quilts in this book and always wanted to try her star quilt (you can see a bit of it on the cover) ...

I found some 'Wonder Under' from my good friend Birgit and set about customising my Mickey Mouse squares.

We had 'black ice' outside our house and in the yard yesterday. After DS1 slipped and hurt himself getting to the car, we decided not to risk a drive to school. So the boys were home and my sneaky sewing was interrupted a few times...



Voila! LOL. Lots of stars in red. DS2's favourite colour!



I used my selvedge method of keeping track of which squares went where...



Added sashings...



And then borders... And now we have a Mickey Mouse top ready for basting!



Mom's butterfly quilt got put on hold to do the Mickey quilt, even though it was already basted as Mom has decided that for health and warmth reasons she won't be able to come and help me when I go into hospital. I'll be on crutches for 6 months so she probably feels that there will be plenty of time to lend a hand LOL. I do hope to get it quilted soon though and can always handsew the binding while recovering.

Cats & Dogs

My second finish for 2010.

The front:



The back:


The label:



This quilt or idea and fabrics for it have been around a while. I finally finished the top last year in the hopes that I could get it longarmed for DS1's birthday in September, but that didn't happen in time so it just got put aside for yet another bit. As I'm due to go into hospital soon, I just wanted to get it done so I machine quilted it myself with a wiggly line around all the blocks and up and down the borders in a sort of grid formation.

I finished sewing the binding and label on last night, but am not sure now when I'll give it to him, perhaps sooner rather than later as it's been so cold here and he could at least use it while it still so icy out (only problem is I haven't really started DS2's Mickey Mouse quilt and I haven't much time before my operation!)

PS we get some strange birds, feeding on our birdfeeder, these days!