Mrs Noahs quilt-along

two posts in one evening, I can't remember the last time that happened!!

This week Duniris and I have just set up a new flickr group called Mrs Noahs Quilt-along. It is for people who have this book by Janet Bolton, or fancy getting it and doing some applique and mini-quilting. Also if you have any of her other books,or have been to workshops by Janet Bolton, or if you just like her work, please feel free to join our group, post any relevant pics, and tell us what you are up to. We would love to see you!!

You can get the book on Amazon or sometimes on ebay shops, and it comes with fabric pieces that you can just applique your own fabric scraps straight onto. I finished my quilt a bit back, and have begun another one called my grandmothers patchwork quilt.

They are easy to pick up and set down when you get interrupted by small children (just my experience!!) and are great for summer as you can take a couple of squares and scraps of fabric virtually anywhere, a needle, some thread, just slip it in your bag!! Come on, you know you want to - join in!!!

fab retro pinny and bangs

Hmm, I never look good in photos, or at least I never look like I think I look in my head, maybe this is as good as I get in real life!!

anyway, I wanted to show off this fantastic pinny that Anamama thrifted for me and gave me as part of an easter gift. Isn't it beautiful? I love it as a piece of clothing, but dont know if I quite have the gall to go out about town in it, I think the old ladies in town might give me some hard stares! I would like to alter it maybe to turn it into something i could wear, I will have to have a think. (any ideas???).

Here's a close up of the pinny fabric, it is black when its out of the sunshine.


Hey, I have a new haircut too, I have a fringe (or bangs, and isn't bangs just such a great word?)), though it is clipped up in this photo. Its the first fringe in 14 years, and not without good reason as it is very unruly and I either have to use straighteners or clip it back, or it ends up going like this:


uh-oh!

...anyone else having flashbacks to those fringe trims that your Mum used to give you that always ended up being a bit short as you wouldnt sit still to let her cut it level, so she had to cut a bit more and a bit more, and it was wet, and when it dried it was so high above your eyebrows....

Oh, and contrary to the first pic I do have feet, just my trousers are long and my feet are bare , and yes that is yesterdays washing still on my line!

birds nest and cake time again!

Last night I was tidying my house like mad in an attempt to make it visitor-worthy. In among the general house debris that builds up, I found this bird that I made last year, crocheted out of fabric, but what struck me was that my bird had found herself a nest!

She was sitting in another crochet project, this time made out of crocheted plastic bags. It will one day become a bag like this one by my Sister-in-law, or I was thinking, perhaps a funky waste basket. So far though, it is only about 5 inches high, and waiting for me to cut, tie and ball up more plastic bags ready to crochet.

For now, it makes an ideal, colour co-ordinated nest though, dont you think???

All my tidying was in preparation for our 3rd Cake day, this time at my house. As hostess I didn't have to make a cake, but I did make lunch; lots of cheeses, biscuits, salad, fruit and other nibbles. There were 5 of us today, and 4 children. We had a lovely day as the sun came out and we spent nearly all day out in the garden while the children played around us and we chatted, drank tea and nibbled cake.

Today we had Banana cake, Orange and Lemon cake, Wheat-free Chocolate cake and Coffee and Walnut cake. Yum.


click on the pic to see it bigger.

Two shoes, New shoes

bright shiny blue shoes!!


We have been shoe shopping today, and got these lovely shoes. I had some dilemma about which colour to get, I am always naturally drawn to red, but these are such a pretty blue, and Lucie liked them, so I plumped for these. I haven't ruled out running back and getting the red ones too!!!

As we left the shop I remembered a book we have by Shirley Hughes that both I and the children love. I searched high and low for it, and found it where I expected - under the bed!


Recently several people have mentioned that my children look like they are from Shirley Hughes books, I like that, they are happy and free to play and be creative and look a little messy in the process if they like!

T-day!

Friday was T-day! I went over to my friend Julias house and we had tea (and later coffee - is that allowed?!) and biscuits. She has much prettier teacups than me, more photogenic! Oh and has anyone seen my saucers, as they are not in my cupboard, not one of them. Anyway, we drank some of the tea Bonny from Canada sent to me in her swap parcel, I just realised I only put photos on flickr and didn't show on here (I think I was saving it for now). She sent me loads of goodies anyway, have a look.



And this is what I sent to my partner Suzi of justbeyou.


It was lovely to have a mini tea party and to know that internet friends were sharing teatime too!

braved using my cronky sewing machine

and made a dolly sized quilt. My sewing machine really needs looking at, its not very well, poor thing, though it was behaving well enough last night to let me make this. I was aiming for log cabin, I haven't tried it before, I dont have much patchwork experience really, only the odd bit of simple stuff. I dont know whether this is log cabin as it is a bit symmetrical, so it might be called something else. anyway, it started and finished in one night, and is a big hit with my littlest in particular.


So much so that I found her in the toy cot with dolly and playing like this. Though if I think about it now I understand why, we let our kids sleep in with us and havent used a crib since Esme was born, so thats just what mummys do!!

a slight pause

I seem to have taken an unannounced break this last week or so, what with Easter holidays, visiting and being visited, and child sickness (yes, all of them in turn). normal blogging should resume within the next week, see you then!

a proper spring day

Today we went to the beach for the first time this year. it was so mild we didnt even have to wear the extra jumpers I had taken along with us. The children scrambled over the rocks and looked for shells and crabs(finding 5 and none respectively). After, we played in the country park and the children found yellow butterflies and daisies and other wild flowers. what a lovely way to spend the first day of our Easter holidays.


and on the way home, we saw Scooby Doos van!!