Sleeping.....

I am still here. Tired, but here! We have been terribly busy and now that it is Sunday night I am so tired! Next week? I'm not sure what next week holds. I'm hoping to baste and then quilt up a storm (four tops are waiting on my desk!) or maybe I won't get that far at all. Here's to a sewing kind of week for us all!

All the days merge into one...

Well that's how it is here at the moment. Our days are full of Mrs 27 (picklesticks) and her children, and now Miss 20 has arrived here too. (Yay for Uni holidays!) So we have a house full. We have been doing lots of fun things, lots of "running around", lots of knitting as a group... so much fun! Oh. And we also celebrated a milestone.

Grandson's cake

Flames! As he was blowing the candles out.

Happy!

And it even tastes good!

Good Fortune Quilt Top

Good Fortune by Kate Spain jelly roll race quilt top.

So I had great hopes of finishing my secret swap today and working on all those projects I "should" be working on, but today turned out not to be that day. I decided I needed to do something fun and this was it. A jelly roll race has been in my head for a couple of months now. At first I had no idea what was meant by the term. I don't think I'm stupid, but I had no clue whatsoever! One evening I watched a YouTube video of someone actually sewing one of these quilt tops. (Who knew anyone would video that? And that it would be on YouTube? Ok. I'm pleading IT ignorance here, cause every kid in the room is coincidentally discussing how you can learn anything from YouTube. It's like they can read my thoughts!) So I made one. I didn't race it though cause I'm just not that fast. And isn't it beautiful? I bought my jelly roll from Want it Need it Quilt here and just want to quickly order more!!! (Excellent service. I ordered before lunch and had my jelly roll before lunch the next day.) Next up is basting. Oh yeah. That's one of those "should" jobs I was avoiding. I have four quilt tops on my desk waiting for basting now. Hmm..... Wonder what I'll be doing tomorrow?

Sunday Morning

I'm having a great Sunday Morning here. Well, as great as it can be when you wake up with every joint in your body aching. Mr 18 woke up complaining of this yesterday morning so I'm blaming him. This morning Miss 15 and my Bradley have woken up variously complaining of the same thing. Now, lest this turn into a whinge session, let me just tell you that I love days like this. Not the feeling unwell bit, but the feeling unwell enough that you cancel your regular commitments. So, today is cancelled! (Thank you Mr 18! *said without a hint of sarcasm*) And I am mooching around. In front of the sewing machine, in front of the computer, on my bed...  ...you get the picture! There are soooo many pretty pictures on the internet at the moment, so much inspiration! So I thought I would share some with you.

"modern vintage" zig zags

The first one is what I am sewing at the moment. Love this fabric range! This little piece of patchwork is part of my care group swap. (Shhh, it's a secret!) I'm hoping to post it off Monday or Tuesday. And here's a list of links to other pretty photos I have been looking at today!

1. Annette's pretty hexie flowers here.
2. Katy's quilt from the Fat Quarterly Book here.
3. Q's minature apothecary chest here. (It's so tiny and awesome!)
4. Joolz's photo a days here.
5. Everything Peg makes ever here. (She makes so much!)
6. Shontelle's gorgeous quilts, including this one here.
7. Leanne's gorgeous photography and sewing here. (Check out those seagulls!)

Of course I have been surfing around much more than that, but that will keep you busy! Have a great day!

Quilt blocks

These are five 12.5" blocks that I made for someone in the do. Good Stitches group who was looking for a few blocks for a quilt they were making for an ill friend. Thought I would share them with the tutorial link because they were fun, easy and scrappy! (I love scrap utilising blocks!) Link here. Now, to post them!

Favourite Things Friday

We are still having lots of fun here with our grandchildren. It's mostly all fun and games! Making tents, going to playgrounds and giggling. A lot.

It is also a birthday week here with Miss 25 finally turning the ripe old age of 116. Yes, for those in the know, that is Finn the human and Jake the dog sitting on top of her cake. She may be 116, but she is still a huge cartoon fan and her current favourite is "Adventure Time". (Embarrassingly, we couldn't find my stash of birthday cake candles. I am generally quite an organised person. The candles live in a snap lock bag in the party box which lives in the pantry. When we went to retrieve them, they weren't there. Just the number candles which are in a separate snap lock bag - of course! We decided then that Miss 25 was crazy enough to be thrilled by the 116 on top of her cake. (It's sort of 26!)  So we made her be 116.)

My favourite thing this Friday is kids. Well, I guess that you could all pretty much guess that. You don't get to be the mother of eight children without liking kids. Not these days anyway. And I do like kids. Well, mostly my own. I was not one of those teenagers who carried other people's children around or even babysat other people's children. I was one of those teenagers who thought that I probably wouldn't get married, and that if I did I might have just one child. To see what it was like of course. Once I did get married and had produced Mrs 27, I quite liked the having babies thing. I liked my kids a lot. Being a mother of small children was a lot of fun. I nick-named them my entourage (yeah, closest I'll ever be to being a rock star) and we hung out 24/7. Now that they are all growing up it is quite strange. As of today, they are 27, 26, 23, 22, 20, 18, 15 and 11. I still mostly have an entourage (yeah, still rock star!) and am about to leave right now with some of them. Hope you have a great Friday!!!

A knitted dinosaur (and a hat!)

Miss 15 has been having exams. She has enjoyed her exams a lot, because all her exams were in the first few days which has meant she has had time to knit. Yesterday she produced a dinosaur, which is very cute.

And the day before she finished this hat. It's for a little head, so she couldn't model it. Fortunately we have models on tap here at the moment.

Here is the hat on a model. She looks like she thinks she needs to raise her hand to model the hat (Like Miss 15), but she is really telling me to go away. She quite likes my sewing room and there is a takeover looming I believe!

A Finish!

On my new bed, the front,

the back,

hanging over the end of the bed.

We have birthdays in our family this week and next. This is the shaggy flannel quilt I made for the new Miss 22. A quilt to keep her warm! We must think she is cold, cause Miss 25 made her this to keep warm too.

A red scarf.

I guess it is the time of year for it. Hope you are nice and warm now Rosie!

A Book.

I saw this book on Pip's blog. This exact book. Pip was the third blogger to read it and she has sent it to me to read. I will be offering to send it on to another blogger once I finish it. Thanks Pip!

Care at do. Good Stitches Swap

Note the selvedge action on the pocket, how great is that?

More selvedge action on this side!

My Bradley holds it so you can see just how roomy it is.

the note.

I do like it Dolores! I received my Care group swap today. Gosh that Dolores is on the ball! (Still secret sewing here people.) She also sent me her herringbone blocks for May's do. Good Stitches quilt. I am basking in the loveliness of this bag and dreaming about what I am going to stash in it! The brief was for a little something using three fat quarters. (That way we all would receive something fairly equal) My stipulation was blue and green and I couldn't be happier with the outcome! Thank you Dolores. I love it!

A day of it.

So this morning started with a decision to go to Ikea, to look for a new bed in As Is. Just in case there was one for a good price that wanted to be bought. One new bed later, we headed home. (There was one for a great price in As Is!) This afternoon we had to go to Spotlight for a bargain price mattress topper. (Do you want one for $100 off? Hmm...? Okay.) As we drove home from Spotlight Miss 25 and I mused that Ikea in the morning and Spotlight in the afternoon made it pretty much our favourite day ever. Could it get any better? Then we remembered...

This was on it's way to us today too! Mrs 27, her bloke and all three gorgeous grandchildren spent today driving to our house. (We have them for a couple of weeks or so!) After their arrival (much excitement, hugs and kisses) and some dinner, this is what is happening at my house. Knitting! Mrs 27 is knitting a cardigan for that baby in the sling on her front, Miss 25 is knitting another cardigan for that same baby, and Miss 15 is knitting a hat for granddaughter. All in all a day of wonderfulness.

As for me, I am still working on this. And there is still more secret sewing to be done! I tend to slow down in the sewing stakes when I have a houseful of visitors. (At the moment we have six extras. It makes for lots more work!) I have a list of things I want to finish in June, so I will be concentrating hard! Off to fill the dishwasher for a second time tonight! (Well, there are 13 of us here!)

Yesterday's sewing...

Shhhh!

 So there is quite a bit of secret sewing going on here. This was yesterday's lot, and today I plan to sew a bunch more!

I did manage to quickly piece this starflower. I think I will piece this quilt by stealth. This is the third block. These blocks are really big, 16.5" square, so I won't need too many to make a decent sized quilt. But that's the question. What is a "decent sized" quilt? What is your favourite size?

Today's Sewing

I managed to sew a little today.

This was the result. They will look like this eventually.

Starflowers. Eventually. Not anytime soon. I have secret sewing to do tomorrow.

Making at our house

We like to make things at our house. We think it helps you stay cheerful AND it's quite useful.

Miss 25 has been playing with this Sculpy.

And this.

Whilst Miss 15 has been making this from Sculpy.

And this. All for jewellery so they are quite small. They are so clever at tiny things!

A Baking Kind of Day

Cookies were promised, so Saturday was a baking kind of day.

My Bradley and I baked last night. It was so much fun. The choc chip cookies are a favourite here, the other two recipes were new ones. I managed to burn the last tray of cookies. I guess I was "finished" before the cookies were!

Fabric Acquisitions

There hasn't been much sewing here lately. There has been a little of this though.

I say "yardage" quite loosely here because I actually purchased metreage, but it just doesn't roll off the tongue in the same way. What's not to love about bunting? That's one of the reasons why I had to have some Reunion.
And some of this too.

Yes, some Summersville. I love the Milly Molly Mandyness of this range! I'm not sure what I am going to do with either of them yet. For the last week I have been carrying them from flat surface to flat surface in my house. Just displaying them. Looking at them. You know the drill! Right now I am tidying up the sewing desk (where they have ended up) ready for another flurry of activity. I have three quilt tops finished that need basting. That's next, as soon as I finish tidying.

...and as May slowly sinks away...

Drying pumpkin seeds on my daughter's bench.

Hmm... I often mark the beginning of the month with a blogpost, but rarely the end of a month. For some reason this week I seem to be watching the month finish in slow motion.

• I have managed a couple of finishes this month. (I thought it would be more.) 
• I started knitting again.
• I have visited the kids in Adelaide. In fact my Bradley also managed to visit the Adelaide kids this month, which is much rarer because he is usually busy in Melbourne working. 
• My Bradley got an office outside of our home. This is really weird for us. The last time he had an office outside of the house was more than eighteen years ago. We sure are used to having him on call. 
• It got chilly here in Melbourne this month. I like it cold!

That's about it for May. I am looking forward to June. June will bring picklesticks and her family to Melbourne for a visit. It also brings Uni holidays and we are looking forward to seeing Miss 20 sometime in those holidays. I think June will be busy. Can't wait.

Busy, with this...

Yesterday Miss 15 had her first clarinet exam. I was quite nervous about the whole thing. It required me to drive her to the examination, here in "still-quite-new-to-me-Melbourne". Genetics being what they are, she was very nervous too! Of course, she had good cause to be nervous. Me, not so much.

She came out of the exam saying that it wasn't as bad as she thought it would be, and she didn't even cry. Which sounds melodramatic, but she is terribly nervous about performing. In fact, she decided to quit music this year because then she wouldn't have to perform. Of course, part way through first term she became upset because she missed it so and switched back to music. She is much happier now, except when she has to perform. Every time she talked to her teacher about the upcoming exam she would cry, so the not crying thing was a big deal. So, lots of nervousness here yesterday for the exam, and today for her school recital tonight.

 Here she is being nervous just before playing. She has played before in front of people, but only as part of a group.

And here she is actually playing. She was so terribly nervous. She stood there shaking and without breath, (Wind instruments really need breath you know!) but she did it! And without fainting or crying. At our house when you have been terribly brave we say you have been a "big brave dog". (It's a "Rugrats" quote. Chuckie (the resident scardy-cat) says it to himself when he needs to be brave.) She was a big brave dog tonight. Phew! A sigh of relief! It's all over... maybe now I can do something! (I know! I didn't do anything scary! I was still so very nervous though. Wonder where she gets that from?)

It's a scarf.

It has been chilly here. Thursday night I decided that knitting on the couch with a quilt would be the best activity. With my Bradley being away I also had some knit-friendly activities coming up. (Namely, basketball games which my Bradley normally does.) So, shortly after the third basketball game of the weekend began, I finished this scarf. Well, almost finished. I still have to sew the ends in. And right after I got it off the needles I began knitting another project. It's definitely knitting weather here. Off to knit some more.

Favourite Things Friday

Mr 11 lego building earlier this month

It seems that I posted my FTF post a couple of days ago. Boy has this week flown by. Here it is Friday again! Lego is my favourite thing this week. Homeschooling has given my children the gift of time. They don't spend huge chunks of time away from home, and sometimes they choose to spend some of that time with lego on the floor. It makes me feel that all is right with the world when my floor is covered with lego. It would start with two or three kids getting out the lego, and one by one everyone else would join in until they were all playing. Some together, some separately, but all would help when someone was looking for a specific piece. A cry would go up, "I need a blue twoer!", and everyone would look until it was found. (They had a verbal shorthand for all the pieces that possibly others wouldn't understand, but they all knew.) Those days are gone now. Earlier this month Mr 11 got out the lego and played by himself. He had a wonderful time, but his experience is so different from the other kids! So lego is my favourite this week. We have had so much fun with it. Countless towns have been built and left for weeks to play with (The kids' towns are always interesting. We attend church every week so their town would always include a church! Lolly shops, toy stores and music shops have featured heavily in their towns too.), and there have also been spaceships. Lots of spaceships!

Edit: Ooops! Go here to see everyone else's favourites!