Quilts finished

I thought I would pop up the quilts I made for my 2 grandsons, aged 9and 11. I made them both with the same fabrics but placed the blocks opposite on each quilt. 

Apparently, they love their new quilts and show them off to all their friends ... which makes grandma feel very good. :)

One of the boys posing on his new quilt.

Been shopping again

I've recently been buying craft books and the first one arrived today. I love stitching and applique and after seeing this on a friend's blog and couldn't resist. After having a quick look through I know I don't regret buying it and I am looking forward to making lots of the projects in it.

I thought I would put up the links to The Great British Sewing Bee, a new 4 part sewing reality show currently showing on British TV.

I have greatly enjoyed watching the contestants make their pieces ... and have tried to learn something from their successes as well as their failures ...

Episode 1: The Great british Sewing Bee. Episode 1

Episode 2:The Great British Sewing Bee. Episode 2

Episode3: The Great British Sewing Bee. Episode 3


I will put up Episode 4 next week as soon as it arrives online.

Enjoy.  :)

Oh dear.  I've fallen behind again.  I know if I did this more regularly it wouldn't take me so long to write each post, but it is because it takes me so long that I don't write as often as I should, so a bit of a catch 22. 
Anyhow, I thought I would pop up a pic of the blanket I made for my new grandson.

I embroidered his name and date of birth on it.

The blanket is self-binding and made from 100% cotton flannelette ....I always like to use natural fabrics for babies and children.  These are really easy to make and the pattern is available from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.

As some of you may know, I went to Adelaide for a quilting retreat last month (March).  I met some wonderful women, learnt lots of new skills, saw some new sights and had lots of laughs and a fabulous time.  I came home with too much new fabric, of course, and some new patterns designed by some of my very clever new friends.  The first one I completed was this lovely project bag designed by Fee of Fee's Shabby Shack. This great pattern is currently sitting at No. 1 on Craftsy's pattern page. Well done, Fee, and thank you for a wonderful project.

 Europe and England

Amsterdam

In September last year my daughter and I went on holiday for 5 weeks. Our first stop was Amsterdam for 36 hours as a stopover on our way to London.

Amsterdam canal.

We flew into Schipol Airport at 5.30am, too early to book into our hotel, so after dropping off our luggage, we went in search of breakfast which we enjoyed while watching the traffic. Weekday peak hour traffic in Amsterdam is a thing to behold.  The amount of cars are less than a lazy Sunday afternoon in most capital cities I have visited.  It is the bikes that make up the majority of the traffic.  They have their own lane next to the pedestrian footpath and their own traffic lights.  It is easy to forget that there are bikes bearing down on you and as you walk across the bike path, which looks exactly like the footpath, you get vigourously 'belled' by oncoming traffic.  :)

8am Friday - from the breakfast bar.

Peak hour traffic ;)

More cities should implement this.

 In the afternoon, after finally getting into our hotel at about midday, and being able to have a shower, I wanted to do a canal trip to have a look around the city the easy way. So we went to Starbucks for a coffee, and then I took notice of my daughter's suggestion of the direction we should head off in, and off we went.  Note to self: when in strange city 1) do not listen to daughter; 2) buy a map. 2 hours later we were still walking the streets trying to find our way back to the city centre. Now, don't get me wrong, it was certainly a novel and educational way to see the city and we certainly saw some sights we would never have seen from a boat, but I could have done without the exercise after a long haul flight and 30+ hours of virtually no sleep, and she could have done without the blisters. In spite of all that though, we had some great laughs and some great mother daughter bonding time.

Beautiful.

Dam Square Monument

Hotel Krasnapolsky behind Dam Square

Dam Aquare

Thank you Amsterdam for some great sights and better memories.

The family grows.

I am very happy to announce the arrival of Xander Lee, my new grandson who came into the world on 9 February 2013 at 10.48pm.  This is my 8th grandchild and 5th grandson.  He is the first baby for my youngest son.

Xander and Grandma - 2 hours old

Xander and Daddy - 2 hours old

Xander with Mummy's hand - 12 hours old

Xander and his very proudDaddy - 5 days old

The laziest blogger on the block.

It has been 9 months since my last post and I'm hanging my head in shame. I have actually written stuff but for some reason I haven't published it, and the longer one leaves these things the worse it gets.  So, I have cleaned out all the past unpublished posts and we're off to a fresh start.

So, a brief catch up on the last 9 months , which I will publish in sittings, so a) any readers don't get bored;  b) so I manage to get the posts published;  then on to the present and a greater effort at blogging regularity.
 
I will start with a subject that features quite forcefully in the home. Those objects of my affection that make the most mess, take up the most time  and generally create havoc in my otherwise peaceful and organised life.

  

Feline Power!

 In my last (published) post I talked about the kittens.  They are now teenagers and bundles of mischief.  Their personalities are as different as their looks.

Felix

Felix - right way up

Tabitha - wants to be on TV

Tabitha - the mouser

Twisty Tuppence

Snuggled Tuppence

A sad thing happened on 3 November 2012. I  lost my old girl of 17 years. 

 

RIP Mink.  You were a sweet and faithful purr-person.

 

 

 

 

Then a couple of weeks ago, I had a message from a very longstanding friend who desperately needed a home for a mature cat. To cut a long story short, I said yes and so Mr. Prince entered our lives.

Mr. Prince

Mr.Prince is not used to a large family so some adjustments are in order, for him as well everyone else, particularly Obsidian, who thinks he is the boss ... and probably shouldn't be in a multi-feline home ... but despite interminent growling, hissing and the odd bit of flying fur, we are gradually all getting used to each other. And so once again, the purr-people in our little home outnumber the humans 6-2.

And she's back.  Oh my goodness.  What has happened?  Since I was last here, a mere month ago, Blogger, bless its little heart, seems to have morphed into a new format.  Which means I have to start learning all over again. Ah well!  Something else to keep me occupied.  Like I haven't got so much to do now that I rarely manage to get in here and update already!!!!!  Good job I now consider myself semi-retired having given up part-time work and although I continue to work for the same companyI am now on a casual basis so not working to a regular set timetable, just intermittently when they call me in.  Hopefully this will give me more time to sew, scrapbook ..... and blog more regularly.  So watch this space.

I don't think I have told you about my kittens.  Back in December, my next door neighbour and I rescued 8 orphan kittens whose mother was killed by a dog when they were just 5 days old.

They are 11 days old in this pic

Exercise time at 12 days old

 Between the 2 of us we bottle/syringe fed them, toileted, bathed, cleaned and generally mothered these babies.  Everyone told us that it was inevitable that some would die and we should be prepared for this eventuality. There was one I was a bit worried about because it kept choking at feed time and would bring the milk back down her nose, so at about 2 weeks old I carted them all to the vet for a general check up but all seemed to be in pretty good health.

So home again and keep doing what we were doing and at 3.5 weeks old this is how we were going.  This is not imprisonment this is keeping us safe during exercise time.  After all, 8 is a lot to keep control of and we didn't want to lose any behind the fridge or under the washing m,achine.

  
And here we are in bed ... we are supposed to be going to sleep.

 

Then it was weaning time ... nothing more to be said about this.

At 8 weeks old we still had 8 strong, healthy kittens and we split them into 2 and my neighbour had 4 and I kept 4.  My daughter has 1 and her boyfriend has 1 and I have 1, which all live here with me, and a friend took one.  My neighbour still has all 4 of hers but is looking for homes for a couple.  Between us we now have 13 cats.

Here are my 3

Okay!! It's official!! I am useless at regular blogging. I could make all sorts of excuses, like for instance, not enough time, or the fact that I have been having a terrible time with my laptop and finally succumbed to buying a new one, but the bottom line is that although I think about doing it often I always get caught up doing other stuff. So to catch up a bit on the things that have been happening. So most importantly .... A birth announcement: I recently was lucky enough to have been presented with my 7th grandchild, a beautiful baby girl named Emily Anne Ellen, a beautiful little sister for Rebecca and Jayden. Thank you to my lovely son, Terry and his wife Julianne.

Just born With grandma .... that's me ... and big sis Becca

Ooopps!!!! Fail!!!!

 I have failed in my goal to make regular blog posts this year.  Never mind ... only 2 weeks and a new year starts and I can make it a goal for next year  :)

The reason for my apparent laxity is the fact that I am very involved in my genealogy and have recently been spending a lot of my free time in researching my family tree.  It is very absorbing as I have contact with a cousin in the UK and between the two of us we have found lots of exciting information as, for example, my great-grandfather co-wrote a book with a famous cyclist and a Pre-Raphaelite artist painted a portrait of my great-grandmother which she donated to The Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery 2 years before she died, among a lot of other equally fascinating, to me at least, stuff, which will be of no interest to you unless you are related to me. :P

Anyway, I'm here now and it appears I have a bit of time to catch up with, so I'd better get started. I won't bore you with lots of words, I will just put up a few pics of things I have been doing.  I will probably do a few posts over a few days so I can totally catch up with this year before it ends.

This is a table runner I made for my daughter-in-law ... front and back. These are her favourite colours.  I also made her a Bag-bag in the same colours.

The following are a couple of a number of peg bags I have made.  The left one was for a friend and the one on the right for a different daughter-in-law, whose favourite colours are also red and black.  (Doesn't allow a mother-in-law much in the variety stakes when sewing for them :( 

A single male friend, who lives in a unit and uses a communal washing line, (and loves fishing), saw them and wanted one for his pegs, so I made him a nice masculine one.

Living in a small place leaves me wanting for storage, so I am thinking of making different ones of these to store things in different rooms/cupboards around the house.   I want to redesign them slightly so they close in the front.  When I have got to them I will put up some pics.

For those of you who don't know, my next door neighbour and I rescued 8, 5 day old orphan kittens last Friday and are hand-rearing them. They are progressing wonderfully and are now 11 days old.  Here are some pics I took over the last couple of days.