Sweet Little Garden

I was lucky enough to secure a spot, along with a couple of my friends, to a two day workshop to be held at The Patchwork House that is talked about here. We are making the Sweet Little Garden cushion.

The requirements ask for 30cm in total of a variety of scraps in pink, orange, mauve, yellow, green and aqua.


I think I have the Pink and


green sorted,


as well as some extra bits for the centre of the flowers, now I just get some orange, mauve, yellow and aqua as well as the background fabric. Luckily I have a craft fair coming up.

I don't normally pre wash my quilting fabric, but seeing this is going on stark white and it will be a cushion that may need to be wash at some stage during its life. I think I might make an exception.

50 books in 52 weeks - yeah right

Who was I kidding, while I love to read in between work, sewing, being a Mum and general life my reading time is normally a couple of pages a night to send me to sleep.

I have been seeing everyone else reading list growing and growing, while mine is just plodding along, currently at 15.

So this morning I had a looksie at everyones list and made my own reading To-do list and went down to the local library to see what they had.

I was able to get

Friday Night Knitting Club
The Undomesticated Goddess (large print version :) that was all the had available)

I have also placed reserves on

Twilight - 13 people in front of me
Knit Two
Eat Pray Love - 2 people in front of me

I also have these three on my list which I will try to get next or place reserves on once I read the other two.

Biting the Big Apple
Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
The Bronze Horseman

I have a bad habit of taking out too many books at once and not reading them all and not returning them on time, so I am planning to try and limit how many I take out and then I will have to take them back to pick up new ones.

Mother's Love

I keep on meaning to show you all this beautiful quit that I am lucky enough to own. Now before you think I am becoming a bit full of myself talking about something I made that way, I didn't make it. It was a wedding present for Andrew and myself from my Mum. It is all hand pieced there are 25 rings in all it is massive it hangs down almost a ring each side of our queen bed.

My engagement was not that much of a surprise to my family, so much so that my Mum actually started working on this 6 mths before we got engaged. My parents do the grey nomad thing and head north each winter, so she took the quilt with her and did all the piecing while traveling along the west cost of Australia.



Here is a close up of one of the rings so you can see the material used it is Gerdas collection from Elm Creek range, (as in the books)



It has gone on to be a running joke that my mother starts quilts for me before the event. She did the stitchery for Bastian cot quilt on there travels winter 2006. I didn't fall pregnant till Jan 07, and they are currently on there way up to Cape York, and she is doing the stitchery for #2 cot quit, and we are not even TTC, well not just yet anyway. I will have to remember to take a picture of Bastian cot quilt and show you all that as well

Granny Square

I really thought I couldn't do if but I am learning to never say never. So here is it the start of my first crochet blanket. It is still pretty rough and no where nice and neat as this one being done over here, but I am proud of it all the same.



One of the reason why I was so determined to learn to crochet is that my Grandma can crotchet really well and has made all her grandchildren layettes when they were born, including on for my Cabbage Patch doll she brought me when I was little. I knew that she had made a receiving blanket for my SIL when they had there first child, however as she is now 96 and almost blind from Macular Degeneration it had not even entered my mind that I would be lucky enough to receive one for my new baby. So when she visited me in hospital after having Sebastian and presented me with this lovely crocheted blanket, I was extremely surprised.



Turns out that as soon as she realised that she was having problems crocheting due to arthistis and eye sight problem she started the blanket for me to put away until it was needed. She started it 5 years before I had Sebastian, before Andrew and I were even married. She wasn't able to finish it my Mum had to do some it of which is why some of the boarder is a nice fine lace pattern and some is quite plain (My mum can't crotchet as well as my grandma) but I can definitely say that it is treasured item that one day I will be able to pass down to my grandchildren.