D-day?

Well, today is officially due date but I am not holding out any hope for an appearance - sadly these things are not set in stone! I am however, up and dressed, and made a short excursion down and then back up my steep hill to buy some provisions for afternoon sofa time - a home mag and some pick and mix! My cocoon awaits me after lunch and who knows how the day may proceed - the day is still young and there is the excitement of the Wales v. England rugby match tonight. I'm not sure how my husband will take it if babba arrives during the match though!

Burst of Energy

Well I did manage to complete a quilt top in an afternoon after my last post! On Saturday we had a lovely family day out - walking along the seafront in Mumbles, lunch at Verdi's, followed by a visit to my local quilt shop to buy backing fabric and batting for the baby quilt. The ladies in the shop were quite perturbed about my burst of energy - this has not resulted in baby yet though!

To finish off the afternoon, Sophia and I baked some cupcakes. My friend Lisa, who I met on a cake decorating course and is also my knitting/sewing buddy, recommended the 'I Bake Cupcakes' app for the iPhone. I found a recipe on there for banana, white chocolate and cheese cupcakes which were truly amazing. The sponge contains the banana and white chocolate while the frosting is made with cream cheese. We decorated the cake tops with white chocolate chips to finish them off. The recipes on the app. are fabulous and I am looking forward to trying out several more - however, given the imminent arrival who knows when this will be!!

Quilt in an afternoon...?

I am bored waiting for this baby. I have 8 days to go before my due date - and that's even if the baby comes on time! I hate the not knowing when, and the fact that I'm generally very 'twingy' and 'niggly' is not helping! In a fit of boredom/nesting/industriousness earlier this week, I ordered this lovely jelly roll. It is no secret anymore that this baby is a boy, and seeing as I've not yet got round to making him a quilt I am thinking of an afternoon project! It will have to be very simple with minimal cutting, and I'm sure that piecing a quilt top before the school run is far too ambitions an afternoon project - but it will give me something to do!

Maternity Leave!

I'm on maternity leave! Well, technically not, seeing as I am a homemaker and I don't have paid work outside the home! However, I have hit the 38 weeks mark and I think its probably time to slow down a little bit. I find this extremely difficult as I normally exist in a hive of activity, so in a bid to chill out a bit I've taken up crochet.
Let's get one thing straight, I AM the world's worst crocheter. My grandmother taught me to crochet when I was quite young - I managed to learn from just looking at what she was doing so as a consequence developed a very strange left handed technique much to my mother-in-law's horror. She has been very patient (but probably secretly frustrated)with me in trying to correct my bizarre technique. I think it has finally paid off and I may have mastered the correct right handed technique! Yesterday evening was spent on my family room sofa crocheting some very retro granny squares, as inspired by Attic 24. The pics of what I've accomplished thus far are above - you can just about make out baby bump too. The yarn is just some left over Sublime merino DK I had in the house, but I am excited to say that I've taken delivery of some lovely yarn this morning to make something 'proper'!

More pics

It's a lovely, sunny, albeit cold day here today so I took the opportunity to snap some more pics of my most recently completed quilt!

Another Baby Quilt

It seems that a lot of my friends have been having babies of late so I've been kept quite busy! Not to mention the fact that I should probably make my own one at some point - due in 2 and a half weeks so rapidly running out of time!!

This quilt is made for Jean-Luc, baby son of my friends Sarah and Xavier. Sarah and I shared a flat in London when we were students. She knitted Sophia a beautiful blanket when she was born so it seemed apt to make Jean-Luc something handmade too.

The inspiration for this charm squares quilt can be found here. I really liked the idea of separating the 5" squares with the white fabric - a great way of making prints go further or using up scraps. The fabric itself is from a bundle I bought at Fabric Rehabjust before Christmas - I LOVE the vintage zoo print! The amusing thing is that completely by accident I have made this quilt in red, white and blue and baby Jean-Luc is half French!

I stippled the quilt top, which I love doing, and the binding is a scrappy one made from the fabric leftover after I cut out the charms. It was washed and dried and I am soooooo glad I put colourcatcher in the wash as the red fabric bleeding would have been a disaster!

Maggie's Quilt