Happy Easter

My Big Girl and I made these decopatched eggs for Easter. The eggs are made of polystyrene, purchased at Hobbycraft, and decorated with tissue paper and PVA glue. Hours of, albeit sticky, fun for little girls!

Hope you are having a lovely Easter day - Christ is risen!

Baby Washcloths

I have never known so many pregnancies amongst people I know - my craft life can hardly keep up (my knitting certainly can't!). This was a quick little gift I made for my friend's baby boy - baby washcloths!

They are very simply made using a 10" square of terry towelling (bought in a local fabric shop) and a 10" square of a funky children's print (Ikea!). These were sewn, right sides together, around the edge leaving a small gap for turning. After turning the gap was stitched up, then the washcloth was topstitched around the edge with my walking foot.

I maaaaay post a tutorial of the above, complete with pictures - am undecided as yet as am sure there are hundreds of baby washcloth tutorials in the blogosphere already!

Anyways.... I made three washcloths and arranged them in a bundle, tied them with baby boy ribbon and made a handmade gift tag. A very quick, simple but effective gift which hopefully will be well used.

Four seasons in one day...?

Four seasons in one day - or rather in one month! Last week we had glorious spring like weather. It was warm and dry and sunny. I enjoyed running along the seafront and cafe crawling with sitting outside none the less!

Spring had sprung in the National Botanical Gardens

(The great glass house)

(Glorious blue sky and magnolia)

(carpet of hyacinths)

Flash forward to today and it is grey, and cold. I snapped this picture of the tree opposite my house this morning - dark, moody sky.

Shirts

I alluded to a project I'd been busy with at the end of my last post. I am calling it 'Shirts' - this brings a smile to my face as it reminds me of a song by the 'Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band' also entitled 'Shirts'. I blame my husband entirely for this - his father's eclectic taste in music has filtered through, not only to him, but now also myself.

This project is nothing musical but rather another quilt top! It has been made from a 'Washed & Worn' bundle. Basically the bundle consists of reclaimed and recycled fabrics which are washed and worn! The selection in my bundle seemed to be from mainly shirts, and possibly pajamas!

I've sewn them together in strips to from the quilt top which I hope will be for the Baby Boy - I've another bundle to crack open for the Big Girl. My hope, after backing and basting, is to hand quilt the blanket (arrgghh!!). I've not hand quilted for a long time and I've always struggled with maintaining even stitches, but I think it will add to the lovely homespun feel.

Snowball blocks

I am having a lot of fun making my snowball blocks for my 'wintery' quilt. Spring seems to have sprung here and it is no longer winter, but I SHALL complete this quilt before the season changes again!

I love the fact that a simpe technique can look so good and can't wait to see the blocks joined up. You may recall that I'm using a layer cake for this quilt top from the Moda 'Sherbet Pips' range. I've trimmed each 10" square down to 9.5" and the corner triangles are made from 3.5" squares. The little squares are placed in each corner, right sides together, of the big 9.5" square and then sewn on the diagonal to form the corner triangles - the excess fabric is trimmed, leaving a quarter inch seam and the little scraps find a happy home in the scrap basket! The spotty red fabric is from the 'Teatime' range by Makower.

I've managed quite a bit of sewing in the evenings of late so predict good progress with this quilt top this week - I also have been busy with something else which will be unveiled once photographed!

Cake!

I made a wedding cake last week for a dear friend. It was the most wonderful day and I cried lots of happy tears.

My husband informs me that this is the last wedding cake I'm likely to make as he can't cope with how stressed and moody I become - worryingly I think he may be correct! Don't get me wrong, I love the finished product, but it is such a responsibility and hard work. This cake in particular had the added stress of time pressure as it was all madeira cake thus could not be made well in advance. I did gain some time by ensuring the top tier was a dummy one - at least it was iced well in advance and the sugarpaste models the bride requested were then modelled on top at my leisure. The models were great fun - especially making my own sugarpaste tartan.

The pics aren't the greatest as I snapped them quickly, but it gives an idea of the overall effect.

Wet Tuesday

It's a wet Tuesday here :-( . I generally don't mind rain, which is good think living in Wales, but I hate this extremely fine, extremely wet stuff coming from the heavens today. I am glad to be cwtched inside with my baby boy while someone else does the school run on my behalf!

My Baby Boy turned 1 last week - where did the time go? I am overwhelmed somewhat by just how fast he's grown from that tiny little bundle to the busy little man he now is. We had a gathering over the weekend of a few close friends, who are also our neighbours, to celebrate. Everyone brought a curry and we enjoyed a 'Noah's Ark' birthday cake:

I also managed to complete a knitting project the other day - a baby blanket for baby Lydia - my friend Hannah's little girl. Lydia, like myself, is a red-head so the blanket is a lovely green colour - fabulous colour for our kind. It's a Debbie Bliss pattern from her book 'Special Knits' made in the lovely baby cashmerino yarn. I omitted the triangular border described in the pattern, choosing instead to finish it with a simple crochet edge:

The baby boom amongst my friends is keeping me very busy, as is a wedding cake for the 3rd of March! My winter quilt, blogged about recently, is cut out and ready to go - just as soon as I find a free afternoon or evening!