Sunshine and sewing

The weather has brightened here and we finally have some sun! and blue skies!!


It means that driving kids to school etc is a real treat...

And little little children can come along for walks in the sunshine past fields of cows...

And beautiful brambles...



To Becks where they can play with watering cans and water the plants :-)



And crazy Grandma's can spoil them with very early birthday presents of garden trampolines (reminiscent of animal cages LOL)

On the very neglected sewing front, I have finished my first Stitcher's Angel project.


My partner likes pink. I am not really a pink girl (unless it's pink roses of course!) so I have struggled a bit, but I hope my secret partner will like it.

I have quickly whizzed up a sock sack using an old sheet and some machine appliqued sock shapes. I was so tired of odd socks lying around!


It now lives in the laundry room and according to my DMIL contains 15 odd socks! Oh dear!!


And I finally got to the PO and mailed 2 very belated birthday cards and one of these blocks to Kate for our African Blockswap.


It's a simple Ula Lenz star block, but because I haven't paper-pieced for a while it took a bit to get back into a rhythm. Hope you'll forgive me Kate for such a simple block after your lovely one ;-)

African Mama

Sometime back I saw an 'antique' quilt on Ebay made with blocks of this design on a cream background. I have wanted to make it for ages, but somehow I just never got round to it...



I owed Kate a block for our African blockswap so thought I would give this a go and promptly made 2. It's the first time I have ever done needleturn applique using freezer paper shapes. It's a nice method and less time consuming than my usual method of first basting each piece over paper, appliqueing the shapes, then cutting out part of the backing to remove the paper.

Here's the original block that I saw. I 'borrowed the image', but forget now the seller or any more details about the quilt...

She's cute. I only found the image as i was blogging this so it's a pity, I forgot to white the eyes and add the hair... (maybe next time!)

I'll show you mine...

Kate and I were talking about 'doing something' with the blocks we've swapped using African fabrics. I was hoping to put some of mine together for a quilt.

On Kate's blog you can see her blocks and here you can see mine...



I started making blocks with another friend so there are a few other's to Kates...
(The 'sun' one with the orange background has been made by Donna)

Then there are a few that I have made using Carol Doak's free patterns from her website and her group BOM's.
BTW Carol has just started a blog, you can visit her here! (I haven't had a chance yet, but will do soon!!)

Then there were blocks that have been made 'just because' for Kate and I...

I seem to have quite a few so it was difficult to take a picture of them altogether (plus I'm using DH's computer so I don't know how to crop the toys out *LOL*). I'm thinking I may make a quilt using most of them, but we'll see how it goes... I hope to keep making them because they are fun to do...

I'm still waiting for a new charger, but I am being 'allowed' to occassionally check email on DH's computer when he takes a break from setting up a website for our self-catering holiday home on Thesen Island in South Africa, you can check his hard work out by clicking here.

African Mavericks

It's my turn to make a block for Kate for our African blockswap. I thought I'd give Bonnie's Maverick Stars a try...


I think these could get addictive and they're a great way to use up smaller bits and scraps.

Some of (my) life's questions

Sometimes I have to ask myself certain questions, some of them I can't ask here LOL, but these I can...

Why have we had a broken digger in our garden for a week and still no garden?

Because the caterpillar track broke on the digger and the 'digger man' is very busy. He fixed it today and swears it will be out of here tomorrow. We'll see. It has been fun to have a digger in the garden for 'tractor boy" (DS1), but not today! Today he went out and a few minutes later he was back with oil all over his jeans and raincoat. Anybody got any ideas how to get oil out of a raincoat??

Another of my questions is why do kids never sit still for photos?
Here DS2 comes to take a closer look at the camera again! (I have lots of these pictures!! Cameras must be really interesting if you're not quite 1 yet LOL)

Grandma went to Cambridge and came back with some T-shirts for the boys. DH studied there so he really liked them, but of course I could never get a shot with both boys looking ok at the same time!

And when I finally got focus, I also got tears!

Why do I sign up to swaps when I barely have time to brush my hair?

Because I can't help myself? Here the Bear Claws are finished for the swap and I hope to mail them tomorrow.

Quite a fiddly block for a blockswap and quite tricky fabric so I shall see IF I manage to do anymore...


And how do I know it's all worth it?


When I catch my child wrapped up in one of his quilts...
I can feel so grateful that I was able to make both of them (the kids and the quilts!)