Monday 30 December 2013

N is for Nest and Night and nearly finishing my ABC quilt ...

Hello my lovely quilty friends.  How was your Christmas?  Ours was wonderful and very very exciting and far too food filled.

To give you an idea - for breakfast there were blueberry hotcakes with bacon and sour cream honey drizzle and berry compot and bacon.  For lunch there was salmon dip and crackers, pork belly with crackling, pear, blue cheese and walnut salad, and new potato, asparagus and pea salad.  And rhubarb and ginger trifle. And Christmas cake, and christmas mince pies, and christmas biscuits, and ...  I think I will stop now.  *groan*  (And I've made a pavlova since, at Hubby's insistence - what was he thinking?).  Here is Princess helping with the clean up.

Mmmm pavlova ...

But now it is all over for another year.  Princess was devastated on Boxing Day to be told it was 364 sleeps until the next Christmas.  I am pretty sure that is incomprehensible to a nearly-4 year old.  And now I am focused on sorting things out.  It is a phase I go through every Christmas holiday and makes me feel all organised and content for the New Year.  Given the Boxing Day sales, it is also a good time of year to get those bits and pieces you have been meaning to sort out.  So long suffering hubby has been dragging furniture around the house, and the local op shop is getting a boot load of furniture and kid's toys tomorrow.  It's a good, tidy feeling!

And in the name of sorting things out, I have started to put together my 2014 quilt list.  First on it is some tidying up from last year's quilt projects.  I have now decided that my ABC quilt needs to be finished for the wee man's birthday (in February).  So my goals are currently these:

- finish ABC quilt
- get up-to-date with Citrus Sweet Love BOM quilt (I'm 5 blocks behind, and some will be in the mail soon too)
- sash up my granny squares quilt
- hubby's Zombie quilt
- three pay it forward gifts
- two iPad mini covers (yes, I know I just made one - that's a story for another day!)
- super simple baby quilt 2

So, to progress my first goal, here is my N is for Night block ...

N is for Night
That's a whole lot of orange.

Oh - and here is some great fabric I got in the Spotlight sale, including those cute little pirates at the bottom, who are for the ABC quilt backing.  I may like them more than the front!  Showing you this is my excuse to link up to Sunday Stash at Blossom Heart Quilts.  There is some serious yum to have a look at over there.

Assorted Belle and Boo fabrics.  Cute.  And pretty much nearly gone from Spotlight Wairau Park.  Sorry!

So - I may be a little ahead on this quilt at my next post.  But given the finished quilts I have seen - Barbara's photo of her boy's quilt is up on Flickr and Tiffany has photos of her top, which is a girly extravaganza of cuteness - I think I will be in good company.  I want to do the girl's quilt too, but I think I have embroidery fatigue.  We shall see.  In any event, it is not on the short list of things to do.

Happy New Year all!  Have fun over the next few days (but maybe not too much - it's not good to drink and sew - it just leads to unpicking!).


   

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Tuesday 24 December 2013

Merry Christmas from Shush

The children are asleep. Presents are under the tree. The carrots are out for the reindeer (all nine) and a beer and a cookie are out for Santa. The food is organised for tomorrow and my feet are up.  

Before Princess went to bed tonight, she was allowed to touch Lily the elf, just once. She was concerned that Lily's magic would go, but I explained that Santa would pick Lily up in his sleigh tonight, so she didn't need her magic to get home, just this once. 

                

               

Cuddles with Lily are VERY special!

Merry Christmas to you all!


Sunday 22 December 2013

Santa comes to Shush (warning - Apple product enthusiasm)

In the midst of the Christmas craziness I got a little distracted and decided to get myself a Christmas treat.  There is no doubt that I went a little overboard.  This was prompted by the most extreme of first world problems - my iPad was a bit big and heavy for my handbag.  I know, right?  The things I suffer through on a daily basis.

Anyway, as any good quilter should, once I unpacked my new pressie to myself, I figured I had better make a cover for it.

So I present to you my first ever scrap project proper.  One iPad mini cover ...

From the front, including a cute little Riley Blake button.

I used some bits and pieces from my scrap bin, and some left over binding from my first super simple baby quilt.

From the back.  Hello kitty!

There is even a snippet of Henry Fish.

Some little orange blossom for the lining.

The project took me two hours from start to finish and would be a great and quick little gift.  The only change I would make for next time is that I would use two layers of batting, to make it more protective.  I made a block 6.5" x 20" and quilted it with the lining on the other side.  I quilted with simple lines 1/2" apart.  Once quilted, I machine bound one short end, and then folded it up and bound the other three sides, as pictured.  I even remembered to sew the toggle on (a hair tie stolen from Princess) before the binding.  Well done me!

Do I recommend the iPad mini over its big brother?  Hell yeah.  It's about two thirds the screen size, heaps lighter, and slimmer.  *love*

The best part of all this?  I have finally got some sewing time in.  Happiness ensues.

Merry Christmas my quilty friends.  It has been a privilege and an honour to meet you all this year!

Thursday 19 December 2013

M is for Mask and Music: ABC BOW week 15

Gah. Every night I come home and it's dark before I sit down to write this post, and so I can't take a photo of my block. And every night I swear I'll take a quick snap in the morning before I head out to work. And very morning I forget. So now I've given up.

Here it is. Officially my worse blog photo ever. M is for monster. I refuse to put a watermark on it, the photo is so bad. But I'll remedy that over the Christmas holiday. In the meantime, I just need to say hi to you all and show you that I have actually been working on my quilt. The annoying thing is, I like my little monster and would like to show him in a good light!

M is for my little monster

What are you all up to?  I know we have some finishes to be proud of. Tanya and Barbara have finished their ABC quilts completely (Barbara, I'll put your photo up!). That's awesome, right?!  And Tiffany has finished all her embroidery, and hopefully has matched all her little triangle pieces up for her girl's quilt by now. Have you Tiffany?!  Others are lurking quietly in the background. I know you're out there!

For those of us who aren't finished, we are half way through now. Yippee. Have a glass of wine and admire how dedicated and crafty you are.  Cool right?!  I know I wouldn't still be going if it wasn't for you guys out there inspiring me to get finished.  So thanks!

I have TWO more working days until Christmas. Thank goodness. Then it's the three week summer holiday, and finally, hopefully (she says wistfully) a little quilting spare time.  Nice.

Before I go, this is the other thing we have been doing every night in the Shush household. This is Lily the elf. She has a special skirt, made with a Free Spirit Christmas fabric chosen by Princess. Lily has discovered tonight that hand sewing is not for the faint hearted. Naughty Lily, using my cotton without permission. I bet she didn't tell Santa she was planning on doing this when she went home to report on Princess' good behaviour.

I think it's just as well she didn't try to sew on Bernie

Anyway - link up with your ABC quilt progress if you have a spare minute in the pre-Christmas madness. Hearing from you is a little bit of sewing calm in the midst of the seasonal craziness!  Heh. 

   
   




Monday 9 December 2013

It's EPP time

It must be nearly a month since I last told you about my EPP, because it has been that long since Hydeeann's last EPP linky party.  Since then I have been meaning to show you the hexagons that I brutally culled from my quilt and put out to pasture.  I have yet to think of a new purpose for them, but I have no doubt that something will spring to mind at some point.

But before I show you the poor uglies, here are the new blocks I have made since that drastic day. Look at these awesome fabrics.

*sighs with contentment*

Well there's a lot of pink, but there's nothing wrong with that in my world.

I am really happy with these blocks.  I'm sure there is a lesson in this about careful colour and fabric choices before you start hand sewing, but I won't be dwelling on that.  There's no point sitting around and beating yourself up about a fabric crisis.  The world isn't going to end because of bad use of liberty.  Well, maybe.  But not today.

Talking of which, here are the rejects.

Yes that is some Hello Kitty liberty tana lawn.  Yes it is purple.  No it shouldn't be in a quilt.

I don't have much positive to say about these.  Individually, they look okay.  Together, I don't know what I was thinking.  And they certainly don't go with my pinky, bluey, lineny theme.  Of course I hadn't decided about that before.  Heh.

I think it's about time I dragged my EPP out again and did some more - I had a goal to try and do a block a week, but I haven't been keeping up recently.

Any how, I'll be linking up to Hydeeann's party on Saturday - are you impressed at how organised I am in advance?  Go and have a look at the lovely bits and pieces everyone is doing.

splish splash stash


Sunday 8 December 2013

ABC BOW week 14: L is for Ladder and Lollipop

and ladybird ...

I tried something a little different this time round.  I think I should have practiced my picture a few more times before committing him to embroidery, but all in all I don't think he's too bad.  Well, apart from the pencil marks I still need to get off the fabric.  And his wing is a bit spazzie.  Baby steps though, right?!

L is for ladybird

I'm trying something different for M as well, and then I'm back to the embroidery in the book.  My excitement at thinking outside the square will have come to an end then.  

What have you been doing this week?  Apart from getting all confused from me posting mid-week last week and then getting back on track today.  How annoying is that, right?!  We have got the Christmas tree up and some (but not all) of the Christmas presses organised.  It's nice to be getting on track a bit after us all being grotty.  I feel like we're coming back up for air.  Before you know it I'll be replying to comments and looking at bloggy loveliness again. *gasp*

There's nothing like the smell of a real Christmas tree.  I wish this was a scratch and sniff blog so you could smell our lounge.  It's loverly!

Now show us your ABC blocks.

   
   



Wednesday 4 December 2013

ABC BOW Week 13: K is for Kite and Kitten

Oh my goodness quilty friends, I have missed you.  We have all been sick little bunnies in the Shush household and trying to sort out all sorts of Christmas palaver as well.  But we're just about better now, and I've managed to make Princess a pirate princess costume for the daycare party in between everything else.  But I think all of that is a story for another day.

What stitching have you been doing on your ABC quilt?  I have my K all finished, and something a little bit different for next week too (by next week I mean Sunday, which isn't far away now).

Here is my kite.  What do you think?  I like the coloured streamers on the tail, but I have to say the kite itself is not my best stitching.  You win some, you lose some, right?!

K is for kite


Did you have a good weekend?  Link up and show us what you have been doing.  You must all have lots of L blocks to show off.

And if you have left me a comment recently and I haven't replied - I apologise now - I am so far behind on all my emails.  But I do love hearing from you and I assure you that your comments brightened my day when I was stuck in bed with a packet of tissues and a lemon drink!


   

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