I (heart) nap-time

because it gives me a window of opportunity to get various things done without a little person 'helping' me or without feeling guilty for leaving said little person playing on his own. As I'm a working mummy, I am only home during nap time for 4 days and some days nap time is about an hour or so long, so that lets me catch up on a a little bit of cleaning or maybe something I've sky+'d. Other days the little person has a LONG nap time. Like today, he decided to sleep for 3 hours!! So I made very good use of the time and did this ....

I made the blocks last week when I was on holiday and last night I put them together to make the 4 rows.  So during nap time I sewed roundabout the hearts, sewed the rows together and put on the inner and outer borders.  As I mentioned in a previous post I've had the material and pattern since about July 2006 so I'm very glad to now have a completed quilt top.  I bought some backing material last weekend so at some point this week I'll layer it up and start to quilt it.  Not sure how to quilt it, I'll probably just do a random squiggly thingy.  That the vibe I'm getting from it, higglety-pigglety-squigglety-ness.

Pedro asked me why I'd made it?  It's difficult to explain 'just because'!  I think he meant if I'd made it for someone or for a particular reason.  But no, it's just for me and will look pretty in our livingroom.

Belated Valentine

I totally forgot that it was valentine's this week.  We had a very low key affair, in fact we actually we swapped cards on Sunday night instead of Monday and I got some very, very lurvely Lush smellies.  Now I just need to find the time to soak in a lovely scented bath.  Maybe tomorrow night, in preparation for going back to work on Monday - I'm liking the sound of that actually!

But in honour of it being valentines this week , I finally started my heart log cabin quilt (the one I've had the material & pattern for since 2006).  Started and made up the blocks.  It was fairly easy to put the blocks together - I'd never done strip piecing before and it was much easier that I anticipated it to be.  I've still to applique the hearts onto the block and then put the blocks together to make up the top. 

I'm really liking the way it's looking so far, I'm getting quite excited about how it will look finished!

Bye ..... Hello

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was taking part in my very first quilting swap.  Well after making about half a dozen, I finally had 2 mug rugs that I was happy with to be sent to someone. 

So these have been posted off to someone, on the other side of the world!!!  Now I just have to wait to receive my package from the swap, I've no idea where it is coming from and it's really quite exciting.  So I've said 'bye' to my mug rugs - the first time I've ever sent any of my quilting to another quilter, it's quite nerve wracking!  And I've said 'hello' to some new tricks, tips and styles.

I've enjoyed making these mug rugs, I've tried different quilting styles.  Different ways of piecing material, different colourways.  The binding was giving me a bit of headache but again it helped to have a few attempts to sort out what the problems were.

This is one of the 'not quite up to scratch' mug rugs I rejected for sending to my swap partner.  And my funky sock monster that I made too - he lives in my kitchen and his name is Loppy. 
We've had some other 'bye' and 'hello's this weekend.  This happy little man has been getting chatty - 'bye' started on Friday as we were leaving toddlers, a few people said bye to us and he just replied!  The same with hello, I answered the phone yesterday and then heard the wee man, who was walking at my feet go, 'ellooo'.

There was me last week starting to get paranoid that his speech wasn't so great and then over the weekend we've had a total of 3 new words in fact - bye, eye & hello!  I vow I will stop worrying about his development and just let him do things at his own pace.  He's is own little person and he does things his own way.  And I'm happy with that - really I am!

Cat on the Mat

Well more of the moggy on the mug rug.  My friend at work has a little coaster which is pretty much at the end of it's useful life so when she mentioned last week that she should probably get herself a new one, I had a little idea.  And this is what that idea led too - she's cat daft and has a ginger kitty cat like me!

I've worked on the 2 mug rugs for the swap I'm in, this weekend tops are made, just need a little light quilting and then to be bound.  I did intend to get on to that tonight but the dude has been full of jumping beans today and has been bouncing off the walls since 7am this morning so I'm drained of what little energy I did have.  

Busy, busy, busy

There just never seems to be enough hours in the day lately.  Not even down to any one thing in particular, just lots of things going on!

But I have been making stuff - woo hoo :)  I got this fabulous book for my birthday last November and I've finally got round to making something from it.  He doesn't have a name yet, possibly Loppy cos his mouth is a bit lop-sided but I'm not sure.  I loved making it, really quick but really effective.  If I get time I intend to make another this weekend.  Everybody need a sock animal I've decided!

I've also been making another mug rug tonight, it's not properly finished but here is a little look.

On other things my weight loss is coming along nicely, now lost a total of 8lbs since 11 January - 3 weigh-ins so far.  Many more lbs to go but I'm happy with the way it's going so far.

Very tired now, so off to bed for me and maybe just a page or two of Keith Richards' book.  It's a facinating read but it's written how I imagine he speaks, rambling through different topics before getting back to the original story, can be a wee bit confusing depending on how tired I am!