Rollercoaster of a week

It's been a week and a half!  It was always going to be a busy week - last week of nursery for the Dude, the husband finishing up too and getting ready to go on holiday on Monday.  Things got a little bit more stressful last weekend when it became obvious that our cat, Jack, wasn't eating very much. 

To cut a long story short, after a trip to the vet on Tuesday, she confirmed what I kinda knew.  The cancer which was discovered last November, and we thought had been removed, had returned as she felt lumps in his liver.  The option of medication was discussed but initially we needed to have his bloods checked and scan his liver to establish the extent of the issue.  So Thursday morning off he went, still not having eaten anything substantial since the previous Friday, and after 2 hours we got the call back to say it was bad news.  Medication might have improved his liver function for a short time but it wasn't going to do anything about the tumours.  So we put our Big Girl & Big Boy pants on and took the decision to have him put to sleep.  He was 14, his has been with us longer than we've been married.  It feels strange sitting in the livingroom and him not being here. 

This all happened the same day that the Dude had his nursery graduation (I know it's a bit daft but good for the kids) and the school Headmaster did his last nursery graduation speech as he has now retired, it was a great speech, very much from the heart!  So Thursday was the day for emotions!

Looking forward to getting away for a few days next week to switch off and recharge my batteries.  We are off to a caravan park near Dumfries and as long as it doesn't rain EVERY day I'll be happy.  I was trying to think early of something to take with me to work on next week and I suddenly remembered I have still to finish this

I started working on this cross stitch a very, very, very, VERY long time ago.  So long ago it moved house with us (& we moved in 2005!) and it's still not finished.  So as it was bought because it reminded me of Jack, it seems only fitting that I finally finish it off in memory of him now.  (& thank god I've got new specs so I'll be able to see the bloomin' stitches lol)

Speedy Make

I had an idea in my head last week for a quick lap quilt for my Granda's birthday.  He is the fantastic age of 93 today.  I bought a lovely layer cake at FoQ last month which was just asking to be used to who was I to deny the cutting of fabric to be carried out.

I have no idea what the fabric is called or who designed it unfortunately but I do know that it from Robert Kaufman and it's lovely.  I changed by mind about the design mid way through last week so by Friday I needed to go and buy some sashing material and backing fabric.

Saturday naptime I managed to get the fabric cut out, Saturday evening I started to piece the blocks until my machine fell out with me and stopped working.  So I threw in the towel in trying to fix it and went to bed!  Got up Sunday morning with renewed energy determined to figure out what was wrong with my machine so I did this

and gave it a good old clean.  Hoovers out quite nicely actually, but no still no joy in getting it to do more than one stitch before it jammed up and refused to work.  *insert a very stressed person, lots of shouty, growly, thumping about and threatening to throw it out of the window*  But then for some reason I looked at the bobbin .............

I had been using the one on the left!  It should look like the one on the right.  No wonder it kept pushing he bobbin case out of the machine.  So once that was sorted it was like working with a different machine and it was full steam head.  So as daddy kept the dude occupied (ok they watched a dvd but it kept them out of my hair) I got all quilt top pieced.  Another short nap time and I got the layers basted.  We then went to visit my Granda at his nursing home.  He was in fine fettle if a little confused (apparently he was going to visit his auntie!).  We then got home and when daddy did bedtime I got on with the quilting, making and attaching the binding.  I finished about midnight last night!  But I'm really happy with it and what's more so is my Granda!

I did worry that it might be a bit too modern for a 93 yr old but he talked about it all afternoon apparently (after asking my dad if he needed to go to school today, bless him!).  We got it home because I forgot to attach a label with his name on it but I'll get that done tomorrow. 

A Wee Test

I'm having a play with my new Android phone and being fairly useless with technology I not always convinced these things will work. So this is my first attempt.to blog straight from my phone!

I am even going to try adding in a photo of 'pirate Euan'!!

What a beautiful day!

It has been glorious in my neck of the woods the last couple of days.  Definitely a welcome change from the rainy, cold days we had about a week ago.

This week has been a bit more chaotic than usual, Pedro has been on holiday, so our normal routine has been out of the window.  Which is good but it also means that I'm behind on tons of stuff.  Housework has been way down the list of things to do this week and getting up to date with my sewing has been high.  So a day later than I planned to post it, my mini quilt for the Brit Quilt Swap was posted off this morning.  I'm not saying who to yet, as it's a secret swap and they won't get it until Monday but this is what the finished article looks like 

The last one includes the extras I've sent away.  My first ever attempt at a pin cushion, it's really sweet.  Now I need to make one for myself and I loved it so much.

Now yesterday a parcel arrived for me but, because I hadn't posted my quilt away I wouldn't let myself open it!!  I know, the will power I have at times it's outstanding.  So it sat in my kitchen all yesterday and all last night unopened - willing me to open it but I wouldn't.  So as we planned a day at the seaside today, I took my parcel with me to open in the car, after I'd been to the post office.  And WOW!!  I'm so glad I did.  My partner Suzan or (Quiltitis as she is known on Flickr) as made me a gorgeous, amazing quilt.  It's called the Sunshine Tree, which is very apt for the weather.  I absolutely love it.  Love it, love it, love it.  It's already hanging in my kitchen.  

And being a wonderful person, Suzan included an amazing fat quarter (not sure who/what it is yet!) and a fantastic Mr Men book for my little boy.  There he is "reading" it in the car on our way to the beach.  Thank you Suzan I truly adore it :)

We then spent a good part of the day at Burntisland beach building sandcastles.  It's definitely been a beautiful day!

Keeping up!

Well trying to anyway!!  I've been busy trying to finish off things and start new things.  The dude's quilt top is finished.  I think - I like the way it looks but part of thinks it needs a border.  Yes/No?  Maybe I'll make a border just to see how it looks.  I'm planning to back it with a brushed cotton to make it lovely and snuggy.

My hearts quilt is now finished and sitting on our couch being leaned against every day.  I'm really, really happy with it and in this lovely warm June that we're having (!) it's been used already.

I'm getting behind on mystery quilt but a big part of that (other than, you know, life getting in the way of other fun stuff) is that I've been seriously procrastinating on the block which is to be paper pieced.  But thanks to Sheila who sent me some really helpful and very clear instructions on how to do a block I'm over the mental block I had.  So following the instructions I made this funky little tree (I added the border to finish it off)

I've made a little bit more progress with my mystery quilt since this but not much!

I've also being doing a little bit more of my brit quilt swap mini-quilt.  It's coming together nicely.  I haven't decided how to finish it off but I'll have a little bit of play and see what I can come up with.

I haven't been my usual organised self the last few weeks so I haven't had as much time as I've wanted to do much else but after the end of this week I should have more time as I step down from being as involved in our Toddler's Group (1 year of being the treasurer is enough for me).  But for now, seeing as it's Father's Day, I need to spend some time with this little man and his daddy.  Steak for dinner me thinks!

Flying visit

Life is getting in the way of other things I want to be doing just now.  Although today we're taking at slower pace and hoping to get caught up with various things.

I have done some playing about with the design for my Brit Quilt Swap mini-quilt.  I'm not overly happy with all of the triangles, they need jiggled about a little to make it flow better, but over all I'm pleased with the design and how it's looking.  Just need to get it made up!

I'm getting behind on my mystery quilt too so hopefully this weekend will free up some serious free time. 

Me and the dude were mucking about in the kitchen last week and out of all the pictures I look, this is my favourite.  Much silliness!!!

My Boy

.......is 2!  We've had a busy week.  I've been on holiday and spent the first half of the week preparing for the Toddlers AGM last Wednesday.  Being the group treasurer does involve a fair bit of work making sure that everything is up to date and logged properly so I wanted to make sure that I had everything correct.  Which meant that I checked, double checked and triple checked the accounts before the meeting.

Then Thursday was the Dude's birthday, this is him in one part of his birthday present.  We didn't get a chance to build it up until the morning of his birthday which was interesting to say the least.  It's looks fairly simple doesn't it?  We didn't think it would take very long - it's only a few pieces of plastic after all!  Over 2 hours later we had a different view of it!  But he loves it so that's all that mattered.  The other part of his present, which is bigger, went together so much easier and quicker - sod's law eh! (that's my nephew checking out the doorbell)

I attempted to go one better than last year's cake and I'm pleased with the result.  I'm going to spend some time this year improving my icing technique before the next birthday but it tasted really good and my butter icing was just amazing :)  (that'll be why my jeans are tight!)

And to finish off my week off work we spent the weekend at Grannie's Heilan' Hame holiday park.  It's at Embo, which I'd never heard of before, but it's about 3 miles from Dornoch (the place where Madonna and Guy Ritchie got married) and it's lovely.  Check out this beach ....... (and blue sky)

I'll be back tomorrow with more about the weekend.  Just now I'm off to have a decent cuppa (I'm contemplating taking my own mug on holiday the next time to try and get a proper cup of tea) and watch a programme about space archaeology!??!

Thinking & Playing

I've been doing some more thinking about my design for my mini quilt for my BQS partner.  I'm leaning more towards doing the flying geese design but I think I'll probably make up the shoofly/pinwheel combo too.  More just to see if I can do it LOL.

 Anyway, I've been redrawing the flying geese (how hard is it to find graph paper btw, I had to download it!), and playing about with how it will look and trying to decide on fabrics.  I'm more or less settled on these.  They are Kaffe Fassett, bundle of about 25 fabrics which I bought at the Festival of Quilts 4 years ago I think and never really figured out how best to use them.

But I also acquired some fabric for the shoofly block (i.e. paid my sister a visit and somehow left her house with these in my possession!!)

 I've got a week off (I mentioned that yesterday) and although we've got a few things planned, including a small person's birthday (where have the last 2 years gone?), I intend to get some serious sewing time built into my week.  We're also going away for the weekend next Friday so I'm going to take something with me.  Possibly try my hand at hexagons.

First of many

and many firsts this weekend.  Like the first block being created for my first mystery quilt (see the wee linkie thing at the right hand side).

My first attempts both 1/2 square and 1/4 square triangles - they're not as difficult as I expected.  Who'da thunk it!!  I really enjoyed making it, only one small error where I misread the distructions but it was easily and quickly fixed.

My first time using orange (ok not a big first, but a first nonetheless!).  It actually goes surprisingly well with my couch and carpet in my livingroom which is a pleasant coincidence.  My first block sewn with my new 1/4" foot - huge difference in my precision, admittedly the block could be better but that was because I was rushing to get finished so was getting sloppy.  (I'm still contemplating unpicking one seam and redoing)

Not a new first but my first in a LONG, LONG time.  I bought a SMALL size from M&S this weekend, it's a belt, not a pair of jeans but it's still a small.  I honestly don't remember the last time I bought anything to wear that had small on it.  It's been a bit of bumpy weight loss road I've been on lately but I've still lost 1.5st and I'm back on track this week so we'll see what I've lost tomorrow.

And lastly the first of many new words from this little person, I can't keep up with everything that he's coming away with these days!  We've had everything from window, jam, milk to Judy and Darkest Peru tonight (we were reading Paddington).  I can't believe it will be his 2nd birthday in 2 weeks, it's just flown past.

Bookwork

We bought our little man a Toy Story book last week.  It seems he likes it. 

Still sitting

in the same pile as it was on Thursday - my fabric that is!

Thursday night was such a wonderfully warm, light night that I took the opportunity to plant up 3 hanging baskets, a trough and 3 plant pots.  Soon I will (hopefully) have pretty flowers decorating my back garden, including this just outside my back door.

It's a flowering lavender, which admittedly isn't much to look at just now, but hopefully it will give off a lovely scent when we step out of the door!

Gardening is not my strong point - I've lost count of the number of plants I've managed to kill off, so I'll be pleasantly surprised if any of the other plants actually developing lots of lovely flowers!?!?

Yesterday we headed off for a drive as the weather was so nice and ended up in Milngavie - the quilt shop I was hoping to visit was closed (again) so we visited Dobbies instead and had a lovely lunch.  But I did end up getting a quilting book in Dobbies for a complete steal of £4.95.  We got Euan a Toy Story book as he loves Woody at the moment and he's never been so quiet in the back of the car, it was really cute to see him holding this huge book and really studying it!

Today we did think about going to a local farm for special Easter open day but the miserable weather made up our minds for us.  So Pete ended up convincing me to drive to Corstorphine to visit Guitar, Guitar (otherwise known as the Sweetie shop in this house) and he came away with a new guitar pedal - I've no idea what it does but as he's gigging tonight and has it with him, I'll find out tomorrow how good a buy it was!  So after a complete soaking for me and Euan when we went for a little walk when Pete was 'having a wee shot' of the pedal, I decided I needed a 'sweetie' too.  So a drive back to Stirling and I now own a 1/4" foot for my sewing machine.  It was supposed to be my mother's day present, it's only taken me a month to get it.

So now I have no excuse for wonky seams! 

Quiet

Is how life has been the last few weeks.  Just after my last post I came down with an evil stomach bug that wiped me out for about 4 days.  It was one of the most unpleasant illnesses I've experienced, I barely ate for a week.  Partly because I just couldn't face food and partly because I was scared to eat as it knew I couldn't keep in for long.  Which is a quick way to lose weight if you are in need of it, just not a method I'd recommend very highly. 

So not much as been going on, just getting on with work (which is very busy - year end budget stuff, blah, blah, blah) and watching/listening to the dude grow up.  This was taken last Friday when we took a little drive up to Killen - rock n'roll!!!

listening - nothing at the moment, but I'm watching last night's CSI:NY

eating - nothing
drinking - nothing
wearing - red flowery shirt and black leggings
feeling - happy, it's been a lovely sunny day and we've spent it with family
weather - it's dark now but it was glorious today - warm and sunny
wanting - to have all the housework mysteriously done for me
needing - to have an early night
thinking - I'm quite tired
wondering - whether or not to make a cup of tea?

Scrappy Sparks

About a week ago I got an email from Sarah's Cards with an offer that was just too good to miss - a £75 grab box for £25!  Not one to pass up a bargain I grabbed at the chance to get one and I was lucky enough to get one before they all disappeared.  The concept is that all the boxes are different and you don't know what you get until it arrives.  So after stalking the postie for a few days, it arrived at the end of the week.  It's been an age since I have the joy of a pizza box being delivered and look at the goodies that were inside

 There is even a page all about boys!!  I couldn't have picked it even if I'd tried!?!?!

The purpose of buying this box is to spark my interest and creativity for paper based crafting as I have yet to make any scrapbook pages of my son - he's over 22 months and I've not made any scrapbook of him yet.  The rate I'm going I'll have forgotten all the little things before long.  It's definitely not for the lack of photos, I probably have thousands of his first year, not so much from his second year (that's what being back at work does for you). 

I've got lots of ideas running through my head - for scrapbook pages, for a couple of quilts for Euan, for FINALLY decorating our bedroom, for many, many things.  Just need to try to squeeze and few extra hours into every day to get it all done - easy eh!

Getting There

I had the luxury of a cheeky wee afternoon to myself the other day, well I say luxury, but I felt guilty the whole time because I could quite easily have kept Euan with me but his granda was happy to still look after him for the afternoon.  The joys of being a parent eh!

Anyhoo I used the time wisely and got round to starting to quilting my log cabin quilt. 

I got on really well too and by 8pm, after nipping out to get weighed (18.5lbs so far - go me!) and collecting a very tired little boy, it was all quilted.

Although I did do the same as the last time, made a couple of little errors on the back, where the backing hasn't been as flat as it should have been so there are 2 or 3 little creases on the back, quilted in!  It doesn't annoy me enough to rip the stitches out (cos that would take AGES, and I really don't have the patience for it) but it does remind me that I need to do my quilting with less speed and more haste - to paraphrase that old saying.



On a different note while I've been downloading photos from my camera and writing this blog I've been playing about with itunes on my ipod touch (mult-tasking at it's best - esp as it's not quite 7am yet!) and their collection of artists under each genre selection has me perplexed - Jason Mraz under rock!  Don't get wrong I like his stuff, but I'd never have put him in the genre of rock.  But do check out Hugh Laurie in the Blues genre - he's really good.  I was reading something yesterday that he (yes I do mean Hugh Laurie as it Dr Gregory House/Fry & Laurie) is releasing his 1st blues album this year. 

Okay dokey I'm off to see what the day has in sort for me - here's hoping for a warm, sunny day with lots of smiles! 

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.

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!

Inspired by Inspiration

As I've just signed up for my first EVER swap (what I am thinking!!!!) I'm just spending a little time tonight looking at my meagre fabric collection and lots of lovely inspiration on t'interweb.  I've come across this fabulous collection of inspiring goodies on the PS I Quilt blog.  I do intend to make some lovely cushions for my livingroom but they are way down the list of things to be done.  Much higher up are the roman blinds for the kitchen, I bought the material ages ago and still in the bag that it came home in!  Haven't quite plucked up the courage to start them yet.  Not sure why I find the idea of roman blinds so daunting but I do!

As I feel a blog post is never quite complete without a photo, here is a random one of my little dude.  This little man cannot get enough bananas (or 'nanas' as they are now known in this house) into his little tum-tum.  I swear one of these days he'll turn into a monkey!!!

And relax ...........

He came, he left presents, they got opened and played with.  Christmas is just about all over and done with and now I feel like I can finally sit down and chill!!

I wasn't up too late on Christmas Eve, the building of the Dude's garage and keyboard were fairly straight forward. The garage started off like this

 

and ended up like this!  Of course I had to have a little play, just to make sure it was put together properly of course!?!?

I then had to wrap everything - built up garages are not the simplest of things to wrap on your own!  The dude had great fun on Christmas day opening everything up and then deciding what to play with.  He has been well and truly spoiled the last few days but he's worth it.  Although we might need to move to a bigger house to fit everything in.  (Seriously - I'm already thinking about getting rid of a chair and changing the TV unit just to make more space)

 (Singing along with daddy)

 (Playing with the Happyland village set)

 (All the toys under the tree)

 (Giggling at being chased by his cousin - who can only crawl!)

Yesterday (Boxing Day) we had dinner at my dad's - more presents!!  But a good time was had by all, the Dude had great fun playing with his little cousin (the Squealer) who is now 11 months and yesterday the Dude turned 19 months(!?!).  It was pretty much the first time they've been in each other's company for a prolonged period, when they can both move about on their own.  I predict they are going to be a terrible twosome in a few years, if yesterday was anything to go by!!

I got some fantabulous presents, which to be honest I've hardly had time to look at, but they involved lots of baking goods (a proper pie dish - very chuffed about that), food stuff and other funky stuff.  I've still got another week til I start back to work so I intend to do lots of baking, making things and just generally taking some time out for me.  I got a funky book on sock animals for my birthday and I bought some toy stuffing just before christmas so I will be making something in the next week.