Blogtoberfest day 7 - a day of rest (?!)

I had a bank holiday today! Well, strictly speaking it was one of those old fashioned local public holidays that are dying out but neverthless. Today I wasn't at work. And Spouse and Chookie were. Hee!!

This is me at 9.10am having done my usual post-work routine (up, making breakfast and lunches, kicking Spouse out the door with portable coffee, feeding cats, cleaning cats toilet and the kitchen, washing on, shower, nag child to get ready, put the bins out, fly out the door at 8.50am....all that great working mum stuff) and eating my breakfast watching Pretty in Pink on Netflix. What an awesome start to the day.

I've finished the day quilting the St Louis 16 patch. It's ready for binding but I'm going back to Vinnie (who was quilted yesterday) to put his binding on first. Coz I have that. And Chook wants turquoise for her quilt. Rats.

In between I got the messages in (that will be grocery shopping for non-Scots), had lunch with my folks, got annoyed at a stupid, lying courier service and watched Pretty Woman and 3 episodes of Castle while quilting the St Louis. And I'm off to collapse on the couch with my cats and eat rubbish. I've had the best day!

Blogtoberfest day 6 - Sunday snippets

My week in pictures.  Well, my week in Instagram. Minus a few bits you've seen already. 

Duke, my mum and dad's Welsh terrier. I love when he lies like this.

Temple all comfy. Aaw.

The Baby Love quilt pocket in progress. I learned that elasticated bit making my super tote.

The last baby onesie. My favourite and the hardest to take the shears to.

A choice of threads for Vinnie - too much! But I chose and 'tis done.

And sleepy, smiley Jones. What a boy.

I'm on bank holiday tomorrow, yay! So I hope to get the binding on the Vinnie quilt and perhaps some quilting on the St Louis 16 patch.

Blogtoberfest day 5 - Baby Love quilt top finished!

After I finished my last baby clothes block on Thursday night I couldn't wait to get this chap put together. I'm so chuffed with how it's turned out and for the first time I'm thinking I might have done the right thing taking the shears to all those wee outfits.

My pocket turned out great, too! They are the bum of the dungarees Chookie wore to my Wee Granny's 80th birthday party. The top is up there on the far left hand side, three down. The ribbon ties the slippers into the pocket for security, the patch pocket for the socks was a happy accident!

It was surprisingly hard to balance the layout but I think I about got there. There's a few wee niggles but honestly not enough to take the seam ripper to anybody. Maybe Spouse but that's not quilt related. *g*

And these are my favourite blocks. Clockwise from top left: a dress bought by my mother-in-law when she was just tiny (about a month old), a funny t-shirt, frilly dungaree shorts (we had a lot of those!) and my favourite item from the whole bunch was a wee romper worn from about 2 weeks old.

I still have some buttons that may get added as I finish. I plan to hand quilt it but as I'm a total novice I am a bit wary of it. I DO have a Christmas quilt I also planned to hand quilt (about 3 years ago!!) so may practice on that first. I really don't want to mess this one up.

In the meantime I've basted my Vinnie top and am trying to decide which of my four huge reels of pink thread from the Stitch Gathering are the best companion for it. What a nice problem to have!

P.S. "the Baby Clothes Quilt" was too boring and long so since we're in a Denyse Schmidt "Drunk Love in a Log Cabin" style? "Baby Love" it is!!

Blogtoberfest day 4 - Flashback Friday

I wasn't sure which way to go with this today.  I knew I wanted to dig out an old photo but how old and of whom? (Who? Whom? Meh.) In the end I followed Julie Andrews' advice and started at the very beginning.  It's a very fine place to start.

This is baby me, my folks and Seamus the spaniel.

It's 1974 and I'm not sure what is funnier - the old Capri, my Dad's shirt or the fact he has almost as much hair as my mum!

Blogtoberfest day 3 - Thankful Thursday

Today I have been particularly thankful for my mum. Not just, you know, for all that normal mum stuff. I know I'm incredibly lucky. Of my 4 closest friends, three have lost their own mums before we are forty. That's got to be an unlikely percentage. And here am I not only with both my parents but three grandparents, too. In fact, I was 34 before my Grandpa died. So, yeah, I'm pretty lucky. But there's something specific I'm grateful for today. And that's my Mum's special relationship with my Chookie. (Did you know my mum's responsible for that particular moniker? Her official title is "my precious wee chookie.")

My colleague wasn't at work today. Her 2 year old is miserable sick - you know the greety, crabbit way that only toddlers do? That. And my colleague's father-in-law who watches the tot had popped in yesterday with some messages. And when the wee scone saw him? She screamed the place down thinking she was being left with him while mum came to work. Sometimes only Mummy will do!

Except,  Chook wasn't like that. I went back to work when she was 11 weeks old and my mum watched her from 9 til 3 pretty much every working day until she went to nursery. So they're pretty close.  And dropping off a sick 2 year old Chook would have been easy coz she would have known she'd get more cuddles from Granny than from me. I would've been trying to nurse and clean at the same time! 

I understand a little of what their bond is like.  My Wee Granny watched me when I first started school when my mum started working full time. So she was there when I got up, at lunchtime and when I got in at 3. And this was on top of all the sleepovers we had. Some just the two of us before she remarried when I was 4. So I know what very special relationships are forged in early childhood with a grandparent who gives you that most precious commodity. Time. 

I think Chook herself put it best. She was out walking the dog with my Dad a few months ago and mention was made of going home. When he questioned did she mean her own house she gave him that look. You know. That are-you-stupid one that kids excel at? That one. And then said

"No, Pop. I mean your house. That's my second home, you know."

Which I think kinda sums it up. And although she dearly loves her auld Pop, it would have been Granny wiping the bogies and cuddling the sick child on the couch with a big blanket, a bottle of Calpol and a wee pot of custard.

One hundred years from now

It won't matter

What kind of car I drove

What kind of house I lived in

How much money I had in the bank

Nor what my clothes looked like

BUT

The world may be a little better

Because, I was important

In the life of a child. 

 (excerpt from "Within My Power" by Forest Witcraft)

P.S. I've just hit publish and found out that this is my 700th post! I couldn't have picked a better subject if I had planned it!

Blogtoberfest day 2 - a pretty pile.

I think I'm meant to be doing a "Wordless Wednesday" today but that was never going to happen. So I'm sharing a pile of FQ's I got yesterday for a new project. In our living room the sofa is mine (and the cats) and the big armchair and footstool is Spouse's. I made a quilt for the couch last year but when the weather started to turn cooler a few weeks ago I remarked 

"aw, son, you've no quilt to coory under! Will i make you one?" 

To which he replied,  much to my surprise, "yeah. Make me one with minis on." 

Coz he has a mini that he hillclimbs (wee not-so-Lucky). But that meant buying novelty fabric with cars on! Yuk. Still, I think I might make this work. 

There's multicoloured cars on the mini print and Lucky is red but my living room is blue and brown. So there's a careful balancing act going on. And I think I'm going to do a big plus quilt like Leanne to show off the bigger prints. But I think it might be not bad, you know.

Fresh Sewing Day and Blogtoberfest!!

It's October already!!! Which means it's Fresh Sewing Day over at Lily's Quilts.

I've not got much to show for September but there are two full quilt tops in there! Hopefully getting quilted in the next couple of weeks - if the batting ever arrives! And I did two other layouts but sneaking one into a sewing collage is cheeky enough, I think. I also spent half the month digging and shovelling in our garden - I will take photos of it all neat if we ever get round to buying the extra 3 bags of chuckies we need!

 

October also means it's Blogtoberfest!!

 

 I've never participated before. I did mean to last year but October was a month of bathroom rip-outs, Spousal accidents resulting in operations and very sick kittens. So I blogged every day in December instead and really enjoyed it! So I shall endeavour to put something on here every day. Prior warning - it will probably get a bit random! Anyone else having a bash at it?