something started and something finished.

Round 9 (nine!?!?!) of the Old Red Barn quilt group is being led by the lovely Dolores and is a ticker tape quilt (as widely popularised by Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts) which I am so late in getting to grips with! In my defence I've been a single parent the last three or four weeks (busy Spouse with all that overtime) and I've also booked us 2 holidays! One just a long weekend in the Highlands to go see the Cairngorm Soapbox Extreme event and a week in Menorca in the summer. Yay! So that's kept me busy. Plus Scouts stuff and general living and there's not much time left for the good stuff! Anyways.

Here's my supply pile. Batting, Kona Bone, my backing fabric and a pile of scraps. Which I thought looked loads but is barely a quarter of what I need. Rats. I have cut more since but am still woefully short - not that I'm lacking scraps (the aforementioned Miz Dolores keeps me well supplied!!) they're just not square. *le sigh* I'll get there!

And this magnificense is my backing. It's Opal Owl by Tina Givens for FreeSpirit and I thought it was some sort of trees and woodland damask effect doo-hickey. But, no, it's wee animals playing!! Cool!

And in other news, there's been a few jobs getting finished about the house. Hooks in my bedroom finally (no photos yet but they're mirrored butterflies), the storage from Ikea for the cupboard-under-the-stairs fitted and this picture from our weekend in Portmeirion hung.

I gave up trying to find a frame to match and when I came accross this giant peg in a local shop I knew it would be perfect. We just needed to shuftie Butch and Sundance down a bit and all was rosey. Result!

It's a big night at Cubs tonight, we're having a large scale investiture (for long and boring reasons there's a lot of our Cubs not had their joining ceremony) and we're expecting parents along. And I must remember my camera for a photo!!

Disney delights.

We took a spin up to the Gyle shopping centre in Edinburgh on Friday night, really to visit Gap for jeans for the Spouse. But the Gyle also houses our nearest Disney Store. I always, without fail, every single time spend a lot of money. (It's an ambition of mine to only have Disney mugs in our house - I'm slowly getting there, too!) I was really looking for some tea plates but they appear to not do them. Which is a real shame coz we've been missing the pretty Christmas plate for the Chook's post-school snack. But not to worry, I did find some cute-as-a-bugs-ear breakfast bowls and mugs!

 I mixed and matched Pooh & Tigger and Mickey & Minnie, they also have incredibly cute Tinkerbells and Stitch!

AND (and this was exciting) the glasses I've been collecting were in the sale!!

 So we got Eeyore, Grumpy and Tink. Unfortunately, I think this means they're being discontinued and not only have I not got a full set, I've an odd number (seven!) but as they're in daily use may not have for very long!

The dresser is browns and reds currently (the two mugs hanging were in my Christmas parcel from my Mum - she's a guid yin, I tell ya!!) but I had no bunting in those colours. I lasted 2 days with it being nekkid before I ran up the string along the top.

Dead simple double circles cut freehand and chain stitched through the middle. Took about 15 minutes!



We've had a mad busy weekend with the shopping on Friday night, horses, gutting the cupboard under the stairs, a sleepover and dinner out on Saturday and Ikea today to buy storage for the newly empty (mostly) under stair space. I s'pose we could shove Chook in it Harry Potter style! *g* So I'm off to work tomorrow for a break. After an earlier than normal start coz one of Chook's friends is being dropped off here (she lives a few miles away) so they can walk to school together. So I may get to work on time! Wonders will never cease.

ponygirl and her pony

Chook and her pony Skye are just about getting back into the swing of things after the 8 week lay-off with the bad weather and festivities of December and January. And when I say her pony? I mean the pony she usually rides (we're not that mad.....yet). We had to hang about a bit today waiting for their lesson mate to arrive and Chookie was getting really cuddly with her old pal while I ran for my camera! This is my favourite shot I caught today - actually a nice smile from Her Maj!

why the long face? *groans*

 This one makes me giggle. The classic "not another picture, Mother!" body language. Even the damn horse looks fed up! And do you see poor Skye's bald bits on her chest? Her field rug has been rubbing, the poor lamb. Imagine having a hat on constantly and it gently exfoliating your hair right off.  Still, if her weight gain is anything to judge by (what a fat filly!) she's not neglected any!

Oh, and can you guess what my daughter's favourite colour is?!?!? At least everything matches, right? *grins*



picnic pork chop quilt.

It's finished!

Just in time for summer. *snort* The plan is that this will live next to the back door so when the Chook and her friends need something to eat their snacks on or something to build a den with she won't drag the good ones out of the living room! The solid green is Kona Pond and it's a lovely seafoam shade - really pretty but not too pale for outside use. The patterned charms were part of a charm pack swap back in May on the ORB Flickr group. The Pork Chop reference is what Sooz hoped her Mother had tied round her neck so that people would play along in her swap!! She musta had a whole Lady Gaga dress it was so popular!

The backing is from Jennifer Paganelli's "Bellbottoms" range and is a sort of check (there's a better photo below). Of course, the whole quilt turned out bigger than I expected so my 3m wasn't enough so I had to piece it. Doh!

Binding is a brilliant Kona Colourworks stripe and, again, I didn't have enough! So a tiny bit of the leftovers from the Lucky Birds quilt made up the difference.

And since I also plan to use it in the park and at the beach? I remembered rock pockets!! No more weighting corners with trainers and flasks and handbags. Go me!

the deets:

The patterm is some kinda 9 patch affair I saw on Flickr.

The fabrics are lotsa charms from all my ORB buddies, Kona Pond, backing is Jennifer Paganelli Bellbottoms.

Finished size is 67in square.

Onwards to the Old Red Barn quilt group round 9! More on that tomorrow!

is this cheating?

I picked this up in the New Look sale yesterday for £3!! Really, how could anyone resist - I can barely buy a fat quarter for that!

But now I need to not fib when people ask "is that one of yours?" when they know I sew. And it would be SO easy to let them think I really am that clever! Oh morals and honesty. *shakes fist* You pesky values! Maybe they won't ask and just assume I'm that good? *grins*

(note; I originally had the Planet of the Apes final words in there at the end but I read like a loony - it is only a bag!)

mid(ish) week mundanities

Must take another photo for these!

My general mood? Is fairly chipper! I've been cooking tea all this week and *gasp* actually enjoying it! Spouse has been doing split night shift things and it's been a treat knowing exactly when he'll be home!

What am I wearing? favourite boyfriend jeans and my new "this is my zombie killing t-shirt" t-shirt. *g*

What have I been watching? new series of Glee and not much else.

What am I reading? Sherrilyn Kenyon's "Dark Hunter" series again and "Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief" out loud to Chook.

What have I been listening to? my last 3 iPod downloads? "Do it like a dude" by Jessie J, "Limit to your love" by James Blake, "animal" by Neon Trees. Eclectic as ever!

What have I been creating? I'm three quarters of the way through quilting the pork chop picnic quilt, yay!

Saying goodbye to 2010

I love these mosaics of quilts made in a year! I wasn't as prolific as 2009, I think, but I DID make 2 proper bed sized quilts. And as the piecing level increases they are definitely taking longer to pull together.

1. jelly-filled holly-blossom, 2. counterfeit change, 3. not pushing up daisies yet!, 4. ORBC lucky charms, 5. asterisk quilt, 6. the Godzilla shoo-fly quilt, 7. world cup watchers - DQS9, 8. Jamie-Lee quilt - round 4 ORB quilt group, 9. love hexagons quilt, 10. Freddie's pinwheels., 11. quilt hanger - a la P.S. I Quilt., 12. dqs8 - Gnorman the Gnome's house.

I made my very last Scraptastic Virtual Bee blocks, too. Wonky stars for Susan - they really are the best fun to make.

They're actually late December blocks. I'm a bit annoyed with myself because I *always* had my blocks posted before the designated month ended (well - except that one month where I posted on the 1st but that was a weekend no-post-on-a-Sunday thing) and here I've fallen at the last hurdle. Never mind, eh? And this means I have NO commitments now! Quite a nice feeling, actually, and I think I've decided to not try for entry into the 10th Doll Quilt Swap. I've done the last 2 and they are a riot but I think I need some no pressure sewing for a while. I can see me in about 6 weeks joining random swaps just because!