glimmer of things to come

The girls were very excited to see these crocuses pop us at the weekend, hopefully spring will be upon us soon......  We've been lucky so far with the weather and not as many torrential downpours as last year but there's always time and I've probably jinxed us now.

We had a fairly quiet weekend, the girls and Max had their hair trimmed (I'll take some pics later) and Jonah had his stitches out.......  I'll say no more but I think the PA and Ben were deaf for the rest of the day, sadly it's not healed that well and he will have a massive scar.  It's bandaged up again and hopefully by the end of the week we'll see some improvement otherwise it's no waterpark for Jonah on Sunday.

Log cabin pillows

This is my first attempt at patchwork, log cabin quilting and it's not as easy as it looks!!!  I learnt a few things along the way thanks to a lovely mum at preschool.  Firstly I had my stitches set too small and straight line quilting is actually quite difficult for a beginner as the block stretches and my fabric was moving all over the place, you can see how wonky it is.  So next time I need to pin like crazy and cut my backing larger to allow for this, I'll also purchase a walking foot for my machine so the fabric feeds through evenly .  Madeleine is chuffed to bits with it though and hopefully Olivia's will turn out slightly better.

Here is Olivia's which turned out slightly better, I stitched around the panels of fabric which stopped the stretching and was much quicker and easier.  However I do think the straight lines on Madeleine's look much nicer, just need to work how to do them properly.

I just wanted to add all my resources just incase they help someone else.  So I followed this video for a log cabin block and what I liked about this is you just make it up as you go along and no need to measure out strips.  

I also borrowed her book from a friend and found it very useful.  She has some great tips, one particular favourite was storing strips of fabric in ziplock bags and label them accordingly to size, 1inch, 2inch 3 inch etc....

Susan Beal

The other book I borrowed is this one and it had some really great tips for the quilt stitching as well as step by step instructions on how to put your quilt together.  

Elizabeth Hartman

Joe's visit with us

Max got to bring home Joe the bear from pre-school this weekend, after the initial excitement wore off poor old Joe got left to fend for him self.

Today we hiked up Saddle Mountain which was a four hour round trip, we were very impressed with the kids.  Max didn't want to carry Joe up so Jonah very kindly offered, I think he quite liked Joe.

Joe almost at the top

Joe with his new buddies, Racoon and Teddies 1&2

Joe proved to be very good at puzzles

Getting ready to sleep

Joe making the most of the space

Pillow slips for the girls....

The girls and Max went to a swimming party this afternoon and whilst they were gone I managed to whip up a couple of pillow slips.  Jonah is supposed to be making his own when his thumb is better, I followed  this tutorial where another 9 year old boy made his own.

Another new bike

This time it was Jonah's turn for a new bike, we picked this one up 2nd hand for a good price and he begged us to buy it for him.  He has no excuse now for not coming out on a long ride with me in the morning, well apart from his dodgy thumb at the moment.

Specialized Allez Jnr

Our first emergency visit

Jonah someone managed to cut himself on a metal pole today and ended up with nine stitches and a lot of screaming.  He told me he will always do as he's told from now on and never play where he's not allowed....