Chaletgirl

Red, pink and white quilt

July 8, 2009 at 7:25 am | In Fabric, Large Quilts | 18 Comments

I should call this the blue shoes quilt.

I remember being quite young and dressing myself to go out. I was wearing a red dress and I had two pairs of shoes to choose from. Blue or pink. I chose the pink shoes, because I liked pink and red together and I clearly remember my mother telling me that pink and red should never be put together and the blue shoes would have been a better choice. In a nice way. And I haven’t forgotten.

But I still think pink and red look lovely together, all these years later.

Inspired by two stunning quilts, this one, and more recently, this one, I have started to cut up some fabric for my red, pink and white quilt.

When I saw this fabric, above, at the craft show, it reminded of the grey with the pink and red in the first quilt I linked to. Now I am wondering if I should include a little in mine.

What do you think?

Sunday Craft Day

July 7, 2009 at 6:03 am | In I love this | 2 Comments

Wow! Keep those name suggestions coming! Thank you everyone, and special thanks to those who are delurking. It is nice to meet you!

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Okay, I’m only a week or so late, but everything happens slowly around here.

Thanks again to Corrie for organising a wonderful day at the Craft Room. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, especially when Emmeline went to sleep! In her pram! Hooray!

I didn’t get a great deal of crafting done, but I did lots of talking instead, which was a better idea, because I can craft all I like at home by myself, but, well, talking about craft, to myself, when home alone is a little weird.

I worked on a couple of doll quilts, just hand-sewing the binding down, and I will show you those later via the Mini Quilt Monday posts.

What I will show you now is the very lovely parcel I received in the lucky dip at the end of the day.

From the uber-talented Alison of sixandahalfstitches, a tiny and very sweet little pincushion and three postcards of her own beautiful photographs.

Just lovely.

Thank you Alison, thank you Corrie, and thanks to everyone else for making it a wonderful day.

Who’s that girl?

July 6, 2009 at 11:44 am | In Fabric | 52 Comments

One of the best things about winning the lottery, in my opinion, would be sharing it. I love to lie in bed at night, close my eyes, and think about the reaction I’d get. Imagine my friends when I gave them a cheque to pay off their mortgage. Surprise my Dad with a house that he would love. A home for my brother and a really fast expensive car. And for Mum? Maybe a villa in France so she could escape there as often as she wanted. With a plane. How much does a lear jet cost, exactly?

However.

We didn’t win last week. And we don’t buy tickets regularly, so there is not much chance of us winning if we don’t buy a ticket.

So. To celebrate my own little win of a different kind, my brand new Bernina Aurora 440QE, I am going to give away something that I love very, very much. Because it really is better to give than receive and I want my readers to share in the Favourites Drawer and in all the swap goodness that has been crisscrossing the Pacific Ocean recently.

And let’s make this also a celebration for my 3 year blogiversary which is coming up this month. 3 years ago, I started this blog as a way of journalling my crafting efforts and it has been a wonderful experience. I might bake myself a cake to celebrate.

To enter, I want you to suggest a name for my new sewing machine.

I’m pretty sure that she is female, if that helps. Not just because she sews, but because she is helpful, intuitive, capable of multi-tasking and efficient. Sounds like a female to me.

You can suggest a maximum of two names each. Please leave only one comment each.

There are two parts to this giveaway.

The first part won’t be a random drawing. I will be choosing the name I like best, and the first person who suggests that name (in case of double-ups) will be the winner. The winner will have their choice of the two prizes on offer.

The second part is a random drawing from the remaining commenters. Comments that don’t leave a suggested name for the sewing machine will not be eligible to enter.

Entries will close at midnight (AEST) Friday July 10, 2009. International readers are welcome to enter.

And the prizes?

Two little packs of 10 x 5″ charm squares of the hottest fabrics in the swap world right now.

The first pack contains out of print, very hard to find fabrics by Heather Ross. These are either from her Lightning Bugs range, or from Munki Munki. You’ll get one piece each of beautifully fussy-cut Gnomes on yellow, Calypso, Ice Cream Vans, Mushrooms on white, Beach Day, Sushi, Farmer’s Market, Goldfish on blue, Birthday Party and Martians.

The second pack contains out of print, very hard to find fabrics from Denyse Schmidt’s Flea Market Fancy range. You’ll get one each of Seedlings in pink, Posies in aqua, Bouquet in lime, Posies in brown, Dotted leaves in red, Tulip Medallion in blue, Dots in pink/red, Bouquet in aqua, Tulip Medallion in gold, and, yes, the elusive Seedlings in grey.

Cool, huh? I love these fabrics. They are my very favourites of all my favourites.

And can I just be a bit picky about this? Please don’t go and broadcast this giveaway. I’m not doing this to get hits on my blog and I don’t want a heap of strangers coming in and trying to win.

I want two of you, my regular readers, to win.

Because I love it that you visit here, and you comment, and you encourage and support me, and you are always here when I need you and my little world would be very lonely without you.

Mini Quilt Monday

July 6, 2009 at 6:19 am | In Doll Quilts | 9 Comments

I’ve noticed a few blog posts popping up for Mini Quilt Monday lately. I’m not actually going to make a mini quilt every week (although I’d love to). But I’ll post, on the next few Mondays, some of the little quilts that I have recently finished and some that I am working on.

Today, I’ll show you this mini quilt I made for Helen a couple of months ago.

Helen was pretty impressed that there was a goldfish named after her, from this post, so I whipped this up and posted it off to her to remind her that she has been immortalised as a goldfish.

Too cute. If I say so myself.

Sunday Morning

July 5, 2009 at 1:02 pm | In Emmeline, Henry | 4 Comments

My babies reading together on a lazy Sunday morning.

“See how I like to get under the lounge?” asks Miss Emmeline.

Sunday Stash #15

July 5, 2009 at 8:48 am | In Fabric | 2 Comments

Here is a very sweet fabric that I received in a swap via the Flickr Swap Group.

It is called Picnic, and it is from Painting Red Rhinos, which is a US children’s wear label.

So sweet!

Perfect for my red and pink and white quilt!

Thanks to Tamara for hosting Sunday Stash!

7 months

July 4, 2009 at 8:05 am | In Emmeline | 5 Comments

Dear Emmeline,

You turn 7 months old today!

It’s been a month of ups and downs. Sometimes you sleep all night. Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you are easy to settle. Sometimes you aren’t. Sometimes you sleep well during the day. Sometimes you don’t. You are entirely unpredictable and you certainly keep us on our toes. Often at 4am!

You have definitely lost all your little-newborn-ness by now and you are a cuddly, chunky little baby.

You have a determined little streak and can get to whatever object, wherever it is, by any means possible; rolling, twisting, stretching and pushing yourself backwards. Nothing within your reach is safe any more.

You really do recognise people now. Your brother is still your favourite person, but you now also recognise Daddy and Nanny and, of course, you recognise me.

It is easy to make you laugh. You love a game of peekaboo, and you love to be kissed in the folds of your neck.

Since I last wrote, I have eliminated soy from my diet and the last remnants of the green poo and mucous disappeared. I have no doubt that you are also intolerant of soy. And although you have tested negative to an egg allergy, it makes you vomit. Copiously. Prepared baby cereals give you tummy pains and I believe it is the added iron that is the culprit. I’m hunting down some cereals that have no added iron to try.

You are not a fan of vegetables, and the only food you will take from a spoon is pureed fruit. With our food options dwindling rapidly, we introduced Baby Led Weaning, where we don’t feed you; you feed yourself.

So far, you are more willing to eat if you have control over the food, although you are not eating a lot quantity wise. I’m not sure what choice I have, since I don’t want you to eat just fruit at every meal. You have eaten carrot, sweet potato, broccoli (although that gave you wind), avocado, cucumber and an assortment of fruit in this way.

It’s messy, but fun, and you definitely enjoy your food more this way. Your very favourite is the little handled bananas I make for you.

Still no teeth but you have a little more hair. You are still wrapped to sleep. You haven’t grown much, or put on much weight, but you are still lovely and chubby. Still on 4 feeds per day, with no night feeds.

It certainly has been a rocky road with you, Baby One, but I am confident that if we persist and just keep on providing the food, security and love that you need, then all of us will be okay.

We love you, darling girl.

Mama

Cake Wrecks

July 3, 2009 at 2:06 pm | In I love this | 2 Comments

Thank you for all your lovely comments! More on the giveaway very soon.

In the meantime, Marina’s comment on my last post reminded me of this blog. Maybe that’s what Mr Dodgy Cake was looking for? Great blog, that one, always makes me laugh.

You must not miss this post. As a proud IVF’er I’m notoriously bad for stripping at the mere sight of an ultrasound machine. Even for external examinations. But to celebrate your girly bits with a cake? I laughed so hard it hurt.

Oops, I can only imagine the visitors I’ll get now from typing “girly bits”. Will keep you posted.

Oh, and to the person who visited today after googling “how cold is it in sydney on august”, you left out the date. Did you mean to ask how cold it will be on August 1? Or August 15? I’m pretty sure that on August 12 it will be a high of 16 degrees with a fresh northeasterly breeze, but on August 19 it’ll only be about 13 degrees. My advice? Pack a coat.

———–

Okay, I really need to go and do something productive, but, first, can I direct you here.

And if you laugh so hard you hurt something, don’t blame me.

I am in pain I have been laughing so hard.

—

Oh, stop! Stop! I am in pain. This one! The one with the hand!

No more!

Mixed Bag

July 3, 2009 at 6:57 am | In Miscellaneous | 13 Comments

Pardon my absence. I should have put a sign up.

“Do Not Disturb. Woman Playing With New Sewing Machine. In Between Running A Household And Placating Whiny Baby. Which Means Not Much Time For Sewing At All. And Less For Blogging.”

But it’s a long sign and I fear you would have become bored halfway through and moved on to more interesting things to read.

More interesting than this blog, anyway.

Blogging topics have dried up a little. I can’t moan about being tired because you will all yell at me to go and have a look in my sewing room and quit whinging. And you would have a point.

I can’t complain about the bugger of a 6 month old that lives here, because I took her to Corrie’s Craft Room Sunday Craft Day, and she was an angel child. ANGEL, I tell you. She sure made me look like a big goose.

{Had a lovely day, by the way. Lots of old friends to catch up with and met some lovely new ones too. Can’t wait for the next one. I’ll take some photos soon of what I was working on, and what I scored in the lucky dip}.

Cass said she couldn’t bear another poo post, and I adore Cass, so that topic is off limits.

I’m still a little upset that someone once Googled “dodgy cakes” and found my blog, because my cakes are NEVER dodgy.

I notice a recent search for “orange quilts” brought someone here, which is embarrassing, since my long-talked-about orange quilt is still a pile of charm squares.

The poor person who googled “asswhole husband of the year award” would have been very disappointed to arrive here.

The most popular searches are those for the jellyfish costume and The Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt.

So, tell me, what do you like to read here? Or see pictures of?

And I am thinking about a little giveaway to christen the new machine. What would you like to win? Would a little pile of charm squares cut from the Favourites Drawer be a good prize?