A new quilt and a Christmas surprise

Yesterday I found I had a little time to myself whilst the children were at their Dads houses. In the couple of hours I finished Stephanie's Winnie the pooh quilt I began a few months back;

In the summer Stephanie asked me to make some bunting for her bedroom, I finally managed to do that as well;

But ssshhhh! I have decided to keep it a surprise and wrap it up for Christmas.

I have a couple of other homemade gifts planned for various family members- I will post as I complete them.

WIP and works waiting to be done

Here, have a peek at my current works in process (WIP)

This is the Winnie quilt that Stephanie has been waiting all summer for me to complete, I have finally finished all the blocks. I just need to decide on the final layout. I'm tempted to just go random with them as I can't decide. Incidentally, please over look the paw prints added by Zara. Zara is my aunt's dog who has come to stay with us for a couple of weeks whilst Sue is summer where hot and sunny.

Clearly I forgot that dogs get muddy when they go out in the rainy garden and left all the blocks on the living room floor whilst I went up to the sewing machine to finish the last 2 off.

This is my latest knitting project. Stephanie wants me to make both the items on this page. Starting with the green top. She is at the stage of liking the patterns but having difficulty seeing past the colour. She liked the cardigan but not the top when I bought the pattern. Once we had chosen the wool and come home she decided she liked the top and that is what I needed to make first. I am making it in Teddy soft spot pink.

I have a whole list of projects I want to make. I would love to have all of them done by the end of the year however I suspect it may be a bit too long.

1. Knit Stephanie a cardigan in red, I already have the wool just need to get started.
2. Make a pink cardigan for Stephanie, I don't have the wool for this one yet.
3. Sand and re-varnish the Kitchen unit
4. Make Felt bunting for Stephanie's bedroom
5. Finish Stephanie's Winnie quilt- see beginning of post
6. Make a quilt for my bed
7.Make my bedroom curtains
8. Make Dylan's bedroom curtains
9. Make Stephanie's bedroom curtains
10. Make Stephanie a blouse
11. Make Stephanie a new skirt
12. Make  Stephanie a new Dress
13. Make life- ring for downstairs bathroom
14. Make a beach themed wooden plaque for downstairs bathroom
15. Make Stephanie a wooden plaque for her bedroom
16. Hanging heart decoration/ mobile for Stephanie's bedroom.


Lots of these items were inspired during our recent holiday. However I suspect that 16 items may be too much for me to manage before the end of the year what with working full time and being busy with 2 children. I will make a good attempt at it especially as many of the items are planned for Stephanie's Christmas presents.

Busy, busy!

I am not sure where this week has gone! It has flown by and I haven't had time to blog and let you know what we have been doing. So I am going to do a round up post, showing highlights from our week.

My cousin had her baby very prematurely this week at 31 weeks. Mum and Baby are doing well, even if baby is tiny at 3lb 3 oz. The early arrival meant I needed to organise myself to make the baby quilt I have been planning for months Luckily I had bought all of the components, I just hadn't got around to actually sewing. I'm very pleased with the end result just hope my cousin likes it a much as I do.

Tonight Dylan made dinner. Homemade pizza YUM!

We also had nachos..

and of course being Saturday evening, I treated myself to a glass of wine.

I have spent most of my spare time, which isn't very much, practising my knitting on a scarf for Stephanie. I may have got way ahead of myself but I REALLY want to knit her a cardigan.

Oh and of course there was the dress up day at school I managed to over look. I was reminded by Stephanie at 5pm Thursday evening that she needed to go into school dress up as something from around the world. Her suggestion of being a Spanish dancer threw me at first, given the time available and the fact that the shops were shut. However thank you to my lovely friend Liv who happened to have had this dress given to her a few months back. We altered it and Stephanie is very impressed with her new dressing up outfit.

It is not just at home that I have been creative. This was made at university in a science seminar where we dissected a daffodil. My friend Claire and I decided to make the Bean family, now where do my children get their concentration spans from....

Preserving our foraged and home grown produce

I am actually feeling a little excited, not only are our vegetables growing welll, they are producing more than we can eat! So today I have a little bit of a preserve fest.

these are some of the beans we have grown

These are some of the preserved goodies. I have frozen the beans/ carrots on portion sized freezer bags. Dylan and I picked some blackberries the other day and the jars you see there are the jam I made from them. I also made fruit filling which I have seperated into individual pots and frozen ready to be peiced together to make things such as crumbles and pies.

I also managed to do some sewing ealrier on today, I fixed some dresses repaired a sleeping bag, and yes I did finally finish the baby quilt for my new nephew, just in time as we leave in the morning fo rthe long drive up to meet him!

This blog has been very quite this month as we haven't been home much, and it doesn't look like it will get any busier, however I will update when I can.

 From our gardenI have preserved some carrots and lots of frwench beans tonight

a finished baby quilt

Its finished my very first quilt! And I am less than pleased as it is not straight on the long edges. Stephanie loves it, so I am am tempted to let her have this one and make a new one for my sisters baby, and hopefully manage to produce one that is straight.

We spent today as a lovely relaxing family day. We got up and mooched before taking Dylan to his swimming lesson. When we got home we had a power cut so I couldn't do the ironing, any sewing or any of the other things I had planned to do. So we replanted some of the flowers into my new hanging baskets and played in the sandpits.Lovely.

We also went to the library and signed up tp this years reading challenge, this year the theme is space hop so to get the stickers and prizes the children need to read 6 books over the next few weeks. Not something which is difficult as they read a lot.