Hibernating maybe

I feel like I've been hibernating, the other week I signed up for a trial of kindle unlimited which has become available in Australia and it has been my undoing. I've been reading quite a number of books for free and I think I will keep my subscription up.

We seem to be very busy on the weekends even though Mo is playing tennis on Friday nights instead of Saturday so I don't know exactly what we have been doing.  The only answer I can come up with is stuff.

Our pool turned green over the winter as we lost both the chlorinator and the pump, and hubby has been spending a lot of time trying to get things clear.  This week we dumped another lot of chemicals in and it seems to have done the trick and we finally got the filter working properly after a few false starts.  If its hot I am sure there will be kids in it this weekend.

I wanted to spend much of Saturday in my sewing room and didn't manage to get there until 4pm  Liberty love is coming along and after some unpicking.  I like my directional set in triangles to be all the right way and discovered I had used the top triangles on the side of a single bed quilt.

Here it is so far.  3 corners are done so I'd say it was ¾ finished.  I'm thinking of using my walking foot to quilt it, but I will probably chicken out because I find it so boring to do.  The large grey square should have something formed really needs to special quilting.

The last photo is a close up of the border fabric and I have made the triangles slightly bigger to the centre of the quilt floats.  Hopefully will have it all finished on the weekend and get a picture of it on the clothes line.

Celtic Tree of Life Block 4

Block 4 is up on the Celtic Tree of Life Page ready to download.  Remember if you have missed a month you can purchase them in my shop.  I've also updated the image to include block 6.

Distinct Lack of Faith in my Abilities

Mo was asked to a formal dinner for school by a boy.  The high school she goes to has a baseball program and they have an awards night and everyone in the program is encouraged to invite a "date" from school.  A few of her friends are going and its a lock in so we have said yes.  Now we get to the hard bit.  What to wear?

Last year for her year 7 graduation we had a dress that we had bought at the end of the previous summer it was perfect.  She has grown a bit since then and although it fits it is a bit indecent in the length department.    So last weekend we went shopping, in total I think she tried on 20+ dresses we did sort of find one but I probably would have had to have done some major alterations in the front for her to be comfortable wearing it.  She is kinda at a difficult stage too small for the smallest women size (which was a 6) and most of the girl dresses are a bit short when they fit.

By lunch time I'd had enough and told her that if I had more time I could have made her a dress to which she screwed up her face I also informed her that I didn't need the stress of it at this time of year.

I explained to her that I used to make my own clothes and she said some of the things I had made for her were a bit slap dash.  Mind you all the slap dash things she had referred to were various costumes I had put together with no warning and limited time for some school event the next day.  

Still anxious to get a dress we had lunch and a bit of a rest picked up DH and headed to Harbour Town.  We ended up finding a dress, slightly shop soiled and at a bargain price in a size 4 ladies.  DH took one look at it and said buy it though she was still unsure (as it cost less than $50) I told her we were getting it anyway every other dress we had tried was $100 plus and didn't look nearly as good as this one.  I really didn't have another 4 hour shopping trip in me to head to the city.

The dress  came up beautifully with a wash, we worked out what we needed to alter to make it fit better which should't take to long.  

My worry now is that this dinner thing might be an annual event, we lucked out this time but I can't guarantee it will happen again so I think the next thing on my list is to brush up on my dress making skills.

I told her today that I might invest in a small dress form for her and I have purchased a couple of Gertie's Ultimate Books she still wasn't convinced that I would be able to make something she would be happy to wear.  

I told her that a handmade dress won the Melbourne Cup Fashion and I got the reply "Mum you didn't make the dress".  I then reminded Mo that she has 5 smocked dresses (featuring hand embroidery) and a beautiful heirloom finish in her wardrobe.  She says "Oh Yeah" and gives me a bit of a smile.

That might have done it.

Block 6 Bee Inspired

Instructions are up for Block 6.  Next month will be putting it all together.

Amazing Girl

I really worried about Mo going to High School this year,  I knew Maestro was more than ready for high school when he went into year 8, but she really didn't want to leave primary school.

But she has flourished and has had straight A's all year.  I came home to a letter from the School today to say that she would be receiving an Award for Excellence at this terms award ceremony which would be above and beyond the subject awards she would be receiving which we were told of last week.

School doesn't come easy for her, she puts in the hard work and studies for every test and puts in effort for every assignment.  She works hard for what she has achieved in her first year at high school and we are immensely proud of her.

Maestro had surgery last week on his elbow, there is a small divit in the joint but the surgeon says that it should scar over and be almost as good as new.   They cleaned out soft tissue damage and he is on the mend and he can move his wrist without pain now.  The surgeon was impressed with the amount of movement he had back in the arm just 8 days out from surgery (it was probably the playstation as that is the only exercise he has been doing for a week).   Keeping him from doing to much for 6 weeks may be an issue but he has been clear to resume riding and light exercise.  No karate till he is given the all clear in January but things are looking up finally.

Block 4 of the Celtic Tree of Life is nearly finished, just critters to add, and maybe I will get a couple of months ahead.  See below the progress.

Block 4 Sneak

Thought I'd give you a bit of a glimpse at block 4 as I will start to pull fabric today.

Of course colours are no indication of what will be in the finished block I just pull random colours together when I am drafting that I like the look of on screen.  This will be available on 15th November.  

Dancing Dragonflies

Dragonflies are probably my favourite creepy crawly.  We have quite a few visit our yard in the summer months around the pool so that had to feature somewhere in this quilt, actually I'm surprised they didn't turn up last year in Flowers for Alison.

Well here the block.  If you want to see the progress of the block at all check out my instagram because I took lots of shots while I was working on the central spirals and I will do so again while working on Block 4.

If you've checked out the page recently you will note that the next block I have drafted is down on the bottom row.  The corner blocks are pretty much set in stone though I haven't drafted the right bottom corner I'm still thinking about that one.  Once the top and bottom row are done I can give serious consideration to how the centre blocks will come together.

So head on over to the Celtic Tree of Life Page to download the next instalment and I hope you enjoy.  Remember to email me if you have any questions.