One to watch

Keep an eye out for this up and coming quilt artist...
In addition to her simple but imaginative and eclectic artworks, she is also highly prolific, producing one quilt within an afternoon. I have already been the lucky recipient of three in the last two weeks!

Couch potato

I am spending the day confined to the couch, after twisting my ankle yesterday. My family is looking after me very well, but of course this is still frustrating. I keep thinking that, besides regular housework and food preparation, there are upstairs in my sewing room:
- 7 small quilt designs ready to be cut out
- 3 small quilts cut out and ready for piecing
- 1 large quilt, layered yesterday morning and waiting to be quilted
- 1 denim skirt for myself, cut out and ready to be sewn together
- 1 tracksuit for Caleb, cut out and ready to be sewn
- overalls for Caleb, cut out and ready to be sewn

While none of it is urgent it would have been nice to make some progress...
Thankfully I still had the above quilt sitting around waiting to have its threads tied away!

Bibs

We had a bib situation requiring urgent attention - the bibs we had were old and stained, and also rather ineffective in keeping Caleb's clothes clean. I got inspired by these, (found via Bloesem Kids). I wanted something a bit smaller, with stronger colours, and also less expensive (we need lots!). So this is the final result and I am very happy with them. I did some in a red stripe as well and as you can see, they cover Caleb very well. They were done in no time as edged them with a roll hem on my overlocker, rather than binding them. I also quite like the knot at the back!

Labels

I like to finish off handmade garments with one of these labels (and a size tag). The kids like it too, maybe because it helps them to distinguish back from front. These were made using rubber stamps and fabric paint on thermal-backed twill. I had the stamps made up when Aaron was learning to talk, and is most used word was 'uh-oh!'...

Juf is jarig!

(Translation: "It's Teacher's birthday!" - just flows better in Dutch!)We made one of these notebooks last night for Aaron's teacher's birthday, but forgot to photograph it this morning before school. These pics show some we made last year. The kids love to give something they have contributed to, and I love childrens drawings, and handmade ideas that incorporate them.

Etiquette

As you can see, we have a problem with basic etiquette in this house... Both older children are involved and when asked by Opa why they do this, the answer given was "because it's yummy!" Can you argue with that?

Anyway, just to show how unconcerned our 'sweet princess' is, the conversation around these photos went like this:
Daddy: "Wait right there while I get the camera, Hannah."
"OK, now pick your nose for the photo..."
"...and now eat it..."
Hannah: "But Daddy, there's not enough, I need to pick some more first!"
(Mummy loudly protesting in the background)

Birthday fare

Not so related to sewing, other than the fact that this 'got in the way' of my sewing for a few days... With thankfulness to the Lord for our happy, healthy family, we celebrated another birthday on Saturday.
...and I love the 'treasure hunting' pictures below.
The treasure? A large dinosaur egg (in chocolate).