Today a special friend came and entertained Caleb and Daniel for a couple of hours so that I could do some uninterrupted sewing. Needless to say, I feel very spoilt! I made a bit more progress on my 'school' quilt. It's a big job - I think I'm only about halfway through the piecing.
... and late last Saturday night...
..and now today...
It's a triptych. The third, and smallest, part is pieced, and I'm now working on the first, middle-sized section.
When the kids made their screenprints during the holidays, I finally pulled the first couple of prints of this new screen which I've had sitting around for a while. I'm so happy with how it turned out, and can't wait to incorporate this image into some of my quilts!
We have a winter 'tradition' here at our house. It involves three weeks of French cycling, some red wine, plenty of chocolate, and frantic hours of stitching. The Tour de France is the only time we watch TV here, and we like to think of it as a little mid-winter stay-at-home holiday.
Phil sets himself up in a corner of the studio, while my Tour is spent behind the sewing machine - three weeks of late-night stitching are a real treat, and I find myself frantically picking up the pace along with the riders as they get closer to the finishing line. 
I'm sure it's as much a race against time for me as it is for them, as I try to get just a few more quilt pieces fitted together before they cross the finish line. Somedays I 'beat the clock', and other days I disappointed with my results, but it's thoroughly enjoyable no matter what.
...mums in the kitchen...
...kids at the table... and the bookshelf... and the playroom....
The salad is mostly ready, 
the bread has been baked, 
the cookie jar is full (faux-home-baked cookies this time), 
the apple crumbles and sticky date puddings are made, 
1200mL of cream have been whipped up, 
the necessary equipment has been gathered, 
and the pencils are sharpened. I think that makes us about ready to receive the thirty or so dinner guests who will start arriving in the next hour or so. (In case you're wondering about pencils and dinner, we will have around twenty children here, so I'm hoping that some colouring will occupy at least some of them for some of the time.) Oh, and it's a potluck, so no, I don't have to do all the cooking.
So here's what we got up to on Tuesday. My sister asked for some screenprinting time at our house, so I figured it was the perfect opportunity to let the kids make up a screen too. This was a fairly ambitious project, involving quite a number of steps:
- waiting for it to dry
- filling the screen with screen filler :)
- printing the images onto fabric
The little upside-down red guy is Caleb. He drew himself, I painted and made up his silk screen, and then we pulled the prints together (until he decided he didn't need me anymore). Now the kids are busy turning their best print into a simple softie. I'm pretty excited about how they are looking. We'll share a picture when they're done.
