Mummas time to create

The Kiwi's have landed...

2012-02-16T20:15:00.001+08:00

IMAG0880, a photo by Flutter from.Kat (Mummastimetocreate) on Flickr.

We have arrived in Wellington, NZ safe and sound after 2 fairly painless flights. Yay for the kids being on best behaviour!

Here we are trialing the new Qantas in flight entertainment system- we each got our own ipads. What a fab way to keep the kids quiet! Cheers for that Qantas! Apart from being a bit of a nuisance at mealtimes in terms of where to put them, they sure get my vote as a success.

Now since it's just gone 1am here I think I better go to bed. And so the jetlag begins...

See ya tomorrow for Nosey Parker.

Kat Xx

Guest posting & we're off...

2012-02-15T19:57:00.001+08:00

Just a quick note tonight to say that I'm guest posting today (with a giveaway) over at my friend Karen's blog Listen to the Birds Sing as part of her friendship February celebration. So head on over there and say Hello & enter the giveaway :)

And on that note I'm off and ready to say,
Goodbye Australia & hello New Zealand for the next 10 days...

I am off to gorge myself on fejoia flavoured food, witness a besty's wedding, overdose on hugs from friends and family, and steal cuddles from another besty's brand new baby.
I can't wait :)

I have whittled and whittled my packing down to 2 suitcases and 1 carry on piece between the 3 of us. Yay me!! I'm quite pleased with that travel light effort! Now I'm just having the slight panics that I won't have enough stuff, but since I'll be probably having to carry a 12kg child as carry on then I'm thinking I'll be thanking myself for packing light!

So I will see you back here soon. I will be trying to stop by a few times to say hello and give you some holiday news, but otherwise I have a bunch of posts scheduled. So there will still be plenty to see while I'm away :)

Have a great few weeks & I'll see you back soon

Tuesday Tidbits...

2012-02-14T16:00:00.000+08:00

** Hmmm..... what a day....
Yesterday was Hannah's first full day at school. She loved it. But on the back of being sick last week when she got home she was T.I.R.E.D. Read; hysterical and over emotional about everything....
Unfortunately that has carried over to today.
I am not loving the behaviour.
I am trying not to give her away.
Luckily I still love her anyway...

** I am also still not feeling great.
I finally went to the doctor yesterday.
Luckily my blood pressure is absolutely fine still - I was a little worried it was that...
So stronger pain killers, a full blood work up and referral for an ultrasound later, and hopefully I should know what is up with my body very soon!

** I have not started packing yet for our trip to NZ on Thursday.
There is not much time to go.
I am not yet stressing, but I am thinking that reality will set in really soon and I might turn into something resembling a headless chicken. Soon. But not yet.
I've still got other things to do first.

** We had the carpet in our house professionally cleaned yesterday
What a mammoth task - read above about having still things to do before I can think of packing
- putting the house back together after moving all the furniture around for the carpet cleaning is one of those things!
Although it's mostly there now.
What I was thinking doing that this week I'm not quite sure!
But it is REALLY nice to have clean carpet. It has helped my sinuses already & my headache I must admit.

** Neil had a half day today and has the day off tomorrow.
He has officially now finished the electrical part of his Uni Studies for his apprenticeship.
YAY!
I think him having some time off might be something to do with why I'm not stressing about packing yet.
I know I have all day tomorrow to focus on just that...

** Ok now on to the bit you care about - I have drawn the winners for my fugly giveaways....

Winner 1:

Contratulations MC - you win the brown pack :)

Winner 2:

Congratulations Rhonda! You win the green :)

Winner 3:

Whoopsy - accidentally saved my random org pic as the wrong file type - but the Random Org picked # 7 who is...

Congratulations Tracey, you win the blue pack.

If you three winners could please email me with your addresses then I will get your parcels off to you at the end of February when I get back... :)

** Lastly, thank you to all of the people that volunteered yesterday to be pattern testers for me! I have enough applications now thank you.
I haven't had time yet to make a decision, but when I do I'll be in touch.
Thanks heaps, you guys all rock!!

A heads up....

2012-02-13T14:41:00.002+08:00

When I first listed my first two patterns in my shop, I originally listed them on sale for the holiday period and for an introductory sale price of $5.
Since the holiday period is over, and well... it's been over a month now, I thought I better remember to take them off sale this week. Otherwise it's not really a sale ya know ;)

So I just thought I'd let you know to give you a last opportunity to purchase them at the $5 price.
They're only going up to the retail price of $6, so it's not like the increase will be steep, but I just thought you might like to know anyway :)
I will be adjusting the price on Wednesday so make sure you purchase before then if you'd like to get the sale price :)

And now for the exciting news -

I have 2 new patterns under development which I am aiming to release soon!! Yay :)

The first one is the pattern for the scrappy, quilted cushion covers I've been making a lot of recently...

These are such a fun, easy and effective item to make. The pattern will be suitable for a complete beginner or even people with a bit of experience who are looking for a quick, fun quilted project. I've made a huge different variety of them and they cheerily spruce up any space.

The cushion cover is finished in an envelope style so that it is easily removable for washing...

The next pattern I have in the pipelines is for a twirly skirt finished 3 ways...

The pattern will be for sizes 6 months through to 8 years and will include instructions & measurements for 3 different finishes...
A plain band at the bottom, ruffle bands at the bottom & a lace band at the bottom.

So... here's the thing...

I'd love some pattern testers!!
Would anybody like to try out the patterns for me and give me some honest feedback? Please comment at the bottom if you would like to apply.

Great proof readers are also welcome to apply (**ahem cough e.g. Juliet & Katy ;) ).

Huge experience in sewing is not necessary. If fact it would be advantageous to have some beginners apply. However, there are a few other important criteria that you must be able to meet;

You must be able to complete the projects in a 2 week turn around time frame. The cushion pattern is about ready but the skirt pattern will not be ready until March) . Please do not apply if that time scale does not work for you.
You must also be willing to provide photos of your projects and be ok with me using them for promotional purposes.
If you are wishing to try out the skirt patterns then you must have a daughter within that size range to sew for and be willing to have photos of her in her new outfit posted to my blog for publicity.
(edited to add; just her lower half showing the skirt is ok. The photo doesn't need to show her face...).

In return you will receive a free pattern (or two) and I will be forever grateful :)

** Please note that places are extremely limited so please don't be offended if you are not picked this time - there is always next time :)

*** Edited to add - thanks everyone for their offers, I have enough pattern testers now for this time.

Many thanks!!

Sunday Snippet...

2012-02-12T11:00:00.000+08:00

Source: craftgawker.com via Kathryn on Pinterest

I love this! What a valuable reminder not to make excuses :)

Nosey Parker in the Neighbourhood Update...

2012-02-11T11:00:00.000+08:00

It's almost that time again...

"Nosey Parker Time"!

If you are new around here and have absolutely no idea what this party is all about then you can read all about it and see previous parties here... and feel free to join on in - we'd love that! :)

So the next party is going to next Friday 17th February 2012

(yay me for getting the right year ;) )

And here are your questions so that you can pre-prepare if you wish, or at least know what you're in for this time...

1) What are your preferred crafts? Do you have one primary one that you do most of or do you dabble around in many different crafts?

2) What avenues inspire you most in your sewing/crafting that we might like to check out?

e.g. what are your favourite books or websites or shops to visit etc... that we *must* know about ;)

3) Are you a one project at a time person or do you have "craft ADD" - OR are you somehow like me and have a combination of both?

4) What is/has been your longest ever Work in Progress (WIP)?

5 ) What are some of your crafty projects that you've made recently (or not so recently is ok to) that you'd love us to see?

6) Do you have a piece of fabric or craft item of any sort with a story behind it that you'd like to share briefly?

So there you go, those are our questions for this month.

Happy to take suggestions for topics/questions for next month too. Love to in actual fact - because I'm just about all out LOL...

Happy writing. Look forward to reading all you have to say on Friday if you plan to join with us! :)

Celebrating Parents....

2012-02-10T12:13:00.001+08:00

Emily, the writer of Keeping Time, one of the blogs I've recently come to follow, is having a link up party today to celebrate parents so I thought I'd join in...

I found Emily by chance one day after she made a comment on my blog to enter a give away. I hadn't seen her name pop up before, so in typical nosey-Kat style I clicked on her profile to see if she had a blog. (Am I the only one that sometimes does that to new people visiting me?).

Well, I have to say that I absolutely adored Emily's writing from the moment I set eyes on her blog! Emily has an amazing way with words.
Seriously amazing!
Her blog is an honest diary of her life and travels. I love the fact that she keeps it very real, and I especially find that I can relate to so much of Emily's story due to the fact that our husbands both work away, we both have two daughters, and we both live a long long way from "home"... So if you haven't visited her already you should.

Anyway I've been thinking of penning some thoughts on parenting for a while, so this has given me the nudge to do it and link up to Emily's celebration of parenting.
Bear with me though... it's raw, not very thought out, and I'm not likely to proof read it. I'm just telling you now so that you can hopefully gloss over the roughness of it ;)

I also don't know how much of a "celebration" it is...
But it is my {current} story, experience, thoughts, and my "real" on being a parent...

***

5 something am...
"Dudd Monnin"...
*Donk* ... The sound of Abbie giving me my good morning "kiss"
{aka "duck quickly & watch out for your nose because a hard head is coming at you fast" type kiss!}

Errrrgghhhhh **Groan**... slowly I start to come to from my deep slumber

"Good Morning Abbie..."

I SO want to bury my head under the pillow right now and go back to sleep!
I wonder if I ignore her will she go away?

But ohhhhh no, wait, here's the other one...

"Good Morning Mummy!!" Said with such a bright, cheery, very LOUD voice...

*internal groan* - there goes the idea of more sleep then!...

"Good morning Hannah... darling there's no need to shout at me, it's very early. Can you put your quiet voice on please?!"...
"Ok Mum"...
.... "Mum, can we have breakfast please?"
"Hannah, can you just give me a minute to wake up please?"
"But I'm SO hungry and I want breakfast"
"I will get you breakfast in a minute, I just need a second to wake up first!"

** Closes eyes again briefly in the vain hope that this situation will all disappear and I will be transported back into the wonderful land of Nod**

**sniff ** **sniff again** {but not too deeply}
** groan**
"Abbie, have you got a dirty nappy?"
big Abbie grin
** Bigger GROAN**

"Ok girls, lets go change Abbie's nappy..."

Hannah: "Then we'll get me breakfast - that sounds like a great idea... heheHEH..."

"Hannah, again with the shouting!"
(and then I think to myself - seriously, what the hell is funny to you about what you just said to warrant that laugh?!)
**sigh**

***

And that my friends is the start to my mornings, 9 times out of 10.
A few times this week already it's featured a 4 something am but mostly it's in the mid 5ams.

And no, it doesn't seem to matter what I do and what I try, they are ready to start their day at that time or all hell breaks loose. (The sun does rise really early here I suppose but still).

I am so NOT a morning person so I have to say that such an early start does not start my day off in a well and loving fashion! In fact usually within 10 minutes of being woken up by these gorgeous variable alarms I'm already having a case of
"The Dreaded Mothers Guilt"....

"If I was a "good" mother I wouldn't be wanting to shut them back in their bedroom and lock the door and go back to sleep right about now, I would be more than cheerful about getting up to get them breakfast!"...

.... and then the second guessing shortly follows suit...

(This is a general list of the type of things I mean)
(and these questions are rhetorical just in case you miss that part...)

"I should spend more time reading with my kids"
"Well - I'm trying to do this alone for the most part & run a business... I'm sure I can be forgiven for not reading a few more stories..."

"I should spend more time cooking a more nutritionally balanced menu for my kids"
"Well - if they weren't so darn fussy that would help. Maybe it's good for them to learn that if they don't like what I serve up then they can go hungry?! They eat ok don't they?"

"I should spend more time doing fun 'educational' activities with my kids - or even just spend more 'hands on' time with them"
" Well - it's good for them to learn to 'self-entertain' and play together with each other - I shouldn't need to hover right?"

" I should be more environmentally concious and start a garden with the kids"
"Well... last time you tried that Kat you wasted $50 on plants that you killed within weeks"
"But it will be good for the kids"
"Meh to gardening"

"I should bake and cook more from fresh and healthy ingredients. I'm not setting a very good example for them"
"But I'm soooooo tired tonight... one more easy packet meal won't kill us will it?"

"I should turn that darn tv off and do something with the kids"
"Eh, they're quiet... lets just enjoy that for a minute or two more..."

"We should go for a walk in the fresh air to the park - it will do us all good"
"But I'm sooooo tired so lets just drive and check the mail - that will at least get us out of the house"

"I should get off this darn computer/phone/sewing machine and go and spend time with the kids"
"Hmmm how bout I just get the playdough out... they'll be ok with a new activity for a little while longer"

"I should be more patient with them, they are only kids"
"But I'm soooo tired and I have my period and my head wants to explode with pain right now - ack they can learn I'm not always willing to be 100% at their beck & call..."

"10.30pm - I should get off this computer/phone/sewing machine and go to bed so that I've energy to deal with the girls tomorrow"
"But I'm soooo enjoying this peace and quiet and I'm not tired yet. Maybe in half an hour"

And so it goes on....

And don't even get me started on the other list(s) about Marriage or Household stuff rolling around in that cluttered brain of mine!

Sound familiar?
I find myself constantly examining myself, my parenting, my motives etc... during the day inside my head. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this...
But it's exhausting!

As a woman who has a slight case of "control-freakism" {yes of course that's a word didn't ya know! ;) } it does really pain me that I don't know the "best" course of action for each and every one of those things above.
Or sometimes I suspect that I do but choose to ignore it anyway which leads to more guilt & second guessing. Like...

What is the healthy balance in life?
Which of these things are more likely to screw my kids up more than others in this list if I do/don't do them either way?
Do I even agree with the things that others say will screw my kids up and what they say won't?!

***

Then I quickly get to this point...

Oh stop the Mummy car - this is all too much, my brain is fried and I'm t.i.r.e.d!

booo hoooo hoooo ** insert ugly cry

***

What an unhealthy, unhelpful cycle to get trapped in don't you agree?
Don't get me wrong - there are times in life where it is important to examine these things, assess how we're doing with our priorities and regroup.

But.just not.every.single.day.all.day.long.
(in my humble opinion anyway)

Which is what I would do if I let those thoughts run wild!

***

However, those things above are all the things than go on in my head which I don't know the answer to and they bug me,
But here's what I do know and what I try and continually remind myself...
The bits that I need to remember and celebrate more...

I do all the main stuff my kids need.
I love them, I hug them, I clean them, I feed them, I giggle with them, I play with them, I comfort them, I dress them, I love them some more...
They are loved and well cared for.

I love my girls almost above all else
And they know that they're loved.

No, I will never be a perfect mother,
{There is no perfect mother}
but I do the best I can
And that is all I can ever do.

More often than not the important stuff is the really small stuff. The regular stuff. The routine stuff.
The unseen stuff.
And most importantly the love stuff.

So despite all of that questioning above, I know that I am a good mother.

At the end of the day it doesn't matter how many stories I read my girls, or how much I bake with them, or whether I teach them to grow a garden or whether they can read before they go to school.
Or in fact whether I choose to do school at home with them or send them to a formal school.

While I do often feel torn a lot of the time because of all the time I invest blogging, sewing etc since it's time away from the family, at the same time I would not be myself without all those things.
I need those things too.
They make me happy.
And it is important that I am happy just as much for the sake of my girls as it is for me.

It is not everybody else's version of life, but it is our version.

And as much as it pains me to admit this, I just can't do everything.
Nope, definitely not super woman.
Therefore the stuff that I beat myself up for up the top has to give way in order to make other stuff which I place priority on to work.

{And besides which, even if I did all that other stuff, I'm not so naive to believe that I wouldn't just replace that list with a list of other things I'd beat myself up for doing/not doing either...}

***

I've been thinking about it and I'm pretty sure that there is one word responsible for this culture of Mummy guilt that I, and I'm sure many others, find themselves in...

the word "Comparison."

Comparison is rarely ever cool, but very easy to get too carried away with.

The comparison bug {in relation to parenting} can be caught by media images, things we read that we are "supposed" to be doing, things we perceive we are "supposed" to be doing, things we see other parents doing/not doing, and things we see other children doing/not doing.

A fair amount of it is inevitable, but still not necessarily always helpful and it's usually an unhealthy focus!

I still get caught in the comparison trap regularly and I suspect it will always be a battle for me, but I'm doing a lot better at it now days than ever.

***

So anyway...

Those are {some} of my {current} random thoughts about parenting.
I'm not entirely sure that this was what Emily had in mind as a celebration, but
I needed to keep this real, and for me that simply meant opening up about my story and thoughts to you today of where I'm at right now.
No happy glossy stories came to mind I'm afraid.
So this is what you get instead...
Maybe they might make someone else struggling with similar issues feel normal?
I can only hope because we do need to support each other a build each other up as parents.

This parenting gig is hard.
No question about it.
But it is so worth it!

So on that note, let me share my favourite song that I sometimes listen to, to help me move through that early morning/afternoon/evening/midnight slump that I often struggle with...
(in other words at any time of day that the Mummy crap hits the fan and I start to have a meltdown...)

Would love to hear your thoughts & experiences too & you can pop over and see what everyone else has to say on the matter...

PS I recently wrote another piece on my thoughts as a parent (kind of) which explained where I was at a few months ago called "the other girl" which you can find here if you are interested...

My Creative Space...

2012-02-09T18:35:00.000+08:00

Today my creative space is adorned with a new stack of goodness
(although I use that term loosely and with hesitation)...

Yay, my pile of patterns ordered from here in the 99cent New Years Sale finally arrived!!
(see I keep telling you mail here takes f.o.r.e.v.e.r...)

They were worth the wait though because what a bargain, even if you do pay an arm and a leg for "postage"...

6 patterns there are for {attempting to make} clothes for me - ya hooo
The others are for clothes for my girls or my shop. Or as you can see for some lucky dolls :)

I must admit that I'm just as nervous about the arrival of these as I am pleased.
I don't have a very good track record (or attitude) when it comes to following patterns.
Nope - following other peoples instructions tends to give me a severe case of mental breakdown!!!!

But I am slowly getting better, so here's hope that I can escape these without letting them get the better of me.

Does anyone else have a brain explosion when trying to follow a pattern, or is that just me?

More creative spaces here...

PS don't forget to enter my fabric giveaway if you haven't already - you know you want to ;)

Fabric Giveaway...

2012-02-08T14:29:00.005+08:00

** Giveaway now closed **

But with a twist.... Haha :)

The Charming Lucy (hehe total pun intended ;) ) from "Charm about you" is hosting a Fugly fabric Giveaway party.

As history is shown, I've had some good fun with uglies in the past, and have enjoyed passing them on to people who will love them more than me, so I certainly could not resist joining in with this ugly party...

So... today I have 3 fabric packs up for grabs which = 3 lucky winners.

First up we have the ugly fabrics in the blue corner...
despite these fabrics being my favourite colour, I really can bring myself to part with them...

Secondly we have the fugly's in the green corner:

And lastly we come to brown. Brown and I just don't get on at the best of times. No offence to the brown lovers out there, I'm just totally not a brown girl...

If you are lucky enough to win the brown pack then you'll be wanting this "special" fabric now won't you?...

Go on, I know you can't contain your excitement to win that piece of brilliance!!
{and no I didn't ever buy it! It was sent to me as a "thank you" present from a fabric shop as a free gift for making an order with them. Hmmm thanks?"}

I have been tempted to use it for a lining of a pouch though and send it to a friend as a surprise hehehehe *insert evil cackle.

So to win it's simple... Just make a comment on this post.
Preferably mentioning which awesome fugly fabric you would like as your first choice. Although no promises - it will depend on what the winners pick.

I will also include some more "me" fabric scraps in with the lots just to sweeten the deal.
Ooooh now that's got your attention hasn't it - who can resist a lucky dip of scraps?!
Not me that's for sure LOL...

Ok good luck :)
I'll pick a winner next Tuesday 14th - Valentine's Day at whatever time on that day I please ;)

Tuesday Tidbits....

2012-02-07T18:52:00.000+08:00

** I am not impressed to report that I'm into Day 5 {or more} of my crippling headache & it's still not showing any signs of letting up.
Gah! I'm so over it...

** Miss Hannah is also feeling rather poorly today. This morning she declined breakfast & took herself back to bed. You always know that's not a good sign right Mums? After a nap she seemed a lot better so we nipped into town to check the mail.

Bad idea.
Bad BAD idea.

We never got to check the mail. Instead I had to promptly turn around for home and spend a good hour cleaning up sick from my car. Hannah has not moved from the couch all day poor thing.
Although just in the last hour she's shown signs of improvement and I think we may be on the other side.
I can tell this because she has started bossing me about again -
I will take that as a good sign! ;)

** A small confession - I've never been great with sick.
I know, I know - who is right?
But for me it has been almost a life long phobia. It actually used to cause me serious amounts of anxiety as a child. I lived in fear of seeing 'it'...
After spending almost the entire 9 months I was pregnant with Hannah with severe "morning sickness" (Morning? HA!) to the extent that I had to go into hospital for dehydration several times, I got a little better with it.
But after Hannah got deathly sick with Rotavirus a few years ago and was hospitalised with it for a week after her blood turned acidic and she couldn't seem to recover, I will never NEVER be able to relax when my kids are sick again ever. Especially when they continue to be sick.
I just could not stand seeing a tiny body wasting away in front of my eyes in a hospital bed ever again!

** Why am I writing this down? Well... needless to say - Hannah's sickness did not help my headache... All the stress of worrying about her, eeek my head could just explode even more!

** I did manage to get in a little sewing this morning before all this happened. (Since Abbie woke up at 4am and wouldn't go back to sleep... bet you want to swap lives with me right about now!)

Love these cushions! That timeless treasures print must be one of my all time favourites. These are both available in my shop.

I also made 2 dresses last night...

Love that Heather Bailey print on the bottom as well. Shame I don't have more of it...

Those are both for Market/Shop stock as well.

** I'm getting there with my market stock for my 2 boutique markets in March. Although I still feel like I have a heap to do and with my trip to NZ looming next week I'm wondering when it's going to get done.
But I'm sure it will. At some point...

** Sorry for the TMI (too much information) today. Hopefully my blog will be returning to a cheery place to visit again asap!
But I like to keep this diary real, so take what you will ;)

Monday Monday...

2012-02-06T17:16:00.001+08:00

The start of a new week, when all I really want to do is recover from last week.
Am I the only one who gets that feeling?

Anyway, there were a few good things that happened today to shine some light on my day. Firstly I got a spectacularly great swap package in the mail from a old bee friend (old as in we are no longer in the same bee, not old as in age ;) )...

It promised to be good from the outside...

And the inside did not disappoint!

Flea market fancy (a whole fat quarter!), Lots of Heather Ross & lots of Japanese goodness.
Yum.O!

I also made time to make good on a promise - a new dress for my "model"...

All too often I tease the poor girl with getting to try on pretty new clothes and every time she gets attached even though I explain that "they are for Mummy's shop"... So after I cleaned out her wardrobe and figured out that actually all her good dresses were at least a size too small if not 2 sizes, I decided it was time to make my own daughter a new dress. There were certainly no complaints at that idea!! ;)

Hannah got to pick the fabric (within reason... I will admit that I declined a few choices at first - e.g. the pink sequins!) and sternly stood watch over me to make sure I didn't stuff up ;)

I also thought you might like to know that there is another Flutter from.Kat pattern giveaway happening in blog land at the moment. Head on over to Anorina's blog "Samelia's Mum" to enter & have a chance to win a copy of 2 of my patterns.
While you are there you should also check out her fabric shop Fabric Buzz. I have purchased from it before and was very impressed with both the prices & speed of service!

Right, time to go, dinner prep beckons... We are having pesto & chicken pasta tonight thanks to a gift of some home made {and home grown} pesto from a kind friend this morning. Homemade pesto - yummo!

Sunday Snippet...

2012-02-05T19:37:00.000+08:00

Source: tumblr.com via Kathryn on Pinterest

I SO needed this today.
It's been one of ** those ** days...
The kind you wish you could have skipped over...

... I've struggled with a borderline migraine and stomach pains (you know - the monthly kind...) since yesterday lunch time.
Had to leave church early this morning because of it.
Within 10 minutes of getting home (and 1 minute into lying down) Abbie proceeded in falling into the dining table and chipping her front tooth.
She was and is absolutely fine - the damage is purely cosmetic.
I however are still getting over the trauma and am pretty gutted!
However, on another subject regarding her health, upon taking her to the doctor to get her checked over today he tells me that her test results from last week confirm that she had/has giardia.
I have no idea how on earth she got that (although I have my suspicions) but it didn't make me feel like a very good mother.
I then come home and later get to clean up yet.another #3.
If you don't know what that is then trust me you don't want to know!!
We have had FAR too many of those incidents recently - many of which involved carpet.
(See up a few points about the giardia).
Then there's the 3 year old attitude on steroids.
That is a whole other trial in itself...

So today I am thankful...
Thankful that my family has more good health than it does bad, and that recently has only been the exception not the rule!
Especially thankful that Abbie's damage was only cosmetic. It could have been a lot worse.
Thankful that despite our occasional discord, we have each other as a family and that we are a family that really truly loves each other.
I am thankful that even though I haven't been able to enjoy my beautiful craft room {yet}, I am lucky enough to have it, and some time this week it will be used and enjoyed.
I am thankful that my hard work is starting to pay off and my business is doing well.
I am thankful that even though my husband has to go away again soon, that he has a job, a good one, and that he is here now.
I am thankful that I have truly great friends!
I am thankful that in 11 sleeps (yes we are counting down) I get to go home and see my family in NZ.
I am especially thankful that all 4 of my longest and closest friends from school will all be coming together (from our international homes) to witness one friends wedding and snuggle the brand new baby of another. It is going to be the best girlfriend time EVER :D

And that totally made me feel better!
There is power in being thankful for the good things and not dwelling in the bad!
Thankful, thankful, thankful!

Creative Space Makeover Millionth Edition & 1...

2012-02-04T22:40:00.000+08:00

So.... I don't think I could be criticized for not liking change. That is for sure!!
Probably more the opposite...

I feel like it was just yesterday that I redid my sewing room and rejigged it about to try and make it work. So ~~I'm almost~~ I am embarrassed to show you these photos, but I'll do it anyway...

Yesterday I was standing in my sewing room "just looking" around and trying to figure out a way that I could make it work better for me, as you do, and Mr Flutter came in and caught me at it.
Cue him giving me "the look"...
You know- the look that says "what are you up to now?...."
Well, one thing led to another and before either of us had thought about the consequences of our actions we had completely trashed my sewing room in a small matter of an hour.
Eeek....
Way to spend a "spontaneous" Friday night!

Anyway before long we'd taken this...

And trashed it into this...
{work in progress shot}

1 trip to the lounge to ~~steal~~ borrow the girls' toy shelves & 1 trip to IKEA later to buy another desk & we managed to turn it into this...

Now I have floor to ceiling storage on one side & 2 large work desks down the other.
By getting rid of some of the furniture that was not really being very useful (and kind of driving me crazy), and maximising the height of the room for storage, I have now gained LOADS more floor, wall, desk & storage space.
SO much more organised and spacious.
What a relief!

So now you know where I've been for the weekend.
Now after all that hard work, typically I'm too tired to make use of it.

But ah well - there's always tomorrow ;)

My Creative Space...

2012-02-02T20:55:00.005+08:00

My Creative Space was a humming today! YAY for time to sew!!

After a couple of weeks hosting Neil's Mum and a few days away last week I was really looking forward to getting back in there and spending some carefree creative time. I really *needed* to get in there if you know what I mean...

First on the agenda was some "scrappy" cushion {pillow} covers, followed shortly by some pretty dresses...

Not all made today obviously, but the cushion covers & a couple of dresses were...

Satisfying - I think so!!

These are all now listed in my shop.

I also received a rather large fabric order, which I'd totally forgotten I'd even made, since mail takes so long to get here (like 4 weeks or so). They somehow stuffed up my address and it had half of our home address & half of our PO Box address on, so it got delivered to home for a chance. That was rather embarrassing to have to sign for at 10am since I still wasn't dressed yet - am I the only one who can't be bothered to get dressed some days?
But it was a nice surprise bonus anyway and obviously I had to cut into it straight away ;)

Also just to let you know that I'm having a giveaway over on my Facebook page at the moment for a $10 voucher for my shop. To enter you simply just need to have 'liked' my page and leave a comment on the giveaway status update. Currently it's looking pretty empty so you should over and enter since at this stage you would stand to have a really good chance at winning!! :)
{Plus it will help me feel a little less like a no mates lol...}

The giveaway is open until Wednesday 8th February at 8pm Western Australia time.

More sewing on the agenda tomorrow if I get the chance. I think I might *need* to sew tomorrow as well to take my mind off of leaving Hannah at school for the first time...

We shall see...

A New Start...

2012-02-01T16:23:00.000+08:00

Thank you to everybody for your lovely comments on my post the other day about Neil's work situation... I really appreciate your kind words and support!
I'm pleased to report that I have moved on from it all...
Putting it down on paper (or screen as the case may be) really did help cleanse me of my "mad", and I'm just getting on with things really. What else can you do but choose to look forward and not dwell!...
It's easier not to think about it and just move on. Especially because I just shudder everytime I think of the prospect that it could be another entire year before he gets to finish.
But again - lets not go there!

Moving on...

***

Today was a big day in the Flutter house...
Eldest Flutter child adorned her very first uniform and headed off to "school" today for the first time...
(which really means 5 days of Kindy a fortnight, but it's part of the big school so we just call it school).

Hannah has been looking forward to this day for WEEKS!
She was so excited in fact that by 7am this morning she had already fully dressed herself in her "new uniform" & school shoes, had her backpack on and was standing by the door ready to go. Hmmm....
Needless to say that the 2 hour wait after that before it started nearly killed her...

Hannah was also most disappointed to find out that after an hour at school it was time to leave again. Today was just a short information morning and she doesn't start properly until Friday. (So that is why there are no sob stories to tell yet. And by sob stories I mean it will be me most likely to be doing the sobbing not her! ;) )
I only hope that she's as eager to go when it properly sets in that Mummy will actually be leaving her there alone! I'm sure she'll be fine. She is such a confident, social girl and the teacher mentioned all of Hannah's favourite words:
"Drawing, gluing, cutting, painting, sticking, playdough etc etc..." so I'm thinking that she's going to be in Hannah heaven!!

It will really help me out if she's fine too, because I'm pretty sure I won't be. As much as I'm looking forward to the break and am quite excited about it in so many ways - it's a scary business this letting go thing and it's making me a little sad to see her so grown up!! My Mama bear can't help but feel a little protective too as I know that she is going to be one of the youngest in her class, if not the youngest, in some cases by up to a year. I'm sure many of you can relate...

This afternoon we also kissed Neil's Mum off at the airport.
It has been lovely having her visit. Thankfully it is not that long before Abbie & I head over to England for a visit, so we at least don't have long to wait until we get to see her again.

So after an early morning with school then a 2 hour round trip to the airport we are all rather pooped today.

Early to bed for the Flutter house tonight I suspect...

Thank goodness for an easy day at home tomorrow!

Reverse Rainbow Starburst Block - A Tutorial...

2012-01-31T07:00:00.000+08:00

I have been wracking and wracking my brains over the last few days to come up with a block for my month {February} for my Sew & Bee-Happy bee ladies to make me. After much indecision I think I've finally come up with a plan for my quilt...

I'm thinking along the lines of a rainbow picnic blanket, so I made this very rough little mock up in my Adobe Illustrator {nope no EQ7 in this house} to give them an idea of what I was hoping for...

The colours are obviously pretty sickly in the example, and the sashing colour is still up for debate (currently I'm pondering grey or a black & white print - that won't be decided until I have all 12 blocks made) but imagine fabric blocks in the colours of the rainbow with white stars in and you'll be halfway there.

Here is my sample block:

This is the lighter orange block & there will be another orange block to come which is more a pinky/corally orange, heading more into red.

So here are the measurements & instructions for the block. Feel free to sew along with us. It would make a perfect scrap buster and lends itself to different sizes nicely!!

Ingredients for each 17.5 inch unfinished block:

** 24 of 4x4 inch square of your colour fabric
** 1 of 4 x 4 inch square of your white fabric
** 8 small scraps, approx 4 x 2.5 inch for your wonky star points.

Instructions:

Lay out your coloured fabric squares along with your 4 inch white square (centre of your star) where you would like them in your final block. It works best if you have the largest amounts of different prints possible. I was working entirely from my scrap bin so I had some repeats of some fabrics. If that's also the case for you then just spread them out evenly in different rows/columns...

Now we want to make our first star point pieces.

Take the coloured squares directly above, below, to the left & to the right of your white square.

With the first one, place one of your white scraps like the photo below...

You just need to make sure than when flipped over the white covers the entire orange corner with no gaps.

Sew using a 1/4 inch seam...

Iron over your white so that it covers the orange corner...

Trim the white flush with the orange square...

Then flip square over and trim the orange corner to be flush with the white so that it is now 1/4 inch seam...

Repeat with the second piece of white like so...

And trim.

Now you should have your first 2 star points...

Repeat with the other 3 coloured pieces so that you have all 8 points of your star made & put them back in your layout...

Time to join our squares together...

Join them together into rows, then join the rows together to make your finished block.

Square up your block to 17.5 inches.

Stand back & admire your reverse Rainbow Starburst Block...
Too easy...

I think this will be a pretty fabulous picnic blanket! But I'm picking it will be a while before it's finished - perhaps for next Summer?

There goes another new WIP to the pile anyway ;)

Linking up to Fabric Tuesday

Enjoy

F.r.u.s.t.r.a.t.i.o.n!

2012-01-30T17:43:00.004+08:00

Noun 1: Frustration - the feeling that accompanies an experience of being thwarted in attaining your goals

- defeat

- disappointment, letdown - a feeling of dissatisfaction that results when your expectations are not realized; "his hopes were so high he was doomed to disappointment"

- the feeling that accompanies finding out that your husband can NOT in fact finish his apprenticeship in February, as indicated, but now has to wait until at LEAST MAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hmmm....

Frustration may in fact be an understatement for what I'm feeling right now.

Rip roaringly, eye poppingly MAD is possibly a more accurate description....

As my friends know, it has taken every ounce of strength in me to put up with Mr Flutter working away this last year. It has only been with my eyes set firmly on him finishing his apprenticeship in February that I've been able to get through.

But no.

Just as I suspected, there has been another delay... Because his work scheduled him on a job as a tradesman last year, not an apprentice, and double booked him so that he had to miss his final block of his Uni study, he now cannot finish in February because there is an overlap of ONE DAY between his catch up Uni study finishing and the Capstone exam starting.

One day standing between us and freedom.
One {insert rude word at your discretion} day!!

GAH!

So I am rather mad.
Mad, mad, mad and frustrated.

And now I somehow have to find the strength to put up with at least another 3 if not more long swings of him working away.

*sigh...

I know I can do it.
I just don't want to have to.
I want him to have some options to choose something better for our family!

Luckily I know that I have Devine strength to pull from to get us through.
I'm sure it will become apparent at some stage why this is all happening.
But right now I don't like it one bit, I don't understand and I'm still cross!

Oh and of course this news come right after we just enjoyed an extravagant holiday all the while thinking that Neil was now permanently on tradesmen rates and we wouldn't need that to live on in a few months time didn't it...
Extra joy!

So just in case I didn't wake up in enough of a bad mood this morning after Hannah woke me up at 2.30am and I couldn't sleep after that, I sure am properly grumpy now.

Bet you're glad you're not around me today!
Just sayin...

Sorry to rant at you!
I'll be back in a more cheerful way tomorrow with a tutorial for you all.
It's pre-written already so that's a promise ;)

Sunday Snippet...

2012-01-29T10:00:00.000+08:00

Love this one :)

A day out at AQWA...

2012-01-28T18:30:00.004+08:00

We had another round of celebrations today, because somebody in our household has a birthday today.
The number starts with a 5, so that should be a good clue that it's not a regular member of the Flutter clan. Perhaps somebody visiting from places afar?

Racking our brains last night for an activity we could do together as a family which involved air conditioning (because we are far too ~~sensible~~ chicken to try somewhere like the zoo in this heat!) and which the children would still enjoy, we settled on going to AQWA for the day (The Aquarium of Western Australia). I have taken the children there once before, but Abbie was just a baby, so it was lovely to take them now they are a bit older. I highly recommend it as a place to visit...

First we went down into "the tunnel" - A journey under 3 Million Litres of Indian Ocean to explore "shipwreck coast"...

Littlest Flutter was not so sure about the tunnel at first... She didn't say anything or complain, but I could tell by the fact that she buried her head in shoulder.
Who could blame here with creatures like this swimming so close to us though...

I mean look at the teeth on that thing!

Yikes!

But littlest soon came around and was pointing and ooohing and aaahing along with the rest of us at all the wonderful creatures...

Then we came upstairs and had a look at the rest of the exhibits...

We got to make a badge each...

Yes that would be my little fashionista dressed in a scarf and a wrap in 40 degree heat. No it wasn't my doing... *Sigh...

Just in case we needed reminding how dangerous it can be to swim in the sea, there was a special "danger" section complete with sea snakes, stone fish and all kinds of other things...

Apparently these guys are not so good to eat...

Then we got to the kids favourite part... there was no doubting Abbie was having a great time by the time we got to the outside tanks and the kids got to splash in the water & touch a starfish...

Not sure Hannah's smile is sincere though. Are you? LOL...

Then it was time for lunch so we skipped around the corner to a seafood restaurant at Hilary's boat harbour...
I highly recommend this as a stop on your visit if you're ever in Perth!...

Sadly we forgot to take our swimmers. What were we thinking?!

The others have just got back from the beach (I was a bit too lazy to leave the air con this evening, even if it did mean a swim) so I better go help get dinner.

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend too!

Favourite Thing Friday - The Holiday Edition...

2012-01-27T20:30:00.000+08:00

I'm pretty sure it will be no great mystery as to what my FTF is today...

H.O.L.I.D.A.Y.S....
And most specifically, celebration holidays with my hunny!

Yes, we are back from our brief getaway and I don't think it would have been possible for us to have had a more perfect time!

We took a little road trip down south and stayed at a fabulous resort. I knew it was going to be nice down there but it far surpassed our expectations.
Our hotel had 3 pools, was set on the beach, AND had it's own pond complete with baby ducklings. We also had our own private spa.
If that's not enough to make you want to go pee every 5 minutes then I don't know what is, but it sure was nice :)

It also had all the best things that you really want from a hotel: clean, quiet, comfortable and air con! That last one is particularly important when you are travelling in the hottest week that WA has apparently seen in 47 years, trust me on that one!

We also did all the things that {to me} make a perfect holiday:

We slept in!
We ate out at some truly fabulous places...

We shopped...
{right through from thrift shops to some of the cutest boutiques ever!}

And not just window shopped at that.
We ate out some more...

We swam...
We napped...
We read books...
We watched movies...
We took drives to see the sights...

I didn't wear the white dress intentionally although now the thought has occured to me about how ironic it was, it is quite funny that I did!

We even went into the cutest sewing shop ever and I got to try out a Bernina 820
and Mr Flutter even stood there and picked the ladies brains about it!
{No that doesn't mean I'm getting one btw - was just playing.}

And the most important thing of all...
We.were.celebrating.10years.Together

It was our first time celebrating an anniversary together in 4 years at that. About time.

So really and truly it was the perfect celebration holiday. Even if by today I did miss my gorgeous girls like crazy!

Not that they were interested in me in the slightest... this man was understandably the man in demand...
But I can understand that since it'd been 3 weeks since they'd seen him and only 3 nights since they'd seen me.

And I suppose you'd like to know what Mr Flutter gave me as a present?...

Go on then I'll tell you...
A few more sparkles of the gold & diamond variety...

Handmade by a local jeweller to the area in which we stayed.

Yes it has occured to me that I have the perfect man!

So tonight it stands to reason that I am feeling like that Kat that ate the pigeon...
I'm sure my 5am variable alarm clocks will bring me right back down to reality in the morning, but for now I'm going to revel in it!

Linking up to here...

10 Years Ago Today...

2012-01-26T07:00:00.000+08:00

I looked a LOT younger and slimmer (who didn't right?);

and I spent the day doing this...

So now you can see that the obsession with butterflies is not a new thing! ;)

Happy 10th Anniversary Neil!!

As you read this I am currently away at a resort, enjoying 3 nights of CHILD FREE time with my hunny for the first time in about 3 years.

Nice!!

Thanks need to go to my Mother-in-law for her willing childcare services!

I know it's pretty traditional to spiel off on a tangent now a whole bunch of lovey dovey stuff - but don't worry - in this particular occasion you are saved from all that. Because while it's all true - I'm pretty sure I'm saying all that stuff to Neil's face right now and therefore don't need to say it in a blog post ;)

But instead I thought I'd share some general thoughts and tools on marriage and how we make our relationship work and be the brilliant relationship that it is today.

Because like every marriage, ours has not been without its bumps along the way. Quite frankly it has been a lot of hard work to get to this point, {In my opinion anyone who says marriage is not a lot of hard work is either not married, or in denial!}.

The first 5 years in particular were very hard going actually!!

... While divorce has never entered our vocabulary, I must admit that I have on occasion felt like slipping Neil a little something 'special' in his dinner if you get my drift, during some of those hard times. As I'm sure has he to me as well.

But through faith and perseverance we have made it through, and 10 years on I believe we have the best and strongest marriage we've ever had! Yes we still have hard times, but we know stuff now that we didn't before and we are much better equipped to deal with those times in an unbreakable way.

So I thought I'd share some of the stuff that we've learned...

***

I believe that the most valuable thing that I know about love today is that Love is a verb.

Not {just} a feeling like Hollywood would have us believe, although that is certainly a big part of it too.

But feelings in themselves are fickle! We all know that feelings can change, can "grow apart" {or smash apart}, especially when given a little conflict.

No; I believe that love is definitely a doing word.

And it can take practice to be exceptional at it.

So with that in mind I will share a few resources that we have found really useful to help enrich our relationship and help us continue to love even during the tough times. Ones which I think that every married couple can benefit from reading, whether they are going through a tough time themselves or not.

Because there's always room for improvement right?
I know there always is for us anyway LOL...

So here goes...

The first book which stands out to me above all the others is this:

The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman...

We got given this book as a wedding present, {by two different people actually} and I have given it many times as a wedding present myself. That's how fundamental I believe it is!

It talks about how there are 5 different ways that we each communicate & receive love. Ever feel like your partner doesn't really get how much you love them or continues to misunderstand things that you do or say? That could be because you are speaking different love languages...

The 5 languages it talks about are: Words of affirmation, Acts of Service, Gifts, Physical touch and Time.

All I can say is that if you don't know about these then trust me, they're really worth knowing! It turns out that when we first got married Neil was speaking love to me by doing things, when all I really craved and wanted was for him to spend time with me. Not a cool combination and I'm sure that you can imagine it was one that led to a lot of disputes and misunderstanding!

Gary Chapman also writes a huge range of other useful books in this series and on other topics. E.g. there is one on love languages for children & another for teenagers. Really useful when dealing with your kids!
I also really like his book "The family you've always wanted & 5 ways to make it happen"...

Next I really like:

For couples only boxed set, by Shaunti & Jeff Feldhahn...

These are the best two books that I have ever read on explaining the differences between males & females. In my opinion it is invaluable to know that these differences are very real, understand and respect them.

There are two books included in the boxed set (although you can buy them separately also) - 'For Men Only' & 'For Woman Only'.

These books are in our experience very accurate, include a lot of fascinating research, but are very easy (and quick) to read and digest.

The set is designed so that you first read the book about your gender (E.g. I would read the one about woman entitled 'For Men Only') and highlight or underline the bits that you can particularly relate to or find most relevant. Then you give it to your partner to read so that they can better understand you as they go through.

They also have younger versions of these books "'For Young Men Only': A Guys guide to the alien gender "& "'For Young Woman Only', What you need to know about how guys thing...". Great for teenagers too! I know I plan to make my daughters read them (so that they can understand just why I won't be letting them run around in string bikini's, low cut tops & micro skirts ;) )

The next two resources also go together:

Fireproof DVD & The Love Dare...

The Love Dare is a book taken from the movie 'Fireproof'. It is basically a 40 day programme designed to help grow your marriage.
In the movie the couple is at breaking point - about to get a divorce. But the man's father gives him this programme to do. He does it really half heartedly at first but somewhere along the way he has a change of heart and keeps doing it without his wife's knowledge. They end up resolving their differences and renewing their marriage vows. Very inspiring!
I think that a programme like this can help a healthy marriage also.

This is the movie to support the book {or vice versa or whatever}.
Worth a watch!
It is a little cheesy in places, but it's one that I always get something from.
Word from the wise though; you may want to have tissues handy...

Sheet Music...
I'm pretty sure the cover sums it up. Not a book about music, despite what the title may otherwise indicate.

Probably enough said, just in case my children read this one day ;) ...
LOL...

There are more resources that we've used & like, but those are the best we've used which I feel are most not to be missed.

They are all written by Christian authors, and most of them do have a Christian element to them, but regardless of your faith I think that they are very valuable resources for the toolbox.

Right, ok... back to sunning myself by the pool, drinking cocktails and being fanned by my ~~cabana boy~~ husband.
Oh wait - thanks to the wonders of Blogger technology, I have been doing that the whole time ;) LOL

See ya

WIP Wednesday...

2012-01-25T10:00:00.000+08:00

Well this will be a short post because since last week I have made NO progress on my WIPs...

Does this distress me?
Nope.

Because I've been making things like this:

And these...

And it's been a lot of fun!

I have made about 13 complete outfits (many of them 2 piece) for my shop & market stock this week plus completed two huge graphic design jobs. So I'd say that I've been pretty successful at ticking things off of my list despite the fact that unfortunately none of it was personal quilting...

If you'd like to see the blog headers I did as part of the logo graphic design jobs then you can visit Cindy here & Bec here. Graphic design is not really an advertised part of my business, but I do love doing it when asked so thanks girls for that opportunity. Make sure you leave them some love if you visit :)

So not a lot of WIP progress no, but sometimes weeks like this just have to happen in order to make the money to pay for the personal quilting stuff...
I'm sure you all know how it is!

Perhaps next week?
But almost certainly not next week.
Maybe the week after?
I guess we'll just have to see...

Tuesday Tidbits...

2012-01-24T13:39:00.002+08:00

** We have been enjoying having Neil's Mum stay with us... She has survived the heat very well considering that most of this week it's been over 35 degrees Celcius (HOT!), often humid and she has come from winter. Even those of us that are used to summer have still been struggling.

** We have been doing a lot of perusing the shops & "morning teas"...

** But also a LOT of staying home and being in isolation, because both girls have had different highly infectious diseases this week and gone down in varying degrees of sick miserable heaps.
So there has also been quite a lot of this....

** Thank goodness Abbie has started to like watching small doses of TV, because it really is a life saver during weeks like these when we're stuck at home.

** This week we also had THE most spectacular thunder and lightening storm that any of us have ever experienced in our lives. Not all that much rain, but from 1am - 8am we had the loudest thunder you can imagine and constant lightening like a strobe light. Ask anyone from Perth - I do not exagerate!
The sheet lightening was constant and then every so often the sky would light up like fireworks going off with a line of fork lightening.
A.M.A.Z.I.N.G stuff! The four of us sat up at 2am in front of our glass doors and watched it over the lake.

I think there would have been record numbers of people taking the day off from work the next day, since it was all far too loud for anyone to sleep through!

** Ok, time for another little "Mummy brag" ...
Look at the amazing pictures that Hannah painted yesterday. I promise you that she didn't have any help whatsoever (I wasn't even in the same room half the time).

Painting in a tiara & knickers - only Hannah would do that! LOL

Isn't she clever!
The two on the right did have lines marked on them which she filled in (they were canvases given to her for her birthday), but the one on the far left she did all by herself. It also has a face drawn on it which you can't see in the picture.

I can't believe she is only 3 when I look at these - I don't think I would even be that good and I'm an adult LOL...

** I am off away now for 3 nights. All will be revealed as to why on Thursday.
So I will not be replying to any comments or emails now until Friday.

** But I have a few blog posts scheduled while I'm away, so I bet you'll hardly even notice ;)

Enjoy your week - I know that I sure will be!!

Pay it Forward....

2012-01-23T09:08:00.000+08:00

Back in September, I signed up to my friend Fiona's Pay it Forward swap... after I grew to know Fiona during the Goodie Swap.

And in November I received this adorable little friend as my gift...

I love my little Ellie & she gets almost daily use! (And shhhhh don't tell anyone, but I can be known to talk to her on occasion as I sew along ;) )

I knew when I signed up to this that it would be a while before I could fill my side of the pay it forward, so I didn't post this post because I like to get things in the mail quickly and not have them hanging over me.
But now here goes....

Who would like to pay it forward with me & receive a little handmade gift from Flutter.Kat?

Here's how it works...

** I will make a little something for the first 3 people who comment on this post and say they want to play.
** It will be a surprise and it will arrive when you least expect it.
** I will have 365 days to do it in. What's the catch? To get a handmade present from me, you have to play too! This means YOU pledge to send a little handmade something to 3 readers of your blog (but remember you will have 365 days to make and send it too). It doesn't have to be quilty - just handmade.
** You must have a blog.
** Once you receive your "little something", you must post about your Pay it Forward on your blog to keep the fun going - be sure to use the Pay It Forward badge.

Except for the small fact that I no longer will have 365 days to do it in because I already used up a number of those days waiting to post this - so you will probably receive it in the next 90 days ;)

It's not a rule as such, but I would prefer it if my partners had never played Pay it Forward before so that we can share the love around...

So who's in? :)

(Edited to add that I will ship international)

Sunday Snippet...

2012-01-22T06:00:00.000+08:00

image

Saturday Special....

2012-01-21T11:22:00.002+08:00

I thought I might every so often run a "Saturday Special" for my shop.
Up until now I have been advertising them on my Facebook page, but I thought I better let you folks know too :)

You have the choice of 2 great specials to kick us off today...

Special 1:
Free shipping within Australia on all orders received before 10pm Sunday (WA time)
Use the code 'SHIPFREE'

Special 2:
International customers, or those wanting patterns can receive 10% off their order.
Use the code 'LOYAL10'

So what might you like to buy?
Well these specials include my patterns. - The link to those is down the right hand side...

And I also have a bunch of new listings just up...

White 120wt Rasant thread for $6.00 + shipping...

Aussie DS Winding Roads Fabric...
Selected Fat Quarters are $5.00 + shipping & Fat 1/8th sets (4 prints included) are $10.00 + shipping

I also have limited amounts of pencil cases available for personalisation. One side has the feature fabric & one side is plain all ready to personalise with your child's name. Perfect for heading off to school soon.
$15 + shipping

I haven't had time to list all the new twirly skirts on my website yet, but you can view the full range of skirts and pencil cases available on my Facebook page.
Here are some of the cute skirts I have available...

So if you'd like one of the products available on Facebook but not yet on my website then email me before 10pm tomorrow with your request and I will set you up with a custom listing with the discount included. Custom orders will need to be paid for within 24hours for the discount to be valid.

Hope you all have a happy Saturday!

Kat

Featured...

2012-01-20T16:19:00.001+08:00

We interrupt the 'normal' Favourite Things Friday post this week to announce that I have been featured over at Quilt Story today by the lovely Heather & Megan. Bless them. They have featured my Cheeky Quilt.
So pop on over and read all about the cheeky quilt again in all it's fabulousness. Or read it there if you missed it the first time...

There is also another reason for no FTF this week... I'm in far too much of a grump!

Littlest Flutter fingers have "borrowed" my SD card with all my photos on. And of course it was just due to be backed up wasn't it. GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

Can't find the jolly thing anywhere and it's so small that we may as well be looking for a needle in a haystack!

I should have known better than to leave it on the arm of the couch, even if I was sitting right next to it. But still... SO annoyed right now.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - lucky she is cute!

So instead of rambling on about how annoyed I am (oh wait I just did... ok) as WELL as rambling on about how annoyed I am right now, I will let you know something a bit more positive as well.

Have a lovely weekend!!

WIP Wednesday...

2012-01-18T22:56:00.000+08:00

I'll try to keep this project brief & full of pictures, because it's getting late & I'm tired. Which is clear in how well I sewed tonight. Or how well I didn't, as the case may be!

So here goes...

It's been a very productive time since my last WIP report... I've got a huge bunch finished. Yeah!
So; finishes in order are:

The Girl's "Peaches & Cream" quilts...

2 of those babies finished...

My "Cheeky" Quilt:

Still completely in love with it of course!
You can read about the whole finish of the Cheeky quilt here...

My "Snuggle Memory" Quilt:

This hadn't actually technically made it to the WIP list - it was still an "in the back of my mind, want to start and finish this at some point" project. But over the holiday break I decided that I needed the cupboard space back and so it got started and finished within a few days...

Read the whole finish & see the rest of the photos here...

***

Which brings me to my latest finishes...

January Bee blocks so far:

Blocks for Care Do Good Stitches Bee:

Block for Cindy in Sew & Bee-Happy:

I'm so gutted about this block though. I think I win the award for most stupid quilting moment of the day for it. You see - cute as it is I have to remake it because I used the wrong white!
In a moment of blondeness I used white from my stash and not the white Cindy sent for us to use with our own colour scraps.
GAH - I could kick myself. I so don't have time to be making stupid mistakes like this at the moment. Which is almost certainly why I am making them.
That and the fact Abbie was sick last night just before I went to bed so I spent the night awake on tentahooks wondering if it would happen again and listening to Hannah coughing.
Hmmm....

Anyway, moving on...

... We come to my new project...

After cutting up and assembling all the luscious rainbow charmpacks for my shop, I could not resist sewing something with them myself straight away.
I made this block before I realised it was the same one as I had to make for CARE bee this month. But I made mine bigger because I was using 5 inch charms...

I've no idea what to do with it, but I'm thinking maybe a picnic rug? Except for the fact that there is soooo much white, so maybe I might just make it into a cushion. I'm imagining some awesome straight line quilting around the star so we'll see.

I still have half of the charm packs left (6) for those who are still interested.
... And just FYI I figured out after I'd already listed them in my shop and sold a bunch that yet another blonde moment had resulted in me calculating the number of squares wrong. Ooops... I told you initially that there was 42 charms in each pack.
Make that actually 49.

** Note to self Kat - 7 x 7 = 49 not 42!! **
I never was all that good at maths, despite my Mother being a maths teacher!
- At least this is an extra bonus nugget of info for you the guys that bought the first 6 packs right ;) LOL...

Projects that weren't touched since the last report:

** Quilt for my lounge (waiting on 2 more bee blocks then have 2 to make myself...)
** Wonky houses... (trying to figure out how to finish this in a manageable fashion scares the pants off me too much to go there again yet...)
** Random Improv squares... (still no idea what to do with these... perhaps a Blanket of Love?)

Which brings me to this reports stats:

Finished projects: 5. I'm going to count the girls quilts as 2 projects but not count Cindy's bee block.
New projects started: 1
Projects ignored for now: 4 - (I know I only listed 3 above, but there's also a Blanket of Love in the drawer which will be ignored until April when the deadline is looming and the rest are all it. It's so much easier to do those all at once)

Sorry if this is full of typos or grammar errors. I'm too tired to proof read.
But I figure you guys should be used to it from me now ;) LOL

Check out everyone elses WIP reports here...

Nosey Parker in the Neighbourhood #3 - The Sewing Edition

2012-01-17T20:58:00.000+08:00

Welcome to Nosey Parker in the Neighbourhood!

This Edition is all about Sewing yeah baby...

For those who don't know, Nosey Parker in the Neighbourhood is a little linky party to help us get to know each other. At the moment there is one per month. Each time I publish a list of questions on a topic and we each answer those in our own way & link up to get to know each other more.
You have a whole month to link up to this party, so take your time to put it together (although this one should be pretty easy to put together quickly!) & make sure you keep stopping back to see what everyone else is up to :)

My answers...

1) How long have you been sewing? Are you a first generation sewer or was the knowledge handed down to you? Basically tell us about your journey...

I have been sewing for about 18 months, give or take. If you don't count the sewing I did when I was at primary school that is... I don't because that was nearly 20 years ago now (eeek am I really that old!?) and I don't remember a thing I learned!
My Mum can sew, and has in my lifetime, but purely on a need-to-sew basis. She was never a hobby sewist. So I grew up with a sewing machine in the house but the majority of the time it sat in a cupboard covered in dust (where it still sits today...).

My parents then gave me a sewing machine for Christmas in our first year of marriage. It pretty much came out to hem trousers and that was it. I did buy a few patterns at one stage and sew a few pairs of trousers for myself - but the passion never really took off.

But what really sealed the deal for me was learning quilting at the beginning of last year. I made Hannah a quilt for her 2nd birthday and in the process discovered the online modern quilters community. After that I was hooked!!

2) Where do you sew?

I am lucky enough to have a dedicated sewing/craft room. I justify it because I sew for business, otherwise I'm not sure I'd be able to justify it since we have 4 people living in our 3 bedroom house & I take up a whole one of the bedrooms! But while I have the luxury I appreciate it every day!

3) What does your sewing room/area look like today in it's real state. Take a picture of it if possible and show it to us real :)

My craft room is incredibly fluid - it looks different on every day of the week. I generally prefer it tidy and like to tidy up in between each project because that helps me feel more relaxed when I sew.
{I know. I'm odd.}
However just because I like it tidy doesn't mean that it always is! For example this is what it looks like right this minute...

So basically it has ALL of the things I hate going on right now...

** No clear desk space
** Fabric and other "stuff" all over the floor
** Way way too much stuff in there in general
** And all my lists are a mile too long (on my white board you may notice my lists - Blog, Home, Business... - that's how I keep track of everything important going on and prioritise)

But it is a well worked in environment so that's why it changes rapidly and often gets out of control, can't even open the door for bags of stuff, messy. Mainly I have too much stuff crammed in there now for my liking!

4) What is the first thing that you made which you were really proud of? Show us pics of your favourite project.

I was incredibly proud of my very first creation - my first quilt. Still to this day I love it to bits, warts and all. I can't actually believe I was so brave as to free motion my first quilt either - on possibly THE worst sewing machine going. Seriously - these days I would rather sew by hand than use that horrible thing (I'm surprised it's still alive to be honest - I've been tempted to take to it with a hammer on a number of occasions - like when I managed to break 6 needles in 24 hours free motion quilting on it). But I survived making about 5 quilts on that thing before I decided that this sewing bug was for real and I could justify buying a "proper" sewing machine. Aka one which actually had consistent or reasonable tension and didn't keep trying to take my eye out with broken needles. (I haven't broken a needle fmq since changing machines by the way!)

Anyway here it is... the quilt that started the whole journey off...

As well as free motion quilting the whole thing I also made up my own pattern. Which just about made my head explode when it came time to match up all the columns with that big break in the middle. But never mind, we got there in the end...
I'm still not good at following patterns as yesterday's post (and this afternoon's meltdown tantrum hour) demonstrates yet again!

5) Do you always stick to the "rules" when you sew, or are you more improvisationally minded?

Absolutely no rules in this house. I am the laziest sewer going and if there's a short cut I will take it! I also really love improvisation in general. My second big quilt was improv quilting and to this day I still remember how much I enjoyed the process of making it...

Terrible photo , and I can't believe I didn't iron it first, but you get the idea. It shows how far I've come in 18 months in that too though!...
That quilt now lives with Neil's Mum - Orange is her favourite colour & the butterflies were to symbolise me...

I do actually know HOW to follow the rules, but more often than not I choose not to. My favourite sewing sessions are always those where I'm inspired by a piece of fabric or a person, have a roungh idea of what I want to achieve and then just go with the flow to see what eventuates.
Yep, love just making it up as I go along!
Here are a couple of my favourite improv projects that I've done...

As you can see I often use traditional styles in an improv manner.
Love blending the two...

So that's all about me. How bout you?

Link up here when you are ready :) ...

Fun with ruffles....

2012-01-16T21:39:00.003+08:00

Back in mid December I decided to really splash out and purchase myself a ruffler foot for big Brother.

I'd had one in mind for a while, but they are not cheap things so it took me a while to finally make the decision to get one and order it. So then what happened? My ruffler foot went and arrived while Big Brother was broken of course... so typical!

Cue the madness of Christmas.

Cue me being a big chicken about trying it out once I got Big Brother back from Mr Fixit.

Cue the ruffler foot sitting in my drawer for another month not doing anything....

A very expensive decoration!!

So a month down the track and this week I decided it was time to break that baby out of it's packaging and try it out.

And can I just say -

Oh what fun!!

Trouble was, I had no idea what to do with the ruffles! No projects in mind that I knew how to make that is. And I have been just too tired to make something up and experiment. So I splashed out again last night and bought a pattern off etsy.

That's quite a big deal for me - I almost NEVER buy or use patterns! Despite the fact that apparently I'm not bad at writing them myself, I am h.o.p.e.l.e.s.s at following other peoples!!

But I bought a pattern. And I followed it. To the letter!

And quite frankly I hated it! LOL...

- Talk about fiddly and a pain in the neck. Not to mention a huge use & waste of fabric if you ask me! (I am so frugal when it comes to fabric!)

Anyway this was the result of the pattern skirt...

Seriously - please don't look too close - it is dodgy dodgy sewing on my part! I'm sure it's operator error but I'm not going to name the pattern just in case because personally I think there are lots easier ways to achieve a similar result.

I can't see myself having a second go just to find out if the result is the same the second time anyway...

But the good thing about spending that money on a frustrating pattern is that at least it gave me the focus to make something with ruffles, and go on to make some of my own designs...

How stinkin cute are ruffles?!

I have to say that I am in LOVE with them!

So in love that in no time at all I had make 6 skirts for my shop (in about the time it took me to make the 1 from the pattern but lets not go there...)

You can view all 6 in my Facebook shop & they'll be listed in my store tomorrow when I get some better photos.

Needless to say, I suspect you will be seeing a lot more ruffles from now on - now I have so many more ideas :)

Have you ever tried a ruffler foot? Oh my it's the coolest foot I own - so so fascinating to watch!

Worth every cent in my humble opinion. (and no I don't get paid to say that ;) )

Sunday Snippet... Comparison

2012-01-15T08:00:00.000+08:00

***

"Comparison is the thief of joy..."

***

{Just ignore the words of the song for a minute... but...}
Isn't this music video incredibly clever!
It blows my mind that 5 people can play 1 guitar and have it sound so amazing!

- But imagine if instead of working so well together, this band had tried to compete and outdo each other with their different parts, or snatch the guitar out from under each other...
Somehow I don't think it would look or sound nearly as effective! ;)

This reminded me today just what we are all capable of if we stop comparing ourselves to others & focus on doing our own skills and gifts really well... The harmony and joy that can result from working together, each doing what we are best at, can be brilliant.

So lets not compare ourselves to others shall we.
Lets instead work together to be brilliant:)

Favourite Things Friday...

2012-01-13T20:15:00.001+08:00

I have a list of favourites this Friday. Just because I can :)

** Love watching my kids play outside...
It's a joy to see them playing together nicely (while I lie on the lounger and revel in the fact I'm not being needed for a change)!

** Loving receiving yummy mail. Today that was in the form of my first EVER giveaway win (yeah Hadley & Susan - about time you two shared the winnings around ;) ) and a yummy fabric order from Hawthorne Threads. Love that place!

Thank you SO much Rhonda for my new parcel of goodness & your generosity at sending them all the way to Australia. The big book of rotary cutter quilts is next on my list to sit down with my feet up and peruse :)

If you have never visited Rhonda's blog before then you should definitely check it out. As well as some wonderful creations she does some great sewing podcasts which I have only recently found.

** Loving the fact that I allowed myself to spend some money on ME for a change during the boxing day sales. Thanks to some great 40% off bargains at Target I now have some great new outfits which are (for a change) making me feel very "me". And it didn't even break the bank!
My favourite buys from there have to be these pumps though... I love the fact that they are all under $30 (one pair was $12!) yet they are all SO comfy and cute. Score!

Coral has to join blue as one of my favourite colours of the moment I'd say!

** Loving this plate, thrifted this week for $1

No idea what I'm going to do with it and I'm sure that many people who know me well would raise their eyebrows in question at the fact I bought a rose plate, but I'm loving it all the same.
They would probably be even more surprised to find out that I bought a tea-cup & 4 doilies all in that same trip too
- HA! I'm not known for my love of vintage - more minimalist or modern probably - but I guess it's proof that people can change ;)

** Loving also this wee owl. It is also a new purchase. (ok I confess that was today when I was supposed to be looking for a garment steamer and only came out with this instead... ooops...)

White with a bit of sparkle. Now that's a bit more me!

Gosh it looks like all I've been doing from this post is shopping recently. Well it's mostly been thrifting or bargain shopping. I'm have to keep reminding myself that I'm on a mission to save money for London now...

and lastly...

** I'm loving the fact that Neil's mum arrives tomorrow from England! She is so brave because I suspect that she is going to melt if our hot weather continues like it has been this week, but we couldn't be more excited to be hosting her. We've been counting down and the one sticker left on our sticker chart informs me that there is only one sleep to go ;)

I don't know how much I'll be around during the next week for that reason. I haven't pre-scheduled anything, so if it all goes quiet suddenly then there's nothing wrong - just enjoying a holiday.

And that is my list of favourites for today...

Linking up with Favourite Things Friday & Things I'm Loving :)

My Creative Space...

2012-01-12T15:53:00.003+08:00

Has emerged out of its tunnel and out the other side to see a very happy rainbow...

Oh rainbows how I love thee!!!

5 inch rainbow charm packs, along with 5 inch eye-spy (i-spy) packs, some strip rolls, and some designer fat quarters - including Aussie only Denise Schmidt prints, have now all been listed in my shop....

Mmmmm aren't they scrumptious? I am dreaming up SO many projects using these now!!

I am also very sorry, but in the end I have had too many enquiries for me to keep track of them and email you all back personally to let you know these have been listed. So if you have enquired to me about scrap packs and are interested then please hop across and have a look at the ones I've listed now.

Numbers of these are all strictly limited.

There are however some random scrap charm, 4 inch & roll packs coming in the near future. If you are interested in these and would like me to combine shipping, but don't want to miss out on the rainbow charm packs then please feel free to email me and I will make you a custom listing so that you don't miss out.

Also, if you want to work out how much postage is in total then put something in your shopping cart, select your country and push "update cart". I have estimated the shipping using weights of the products so it should be pretty accurate but just in case it's not then please note that I will refund any difference of more than $2.

Time to go sew! :)

Work in Progress Wednesday...

2012-01-11T23:07:00.000+08:00

Today Hannah went on a playdate to a friend's house down the road during Abbie's sleep time.
So while Hannah was in her element enjoying a spot of this:

Tea parties in a tent with a friend,, while dressed as a princess - what could be more fun?

... I was in my element because I wasn't having my ear chewed off for a change!
(I apologize if English is your second language and you have no idea what I meant then!).

It was so quiet round here in fact that Abbie ended up having a 4 hour sleep!! I think that was definitely a first.
Mind you, probably something to do with the fact that she played in her bedroom until 10pm last night then was still up by 6am. No doubt that would be the reason!

Anyway - what did I choose to do during this 4 hour marathon nap & quiet time?
Sew? That would have been nice!
Tidy my house? Pffft.... No!
Nap? No...
Watch TV? No...
Read a book? I wish!

No... I am crazy and I spent the quiet time working on my current project...

Snore.... Snore....

Oh sorry... I just fell asleep.
I feel like I have been cutting fabric all day! Which is pretty close to the truth actually...
And since cutting tends to be my least favourite part of quilting, I am finding it pretty mind numbingly boring!!!

But on the plus side - I could hear my thoughts for a change while I was doing it, and wasn't being interupted every 5 seconds with "Mum.... Mum.... MUM.... MUMMM!!!" "Mum I'm hungry." "Mum I'm SOOOO hungry!" "Mum can I watch a movie..."
You get the idea.
Love her to bits - but miss my daily nap/quiet time break if you know what I mean ;)

I am also finally able to see the light at the end of the tunnel...
My floor is now all clear - progress!

Except for all the loose threads - it desperately needs a vacuum now!

Shame about the big piles still on the desk & chair though...

It's not as bad as it looks.
So I tell myself.

***

At one point when I needed a break from all the cutting I decided to pull my entire stash off the shelves and re- sort it. I was in a ruthless mood and a significant proportion of my stash now makes up the piles you have just seen above which are in the process of being turned into 5 inch rainbow charm packs. As you can see I still have purple, some red & yellow to go.
The pile at the back is just random prints that need to be cut up for the general scrap pool...

Another portion of my stash - this time FQs of quite hard to get designer fabric, also sits in a pile waiting for me to photograph them and list them in my shop...

Some Aussie Denise Schmidt, Suzuko Koseki, Heather Ross, Kokka, Text Prints etc... They all will be listed either tomorrow or Friday so if any of these prints or designer names appeal to you then be warned... they're on their way.

So my stash has now had a much needed session of liposuction today. It's feeling a bit more like it can squeeze into it's shelves now, but it still has some work out sessions coming up. Those will be more in the form of sewing marathons though!

To be honest, to most people (ahem most husbands) it probably wouldn't look like it's that much smaller.
But I'm telling you - it really really is! I've even emptied a whole entire plastic container in the process...

That means I can go fabric shopping again soon right?! hehehe....
- I've discovered now that I lack purple in my stash. So there's an excuse right there ;)

And that is my Work in Progress Wednesday report this week. No actual sewing progress at all. But certainly one could say I've achieved a lot of fabric play.

Tuesday Tidbits...

2012-01-10T18:59:00.002+08:00

Here is my list of totally random "tidbits" for the day...

** Today was a perfect Perth summers day....

** Temps got a little hot at one stage, getting to 34 degrees C. But with perfect blue skies and a light breeze, who could ask for better weather otherwise?! I love it when the sun shines!

** Perfect weather for (as the Australian's say) "Icey poles"... (Ice blocks? Ice lollies?)

** Want to see the (main) reason for my lack of sleep recently?

** Please excuse the worlds worst photo - but that's Abbie finally asleep in her new big bed. We moved her into it a few days after Christmas and it has taken her until the last couple of days to get the hang of it.
- So I wasn't exactly going to muck about trying to get a photo after she FINALLY fell asleep after hours of screaming and getting out of bed.

** I have two words to describe the experience:

Hard.Work!...

** That is enough said. If you ask me sleep deprivation is a slow form of torture!

** Which is making me all the more appreciative of the TV I got for Christmas for our bedroom, to go with the DVD player I got for my birthday. I'm not usually a TV watcher myself (which I'm sure you can guess by how much stuff I make) but at 5.30am when the kids wake up early and won't go back to sleep, after a VERY unsettled night with Abbie, then this is my new best friend...

** Quiet movie time for the kids = roll over and go back to snooze time for Mumma!

** Speaking of being a Mumma... Yesterday I took friends of ours that had just had a new baby dinner, meaning that I could fill up my baby cuddle tank and get all clucky, much to my husband's disgust....

** I should note that I'm not usually a clucky person and never have been. But now that we are done with growing our family, something has changed in me and all of a sudden I love to cuddle babies. What's with that?!

** I think it's making Neil pretty worried LOL!

** Want to see the state of my sewing room?... Still working my way through the endless scrap supply...

** But they look pretty cool once they're cut - here is a little portion of the ones I've cut...

** K I hear fighting, that means it's time to come in from playing outside and put the munchkins to bed...

See ya

Important Updates...

2012-01-09T22:27:00.000+08:00

Happy Monday everyone!

I have just made a huge bunch of changes in both my blog & shop, so I thought it might just be easier to let you know them all at once;
So here goes...

If you look up the top of my blog you will now notice 3 new pages.

So lets discover what they are shall we?:

1) "My Shop" Page... If you click on that tab now then it will take you straight to my shop.
- I am still working on it at the moment to get it up to date with all my products and stock, but it has some of the new stock up there since I last told you I'd updated it's look.

At this stage I'm hoping to get scrap packs up and available by the end of next week or earlier. But it's a slooooow job cutting up all those scraps to size so we'll see how I go.
- I swear that the scraps in my scrap bin are multiplying though. Seriously - I've been cutting for days and I feel like I'm getting nowhere because there still seems just as many as when I started. Darn it! LOL...

I'm also hoping to get some new vinyl wall art up in the next month including some very cool sewing related ones. So watch this space for announcements of those. Just a hint: there might be some scrappy inspired vinyl mini quilts coming too which I just know you're going to love (even if I do say so myself;)...)

2) "Blankets of Love" Page... You might have noticed that the button for Blankets of Love disappeared over the last week - I'm really sorry if that affected your blog button - I didn't think about that at the time... oops.
Anyway I've now made a page with hopefully all of the information that you should ever need regarding the Blankets of Love charity which I'm involved in. E.g; sizes, all frequently asked questions and the new button code for you to pick up the button for your blog to link back to the info page.

3) "Nosey Parker in the Neighbourhood" Page... The last new page I've made is all about the nosey parker linky party. It holds info on what it's all about, when the next party is scheduled for, what the questions for the next party are so that you can pre-prepare your post in advance (but please don't publish it until the date), and a link list to all of the previous parties which I'll update as we go along.

So please go and check it out. The next Nosey Parker linky is scheduled for the 17th January and the theme is SEWING
- can I hear a wooot woooot?!
So go check out the questions and put your thinking caps on if you plan to link up :)

***

Moving on from the new pages, please can you now note the lovely new buttons down the right hand side. Thank you so much too all of the people who have purchased my scrappy pouch pattern already - you guys rock!

So just to let you also all know that the zipper pouch pattern is now live as of today...
Like the scrappy pouch pattern it has also been written up more professionally & rebranded for the pattern release. And as a bonus it now also includes measurements and amendments for you to have the option of making 3 more different sizes of zipper pouch:
Smaller make up pouch, Flat pencil case & Flat coin purse.

You will also notice that I've made a new cover feature pouch.
I was inspired by Heather Ross Goldfish in a bag for the colour scheme, which must be one of my fav prints going at the moment, and I'm so in love with the colours & look of it!!
Go the scraps I say - you can really make such cool stuff from "scraps" can't you!...

What do you think or the new look?

Pretty huh?
Well I think so anyway ;)...
And can I just say again how much I am LOVING my new light box. That was the best $45 investment I've spent in a long time because how seriously cool do my photos look.
(Sorry Katy - I just can't call it a light "tent"... it's just not tent like enough for me to call it a that - but it is very box like ;) )

In other words I highly recommend you investigate making one too :)

So anyway... go check out all the changes when you get a minute and then you should be all up to date with what's changed and what is coming up in Flutter.Kat land.

Thanks guys!

Sunday Snippet...

2012-01-08T13:31:00.002+08:00

Love for Enemies:

" But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies!
Do good to those who hate you.
Bless those who curse you.
Pray for those who hurt you.
If someone slaps you on one cheek then offer the other cheek also...."

Luke 6: 27 New Living Translation

Wowee... I don't know about you, but to me those are really hard words to follow.
Lets put it this way - they can certainly not be described as "first instinct" to me, that's for sure!...

But I can see their merit. What would our world be like if we always acted on first instinct?

... Today this scripture might as well say "for if someone bites you on your cheek then offer the other one" it was that relevant!

You see this morning we had a bit of an 'incident' with Abbie. Another of the children bit her on the cheek and scratched her when she was in kids church....

Now I have been aware of this child's tendency to bully Abbie for the last 6 months because I have seen it with my own eyes on regular occasions. Sometimes I've even had a quiet words to the leaders before a days session so they could just keep an extra look out for potential 'incidents' because it was that regular a problem. But then a few weeks ago I decided I needed to stop doing that because it had been a while since I'd witnessed it and I therefore decided it wasn't fair to the child (or mother of said child) by giving people preconceived ideas about him and also not giving him an opportunity to change.

But then today I arrive to pick Abbie up and get informed of today's more serious 'incident' and I see red. It has been one huge big long week with hardly any sleep and just know that I'm too tired to respond to this in a mature fashion. So instead I turn into Mama Bear and all I feel like doing is strangling that other child for hurting mine!
Yes really!

So anyway what do I do instead?
I dissolve into a bunch of tears and get out of there as fast as I can before I do or say something that I know I will later regret. Because I'm pretty sure that heat of the moment strangling of the other child will not be the answer here! - but that or running seem to be the only two options I have the emotional energy to pull off right now.
Instead I leave it to the leaders who I know will deal with it in a far more rational way, briefly go and talk to some friends to distract myself and quickly head home with tunnel vision (via McDonald's but lets not go there!)

But as I was driving home from church in tears of anger and hurt (and thoughts of violence, as you do when your child has been intentionally hurt by someone), pieces of that scripture from Luke came to mind. I don't have a very good memory (at all) so I just knew that I needed to search for the entire scripture when I got home.

And funnily enough when got home and I did my little search on 'cheek' I found out that these words are in the very same chapter of the Bible that our message in the adults church was inspired from this morning:

Building on Solid Foundation:

" So why do you keep calling me Lord! Lord! when you don't do what I say? I will show you what it's like when someone comes to me, listens to my teaching, and then follows it. It is like a person building a house who digs deep and lays the foundation on solid rock. When the flood waters rise and break against that house, it stands firm because it is well built.
But anyone who hears and doesn't obey is like a person who builds a house without a foundation. When the floods sweep down against that house it will collapse into a heap of ruins. "

Luke 6: 46-49 New Living Translation

The whole of chapter 6: 27 onwards says some pretty challenging (but useful) things about loving your enemies and not judging others actually.

Anyway, the message this morning was ironically inspired from this same chapter and all about building a foundation in your life. Whatever the topic: faith, business, family, friendships etc...
In brief: 'don't rush into things before you have lain a proper foundation'...

So I'm still not 100% sure the conclusion of all of this and why I'm sharing it with you really.
Other than the message that:
While clearly I can't control life and what happens to my children, I can control my own behaviour and how I respond to things. The rest I just have to trust that God will deal with in his timing.
Which then I guess is my cue to "pray for those who hurt me" (or my children) and let God do the rest. And forgive them and move on.

If I focus on doing that, and digging my foundation deep in my life, (in this case the foundations of loving behaviour) then I don't think I can go wrong.
Sure seems a better path than what my alternative decision could have been today anyway ;)...
How bout you?
Can you relate to the Mumma bear instinct?
It's a hard one to move past at times isn't it?!

{Edited to add: Not saying that the child or his Mumma are our enemies AT all... That's the scripture's words not mine. It's nothing against them - I would have felt that angry and hurt (and violent) even if it was one of my closest friends or families child that bit either of my children. It's the first "Mumma bear instinct" to rear it's head in me in that situation whether it's right or not.}

I have a magic ticket....

2012-01-07T20:12:00.002+08:00

So it's no secret that I've had one of these cool wee tickets to Fat Quarterly Retreat London 2012 since they were released...
BUT
There was quite a large part of me that wouldn't let me get too excited about going...
Because while I had a ticket to the event, and had also booked my hotel room, there was the ever so small matter of a plane ticket standing in the way of me getting there!
Oh... and the money to buy said plane ticket at this time of year!! That too...

However, today I get to feel a little like this...

Because thanks to a very unexpected lump sum of money dropping into my account yesterday courtesy of the Australian Family Tax Office {Thank you AFTO I heart thee!!}, that I had no idea I was even entitled to this year, I can finally get excited. Because within an hour of finding out about said money it was already spent and I am now the proud owner of a return ticket for Abbie & I to London!

YEAH BABY - London here we come - officially this time heheheh...

I'm sure your all very very ~~green with envy~~ excited for me, so I just wanted to share the great news ;)

No escaping me now UK peeps, I'm off to stalk you in person LOL

Ok, back to sorting my scraps... it's a hard job but somebody has to do it {Yeah right... loving it!}

PS Totally different topic:
I'm thinking of listing some "pre-cut into usable patchwork sized" scraps in my shop for a low price just to share the love since I have so many scraps & I know lots of people would love a fast injection of lots of different modern prints to their stashes.
- The cost will mostly be to cover part of my time cutting them since it's such a time consuming job...
So far they are sized 5 inch, 4 inch, or 3 inch squares. 3 inch, 2 1/2 inch & 2 inch strips of various lengths. Mostly heavily modern designer patchwork fabric with a small amount of dress weight fabric thrown into the mix.
So if you'd like some then speak up now with what size & colour variety you like & I'll put together a pack and custom listing for you. Feel free to make request of designers or prints you've seen me use too and I'll try and oblige {because I'm nice like that}.

You know you have too many scraps when...

2012-01-06T17:40:00.000+08:00

... if when the kids tip them out they take up your entire sewing room floor
AND
your 3 year old can completely bury herself in them!!

I think it might be time to do some sorting somehow!

Just as well I have a spare rotary cutter blade in my drawer ;)

If you don't hear from me in a while, I'll be playing with my scraps... I have a few ideas of some exciting new scrappy designs.
Yep, that'll be where I'll be :)
(that and trying to get some sleep - one seriously sleep deprived Mumma in the Flutter house right now...)

A few changes...

2012-01-05T15:53:00.002+08:00

You may have noticed a few changes in the last 24 hours as I've been updating my blog look for 2012.

If you are viewing this post in a reader then allow me to give you a preview of my new look....

I hope you will all like the new look as much as I do :)

I have been needing to update my shop look & stock for ages, so I thought I would take this opportunity to also update the look of my blog. Hopefully it will give a very clear impression of the types of things I love & love to make upon first impression...

I will still be pottering away on it over the next wee while, adding things and streamlining everything, so watch this space!

My shop also now bears a new sleeker look going into 2012...

Hopefully a bit more of a general appeal look and a bit less kiddy focussed. Which comes from the fact that I am planning to change my product base up quite a lot and expand from just the children focussed market going forward.

In the off chance that you click on over to have a look at my new shop look then yes well, you may notice a small absence of stock at the moment!... That part is still a work in progress lol...
But the bones are at least now there :)

***

So why all the changes?

Well, I have been doing a lot of thinking over the last couple of months and as a result I have decided to regroup & redefine my goals for both my blog & business going forward.

There were a lot of good things about how I ran my blog & business in 2011, but there are also a lot of ways I know I can improve on them and reduce my work (aka stress load) more. Hopefully this will also increase both my enjoyment and profit margin along with that...
You know the saying - "work smarter not harder" and all that...

(Plus I need to afford to get to London for fat quarterly retreat somehow aye girls ;) )

So here are a few of the changes I am planning to make:

** I am planning to do less one-off, personalised work on a weekly basis, and instead sew/make more of what I enjoy and sell those instead (facebook, website & markets).
- I still plan do do the larger run personalised jobs as usual, just not as many small one-offs that's all.

** Over the next year I am also planning to move more into the boutique market scene and so far I have scheduled 7-8 market booths already with another 1-2 additional to that possible.

But... the major change (and probably the only one that you will notice) is...

** I would like to focus more this year on teaching and growing my sewing school. - I love taking my classes & writing tutorials and get so much satisfaction from helping others learn to craft!

- However; this is one area that has required some major changes to help everything happen for me as it needs to...
So, while I still plan to continue with doing regular free tutorials, I have decided that it is now time to start charging for some of my patterns too....
I'm sure you can appreciate that I invest a huge amount of time the writing of these, and it is with that consideration that I will now be listing a couple of patterns for sale going forward that have been previously available for free on my blog as tutorials.
I really hope you understand!

So, you may also notice a new icon over to the right of my blog...

That is the link to my very first pattern available for purchase.

This pattern is now available for instant download. As soon as payment is finalised you should receive a link with a unique download code to go and download your very detailed pattern.

The pattern has been upgraded considerably from the free tutorial. It now offers professional writing and the Flutter from.Kat professional brand look. It also now has much higher quality digitally drawn pattern pieces included!

On this note,
I have also taken down my free scrappy zipper pouch tutorial.

I plan to release this as a pattern in my shop very soon, only this time with the addition of 3-4 different size & style variations included along with the pattern instructions.

Don't panic though, the rest of my free tutorials are safe!!
- Those are the only two I am planing to now redo as patterns in my shop.

And I hope that you'll agree with me that the price tag offered is very fair. I would be interested to hear your feedback on that.

** I also have a huge amount of new stock scheduled to go live in the coming month. As well as plans for half a dozen never seen before Flutter from.Kat patterns to be available for purchase over the next couple of months.
So I'll keep you posted as and when those all happen.

As for my blog, I would just like to assure you that there are no other major changes planned here. You may notice a few (relevant) paid display advertisements pop in the right hand column at some stage shortly, but with the exception of those I plan to continue here in the exactly the same tone, frequency and fashion as before. No real change there!

The only other thing to let you know that very temporarily (hopefully), as I implement all the above changes and continue with my regular workload and commitments, I may not be able to reply to your comments as I normally do.
Please know though that as always I really value you taking the time to comment and give me your feedback!
I hope to be back in full answering function as soon as I can!! :)

Look forward to hearing your thoughts

I have a new toy, I have a new toy!!

2012-01-04T11:56:00.000+08:00

And the best thing about it is that (for a change) it didn't break the bank!! :)

Meet my new toy:

Heh heh heh, I bet you're like - WOW that's SO exciting Kat!

Ok, ok... let me zoom out a bit then...

Better?
No idea what it is?

Well - my new toy, (thanks to kind obliging handyman husband) is:
a light box for taking photos of my products & creations.
Yeah I'm excited!

Mini-studio lighting has been on my "want" list for like forever. Ever since I bought my new camera really. Except the ones I wanted are just so expensive that I stopped looking.
But I was browsing blogs the other day and came across someone making their own out of a cardboard box. Ingenious I tell you!!
- The verdict of their home made light box:
Great lighting result = great photos = their spend - $30
Sweet!!!

So I emailed Neil the link and it's been on his to-do list ever since. (Yes I know I could have made it myself - but it's right up his alley, so thought he might like to do it for me - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it ;).)

Anyway we (he) decided to go 1 better than a cardboard box, because we had a second hand Ikea wire drawer unit kicking around the shed that we weren't using and bought ages ago off a friend for a few dollars. So, in the absence of a cardboard box suitably big enough we used that instead.

It also has the added benefit of being on wheels, hopefully sturdy enough to withstand my "helpers" helping (because I'm pretty sure cardboard would have lasted 5 minutes!) and strong enough to able to hang things off of it - bonus!

{Neil would like me to note here that he did have to "butcher" the drawer slides off the sides of the unit - so it's not something we'll be able to use for drawers again without some serious remodification. - Just in case you were pondering doing the same thing...}

The board at the bottom which makes up the "ground" of the box is a shelf we also had kicking around the shed.... No cost
The lining of the roof & walls is interfacing that I already had in my stash (which happened to be THE perfect width - how's that for meant to be)... No cost
The lining of the back (behind the white backdrop) is cut from a cardboard box... No cost
The backdrop is the bit of cut up white sheet left over from when I made my fabric protector curtain... No cost
The tape & pegs used, all on hand!... No cost

All free so far!! :)

So that brings us to the cost part...

3 x multi directional/adjustable lamps - $7 each from Kmart.
(Not a bad price for these lights I have to say - gotta love Kmart!)

4 x daylight bulbs (they only came in 2 packs) - $12 each pack.

Total spend: $45

Not bad!!

The most expensive part were the daylight bulbs...
- and I couldn't really get out of buying those since they were kind of the key to the whole thing!

Here are some of my preliminary shots (with no computer editing other than resize gadget) and taken with my 55mm lens...

If they appear grainy, that's just because of my resize gadget. But I do need to organise a tripod next too. Shame I just had my birthday and Christmas !

I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with it though!!!
I haven't really had time to try it out properly yet, but the majority of the above shots were taken at night!

In the end we didn't use the tute but did it from memory after I did a google search and looked at about a billion of them. It's seriously not that hard... You can probably figure it out for yourself by looking at my photos if you want to make yourself a new fun toy too :)
And if in doubt I'm sure you are capable of doing your own google search ;)

Hope you're ready to be bombarded with photos using my light box over the next wee while, because that is probably going to be what you are getting LOL...

My Quilt-As-You-Go Process - A tutorial (of sorts)...

2012-01-02T23:05:00.001+08:00

Aka to make one of these....

Firstly an apology - sorry to those people I promised this tute to weeks ago!
- What can I say... I've been busy sewing & enjoying a lovely Christmas & the holidays...
Ok when you put it like that I'm not that sorry at all....
All I can say is better late than never right ;) LOL

I first came across QAYG blocks and the technique over at Rita's Red Pepper Quilts blog very shortly after I'd started sewing. Being new to sewing, and recognising that while I'd LOVE to do a big quilt, I really couldn't see me ever having the courage to do it, couple with the fact that I loved the scrappy look of the blocks she was making, I thought this idea was genius! She had made them using a tute over it at Penny from Sewtakeahike's blog.
So naturally I clicked over to have a nosey, as you do, and low and behold but Penny was having a quilt along. Cue me making this quilt here using Penny's technique exactly....

You can read all about it here... and here...

A technique which I totally love and that I've used over and over and over for SOOOO many different projects (e.g. my scrappy pouch tute you can see down the right hand side).

But after making an entire queen sized quilt using that technique, I knew from experience that it takes a LONG time.
And a LOT of stamina.
(And a LOT of thread)
Since I didn't have a lot of the first 2 requirements and I already go through about 1000m of thread per week at times, I made an executive decision and do it slightly diffferently this time.

- I decided to instead make the entire block first and then quilt them to the wadding after the block was already made.
{Ok, lets be honest - I decided to invite my bloggy friends to make the blocks for me so that I could totally tap into my ultimate laziness reserves. But lets not get too technical heheheh....}
Then I also figured that I could quilt it in any which way I liked.

You could use this method to quilt any kind of block, it doesn't have to be a log cabin block, it just so happens that I really like log cabins and decided to make another one but this time just using colour.
{Tutorial here if you're interested in making scrappy log cabins too}

So here is the method which I use to Quilt as you Go (QAYG). It has pros and cons like any other method, but in my (humble) opinion I think the pro's far outweigh the cons and I know without a shadow of a doubt that I will go on to use it time and again. Because it is manageable!

In which case here we go, let's get started!:

Step 1: Make your quilt blocks...
As already stated, you can make pretty much any block design and size block you like to do QAYG. So off you go and make enough of whichever blocks are floating your boat right now ;)

Log cabins do work out to be convenient though, because it's best that you make your blocks slightly bigger than you require for your final size and trim them down after they are quilted. So log cabins are easy to do this to without spending much time fluffing about measuring...
- I wanted my final blocks to measure 15 inches cut, so I just made made sure that each block measured very comfortably over 15 inches. You don't want to be too scrimpy because you will potentially lose some size when you quilt. So it is really best to make them bigger.

K, made all your blocks? Lets move on...

Step 2: Time to baste your blocks...
Once you have all your blocks made, or the first batch or whatever, then it's time to baste them to your wadding of choice. I spray basted them to make the process even more ~~lazy~~ quick, but I guess you could also pin them. In fact I didn't even baste the last 5 and that seamed to work ok too, but shhhh don't tell anyone I said so ;).

It's pretty easy to spray baste if you've never done it before (as long as you don't mind the smell) - take a bunch of quilt batting outside to a surface you don't mind spraying on & follow the manufacturers directions for your spray baste. You don't need that much...

I laid a bunch out upside down on a huge piece of batting, sprayed them all and then flipped them over one by one, leaving a border of batting of at least an inch around each block...

Yes I have a child slave. She's very well looked after though :)

** Note;
In other tutorials I have read they recommend using a lightweight quilters muslin as a back to your blocks when you are quilting them. I guess this just makes it a lot tidier for your machine so that the batting fluff doesn't mess it up.
But since I'm a) cheap and b) lazy I didn't bother with putting a backing on the blocks for either of my QAYG quilts while I was quilting them and instead just opted for quilting with just the top block & the batting underneath it.
But just be warned that if you decide to also forgo this step (like me) then it will make your machine more fluffy & require cleaning slightly more regularly.
It's really not that big a deal though - I just made sure I gave my machine a little brush out every time I changed the bobbin and then every 3-4 changes I took my bobbin holder out (top loading) and cleaned it a bit more thoroughly.
You would need to oil it at this point too if your machine is one that requires oiling.

Once your blocks are all basted (& the back is on if you are using the muslin option), then you roughly cut around the blocks leaving the batting at least 1 inch bigger than your block.
No need to be neat when you are trimming because as stated we will trim them down soon! Just hack it up baby ;)

Step 3: Quilting your blocks...
Now we should have a nice stack of piles to quilt, you can get busy quilting...
You can quilt your blocks any which way you desire at this point whether that be straight line or free motion.
I choose to quilt mine using straight lines - half the blocks I quilted the lines going vertically & half I quilted horizontally so that I could lay them out like a checker board when putting it all together and it wouldn't matter that none of my lines matched up. Smart huh ;)

I did not measure or mark my lines, and I did not do them evenly spaced. This IS after all a scrappy quilt that I was making right?! So I just lined my presser foot up and used the edge for a guide (but their was quite a large gap between the side of the presser foot & the fabric edge. Then I used that line as a guide and just placed the lines at random intervals and so on... too easy. My lines probably varied from 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inches apart.
I know that probably gives some of you shivers down your spine at the thought of potentially "wonky" lines, but I'm going more with the term "organic" and it really suited the style of the quilt I was making.

Close up of my quilting:

See how the block at the bottom (green strip) has vertical lines & the dog block has horizontal. And that's what I mean by they are not evenly spaced... I just did what suited each block/fabric print.

Sorry I didn't take any photos of the actual quilting part, because I thought you could do your own thing.
- If you want to see my ~~lazy~~ fast turn style of qayg quilting (as in I do one line, lift my needle, spin the block & go back down in the opposite direction) then you can see it in more detail in the beginning of this post here. (Although just remember we're doing the entire block at once this time, not one piece at a time - but the turn part of the quilting is the same)

Quilting done? Yeah!
Time to cut them down to size...

Step 4: Trimming...

Lay your ruler over your block in place you think works best.
Cut it down to size (in my case 15 inches)...

Done. Too easy.

Now, I was cutting mine down to 15 inches using a 15 inch ruler, so it was pretty easy to figure out just by turning my mat and leaving the ruler in place. But you can easily do the same without a square ruler, you'll just have to use the guides on your mat...

Stand back and admire your tidy looking block :)

Step 5: Making your layout & preparing them to join together...

Find a spot on the floor big enough lay your blocks out in your desired layout.

Once you are sure you have them laid out where you want them, take a bunch of pins, a pen and a bunch of small paper. You will need as many pieces of paper as you have rows.

Number your pieces of paper 1 to whatever (as in whatever number is the total number of rows you've made - in my case 7) and pin them to the far left blocks, starting at the top and working down, number each block.

Now we need to collect them up into piles...

Start at the bottom (although it doesn't really matter) and place the far left block that you have numbered on top of the one to it's right.

Then pick up both of those blocks and place them on top of the 3rd block in that row...
Pick up all 3 of those blocks and place them on the fourth...
etc...
etc...
until you have them all in a nice neat pile with the row number on top.

Do the same for each row until you have (whatever amount of) all your piles stacked up nicely with their numbers on top.

Step 6: Joining the blocks into rows...

My numbered piles all ready to be sewn together

Take your first two blocks. Lay them right sides together and join them together on the right hand side of the first block (so that when you open them back out again they are in the correct order) with a 1/2 inch (or bigger) seam.
{You want to make the seam a little more generous than the usual 1/4 inch just to give it more strength.}

Add the 3rd block to the right hand side of the second blockand so on and so on until you have your row completely sewn together.

This is why it is important to work left to right, because the bulk of your blocks is always to the left and you don't end up having to squeeze them all through the arm of your machine. Magic!

Once you have finished piecing your rows t~~hrow them all on the floor~~ Gently fold them up and place them nicely on the floor or hang them over the back of a chair ;) and start on the next row, until you have all 7 rows pieced together...

Heheh this picture is taken after I've already ironed them actually - up until then the chuck them on the floor bit - that's me - but shhhh don't tell ;)

... You need to prepare them next for sewing together by ironing the seams open...

Now usually I'm a "press-to-the-sider" (sheer laziness because it's faster), but this is definitely a time when you want to press the seams open! As pictured...

** Note: I've found that irons & batting don't traditionally like each other much in my experience - even my 100% cotton batting tends to get a little "grippy" with my iron, so you might want to do a little test first before you power away here and wreck your iron. Especially if you're not using natural fibres!

My way to overcome this is to fill my iron up as full as I can with water & press the steam jet button continuously as I go, moving rapidly but blasting those babies with steam to set the seam open... I find that method works for me.
Otherwise you could try oven proof paper? I just don't like that option as much because it just adds more fiddlyness and I couldn't see what I was doing.
Your call... Just be aware of the potential "sticking" problems that's all.

Step 7: Joining the rows together to make the top...

First let me say here that I'm not a 'pinner'. So if you are then insert your own pinning option here as necessary ;)

Take either rows 1 & 2 or rows 6 & 7 and place them on top of each other right sides together. Line up the edged and also line up the seams of the first blocks so that they nest nicely on top of each other.
Sew them together using a 1/2 inch seam again.
I find that if I hold my first seam together with my right hand, then use my left to guide, then my seams match up nicely. I just stop just after each one and nest the next seams together, now holding those ones and so on (if that makes any sense...)

nesting my seams...

Once you have sewn those two together then add the next row to those 2 and so on until you've sewn half of your rows together.
Then work on sewing the other half together.
Once you have sewn all of those half then you can sew those two halves together to finish your entire top.
{Just makes it less heavy that way!}

Righto, go have fun with your steam jets again and steam the other seams all open.
So it should look roughly like this...

ooops spot the mistake in my quilting? Two blocks next to each other with vertical lines... tut tut tut Kat.
I left it there. - Life goes on...

{just do me a favour and try not to burn yourself with all the steam - it might take some of the pleasure out of the finish ;) )

Step 8: Basting....

This is where you throw everything you've ever learnt about basting a quilt out the window...
- The whole taping the back to the floor and laying the batting then the top down on it rigmarole that is.
Yep the basting of this quilt could not be more straight forward, but we are going to break the norm and pin from the back.
Really - not a typo... - we really truly pin from the back.

So lay your quilt top down on the floor right side down, with all your seams at the top.

You shouldn't need to tape it or anything, it has enough weight & we are only pinning together 2 layers and that one finds itself hard to wrinkle, so no worries there.
Place your quilt back over the top, right side up (so you should have wrong sides together).

Because we are only stitching in the ditch around the blocks this is why you can pin from the back; because if we are careful about where we place our pins then we don't have to remove any of them as we quilt, but it's easier to smooth out the back really nice (since the front is already smooth and quilted ;) )

I pin about 3 inches in from each corner. So that's 4 pins per 15 inch block...
Starting in the middle place a pin in each corner (but not too close to where you can feel the seams) taking care to smooth out the back really smooth as you go.

Continue to that to each block, smoothing the back as smooth as you can by pushing all the wrinkles out to the edges.

Mine looks a little more wrinkled than it should simply because I've had two "helpers" dancing all over it!
But it's tight, trust me.

Step 9: Stitching in the ditch...

Now we want to secure our two layers together by stitching in the ditch around the blocks. So start in one of the middle ditches and sew down the ditch all the way from top to bottom.

(Really missing big Brother right about now since Miss Pfaff has a smaller arm on her! But we got there and she did well! :))

Do the next ditch along, and the next one etc... until you're at the edge (I don't go down the outside edge though because it's more work don'tcha know and the binding will see to that anyway... ;) )

Then turn your quilt around and starting in the middle do all the ditches on the other side.

Once you've finished all the ditches vertically (or horizontally) then turn your quilt and do the opposite ditches.
You should end up with nice big squares on the back like this...

I bet at this point, if you are making a huge quilt like I did, that you will be extremely pleased you only have to quilt a few of these lines because you did QAYG!! LOL...

Once you've done all the ditches the back will look like this:

Hopefully these are enough - it's a bit hard to capture the back...

So as you can see the back is very plain compared to the front. Which I know some see as not idea. But for me it's perfect as a bed quilt because it's so much more smooth against my skin and I sleep better. And really, how often do you look at the back?

Step 10: Securing the middle of each block...

Traditionally when people make these, they also secure the middle of the block in some fashion.
I've seen that some people tie the middle. - I have no experience in that sorry so you'll have to do your own research there... :)

For my first one I decided to free motion a little heart in the centre(ish) (in other words wherever it best fit each block) to anchor it in the middle. That worked fine...

Can kind of see one of my free-motion hearts in the middle there...

However for my cheeky quilt I haven't yet done anything to anchor the middle. Because at the time I assembled it my main sewing machine was in the shop being fixed and I wasn't confident enough to do free motion on my back up machine. But you know what - I actually find it fine without that little anchor. So far I don't know if I'm going to add anything.

So see how you go, you might decide you don't need to either.

Step 11: Bind as you normally would...

Here is where it reverts back to "normal" if you would, and you can go ahead and bind in whatever fashion you'd normally do.
For me that was raiding my scrap bin for any strips of 2.5inches wide and making a scrappy binding. Except I made WAY too much because I was too lazy to do the math. (But as it happened I had the perfect amount left over to bind this quilt, so all was not lost).

I'll put a tute up of how I do my machine binding soon (next time I bind something and remember to take photos as I go no doubt ;)) for those that have asked me for it.

Step 12: Stand back and admire the fact that you made a huge big quilt and quilted it all by yourself...

Go you!!

Frequently asked questions:

Won't the seams feel bulky doing it this way?
Well if you compare it to a traditional quilt, then yes, they do slightly. If you run your hand down your seam then you will notice a slight raise, but I find that you really do have to go looking for them. I bet unless I told you that my two quilts were QAYG then you wouldn't pick it from just looking at the top (obviously if you saw the plain back you'd be like - hey, what the?).
But I imagine it would also depend on the wadding/batting you use. Mine is not particularly high loft. Nor low. Probably medium loft 100% cotton batting. So I'd just recommend that you didn't use a really high loft one...

Does the back feel really loose & gape?
You can pull the layers apart from each other if you try to, especially if you don't anchor the middle like I didn't in my second. But otherwise I have found that they still have just as nice a drape and I don't even notice it. It will also depend on what sized blocks you do as well, mine are pretty massive!

If you think that this will potentially bother you though then you could always add another line of stitching down the middle of each block in each direction so that you have smaller quilted squares. I'm sure that will eliminate much of that potential gape yet still be reasonably easy to finish on your domestic machine while maintaining a densely quilted front.

Will it fall apart more easily?
Well I guess again part of that will depend on your construction & the quality of your materials used ;). By using a 1/2 inch seam to sew the blocks together I have not found any problems whatsoever.
I used the first quilt I made on my bed for an entire year, with regular washing since most of that time we didn't use a top sheet due to hot weather. And it has held up perfectly fine from a block aspect.
{Although I must admit that a couple of the seams on the blocks on my first quilt have come away from each other over time - but that will be more to do with my wonky sewing because I was just learning at the time and probably couldn't sew a straight seam ;) - That could happen with any type of quilt! LOL}

Hmm... that's all I can remember for now, but I'll update this with any that you ask after this post :)

I hope you enjoy!
As always if you try this technique I'd love to see and admire your project!! :)

Take care

My Mother will be proud...

2012-01-02T09:40:00.001+08:00

Either that or have a fit of the horrors... But to be honest I'm having a hard time deciding which LOL...
Let me explain...

My Mother and I are very different. She is a "keeper" and I am a "giver-away-er/minimalist".
Mum likes to keep everything sentimental to her, or anything that might have a future use. (Which is a lot)
And I like to run with the minimum possible.
I find it cleansing to throw/give things away. (Not everything. But a lot)
Growing up Mum would never let me throw anything away. Which used to drive me absolutely bonkers!
It's only now that I'm an adult am I starting to really appreciate it though.
Because I periodically can "raid" my special things from her house that she's kept of mine from when I grew up (usually the stuff that didn't get past her when I was trying to purge my stuff).

Haha, yes, I just admitted that you can be right Mum... don't let it go to your head ;)

Anyway... having 2 small children & a husband who has some mildish hoarder tendancies, obviously I'm not in full control of how much stuff we have;
But it drives me CRAZY when my cupboards are not tidy or start to get full to bursting and when I can't see clearly what I have. Or it's not organised into some kind of usable system.
It literally makes me grumpy and feel weighed down if I have so much stuff that I don't even know what I've got, or can't FIND what I've got when I want to.
I get it from my grandmother.
Possibly grandmothererS.
(Not the grumpy part Nana, - just the tidy part LOL ;))

Now I'm not saying that I'm not sentimental.
I am.
More so now than I've probably ever been. But I just find that I need to put limits on that and what I keep. Especially as we move so often.
It's just not possible to keep everything!

This week (you may have guessed from my "other girl" post) we are having a big clean out. We've lived in this house for nearly 2 years, gone through a lot of growth (literally - having another baby kind of growth!) and it has been getting a bit full to the brim. Especially Neil's shed (aka the dump zone).
So we have been culling.

And in my cleaning out I found a box of my favourite clothes that I'd kept from when the girls were small babies. This is EXACTLY the thing that I am sentimental about. I have given away the majority of their things, but I have saved all my/our favourites and these particular ones I could never part with them.

But it's a box of clothes taking up valuable space in my cupboard!
And they are essentially items that will be unusable for the next 25 years, assuming even that my girls ever have baby girls themselves! That's a long time to hold onto them.

So what's a girl to do but turn them into something usable...
aka cut them up and make them into a quilt. (Sorry if that gives you the guffaws!).

May I present to you my first completed project of 2012 - our "Happy-Snuggles" quilt...

Ooops - need a taller person holding it up so that you can see it in its full glory...

"Ohhhh Mr Fluuuuuutttttteeerrrrrr....."

That's better!...

I'm not sure who loves it most, me or the girls...

Yes, obviously I have a love for pink, blue & green LOL...

I have to admit that this was the hardest and least enjoyable quilt that I've ever made!...
Both technically and emotionally...
Despite my desire to have a memory quilt that I can stare at with pleasure AND my desire to not have boxes of "unusable stuff" hanging around in my cupboards, it was still incredibly hard to cut these precious clothes up.
Very very hard.

I was also extremely scared that I'd stuff it up and regret it, especially never having made a memory quilt before, or quilted with these kinds of fabrics. They're not the easiest to work with and there are no second chances!

But once I'd got over that and got going it didn't take me that long.
It was a complete pain in the neck (the front & back were both stretch thanks to fleece and knit fabrics - WHAT a complete pain to baste & to quilt!!)
But it was fast, so that's something.

It is however the quilt most full of love & memories, and by far the snuggliest quilt that I've ever made.
All the well-washed stretch knits on the front make for such a soft soft finish, and I used fleece on the back for full snuggle effect. This time I didn't use any batting since I was using fleece, because I thought it would be too hot for our climates here otherwise.

It contains clothes such as:
The outfits I bought the girls home in the hospital in.
Clothes my Mum, Neil's Mum, our Sisters-in-laws or I have bought for the girls.
(I think there's only one piece of clothing in there that wasn't gifted by family).
The first personalised t-shirts I ever made for the girls.
Clothes we bought on Hannah's first trip to England (we found clothes much cheaper there so stocked up a bit)

And it's the first quilt I've ever made that has snaps, a zipper, sequins, buttons, lace applique, ruffles, textile vinyl, lots of pockets, denim and stretch knit on!

If you don't count the backing then it's the first quilt I've made entirely from recycled materials too...

So there you have it, the first quilt completed yesterday on the first day of the year -
I started the year as I plan to continue... sewing that is! Heheh
Don't you just love fast projects!!

I've told Hannah that this is now going to be our "happy-snuggles" quilt and that it has super special "happy special powers" to cheer us up when we feel blue. She took me so literally and could not wait to have her first snuggle when she fell over and hurt herself just literally as I finished it...

My Mum bought Hannah that "I replaced the dog" onesie when we moved to Aussie and had to leave our dogs behind. It was a little bit of a sore spot at the time but looking back on it it's pretty funny so it had to be included in there! LOL...

So I'd say that that there makes all the conquering of "sewing with knit" fear and pain of trying to quilt that mother worth it! - Daddy cuddles and a new quilt, what could make a 3 year old any more happy - Bless!
One I'm sure that we'll be enjoying for a lifetime to come...

***

Oh a side note I've had people ask me (regularly) how I find time to craft and also especially how I find time to take photos during daylight while looking after the kids.
Well to be honest I don't find it that hard - the secret is to including them and making it fun....

Wanna see what really goes on behind the scenes at our "photoshoots"?
(Unbeknownst to me Mr Flutter went a little snap happy. I'm not used to not being the photographer...)

wow go the crazy hair!

Yep there you have it - my simple secret is that we get very silly together in amongst getting the "serious" shots ;)

Ok finished my ramble now... I think maybe I should make another new years resolution of trying to make my blog post shorter ;) haha...
The curse of being able to touch type LOL

Sunday Snippet - Starting the new year off anew...

2012-01-01T02:00:00.000+08:00

Have you ever taken offence?

Maybe about something someone said or did that you didn't like?
Maybe you hardened yourself and became angry toward them...?

Ever stewed it over in your brain, turning it round,
and around and around and around,
Until it expands a little,
Distorts itself slightly,
And makes itself at home in your thinking?

Has it ever kept you awake at night?
Granted you a little more bitterness than you once had?

I know I have!
I've sure taken offence...
And not just once either.
(I know, so surprising right?! ;) )

Sometimes I've taken offence at the littlest things, said or done unintentionally
that I have perceived to be said/done against me.
Sometimes with "justification", against intentional wrongs people have done towards me.

It's hard not to at times like those especially isn't it?
When you have 'good reason'...
Yes, oh so hard not to harden your heart
Your thinking
Your life!

It doesn't really matter which one of the above caused the offence though;
Even if the wrong was done intentionally, it still doesn't make taking offence right.
Or healthy.
Or in any way good for us.

Last term my church did a study in our study groups called "The bait of Satan" by John Bevere.
It's a bit of a sharp title isn't it.
I know - I must admit that the title took me back a bit at first, and didn't immediately make itself obvious about what it was about. So I was very sceptical that it would be for me...
So if that's also you then allow me to share with you what it's about;
Because it turned out that it couldn't be more relevant to me!

The series is all about taking offence.
The offence itself being "the bait of Satan".
John Bevere goes on to explain that offence is a trap
A snare

Offence pulls us away from other people
Saps our love for them
Thereby sapping our love for God.
Because God is love.

But despite whether you believe in God or not, I'm sure that you will be able to agree with me that
Nothing good (or holy) can come from an offence!

***

I needed that little reminder again tonight.
I'm not going to lie - it is a lesson I need to learn over
and over.
Because I write this to you at 3.30 am after lying here stewing in bed for the last hour,
Churning over an offence.
Playing it around and around in my angry little head
And making it bigger than it really was...
Letting it stop me from oh so precious sleep!

Then I prayed and instantly it lifted.
God directed me straight to a verse in the Bible which set me free from my churning
and humbled me immediately.

And then he also made me realise that I had taken offence!
I had fallen into the trap,
The trap of which nothing good can come!

So I felt compelled to share this with you today.
Not the short, light, airy post I had planned for today - I guess I will have to reschedule that now until next week. (the suspense will kill you I'm sure ;) );
But I felt that this message, despite it's heaviness, could not be more relevant to the new year;
Since it is the start of a fresh chapter in the book of lives and all;
The chance to move forward renewed and unabated.
(Or should that be una'baited'. - Yes, I'm going to be that corny ;) )

So I ask you this;
Are you also holding onto an offence?
Because if so then please, do me a favour and don't let it eat you alive like mine almost did.
The only person that will suffer will be you.

My prayer to you in this New Year is that you can be set free from past offence,
That you can make peace with your 'offenders' and
That you are able to start the year off with a pure, clean heart.

Then I have no doubt that 2012 will be your year!

Happy New Year Everyone :)

(And sorry that it was a little heavy today - but I felt that it needed to be said today of all days...)

PS you can watch all of the videos of "The bait of Satan" free on you tube if you would like to. They are well worth watching!

2011 in Review...

2011-12-31T21:37:00.002+08:00

Wow what a year 2011 was!

To be honest I am pretty astonished by how far I've come in 12 short months!
There have been times of celebration and times of heartache, but overall 2011 was a good year.
I certainly cannot deny that I grew over the year
A lot!
In fact I think in many ways I have blossomed.
- I certainly feel like I know myself and am comfortable with the direction I'm heading, more than ever before.
And that in itself feels like the best achievement of the year!

On a personal level 2011 was one of my hardest years yet.
Living without Neil for so much of the year while parenting 2 really little ones so far from home was not for the faint hearted.
But I survived it. And I am stronger for this!
It gets easier every day as the girls grow from dependent babies into little independent people in their own right.

On a creative level 2011 was a-MAZ-ing!
I feel like I've surpassed any expectations I might have had in the beginning of what I could achieve this year, and I'm definitely happy with what I've achieved!
Quite astonished as a matter of fact.
So that can only be good right?

In the first week of January 2011 I set myself some extremely large goals on the creative front - 52 projects in 52 weeks. The main aim to really push myself to learn more and more. I had a list of things that I wanted to learn all floating around in my head, and this was supposed to be the motivator to aid me in achieving it. Or keep me accountable anyway.
But it didn't take me long to work out that the weekly structure was more a stress than it was an encouragement. I was starting to feel a little bit deflated about it, which was pretty silly considering that I had actually achieved a lot I set out to - just not in the "format" I originally intended.

So by July it was time to reassess and I decided to set myself free from the weekly pressure that "show & tell Fridays" had become & just work off a list instead.

There is still a LOT on my list that I haven't touched, but to be honest most of that has been by choice. They are kind of things that I'd like to do "one day" and it will take me a lot longer than a year to get through all of them. It needs updating as well, to check off what I've achieved since July, but to be quite honest that can wait for another day because I SOOOO can't be bothered right now LOL...
Admin - ick.

But I can see my progress by putting it all in a mosaic, so that's a pretty powerful visual illustrator that I've achieved a lot of what I set out to...

My 2011 Quilts:

Actually I realised that I missed at least one off this list, if not more. But oh well.
Quite a few less than 2010, but I think the reason for that becomes pretty apparent when I look at how much other sewing I've achieved this year... and that was my main priority for 2011 - to learn to sew other things...

That's not even close to all of it either because I reached the maximum number of photos allowable of 32 and can't be bothered making another one as well LOL...
That's also not counting all my sewing for business... There was an awful lot of that too, most of which never even gets photographed.

So all I have to say to myself is sheesh! Not a bad effort!

All this leaves me wondering what to aim for in 2012.
I know a few things from my last July list that I want to focus on too. Particularly the hand paper piecing and hand stitching ones. Also to work more on my free motion quilting as well.

But on top of that there are so many goals I'd like to achieve with my blog & business in 2012.
To name a few:
** Look into some sponsorship on my blog, because lets face it - any extra income to help fund this ~~addiction~~ love of fabric is good by me ;)
** Continue doing tutorials regularly - because I love to learn & help others learn too.
** Release some patterns for sale in my shop
** Redesign & refocus my shop look & products to more suit where I'm wanting to aim with it
** Finally get all my products online to my shop
** Put more effort into growing my business now that Hannah will be in school part time.
** Grow Blankets of Love & have more ready to donate to the hospital by April.

I've also decided to reduce my commitment to swaps in the coming year. It is time to sew more for my family & myself. And plus I'll need to if I want to achieve all these other things ;)

All I can say is that I can't wait to get sewing with you all in 2012.
You all inspire me so much!
If only I could now reign in my brain a wee bit to focus more intently on what I want to start next ;)
I'm definitely having a dose of craft ADD now that I've finished all my large projects for now.

Bring on 2012 :)

The "Working Away" Life... A Time & Motion Study - 2nd Edition...

2011-12-30T11:57:00.001+08:00

A few days ago I alluded to the fact that we (Mr Flutter & I) have a lot going on right now. So I thought it was time for me to "diary" a little of it...
- of what exactly has been stressing us out and keeping us in suspense.
(I also don't want anyone to get the wrong impression about how we are as a couple ;) )

Image

Back in May I posted a diary entry with the details of our "fly in fly out" lifestyle. Because I regularly talk about or allude to the fact that Neil works away all the time, but only in snippets. So it was time to finally share the whole story - not just the fact Neil works away but why he does so...
(In brief we moved over here for the money, so we could afford to live on one income while I stay home with the kids & he is currently working away doing a 4 year electrical apprenticeship. So we've been staying in and 'surviving' the working away lifestyle for that - to get his trade certificate!).

I went on to share how I was with it all - I was a bit of a mess at the time really,
I think you'll agree!

Image

But I am so relieved to say that I'm not that same mess today!!!
Shortly after writing that post, as part of my 'survival plan' as you will, I finally gave in to my resistance and I went on anti-depressants/anti-anxiety meds.
They helped. Big time!
So much so that I thought I was ready to come off them before I actually was.
Bad idea!

As it stands today (although things can change - don't get me started on that fact!) Neil is scheduled to finish his apprenticeship in February.
After Christmas he has 3 more weeks working away and then he comes home to sit his exams.
Then we get to choose whether he continues to work away or not.
That means that the end is in sight folks - it is so close that we can actually reach out and touch it!
Yeah!
We couldn't be more excited!

So with this in mind, and the fact that I have been doing really well in myself recently, the Monday before Christmas I came off the meds again. And this time I'm pretty sure it will be for real.
So far so good anyway.

Many would lecture me that it was completely bonkers to go off my meds just before Christmas. And they would probably be right. But for me it was the perfect time...
** I am on holiday, ** I have no pressures, ** Mr Flutter is home,
** It is summer. - According to my doctor that in itself makes a big difference.
** And I have so much to look forward to in the coming year to hopefully keep me on track if I falter.

So I did. I came off them. And apart from the physical withdrawals for the first few days, (making me feel giddy, nauseous, tired and yuck), it hasn't been too bad. Dragon Mumma has had her moments in the limelight, but luckily they've been fleeting... And pretty manageable.
Insecure Mumma has also had her moments. But lets face it, that's life. And besides, she never really was far away while on the meds anyway...

So what is the point of telling you all this?!
The point is that this *almost finish* comes with it's own questions and quandries.
NOW we get to decide what to do next...

Image

Does he stay with his current company, who look after him very well, and recognise his potential, but will require him to stay working away??
Does he move to another company on a short & family friendly fly-in-fly-out roster??
Does he try and find a job locally??
Or the big one - now we will soon have no ties to Perth, do we actually want to stay here and get settled in for the long haul, or is it time to move back closer to one of our family's?!

Not much to think about at all really, is there?
Much!

Image

But here's the kicker - we can't actually do anything yet.
- we aren't in a position to make any decisions yet, we can still only wonder!
February may be so close that we can almost reach out and touch it, but there is still January standing in the way!
So all we can do for the moment is send these scenarios
around and around and around and around and around
in our poor tired brains and exhaust every idea humanly possible.
(Exhausting it really can be!)
And pray.

So there you have it, that is our journey.
So close, yet still so far.
But the main factors are at least now there;
I am good mentally, he is good mentally and we couldn't be better together.

The rest will come.
We just have to be patient.
Never.ever. my strong suit!!

Wish us luck...

The "Other Girl"...

2011-12-29T11:58:00.001+08:00

Image

The "Other girl" came to visit me today...

She came in a suitcase, long packed away in dark corners
Forgotten but not yet gone.

With her she bought memories of days past
Sharp black suits.
Crisp white shirts.
The click of high heels coming out of an elevator.
The swirl of perfume in the air.
Manicured hands.
Made up face.
Red lipstick.

The girl tells me about her life,
The travel.
The job.
The money.
Business lunches.
Parties.
Client meetings.

How confident she feels on her path.
All she wants to achieve in her career.
How full her bank account is and all she can do with it.

She tells me she knows what she wants.
Where she is going.
How to get there.
She is so self assured.
Ambitious.
Goal driven.

So I decide to try on her clothes to experience her good life.
- But they don't fit.
Even if I suck in my breath, I can no longer squeeze into
That sharp black suit
That life.
- My life of colour too big for her suit
My barefoot days unsuitable for her heels

I try on her white shirt,
But it is not crisp on me.
White is not a colour I know.
The colour of spilt juice, and food smears - now those I know!

I do not know the feeling of self assuredness she emits.
I question everything I do.
All day long.
I only know the feeling of a child's hand in mine.
Two innocent eyes looking up at me with love saying
"Mummy, I love you so much. I'm so proud of you."
A husbands warm embrace.
Those are my assurance.

Her perfume makes me sneeze a little.
I am only used to the smells of this home.
Not always pleasant smells.
But comfortable.
And that is my favourite scent.

I know not the full bank account she speaks of.
The free spending.
The "lifestyle".
Our budget is lean,
Full of rent to pay, utilities, debt and mortgage repayments.
Just room for the necessities and no else.

But I do know a full heart.
So I tell her of that,
I tell her of my life...

My clothes of colour and comfort;
Of *ahem* elastic waists and loose fitting dresses.
Bare feet more often than not, or
Flat shoes made for chasing.

The fragrances of my life;
Freshly shampoo'd hair squashed against my face in embrace.
Paint, playdough and crayons.
The beach.

My goals;
Getting through the day
Keeping my children fed, warm, clean
Loved.

My "Working lunches";
Of easy food
Eaten with smiles.

The soundtrack of my life;
Music to dance to.
Heart melting giggles,
Caused by tickles, chasing, funny faces,
Or just because.
Then the quiet snores of a child sleeping in my arms.

Mine is not a life without challenges
Nor I'm sure is hers.
But today we just tell of the good bits
And leave it at that.

***

Once I'm finished sharing
We stare at each other, this other girl and I
Not quite sure what to say to each other.
Our worlds grown too far apart.
The gap in our thinking too wide.

She looks at me in disbelief-
The girl doesn't understand how those are my goals,
How "just that" can be enough for me.
But I assure her that they are.
- That is all.
They just.are.

So I lean over and kiss her softly goodbye.
I help her fold up that sharp black suit and crisp white shirt,
Of memories forgotten but not yet gone.
I bid farewell to the "Other girl"
The other me.
The life once had.
It has been nice to have her visit, but now it's time to let her go.
No longer to suitcases dark and forgotten.
But this time to set her free...

Nosey Parker in the Neighbourhood - Christmas Edition...

2011-12-28T11:15:00.003+08:00

Welcome to our 2nd Nosey Parker in the Neighbourhood Linky Party!

Wooo hooo - time to be legitimately nosey again right ;)
If you are new to Nosey Parker in the Neighbourhood then allow me to give you a little background...

Nosey Parker in the Neighbourhood is basically a monthly linky party giving us a legitimate excuse to peer through our bloggy "neighbours' " windows and get to know each other a little more.
Each month I issue a theme and questions a few weeks/month before the party starts (although I haven't for Christmas and chosen to leave it pretty open) so you can pre prepare your post if you like and schedule it.
Then we hop around and have a peruse of new found friends :)

You can find our first party (the getting to know around your home edition) here...
I have also opened it back up if anyone wants to link up to that party a little late. We'd still love to have you - better late than never I always say ;)

Then from next month it will be all about sewing/crafting for a few months. I for one can't wait for those ones!

So join us if you can, and lets talk Christmas my neighbours :)...

***

I left this theme pretty open in regards to content, but I'll put the questions that I answered in bold at the beginning of my paragraphs, so feel free to use those as a base for your post as well, if you wish :)

What does Christmas mean to me...
To me Christmas is an awesome time of year. Traditionally as a child it of course meant presents, lots of yummy food, fun with family and the start school h.o.l.i.d.a.y.s! Now as an adult I like to as well soak in the reason for the season.
It is also a time for sitting back & reflecting on what I'm so lucky to have. My great family, home, food, children, and spend time with those I most love.

What is my pre-Christmas schedule traditionally like...
The beginning of December usually starts off our Christmas schedule. We put up our Christmas tree & advent calendar on the 1st and the countdown starts from there.

It continues with Christmas themed break ups to all of our term-time activities. This year it started with the Playgroup end of year Christmas party...

Followed by the term break up of our mothers group, and Toddler Jam...

Phew... break up parties over - must be getting close to the big day :)

Some Christmas traditions that we have as a family are:

1) We always take the kids to Christmas in the Park concert/Carols by candlelight.
Usually up until then I'm not really feeling the Christmas Spirit alive in me. But those always work wonders....

We take our picnic blanket, deck chairs and picnic down to the park, starting late afternoon, and listen to the Christmas concert into the evening. This year we only went to one, run by our own church, because the other that we usually go to happened to be on the same night this year. It was a really awesome and relaxed afternoon/evening, spent with good friends/church family...

Abbie & her friend in matching outfits I made hehehe...

Say "cheese"

Our cool & clever church band

2) After sunset one night in December (or several as the case may be) we always take the kids out to look at the Christmas lights...

Goodnight sun...

Hello Christmas lights!

The rest of the time I try and hibernate away from the (mad) ~~zoo~~ shops as much as possible (not that easy when you have a PO box!) and stay relaxed.

We always visit church on Christmas Eve and that ends our pre-Christmas schedule.

How we celebrated Christmas this year...
Christmas Eve:
8.00pm - get home from a lovely church service, put kids to bed.
- run around like 2 looneys getting the house ready for the next day, putting out presents etc... and setting the table ready for the next day

Christmas Day:
12.00am - flop exhausted into bed and go to sleep
3.am - get up to unsettled baby (suspected teething)
3.30am - resign self that baby is not going back to sleep in her own bed and if I want any sleep will have to suck it up and put her in bed with me - GAH!
3.30am onwards - sleep like rubbish as baby wiggles to change position every 2 minutes
5.30am - daughter # 1 comes in all excited shrieking "the sun is up! The sun is up! Santa must have been! Santa must have been!"
Me: "Are you sure? You know he only comes to good little girls and boys don't you?"
Hannah: with a very worried face... "Yeeees"

I know... I'm very mean. But to be fair I'd had a roungh night!

So I went and got the camera and snuck into the lounge then called to Neil that I was ready so he could bring in the troops...
This is what greeted them...

An empty Christmas tree - mostly with presents addressed to other people....

Hang on Santa - What? Where are all the presents!!??

Oh wait, hang on - this is why the Christmas tree was empty...
Because "Santa" had brought a HUGE new play kitchen...

3 full "pokes" (English tradition from Daddy's side instead of stockings)...

And a Dolls ~~House~~ Mansion (which almost rivals our home for size!)

Generous Santa!!
...I suspect Santa might have moved to internet shopping and didn't think through the physical size of these very carefully when he ordered them this year. ;)

Once the girls had got over their awe at the toys which are bigger than them!!, we all opened our pokes...

These are special pokes - the contents were all post marked Norfolk, England. I think that must be where a base of Santa's elves work out of these days because our poke contents have been post marked Norfolk, England since we got married...
Come to think of it - they must live really close to where Neil's mum live - I wonder if she's ever spotted them! ;)

Contents of Abbie's poke:

My poke:

Santa knows me well - blue fabric & the most beautiful hand made (in Russia) Russian dolls!
And some cool novelty socks - Santa always sends socks in our pokes, it's tradition :)

Neil's Poke:

That's a Norfolk dialect tea towel... bahaha!

Hannah's Poke:

That doll is a knitting doll. Wonder if that's more a present for Mummy or Hannah ;)

One thing that I should probably mention about our "poke" tradition is that Neil & I only have 1 poke between us and Santa finds it very funny to not name our presents for who they are to - so it's pot luck as to who gets to open what.
This year we did pretty well - Neil opened all of his (I had had a feel and figured out who's were probably who's) but while I wasn't looking he opened my leapard skin socks. HAHAHA!

On our first Christmas as a married couple he also opened my socks - that time they were rainbow toe socks. I'll never forget his confused & horrified look as to why Santa would send him such things!! He relaxed slightly after I then opened socks with "Neil" on them and he figured out that he'd opened my socks. History shows that our "Santa" really does have a sense of humour! LOL...

Anyway onto the main presents...

I'm SO happy to report that my girls both gave the most excited response to any present when they opened their quilts. I think I have 2 budding ~~quilters~~ fabricaholics in the making because I can't believe that they both gave more squeals of excitement about those than any other present!

In fact it was the only present that once she saw what it was Abbie opened all the way by herself. The others we had to help her open...
Would you just look at her face - oh my heart!!

Way to make my heart sing!!
I love that my girls love & appreciate what I made them so much!!

Neil got a new kindle & I got a new small TV for my bedroom to watch DVDs on.
Nice score!!

7am and it was time for breakfast...
It's traditional in our house to have a cooked breakfast:

Blackberries & Cream on pancakes. Yum!
(and yes, I made the pancakes from scratch Susan. Something that I can bake without a recipe - shock horror! ;))

8.55am - leave the house in a screaming hurry for church, which starts at 9am and is a 15-20min drive... oops...
9.12am - rock up to church
9.40am - finish the shortest service I've ever been to at our church and head off to visit some friends
9.45am - Hang out with close friends & exchange presents
11am - arrive home and start running around like a looney to prepare lunch...

Since we live overseas from both sets of our parents and most of our siblings, Christmas for us now changes dramatically every year. Growing up I used to celebrate Christmas in the same fashion every year - with my (quite large) extended family - there were often up to 50 of us, just including grandparents, aunts, uncles & cousins! So going from that to a small selection of family at best numbers is quite an adjustment I have to say!

This year we hosted and celebrated Christmas lunch at our house with 2 of my brothers, my sister-in-law and my Uncle, with a visit after lunch from my cousin and his partner. So not exactly 50 people, but an amazingly good turn out of family considering the circumstances!

Since Christmas Day can get extremely hot here (last year it nudged 40 degrees) we tend to go for a cold, light, fresh lunch...
So lunch was prepared (again from scratch) (- that was for Susan again) by me and looked like this...

** marinated & roasted lamb

** cold ham

** roasted veges (baby carrot, beetroot, capsicum, mushrooms, zuccini, parsnip, red onion, asparagus) served with a citrus vinegarette

** a steamed aubergine salad (aubergine/eggplant with red onion, flat leafed parsley, feta, vine grown tomoatoes, walnuts, and a dressing), and

** an orange & fennel salad (orange, carrot, fennel, sweet sugarsnap peas, and sprouts with a lemon, honey & oil dressing)

If anyone would like recipes for any of these dishes then do say, because even if I do say so myself they were totally and utterly scrummy! There were no leftovers despite what I'd planned, and compliments all around, so I guess that speaks volumes. I even made all the dressings myself.

So.unlike.me!

We served it buffet style & all ate outside under the patio in the fresh air...

In the rather pleasant 30 degree heat - the coolest day we've had for Christmas in ages!!
And thank goodness the flies weren't around to annoy us - wonders will never cease. That was one of my favourite Christmas presents I think!...

I forgot to take a photo of our lovely desserts (prepared by my Sister-in-law) but for dessert we had the option of lemon meringue pie, carrot cake, peach crumble & custard, fruit salad and ice cream.

Or if you are a total pig like me you will choose all of the above like I did for my "lunch" the next day...

Yes, I am officially a pig.
But do you blame me?

2pm: After lunch we veged in the living room & exchanged yet more presents...
And (sleepily) talked the afternoon away until one by one various family members departed and just the four of us were left for dinner.

Somehow the girls still had enough energy after this to bounce on the trampoline (the only picture I managed to snap of my girls in their Christmas outfits - oops!!)

But I don't know where they got that energy from because I sure as heck had none!

6pm Christmas evening....
it was at this point in the day that I officially became beyond useful and started to melt down.

- Not much of a surprise considering that all week I had survived on a maximum of 5 hours per night of (interrupted) sleep, finished 8 quilts including a king size, and run around like a headless chook preparing for Christmas Day.

So at 7pm I put myself to bed in a heap of exhausted tears where I remained for the best part of Boxing Day. I was, and am, completely fine - the sleep deprivation and crazy amount of work just got to me and it was time to rest, that's all.

Not the best end to a fantastic day I admit - but at least I was pleased that I'd held off until the end of the festivities to crash and burn in a messy heap!
Still, it's something to be mindful of next year so I don't get a repeat...
Note to self: Do not push self so hard next December! (hmmmm - yeah right...)

So that was our Australian Christmas.
A totally wonderful day!

Look forward to reading about yours! If you've done a Christmas post already then feel free to just link up that. It doesn't have to follow my questions this time to count.
But I do just ask that you use the button & link back to this post somewhere in your post.

The After Mass...

2011-12-26T19:42:00.000+08:00

I hope you all had (or are having if you are on the other side of the world to me) the most fabulous Christmas!!!

We did.

I'll hopefully be back tomorrow with the low down on our Christmas Day, assuming Mr Linky fixes my linky feature in time for the Nosey Parker post to go up tomorrow.

In the meantime this is what my today (Boxing Day) looks like...

(Through the words of Dr Seuss...)

The news
Just came in
From the County of Keck
That a very small bug
By the name of Van Vleck
Is yawning so wide
You can look down his neck.

This may not seem
Very important, I know.
But it is. So I'm bothering
Telling you so.

A yawn is quite catching, you see. Like a cough.
Is just takes one yawn to start other yawns off...
NOW the news has come in that some friends of Van Vlecks
Are yawning so wide you can look down their necks.

At this moment, right now,
Under seven more noses,
Great yawns are in blossom.
Their blooming like roses.

The yawn of that one little bug is still spreading!
According to latest reports, it is heading
Across the wide fields, through the sleepy night air,
Across the whole country toward every-which-where.
And people are gradually starting to say,
"I feel rather drowsy, I've had quite a day."

Creatures are starting to think about rest,
Two Biffer-Baum Birds are now building their nest.
They do it each night. And quite often I wonder
How they do this big job without making a blunder.
But that is their problem.
Not yours. And not mine.
The point is: They're going to bed.
And that's fine.

***

(In the words of Kat...)

A happy few days
A monumental work shift
A strong sense of self
Then the littlest rift...

The glow of year hard
Slowly comes to an end
With tears of exhaustion
And hugs from a friend.

Fatigue and weariness
Unsettled and tense
With so many questions
Towards our future - suspense!

So an all day bed fest
Though unscheduled will remedy
My sore soul and joints
Of this I have certainty.

Sleeping, and resting
And stroking new quilt
Snuggling, and dreaming
Shifting back littlest tilt.

All is right and will be
With rest and renew
Though I would not change past
- No surprise to me, nor I bet you!

I like to be busy
And will remain so I'm sure
But even busy girls need rest
To relax and restore.

I'll be back really soon
And rearing to go
Because rest, while a need
Does challenge - I don't like to be slow!...

So I'll end this poem
Which while fun, must close
And continue lazing in bed
Which I thought best to disclose.

***

So far my rest day has gone like this...

7am wake up call from kids
- nudge husband out of bed to deal with it
Go back to sleep

9am wake up call from kids
- smile at husband and kids and talk to them for a minute
Go back to sleep

10am - decide to write off plans for the day and spend the whole day in bed instead
Go back to sleep

1.08pm - look at disbelief at the clock
Smile from within at how good that last sleep felt
Think you must finally be starting to unwind
Get up for "lunch" - which looks like this...

Carrot cake, fruit salad, lemon meringue, peach crumble, custard...

And feel ever so naughty and decadent...

1.28pm feel ever so slightly gluttonous and sick
But content
1.30pm go back to bed

Read
Drink
Stare into space
Relax
Pray
Relax more
Start to smile

5.30pm get up and have dinner
Have a spa bath with the kids
Skype with in-laws
Bedtime for girls

Time to enjoy an evening with feet up with my hunny
Still unsettled and with so many questions (**that is a whole other blog post - will explain soon I promise!)
But charged and ready for all the new day will bring...
All the better for taking a day off!

I hope that your after mass is being just as kind :)

Back (hopefully) tomorrow with Nosey Parker in the Neighbourhood Linky - Christmas Edition...
(Am waiting on linky subscription to renew...)

Sunday Snippet - Merry Christmas!!

2011-12-25T00:30:00.000+08:00

Merry Christmas to you & your loved ones!!

Hugs

It's just as well I can sew!!!

2011-12-23T12:28:00.000+08:00

Because that seems to be the limit to my domestic goddess ability!!!

I have no gardening ability - aka I kill every plant within a 10m radius of my home -
And today, yet again, I proved that the kitchen and I are not friends!!

It all started with a crazy notion (inspired by this kitchen goddess) that I would attempt to make some homemade mince pies this year as a surprise for my pining-for-all-things-an-English-winter-Christmas-brings husband.
This will (I think) be his 9th Christmas in hot climates, and so I'm told "it's just not the same" apparently.
I wouldn't know any differently but whatever...

Anyway, out of love for him I decided to be a "proper wife" (a joke for the benefit of my Mother-in-law not his words ;) ) and give the home baking thing a go. Susan had assured me that it was easy as pie (mince pie to be exact!).
So on Tuesday I got busy making some mincemeat to let it "age" for a few days in the fridge.
Recipe found here.
And today, with Neil's arrival home imminent, we got busy making the pies...

I had planned to make Susan's pastry recipe, because it did sound yummy! The only problem was that when I went to make a start it turned out I'd used all the caster sugar making lemonade.
Doh!
So instead we decided to use the shortcrust pastry that I knew we had in the freezer.

We got busy cutting...

We got busy filling...

We got busy singing Christmas carols...

Spot danger mouse in the background? I told you she gives me grey hairs!!

Ahhh, so pretty we thought - "Daddy will be so proud"...

We watched them cook and held our breath...

But we needed have bothered holding our breath, because despite me greasing the billeo out of those darn muffin tins they still stuck...

Booo hooooo hooooo.....

And our lovely mince pies ended up looking like this...

Total slush!!

Very nice tasting slush, but still slush none the same...

I did manage to get a few, almost whole ones, so at least we have a somewhat decent plate full to present to Mr Flutter this afternoon on his arrival...

It's the thought that counts right?

To be honest I really don't think he'll mind in the slightest - Now he has the perfect excuse to eat 10 of them at once with a spoon and a plate full of custard. Sounds like his dream come true to me LOL...

I just hope that the Christmas cake I also made for a surprise for him turned out better!
Me being in the kitchen baking sure is love I tell you!

But to end on a more positive note, I just got a text from my sewing machine repair man and Big Brother is ready to be picked up. WOOO HOOOO for that!!

Hope your Christmas baking has gone a little smoother!!

PS don't worry about giving me advice of what to do next time. I already know what to do better next time - IF indeed there ever is one :) LOL...