Espritpatch

This week I have been working on curtains for the lounge. I have bought the fabric over a year ago and we decorated the room in August last year but I never got around to actually sew the curtains. We have visitors next week so I decided it would be great if I could hang the curtains before they arrived. I have also worked on my little birdie block and finally finished stitching the block for May on Friday. I still have to put the squares around it but at least the stitching is done. Maybe I'll be able to start stitching the June block before the end of the month. I now next block will be published on Friday but I am slowly catching up. I used a former birdie (March one) for my framed hexie for this month and my bird is ready to fly to Australia tomorrow. Celine

Change of decoration in the lounge, that was the week-end programme. Big Boy has gone on holidays with GrandMa on Saturday morning so we decided it was a great opportunity to redecorate the lounge (my idea of course!) with the wall paper we bought about a month ago. We started emptying the HUGE bookcase and then emptied the room before doing the painting during Baby Daughter's nap in the afternoon. Another coat of paint on Sunday morning. Started on the wall-papering (my first time on my own!) in the afternoon at nap time and finished Monday afternoon. I don't have a before/after picture but a work on-going picture: Baby Daughter helped me on Sunday afternoon obviously but we managed to avoid the hands in the wall paper paste which I thought was a great achievement! The room looks a lot different now and so much cleaner. I still needs to make the curtains to complete the room though. Celine

I finished work early on Friday and went to Fabric Guild in Leicester for some retail therapy. I didn't want to miss the sales really, there is always some fabric that you need to buy for the day when... That was a nice day to end a busy week really! OK I spent a bit of money but it was of course well spent! After finishing my first OPAM for February, a lovely Caterpillar draught excluder: I did my homework for our meeting at the Log Cabin Quilters. Our session in January was cancelled dur to the snow. We were supposed to do a "Fold and Finish" cushion in January and had the instructions to cut the fabric in advance. I decided to do mine in red cream and black with some Japanese fabric that I had bought a while back. I cut all my "logs" fabric and wadding ready to go. I started my cushion on Saturday morning and managed to sew "one round" around the central block: I still have 2 rounds to add and the corner triangles but none of these are quilted ye...

I did make some (little) progress yesterday evening and snowman now has a pair of trousers. I have received this week my order from the equilter sales and one of the fabric in the package is perfect for this project. I have cut his jumper out of it. I might sew it tonight or tomorrow as we usually try to play a board game with hubby on Saturday night when the kids are finally in bed! Here is what snowman looks like with his trousers on. This morning there was a dusting of snow when we got up but it soon melted with the sun. A very nice day which has been filled with various activities. Big boy suggested we baked cake so we made some lovely cupcakes today. He loves baking and cupcakes are a great thing as they can be decorated to your heart's content. They were also yummy. He explained tonight that he was so much better than Mummy at baking and asked Daddy whether he was telling Mummy what to do in terms of baking before he was born and able to take over. He will soon be 4! Just t...

The kids are in bed, hubby has gone to the gym, and I am in my pyjamas! Won't be spending the evening browsing on the Internet as the computer is verrrry sloooow tonight. Don't know what's wrong with it. Anyway that gives me all the encouragement I need to have my own private Friday Night Sew-In. I have decided on the fabrics I'll use to dress my snow people. Now I can get on with it and hopefully post pictures before the end of the week-end. Wish me luck! Other pictures I am hoping to post before the end of the week are some of baby daughter's new curtains I started last week-end. I only have half of the seam on the second curtain to finish now so it shouldn't be long. I don't want to cheat and post a picture before it is completely finished though. I have also received lovely blocks from the Winter Holiday swap from the Dear Jane list. I'll post pictures of those soon but it is definitely too slow for pictures tonight. Off to the sewing machine. then! ...

I can't believe I haven't posted anything in more than a week now... The week has been very busy but I can't say I have achieved much sewing-wise. After finishing my naked snowmen (I made a second one last Saturday) I decided to go and hunt for some fabrics for their clothes. So I spent the rest of the week-end, sorting out my fabric. I have decided on a new storage system for my fabrics a while back and not all has been transferred yet unfortunately ... Too much to do, too little time... Anyway, I did progress well last week-end on the tidy up front. Still lots to do though. This week-end, my Mum is over to stay with us and yesterday we went on a shopping trip to find some curtain fabric. And I am so glad that I have finally found some for baby girl's room. She has been in her room since September and still have some "grown-up" curtains. I have found a lovely fabric called "Bear Bedtime" which will go well with her paper border and will try to make ...

Busy week-end when I managed to do little bits and pieces. I had planned to participate to the WBHQ challenge so I finally made one rosette this week-end that will be on its way to Australia tomorrow. Yesterday I went to the Fabric Guild in Leicester to buy the lovely Maisy panel. I bought two and am planning to make baby books with them. One for baby daughter and one as a present for a friend's little boy. I bought more fabric that just the panel of course but didn't go to mad. I found a lovely flannel with cats for the backing of one of my table runner and some dots fabrics (similar to the one I bought for baby booties and the pot luck hexies ) in lilac and soft green. And I got the new Clover Mini-Iron II - that I haven't managed to try yet - for free! :-))) I had collected enough vouchers to get the iron. We then went shopping to a few places but it was already Christmas madness everywhere, not nice. :-(( Today we have been busy starting to write a letter to Santa. W...

I had mentioned last week that I was making a calendar on my wall with blackboard/magnetic paint, well it is now completed as off yesterday and is already in use as you can see from the photo below. I now need to buy different colours of chalks to get a more organised calendar and to make some personnalised magnets to finish the look! preparation work with masking tape: completed calendar already in use: I have also completed my other wall where I was planning to paint a Japanese cherry tree. I had to repaint the wall first to have a clean start. I found the pot of paint which was originally used by previous owners (probably when the house was built about 10 years ago). The paint was quite thick so I added water and there were quite a few bit of rust in it but I managed to recover enough to freshen the wall. I then found out that I didn't have the appropriate brush so I ended up painting the wall with a cloth. Great to give some soft texture! The tree shape was painted yesterday a...

Not much sewing time in the last 2 days unfortunately. I had to treck down to London for some appointements with my daughter yesterday so that was most of the day gone. I managed to fuse my first hen onto the background fabric and cut the second one last night while I was watching the Apprentice on TV, the only programme I watch every year. It is not sewn yet but it is looking good so far, if I can say so! 3 more to go and then onto the sewing! I also now have a picture of the 4 blocks I made for the blocklotto. I haven't posted the picture on the block lotto blog yet because I am planning to make more blocks. I will post a picture there with all my blocks at once I think. Anyway here is a peak of my first 4 Cactus Pot blocks: This morning I painted the wall again with my blackboard/magnetic paint and it doesn't seem to be magnetic at all so far so I will probably have to apply a third layer. I have also drawn a branch of Japanese cherry tree (Sakura) with a pencil. I am pl...