Toddler-approved Easter cards

Today Arthur and I made a dozen Easter cards.

They were simple, they involved paint (his favourite) and glue (another favourite) and overall, were very pleasing to make.

I took inspiration from this lovely post over at a Thrifty mum, with something for all ages and abilities on the younger scale of crafters.

Here is Arthur working hard (we also made cotton wool sheep cards for a bit of variation while the chicks were drying) and one of his finished cards.

Great fun, we used an apple for our printing (no potatoes in the house currently) and I think they came out rather well.

We have delivered several already and he is very proud of himself!

Emma

Back again...

for another attempt at blogging?

"Hahaha" I hear you all cry - well... I'll try anyway.

Easter is upon us, and I have been crafting with the boys, and next month my youngest starts 5 mornings a week at nursery.  I might actually have some time to sew!  Fancy that.

Lego tidy

A day later than promised ;o)  but we had Parents' evening and clubs last night!

So hot on the whinging from the older ones about "the baby's got my leeeeegoooooooo" "I can't find the pieces I had for my thiiiiiiing" and other charming phrases (I know anyone with children will be familiar with the tone of whine and dropped shoulders that accompanies this kind of situation) I decided to try out a lego tidy-up pouch tutorial - this one from Quiltylicious took my eye as it was step-by-step, didn't use any terms I didn't recognise lol, and I liked the pirate fabric!

 

I used her measurements, and a 14" radius is a nice size to work with, not too big to be unweildy to sew, perfect for packing for holidays or trips to relatives who might not be equipped for children, and just big enough to contain the pieces required for any one 'project' on the go.

The kids have loved it so far, and I am about to whip up another for Jake's K'nex as that has teensy weensy pieces in it too, and this morning he'd opted to build with it on his bunk <sigh> and was frantically scrabbling it back into the plastic box when I asked him (for the 900th time) to get DRESSED FOR SCHOOL.  Much easier to just pull a drawstring shut I think!

A nice quick make for boys!

SNOOOWW!!

Today we had the most awesome snow-day!

Out to the park first thing with everyone's kids, snow ball fights, snowman building, and then sledging at a neighbours!

Arthur absolutely loved it, and all we heard from him all day was 'sno!  sno!'

 The boys were, typically, only really interested in launching snow balls at the house - note our bemused cat in the window there!

 ...While Chris, Maisie and her friend made a rather handsome snowman :o)

Back to school tomorrow, I don't think we're forecast any more and it's been melting rapidly all day - so I predict a very slushy grey walk to school tomorrow!

Fun while it lasts...!

I also managed some sewing today, a quick Lego tidy from this tutorial - I am quite pleased with how it came together, so I'll blog about it tomorrow - promise ;o)

A blog post a month, maybe?

^^^  I think the title says it all really!


I feel I may have pigeon-holed my blogging with the quilting thing.  I don't do an awful lot of it, if truth be told - so even if I did only blog about that, I'd still only post about once every 3 months!!

Anyway, inspired today by Maiden Jane's blog post on how she keeps her family organised - I fancy branching out into family blog stuff, and perhaps once I get in the swing of it I will blog about sewing as well !

Incidentally, we 'organise' our family schedules (and I use the term organise loosely, as I am VERY disorganised!) using a super Gruffalo theme family calendar.  I picked it up on offer from The Book People for £1.50 - bargain!

Five columns between the seven of us doesn't work especially well, but I share with the baby* and the boys and girls often share school events so it's not too tricky to keep track!  I also LOVE the stickers :-)

_________________

Right, onto something crafty!  We've done so much over the last few months I hardly know where to begin - I think perhaps I will work backwards and maybe by the time we get to the Summer I can share projects from last year and this.

Over Christmas I finally got round to starting sock monkeys with the kids! 

I used the tutorial HERE, although I had browsed a few by then so I am not sure our method was verbatim, but it's a very thorough tute for anyone who fancies trying their hand but isn't sure where to begin.

True to form, we haven't finished them all yet haha!  They are quite involved when you have a number of small people to instruct through the different stages and stuffing, so only Benji's is finished to date, and I have a rather macabre bowl of stuffed monkey torsos and random limbs staring at me from the sideboard waiting to be completed!

 

They all stitched on the machine very competently, (Jake on the left there sewing his, and Benji middle and right) and while I did the majority of the hand-stitching for the limbs and muzzle to give them half a chance of withstanding all the 'love' they would get haha, the job of sewing on a smile and the eyes were left to the children!  I think he did a pretty tidy job, and they were all very pleased with themselves.

If I could start over, I would choose some 'proper' sock monkey socks, (we used a multi-pack of cotton/elastane blend ones from the supermarket) as after a day of being dragged about the floor and having his arms and tail twisted round sticky fingers I had to do some repair work as he'd popped open on some of his seams - eek!  Benji is pretty hands-on with all his cuddlies though, there's not many I haven't darned in some way shape or form now I think about it!

This is now a mammoth post - well done if you got this far - I'm signing off!!

Emma

The humble crayon roll

So I'm going to blog, honest!

Today I whipped up a (slightly wonky, thank you my nearly-2yo Arthur for helping/distracting!) a crayon roll for a wee girl's birthday this weekend.

 I simply cannot get enough of these - I made a mini-selection for the pre-school Summer fayre last year,  filled with just a pack of 5 crayons from the £ shop, and super dinky for little hands and ideal for handbags!

(I can't recall if I blogged about them at the time, knowing me, probably not!)

I loosely followed the tutorial over at Skip to my Lou, for the bigger owly one, but 'quilted' the whole roll when sewing the crayon sections and edged it in bias binding.  There are a squillion tutorials on the web, I really just needed one for the measurements!
I did 1" spaces and as you can see in the photos managed to fit 2 crayons in some pockets quite comfortably...

 ...and sewed a loop of elastic under one edge of the bias binding to wrap around when it's rolled up.

Well more posts to come soon (I hope!) about a space quilt for my eldest son!

Emma

So I'm still cr*p at blogging..

... Big catch up post to come!

I have been festooning my house, friends and relatives with home made crafty stuff - and getting through the general durge of life too.

I can't seem to understand just HOW it gets so manic around here??

New years resolution, Blog more, FB less !!

Dusting away the blog-webs....

Hello, hello, one and all!

I have been frightfully neglectful of my little space in blogland here... So many days have come and gone and I've thought "I will blog about that later!" and haven't - but now the holidays are over (we had a lovely time, even if the weather wasn't at it's best!) and all the big kids are settled into school, only the baby is at home with me, we have slowly found our routine for the days and weeks with the family - and all seems calm ...for now!

I have managed some lovely projects with the kids over the Summer, not all sewing related as the boys have little patience for the preparation and much more interest in the great outdoors - or Lego.  Mostly Lego now I think about it! But we have mastered reversible tote-bag making, This tutorial from Skip-to-my-Lou is brilliantly simple, and to date my step-daughters and I have made 6 bags for friends and relations (and one for me too, of course!)

I'll get round to photos later :-)

For now, I am looking forward to getting crafty for hallowe'en, and having them at home for the half term break in a week or so!  The house is very empty during the day - my day-dreamous plan of filling my time with sewing for stocking presents, and taking on larger quilting projects has most definitely been thwarted by the baby being decidedly grumpy at only having me for company bless him!!
I am re-acquainting myself with the 'toddler group' social side of things, and it seems to be appeasing his need for raucous en-mass playtime!

Anyway, enough of that -

Time for bed!

It's the Summer holidays!

... so I will mostly be herding, entertaining, and feeding - this gorgeous bunch :-)

AKA - Not getting a lot of quilting done!

Twinny Quilts

In January of this year, I pledged a handmade quilt as a raffle prize for a forum I used whilst expecting my youngest son, Arthur.

The lady who won it is FABULOUS and I was pregnant at the same time as her - but she had double the joy when she gave birth to two handsome and adorable little boys, Henry and Archie.

I said I would make her a quilt each for the boys, to snuggle in their pram.

I got off to FLYING START!


....Then it all kind of came undone, one thing after another with home, suppliers of fleece, ribbon, you name it - and it shamefully fell by the wayside.

Bless the mama though, she has been so, so, SO patient with me - and last month I finished ONE quilt. *shameface*

They have both turned out MUCH bigger than I had originally planned... I don't know why I get so carried away when making them and they end up huge - probably because I always do a patchwork middle then piece on a border, which is inevitably massively bigger than it should be... oh well!

Here, is Archie's ....

Our house it has a crowd...

... there's always something happening, and it's usually quite loud.

In reality I fit very little sewing, quilting and crafting into my everyday life.  So a blog dedicated solely to that was probably a little ambitious on my part!
There are 5 children to chase about after, and we're on the eve of the long Summer holidays - which will probably bring lots of mini-projects with the kids, but nothing on a particularly elaborate scale.

Anyway, too much else goes on here I'd like to blog about - so while you can expect the odd post about quilty-goodness and crafty sewy things, I think I'll morph my blogspace into a little more about 'Us'

.... Promise (again!) to catch up later!

Blogging....

... I'm crap at it!!

Will catch up soon - I've actually done some bloomin' quilting :-O !

x

Benji and the machine...

Good afternoon readers!

Well, I'm writing it in the afternoon anyway, even if you're not reading it then...

The house has been a whirlwind of activity with Saffy's 6th birthday (and year anniversary since my first quilt was made!) and school, and Beaver scouts and all sorts!

This week my middle boy Benji fancied a spot of sewing, so we cut a panel from some rooster fabric I'd bought the week before (bargain section, £1.54per metre) and got to it...

Half-term, DONE!

..... My 'Work in Progress' pile - NOT DONE!

I singularly failed to do a single stitch of sewing this half term <shameface> !!

The kids brought me home a lovely stomach bug, which meant from Friday until Wednesday I was poorly sick, and not much use to anyone - I had a brief respite day on Sunday to watch my step-daughter Maisie perform at the local Well-dressing as a Maypole dancer (we're all very proud!)

 It was lovely to see her dance, and she performed superbly over the whole May bank holiday for a total of 5 appearances :-)

- but then I hit the wall again :-(  !

Thursday was a resting day with just the baby at home with me and the bigger boys off at activities for the day - the girls went to see their mum for the remainder of the holiday.  Then we drove down to see my family for the weekend.  Now it's Monday again, and I feel like a failure!

Ho-hum, this week I will do SOMETHING - I think my aim for this month will be to finish the quilts I started as a raffle prize back in January!

Anyone else have any WIPs they'd like to Name and Shame??   Time to get motivated!

Indiana's play mat

I just wanted to share the quilted play mat that I made for my best friend's newest addition baby Indiana last year.  He's coming up on a year old now, where does the time go?!?

After the rush to get Saffy's quilt finished before her birthday (it took me 3 months from the start in total due to time and financial constraints!)  I managed the play mat in a week!  It was a much more relaxed make, and I loved the colours on this.  The more eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that my blog header features the patchwork from this quilt :-)

My middle boy Benji chose the animal print fleece for the backing.  I just LOVE it!  I have a whole stash of it in the fabric box at the moment, most ear-marked for one of my WIPs, but the rest I am itching to make into hats and scarfs next Winter.  It's so cheerful I can't help but smile when I catch sight of it.
I am generally met with strange looks when I mention I quilt with fleece for backing, is it that odd?  I tend to choose it for durability and wash-ability for small people, especially babies.

The bright patchwork middle was lovely to put together, and we chose red cotton to frame it, and a really vibrant green ribbon for edging.

 

Starflower block

Well I've done one already!

I had  a quiet afternoon with just Arthur at home, so I thought I'd have a go at a starflower block.

It's pretty rough and ready - but I'm pleased it didn't take too long.  I'm going to make a scrappy block quilt, trying out a few different ones, and possibly getting the kids involved too!

Here are the photos - nothing spectacular, all taken on my camera phone, but you get the idea and can see just how 'rough and ready' my approach to quilting is!!

Looking for inspiration

Well, time for post #2 on my blog... Are you excited?  I am!

After twiddling with settings and designs most of yesterday trying to make it look 'pretty' - I took most of my alterations off and have left it minimalist - the reason being I realised that most of the blogs I enjoy reading are kept clean and simple, so I'll do the same for now.
(Not to mention resizing my photos to use as backgrounds so they were small enough for Blogger to accept them but big enough not to tile randomly was doing my nut in!)

Anyway, enough of that...

Yesterday I came across a wonderful resource - a webpage of free quilt block patterns, The Quilter's Cache 

Putting things in a place.

Hello no-one.

This will be a place for me to jot down ideas, works in progress, quilty things, sewing things - and mothering things.

I'm a mother of three sons, and 2 step-daughters.

We have ups and downs and sideways - and I try to keep it all together.