Almost 2 years ago we held a birthday party for Amelia, (who turned 10 at the time) with a sewing theme.

I recently revisited one of the activities we did at that party, Hoop Faces, and have added a few more designs.  The bottom, left hoop is the one that Amelia stitched in 2010, but the rest are new ones that I have designed and stitched.  The only stitch used throughout is back stitch, which I think is pretty easy for kids to master.

Here are some of the designs from 2010.  I now have a total of 12 Hoop Faces, which together will form a pattern that I hope to release in the near future.  You can see more photos of the party here.

What kind of face would you add to my collection, if you were designing a Hoop Face?

Mothers’ Day is one of those days that can be sweet and cuddly, or really, really hard.  If your Mothers’ Day is one of the latter, I hope you can find a way to get through it, without feeling like tearing up the cutesy cards in the supermarket.

I’ve had a pretty lovely start to my day, with pancakes, squeezed into the schedule before the male members of the family departed, to a cold, wet morning of junior footy.  I’m pretty lucky, and I know it.

The photo above is misleading, because I took it a while ago, and it has nothing to do with today.  I gave Luke the “Country Women’s Association Classics” cookbook, for our 14th anniversary last month, and he and the kids have been rewarding me with delicious fare ever since.  That tasty morsel (actually rather large morsel) is a home made Monte Carlo biscuit.  The favourite so far has been the Lime cake (pg 379) which we have had a few times, thanks  to the gift of some home grown limes from my friend Kym, who also gave me the beautiful roses.

This is a little sketch of me that I drew yesterday for something that I am working on.  Usually I draw from life, or by looking at photos that I have taken, but with this one, I “cheated” as I had a photo on a layer underneath my drawing.  I wanted to be quick.  Even with that help, it is hard to get facial expressions right – I’m still not sure about those lips.

This one is a drawing that I did a few days ago, which I was going to use, before I got too lazy about unearthing the scanner.

I find it much easier to work with pencil, because the shading adds so much detail, but when I need line drawings for things like embroidery patterns, I have to find a way to distill the details.

Usually I make a pencil sketch, scan it into Photoshop, transfer it into Illustrator, and redraw over the top of it with my handy pen/tablet.  I’m getting faster at this step, but the pen/tablet still feels nothing like drawing on paper.  The best thing about it is the way you can scale your images.  I love to make very small sketches, but I can make them much larger, and add more detail if I need to.

How often do you draw?

What you see here is my beautiful nephew Arden, in a photo taken by the hospital photographer, with the bunny that I made him – how special is that!  What you also see here is a newborn baby who does NOT have a hole in his heart – something that was looking like a possibility until last week.  Massive sigh or relief!  Arden is now 6 weeks old, and is such a beautiful baby – just the kind to make you entertain idle thoughts about having another, (only idle thoughts though).

Michaela has taken up dancing this school term.  We rush straight from school, to dance class, where there is just time to change into her dance gear, so she needed the perfectly sized bag to hold her clothes, tap and ballet shoes.  Here is what I came up with, a simple drawstring bag, (impeccably finished with french-seams, la-di-dah) where the drawstrings are also the shoulder straps.

When we went to purchase Michaela’s dance gear, it came in about 6 different shades of pink, black and purple.  The pinks were all cool pinks or that bubblegum pink colour, no warm peachy pinks.  I was very pleased when she told the lady in the shop that her favorite colour was purple, I thought it was the nicest colour there for her warm colouring.  Of course her bag had to be purple to match!

When she was trying all her new clothes on, Rory came home from a game of Football, and I snapped a shot of them in their different gear.  I really liked the juxtaposition.  All that was missing was Amelia in her Taekwondo gear, or her Choir uniform.

Do your kids have lots of uniforms?

I have a bit going on at the moment, and it is not all fun, secret sewing stuff.  It’s “I can’t blog about it” stuff, and together with my pattern deadline it adds up to me feeling a bit overwhelmed.

I’m doing what crafty types do, I’m consoling myself with stacks of happy, bright fabric to oooh and ahh over, and comfort knitting.  The fabrics are all for the appliques that I have been working on, and I will reveal all, when I can, but even just looking at the fabric collection cheers me.

The knitting has been keeping me company when I can’t be working on my project – it’s portable and calming.  The yarn is an 8ply, 100% wool from Cleckheaton, called Country Tartan, that I picked up from Spotty with some other less inspiring requirements – at 30% off I couldn’t resist.

Do you craft when you are overwhelmed?  Do you cook or dare I say it, clean? (not me).

Behold, a clean cutting table!

I have a magazine deadline due very soon, for an exciting project that will be in the October “Kid’s Issue” of Australian Homespun Magazine.  I decided that I needed to get serious, and work with the entire cutting table, (it is a big project) so I took some time to clean it up.  I’m posting photographic evidence that it can be clean and tidy.

I have removed any clues, about what the project might be, from the table top.  The only other clue that I will throw out there is that I have been spending a lot of time with Pythagorean Theorem.

Because it is Autumn, and I love Autumn, I have also been spending some time in a beret.  I am ignoring the fact that it is not really cold yet, and that berets are not really “on trend” in any way shape or form.  I just like berets, I have 4.  Sadly (perhaps) I do not still own the tartan beret that I made when I was thirteen.

This Easter we all went along to enjoy the Bendigo Easter Parade, which I have written about before.  I love the way that the Chinese culture is firmly established and embraced by this parade, (The parade first featured a Chinese section in 1893) down to the smallest participants.

We arrived early enough to get a very comfortable vantage point, which was on a grassy little hill, (and even though it doesn’t look like it in this photo, we could see very well).

I was pretty happy to get there early to wait, it just meant more time devoted to my Wheel of Fortune Quilt.

There was eventually plenty of other textile inspiration to oooh and ahh over.

Luke, got this great close up of the head of  Sun Loong, the worlds longest imperial dragon.

The highlight of the parade (for us) was not really captured on film very well.   You will have to imagine that under the fluff and sparkles is an excited little girl.  Michaela was “swallowed” by one of the one-man Chinese Lions.  She didn’t stop laughing, and jumping for glee for several minutes.

There has been plenty of other school holiday fun in the past week, and not much crafting, which is as it should be. The kids return to school tomorrow, so I may have more sewing to show you soon.  Are you able to keep up with making things when your kids are home?

This week I finished the 10th, peachy ring on my “Wheel of Fortune” Quilt, and have started on the 11th.  It’s the most hand piecing I have ever done, and I’m fairly proud of it.  Now that the rings are so large, it takes quite a while just to cut out all the diamonds that are required.  There are 88 in this next ring, and I am using 9 different cocoa-powder coloured fabrics.

This ring matches the inner-most star, (1st ring) and are a softer colour than the chocolate coloured 5th ring.  I am particularly taken with the fabric you can see here, as the outermost of the cocoa diamonds that I have attached.  It reminds me of paper money, and fine etchings.  It sounds a little bit conceited, but I just like looking at the whole thing.  It is a big piece of eye-candy.

Some other eye candy arrived this morning, some fabrics that I ordered in my favourite warm colours.  I had not really noticed these ranges, until I saw them on sale.  They are all “Dear Stella”fabric, from both the “Yard Sale” and “Mimosa” collections.

I am absolutely in love with this particular fabric, “Mosaic, Yellow” from the Mimosa collection.  It reminds me of a particular painting that I love called “Bush Plum” by Aboriginal artist Jeannie Mills Pwerle.  I don’t have any plans for these fabrics yet, but I know that they are colours that I return to a lot.  Using them is not going to be a problem.

These last 4 fabrics are from Denise Schmidt’s “Hope Valley” Collection.  I know that I am really late to the party with these fabrics, but when they came out I was on a fabric diet.  I have only bought a half-yard of each.  I feel like I am blaspheming to say that unlike a lot of the quilting world, I have not been in raptures over Denise’s previous collections.  They were nice enough, but I didn’t like them enough to buy them.  This collection was different, the colours really spoke to me.  I have just seen a sneak peek of her next collection with Free Spirit, “Chicopee”, which has similar colours to this one, and I really, really like it.

Have you come “late to the party” on any fabric collections?

Meet Arden David, my brand new nephew.  He was born on Tuesday afternoon, weighing in a 2.3 kg (5 pounds 1 ounce).  He spent his first 24 hours in the NICU, after some initial difficulties, but had just joined his mother again on the ward when we arrived to visit yesterday.

Only Mum and Dad (Liz and Julian) have had a cuddle at this stage, (due to his time in the NICU)  but my kids all enjoyed having Arden hold their fingers, in that lovely way that babies do.  Rory is particularly chuffed that his new cousin is a boy.

Arden has an unusual set of parents, in that both of them are from a pair of twins.  What was lovely about our visit was that I arrived, (Julian’s twin) at the same time as Jill (Liz’s twin).  It was kind of nice that it worked out that way.

At the moment, I am fairly overwhelmed with emotions, and especially with the notion that all babies are a precious gift, and such a miracle.

Last weekend we drove down to visit Amelia, who was away (for over a week) at camp.  There was an opportunity for families to spend 2 1/2 hours visiting their camper, and having a picnic lunch.  Amelia was having a wonderful time, and was very happy to show us around.

She was able to introduce her siblings to “Patch” the guinea pig, who was a big hit.

It was also an opportunity to get some lovely candid photos of the kids.  Although this is not technically a very good photo, (into the light as it is) I love the way these two are looking at each other.  They were listening to the funny little noises that the guinea pig was making as it ate some grass.

It was great that we were able to visit, and see what kind of experience that Amelia was having, and to witness what an affect it was having on her.  She seemed very grown up, and much more independent (9 days of camp will do that to you).

Thankfully she arrived home yesterday, just in time to visit her brand new cousin in the hospital, something she would have been crushed to miss.

It is lovely to have her home again.

Last weekend I revisited this bunny, which I first made 3 1/2 years ago.  I wanted to try making it a little larger, because I thought it would make a nice, simple Baby toy, as it has no dangerous parts.

I used some lovely Moda “Grunge” fabric which has a lot of visual texture, akin to furniture with lots of layers of paint.  Amelia, who is definitely not a baby, (at 11 years old) was smitten.  She generally is with anything that is in the Aqua part of the spectrum.

Late this morning I placed that Bunny to wait on her bed, after returning from depositing her for departure for 9 days of camp.

I am very excited and a smidgen apprehensive for her.  There are a handful of kids from school going with her, (chosen randomly) but the bulk of the other kids are strangers.  The camp will take her right outside her comfort zone, as she will have none of her particular friends with her, and 9 days is a long time for your first camp.  She is going to do exciting adventurous stuff like rock climbing and canoeing though, and we can visit her for 2 hours next Sunday.

Until she returns, Jeannot Lapin (Bunny Rabbit) will occupy her freshly-made bed, and thoughts of her will, no-doubt, occupy my mind. It will be strange to be apart for one of my children for such a length of time.

In fantastically unexpected news, my engagement ring, which was missing for 20 days turned up (and now I have a better photo of it)!

I had all but given up hope, as I really thought it had slipped off my finger while I was out, but all along it was hiding in a box we keep in our laundry, that holds outdoor toys like skipping ropes and kites.  A box I go to rarely, and will probably not disturb over the next few months as the weather starts to turn cold.

So many people have told me of their “lost jewellery stories” of recovery weeks, months and years later.

Have you ever had a long-lost object turn up again?