The Internet and blogging are such a double edged sword.  I love the inspiration and connection of blogging and reading blogs, but they can be an amazing time devourer as well as a purchase inducer.

Lately I have been loosing the battle, spending more time reading than making – I think because I am tired and the weather has been cold and dreary.  Admittedly, some of my reading matter is from the library, and not online, but I think it is time for spring weather to get me more motivated.

Here is a purchase that I made for no good reason at all, except that I thought it looked fabulous.  Meet my Happle.  I really have to blame this purchase on Design*Sponge, because if I had not seen it on their site, I would never had “the wanties” for it.

Without bloggy sharing I would never have tried making my own Chai Tea mix either – thanks Suse for the recipe, it is yummy – pop on over to see how to make it, just don’t expect it to last long – it does contain Sweetened Condensed Milk, after all.

These last little acquisitions have nothing to do with the Internet, and everything to do with the generosity of like minded people.  My lovely friend Barbie, from my quilting guild, gave me these pegs last night.

Why?

Just because they are “the best pegs ever, and they are all one colour, so they will all match”.

Thank you Barbie – I have tried them and they are pretty snappy

oh, and the bright orange goes really well with denim……

Well I have finished my teapot, and I am really pleased with these colours – they make me so happy.  On Friday, I worked a little on this, while I was Multitasking again – this time Michaela and I were doing jigsaw puzzles on my cutting table.

Also making me happy are some recent music acquisitions.  I won a copy of Mark Sholtez’s album “The Distance Between Two Truths” after listening and writing a review online here.  Listening to him makes me feel the same way as I do when I listen to Norah Jones – relaxed and uplifted.

I have also bought “Anchor” by Mindy Gledhill after reading Sandi Henderson’s rave review on her Portabellopixie blog.  Sandi has a Mixpod music gadget on her site, where you can listen to quite a few tracks (from her post, it is clearly something she has permission for).  I listened a few times through, and then purchased the album from itunes.  I love it – So happy and quirky.  Being able to listen to an album sure makes a difference between me purchasing or not.  I am usually more likely to spend spare money on a book than some music, (I rarely buy either) but music does make me so happy.  I always listen when I sew.

These purple butterflies are fused from Michaela’s choice of fabrics, for her party cushion.  I am almost through free motion stitching around all the other cushions, but hers is still to go.  They are the same butterflies that are going to go on the “Tea in the Garden” Applique, but I am yet to chose which colours to make them in (and they will be needle-turned, not fused).

Michaela repeated the purple theme on Saturday with her costume for a Witches and Wizards birthday party she attended.  The emphasis was more on pretty than scary – that’s for sure.  It thrilled her to bits to dress up in the cloak I made for her big sister about 5 years ago.

What’s making you happy at the moment – music, a colour, a book or something else?

I have been diligently stitching around the applique shapes, on the cushion fronts that the kids designed at Amelia’s party.  Hers is the cushion on the right.

The kids chose the fonts, and the applique motifs (from a choice of several of mine) and then carefully selected fabrics from my stash.

I ironed the fusible web (vlisofix) onto the back of the chosen fabrics, and the kids trimmed the shapes, and placed them where they wanted them.

Michaela’s cushion is on the right (above) – she just chose the butterflies, and all the purple fabrics – she does not quite have the dexterity for the sharp scissors yet.

Rory’s cushion is on the right.  “B” is clearly a minimalist – she only wanted her initial.  I thought they all did a good job – and I think they all enjoyed it.  So once I finish sewing down the shapes, I just have to whip up 6 cushions.

Would you consider letting kids loose on your stash?

Amelia’s 10th Birthday Sewing party was a great success.

Button Gingerbread biscuits were consumed (along with plenty of other treats).

The “Birthday Cake” was a plate of flower cupcakes which Luke made with the kids.

“Hoop Face” stitcheries were stitched by all.  This one is Amelia’s, you can tell by the very neat stitches.

Rory is more of a speed stitcher, he really enjoyed working on his Robot.  I need to track down a couple more 4″ hoops, so that his can have a properly sized face.

While the kids were stitching, they also took it in turns to rifle through my fabric stash to design themselves a cushion front featuring their initials.  Next time I will give you a peek.

Today I have been preparing for an important event.  My first baby is turning 10 on Sunday, and celebrating with a sewing party.  I am going to teach the three guests how to back-stitch, and the six kids are going to make these little “hoop faces” I have designed.  They were inspired by these beautiful faces.  The hoops are 4 inches wide.  The finished stitcheries are designed to be displayed in the little hoops when they are finished, (the outside circles are not stitched – they represent the hoops.

I am frantically getting ready, because I have spent the whole week ministering to sick kids, as both Rory and Michaela have had the flu.  I am pretty nervous that Amelia is going to catch it, just in time for her birthday.  Tonight she is off with her best friend’s family to see “Mary Poppins” on stage – the lucky duck.

I am going to be sitting at home tracing off vlisofix initials, for the cushions the kids are also going to design.  They have all chosen a font at school (via a print-out I sent along) and a motif for the appliques to go around it.  On Sunday they will pick which fabrics they would like, cut and place everything on a cushion front.  I will raw edge applique them and give them a finished cushion, some time after the event.  Tonight I am hoping to get my first good night’s sleep of the week.  Apologies if I have not replied to your comments on the past couple of posts – I have been busy holding buckets and providing honey and lemon drinks.

Anyone else out there had a sewing party?  What’s the most successful kids party you have had?

Well here is the evidence of progress I made while away on Quilt Retreat with the NOTYQ Guild last weekend.  8 blocks and quite a bit of needle turn applique, not to mention 4 other partially completed blocks (not shown).

Since my return I have done a little applique every evening, but most of my time has been taken up with 2 sick kids – back to motherhood duties!

Here is a little picture of the joy that is a whole weekend of nothing but sewing, eating and chatting.  That is my little station on the table, (there were 6 of us on our table – 3 with machines and 3 hand-sewing).  You can see more of the venue here.

There was a little nature spotting amongst the sewing – this cute little fellow is a Superb Fairy Wren.  He stands out quite a bit more than his female counterpart, who is a much-harder-to-spot brown.

I have moved onto working on the teapot in my applique – here is my handle and here is my spout!  I really love my needle turn applique, and have recently found 2 websites that celebrate the same technique.  Glorious Applique is a blog started recently, dedicated to the work of people making up the applique designs of Kim McLean.  I have never made any of her design (preferring to make up my own) but I love her work, and the skill of the appliquers following her patterns.

Speaking of skill, the other blogger is a designer and appliquer of amazing skill and complexity.  Her name is Sandra Leichner, and her appliques are amazing.  You can see some of her winning quilts here.  I have started following her blog which shows each step of her current work in detail – so many applique pieces, and so much detail.

It gives me hope that one day I will be able to write patterns for some of my more complex designs (like my fairy, above or my shark, below).

The sick child on the couch is calling me, so back to nursing duties.  Have you done any applique lately?

Here is a new-to-me technique for marking your applique background to centre your design.  After you press your block in half to find the centre, sew along it with large stitches, (which are easy to remove later).  For my “Tea in the Garden” Applique, I have marked 2 lines which quarter the square, and two more which cut diagonally from corner to corner.  It is making it much easier to line up the positioning overlay, to position the individual applique pieces.

In the morning I am off to our annual Guild Quilting Retreat, where I am going to sew lots, eat to an elegant sufficiency, have many cups of tea and interesting conversations, and probably sleep very little.  I will show you my sewing progress when I get back, but now I have to go and pack.

I have a lovely friend Danya, whose family has had a very rough year.  Today she is having a significant birthday, so I popped in to surprise her with a little gift.  Every second thing I have made lately is a scarf, so I thought I would play to my strengths, and make her a bespoke one of her own.  Especially as she has just boldly chopped of all her locks, (a look she is rocking) which I thought might make her neck a tad bit cold.

I am rather pleased with how well the scarf looks on her, especially as I have been mildly obsessed with Plum, a colour that does not really suit me.  It suits Danya just fine, especially with her recently revealed silver hair – Lovely.

Danya has many online friends who are familiar with the way she manipulates the English Language and creates a unique written “voice” of her own.  Awesomesauce is one of her words, which I would not even attempt in person, as it doesn’t roll off my tongue very convincingly.  I thought I would get away with it online though – have an Awesomesauce Birthday Danya – you deserve it.

After pre-washing all my fat quarters, yesterday I prepared them for cutting, by adding a new step.  I decided to lightly starch each piece, in the hopes that this will help the accuracy of my pieced star blocks.  I have done lots and lots of Maths, while designing this quilt (My Tea in the Garden Quilt) and have worked out all the cuts and fabric requirements.  All that was left was to actually start cutting.

This is where my multitasking genius comes in.  I managed to play about an hours worth of Go Fish, with Miss Michaela, while cutting.  She was perched on a stool at the end of the cutting table.

Now I would not normally recommend this type of multitasking, but because my maths had all been done, and I had actually drawn out all the cuts per fat quarter (with colour diagrams representing each different piece of fabric) I didn’t have to concentrate quite as hard.  I was able to keep us both happy at the same time. Win-Win.

And then my clever girl arranged an Elephant with the scraps.

Do you wield sharp objects with your small people close at hand, or do you think I’m crazy?

Well I finished Michaela’s library bag, and am quite proud of myself.  As I planned, I finished the applique by stitching (twice) around each shape about 1/8″ or so from each edge.

This time I challenged myself, and did all of the sewing free-motion (as in, feed dogs down).  It’s tricky, but another one of those skills, where the only way to get better, is to actually do it.  The letters of Michaela’s name were the hardest, but luckily they are really dark, so the mistakes don’t stand out.

Did you notice who sneaked her way into that first picture?

Lotta the Moodle, who is the fluffiest she has ever been!  Here you can see her just after a bath, a blow-dry and a brush.  Unfortunately, I have to have her clipped, as she is starting to get matted, especially on her underside.  Once her fur is this long, she is very hard to keep snarl-free, and I think wearing her coat at night has contributed to the matting.  She is going to be wearing the coat a whole lot more after her trim!

Meanwhile, on the weekend, Luke picked up a new friend, while mowing the lawn – a Stick Insect (or phasmid).  We were all fascinated, so we had a good look, and then gently popped her (as far as I can tell, the male phasmids have wings, and the females do not) back onto one of the bushes in the backyard.

The sun is shining today,and I think Winter is starting to lighten up, or perhaps that is just hope talking.  How is Winter (or High Summer) treating you?