Jamie's Movie

My son and husband made this little movie yesterday in the snow - such fun!

Churn Dash

It has been snowing again today, we haven't had this much snow for years and this is the time for us to be left without the Discovery.  My car just about got out to take Audrey to ballet this morning but is now stuck again, so we are going nowhere.  Lewis's computer has gone pop, don't know if it is fatal yet, the fan is going like mad so maybe once it has cooled down we will be able to turn it on. - fingers crossed.

All in all there was very little to do other than clean, tidy, play with the kids and do a bit of sewing.  Quilted Hen had updated the week three pattern so I got down to that, now I have nothing to do for the rest of the week!  I am thinking about doing the Paintbox Quilt Along on Flickr, which looks gorgeous.  I have ordered some fabric but it won't come for a while as it is coming from the States.  I have a couple of gifts to make so I guess I shall just get on with them.

Bed time for the children now, then dinner and a sit down.

Second Week of the Quilt Along completed

I have managed to complete my next four blocks for Quilted Hen's Raid the Stash Quilt Along.  I was getting twitchy knowing I was a week behind!!  How sad am I!  Pretty pleased with this one, lovely neat points and very pretty..

Have to put my sewing stuff away now, the kids are back from school and we have gained an extra one so there are four running around screaming.  Big excitement for the girls as the Jonas Brother are having a special on the Disney Channel and Camp Rock is on tonight.  My three year old is their biggest fan, she is growing up way too quickly!

Quilted Hen's Stash Raid Quilt Along

All quiet here today, the kids are back at school and I have the house to myself, time for a sneaky bit of sewing!  I always feel guilty, sewing during the day like this, I feel I ought to be doing housework or something equally tedious.  So here are my quilty pleasures for today, the first four squares for Quilted Hen's Raid the Stash Quilt Along.  The idea is to complete four 6" squares of each block and in 3 months we will have 60 for a gorgeous single bed sampler.  Mine will be for my daughter, I think or maybe I'll make it bigger and have it for our bed.  We shall see.

Crazy Quilt Bits

Well the kids were off school again today and we had a totally slobby day, in fact we stayed in our pyjamas all day!!  I had promised Freya that I would make her a needle case to go with her sewing kit so decided to do a bit of crazy quilting using up my endless scraps.  It is rather fetching in pinks and reds with various machine embroidery stitches which Freya chose; hearts, flowers, turtles etc..  I used a ribbon binding which wasn't too successful but Freya was delighted with it.

Front

Back

The wallet that I made yesterday to go with my handbag and pin cushion, really making the most of my fat quarters, I will use every last scrap!!  I also labelled some of my quilts today a job that I have been meaning to do for ages.  Just need to decide what to do tomorrow!

We had a bit of a shock this morning, when my husband went to the bottom of the hill to get his car this morning, it was missing!  Normally we have no crime where we live, in fact we have the second lowest crime rate in England so it really was a shock.  Lewis followed the tracks in the snow and found the car dumped around the corner.  He had left it in low ratio and we presume they thought it was broken!!  The big house across the road had cctv cameras and the theft was caught on video and we had a soco team over - all very exciting for our tiny Peak District village - it even made the village blog.  Hoping for much less eventful day tomorrow, what would we do if we lived in a city!

Our Snow Day take two

We got snowed in today, the snow only started at 7.30 but it came down on what we already had and the school decided to close 5 minutes before we were to leave the house.  Needless to say the children were ecstatic!  Saying that they complained bitterly about walking the dog, eventually we managed to leave the house and trudged around the village which was looking absolutely gorgeous.  We are very lucky that our village is not on a through route to anywhere so the roads were deserted and we could wander around without the dog on a lead.  We met up with friends and planned a sledging trip, there is a fantastic sledging hill in the village.  The girls later changed their minds but Jamie went off with friends and spent the afternoon out there.  The video is actually from Saturday, we have had loads more snow since then and it is still coming down steadily so probably no school again tomorrow.

I spent the afternoon sewing with Freya (she got her own sewing machine for Christmas) she made a little handbag and I made some curtains for the living room and a crazy patchwork wallet to go with my bag I made the other day.  I shall photograph and post them in a bit.  All in all it was a lovely day.

Linus Quilt

Over Christmas I finally finished off my quilt for Project Linus.  They are an amazing charity donating quilts to children in need.  I found out about them at the Festival of Quilts and signed up then to make a quilt, just need to get it delivered now.

Here is some information that I took from their site...

About Project Linus

WE are a 100% volunteer organisation whose aims are:

• To provide a sense of security and comfort to sick and traumatised babies, children and teenagers through the provision of new home made patchwork quilts and knitted / crocheted blankets;
• To give an opportunity for needlewomen across to UK to contribute to their local community.

Project Linus originated in America, December 1995 when Karen Loucks saw a newspaper article showing how much a comfort blanket had helped a child cancer victim and decided to organise blankets for her local children’s cancer unit and started spreading the word. Since that time over 2,300,000 blankets and quilts have been delivered worldwide.(www.projectlinus.org)
Project Linus started in the UK. March 2000 as a result of a quilter’s desire to help children in need. It has now spread to cover most of the UK. To date we have delivered over 96,000 quilts and blankets. We always try to get the blankets delivered to children who are local to the makers.

Handbags

I am desperate for a project......  Unfortunately we are a bit snowed in so no fabric shopping for me.

Instead I decided to make a hand bag, this was from a pattern in January's Patchwork and Quilting UK.  I had some lovely fat quarters in my stash so decided these would make a gorgeous bag to take around shows.

It was great fun to sew despite a few pattern errors in the mag!

These are pictures of a hand bag I made after the Festival of Quilts from a pattern I bought there - using of course my favourite Japanese patterns.

And finally, another pin cushion using up some scraps from my bag.

A friend

Well I got busy and made another for dd2.  Ds now wants a Christmas Rabbit!  Watch this space......

Christmas Angel

Dinner is in the oven, yummy lasagne so thought I would just post this quickly.  Unfortunately lasagne just isn't good enough as my youngest is singing/sobbing I want pancakes for dinner, this has been going on for 15 minutes now, and I am trying to put my deaf ears on!

Last night I attended the Parwich ladies sewing club, a group of us meet for a natter and a sew every other Monday during the winter months and at the moment we are making Christmassy things.  It was so lovely to get out as I have been stuck in the house for the last three weeks recuperating from a nasty operation, yesterday was my first day out of the house and of course I over did it somewhat.  It was such a lovely evening though and a real laugh, I took all my felt decorations to show them and a couple of the ladies are now making them too.  I had started this wool felt Christmas Angel a couple of days ago and took it to finish it off.  I now have to make another as both dds want one, plus need to sort out the wings!  Still, it was fun to make so I shall start another tonight while dh is out at band practice and won't be able to complain about my sewing lamp reflecting in the tv!