Cue the Rocky Theme Music

This whole weekend has reeked of ground hog day. I've been working on WIPS. The same ones I've been working on since about 1983.

But by this afternoon , I was feeling like this.

Because I can move mountains of unfinished projects when I put my mind to it. 

I whipped up 4 Farmers Wife Blocks which gives me a grand total of 8. I keep reminding myself it's not a race. (and wondering why no matter how carefully I cut and sew I end up with blocks anywhere from 6-7 inches when I'm finished) 

I knocked off  the last 20 Hourglass Blocks. I was doing the happy dance and fist pumping the air. I'm going to be so glad when this quilt is done because I cant wait to see how it looks!

And here's the finished pile. All 64 of them. 

I finished the last of the Rainbow Log cabin Blocks too...

And laid them out so I can sew the top this week ...Scrappy and bright really makes me happy. I LOVE the way this quilt looks. 

My flower garden hexagons got a workout  after being neglected for about two months.  3 more done and another almost finished. I still have 36 to go....Fortunately, I'm not in a hurry.

Chocolate tarts rose like a phoenix from the ashes. This was meant to be chocolate fudge but I screwed it up so badly at the heating condensed milk stage that  I had to improvise so as not to waste 400 grams (that's almost a pound ) of very nice dark chocolate. The tarts taste divine and it just wouldn't be right if I didn't manage to mess it up somehow. Just one question? Why does my pastry always end up looking like it has leprosy? 

So I'm a happy camper ...I can finally see some progress and light at the end of the tunnel with projects that have been lurking forever , and I'm enjoying sucking the chocolate filling out of those tart cases. I'd call that a successful weekend.

Favourite Things Friday

It's still Friday here, although only just. I've been flat out today with Little P related things, which also coincidentally is the subject of my Favourite Things Friday post this week.

One of the cool things about being a Bella is that you get to experience all sorts of kid related activities again. The even better thing is that when you work with kids you get to pick the brains of everyone you work with for all sorts of cheap but fun ideas for play when your own brain goes blank.

I decided a week ago that Little P had outgrown his manky collection of bath toys and needed new ones. Coincidentally two of the therapists I work with had just been shopping for toys for one of their water play groups so I took every great idea they had and went and bought all this for under 12 bucks.

Now I have to pry Little P out of the bath.

The biggest hits ? The spray bottle (cost a whole dollar ) and the noodle box Mr. P drilled holes in (which cost about 40 cents )

I have been promising Little P I would make him some playdough for about two weeks and we did that together this morning. (I am the Playdough Queen )  He insisted on red. Then he spent two hours playing with it. I just chucked half the contents of my kitchen utensil drawer on the table for implements and he was totally happy, proving yet again that kids don't need expensive toys to use their imaginations. We all need to take a lesson from that. Sometimes we grown ups complicate things unnecessarily.

Enjoy your weekend and whatever you decide to do-have fun. Keep it simple. 

Breaking The Drought

Like gentle summer rain after weeks of dry and hot weather my mojo poked it's head up for a couple of days this week.  Angels sang and trumpets heralded this rare event.

When I've had anything to show at all over the past few months it's been the  same type of blocks over and over. Don't get excited - it's more of the same for this post. That's the problem with working on WIP's . It's boring for people who read your blog. 

Four more scrappy log cabin blocks. Five more of these and I'll be ready to turn them into a top. 

More work on the hourglass blocks. These seem to be taking FOREVER. I have 20 more of these to finish before it starts to resemble a quilt. I keep waiting for the quilt fairies to finish it while I sleep. So far they haven't made a visit so I keep trudging along block by block.  

I'm at the stage with the hexie cushion that I'm pulling paper templates out. Surely that means at least one finish is imminent? 

Yawn. 

Linking up to Kate's 15 minute challenge again this week. If I don't finish something soon I think I'm going to take up ceramics. 

Copycat

Saturday night we officially celebrated Miss P's birthday , after she and I spent three hours at the spa getting primped, pampered and polished. I wish I could do that every week but since I spent the equivalent of the gross national debt getting so shiny and relaxed, I'll be saving that for a "sometimes" treat . And in my world sometimes is about once every four years.

I swear this is my last birthday related shot until July. I just wanted to show you the cake and Miss P all gussied up.  

Birthday celebrations finally done, I turned my attention to doing exactly what I wanted for the rest of the long weekend. Everywhere I looked people were showing off things I loved and just had to make or that reminded me of things I have been meaning to do forever. So I hung on to other peoples coat tails for the weekend and just went with their brilliant ideas. It saved me a ton of brain power. 

I totally stole this idea for speckled eggs from Clare over at Clare's Craftroom. Last year I snaffled her idea for Fabric Carrots for the Easter Bunny...it seems Clare is my go to girl for Easter making - either that or I'm a craft stalker. 

Linda posted about a lemon slice she made which prompted me to recall I have been meaning to try a ginger and lemon slice for about a month. I finally got round to that this weekend. I accidentally poured in a teaspoon of yellow food colouring thinking it was vanilla and ended up with very vivid icing, but we've come to expect a minor disaster everytime I do something that resembles baking.

Helen posted about breakfast being her  favourite thing on Friday and I stole one of her ideas and made some bacon and egg cups for breakfast on Monday.

And Ulla from Ulla's Quilt World  made the cutest little chicken pouches for Easter and provided a free template so that other people could make some too. I was all over that idea and had visions of making multiples for Easter gifts.

Mine ended up beakless (it's inside somewhere having disappeared in the turning process )and you'll also notice MY chicken has moulting tail feathers and is vision impaired..... 

Other sewing that didn't involve maiming animals has happened over the past few days and I'll share that with you tomorrow. 

Favourite Things Friday

 

It's been another whirlwind of a week. Crazy busy but a "good" kind of busy. Lots of golden moments full of laughter.  I'm looking forward to 5.00pm tonight though and since Monday is a public holiday here, I'm doing the happy dance at the thought of three days off. Tomorrow, Miss P and I are having a spa date and going out for lunch. Tomorrow night is her 21st party and after that I'm planning on collapsing for the rest of the weekend. 

Miss P introduced me to an app this past week called Draw Something , which is essentially like Pictionary for your I phone or I pad. She and I have been drawing back and forth all week. The ability to draw recognisable objects was left out of our DNA at conception so our attempts to convey things through visual means have been somewhat hilarious. 

I talked Little Miss Sunshine into joining me in this time sucking activity on Wednesday. Frankly her attempts to draw are no better than mine so it's an even match.  Everything was going relatively smoothly until I got home from work last night and was greeted by this email. 

"I apologise in advance. I drew something that was totally innocent. When I finished it I looked at it and saw I had drawn you porn. Sorry."

Frankly after an email like that I couldn't find my I Pad fast enough. 

All I could see was a cannon. Can someone please explain what she was talking about?

The resultant flurry of emails back and forth provided about an hour of almost wet your pants laughter. The kind of snickering laughter 15 year olds engage in. Maybe we're both reverting to our adolescence? Gosh  - I hope so because life is generally a serious business when you're a grown up and if I'd known that 30 years ago I would have refused to participate in this nonsense known as adulthood. 

My favourite thing this week is belly aching laughter and outing one of my best friends who said she was going to deny she ever drew anything resembling a cannon. Oh and the shaky writing ? That's because she was laughing so hard that she could barely write. I was so busy laughing at her drawing I didn't even notice the writing. 


Do you have a favourite thing this week?  Link up your post so we can share something that you loved this week. 

Kate's 15 minute challenge

My usual modus operandi for sewing malaise is to start something new because that always excites me.  So Saturday morning I wrote a list of all my WIP's to see if I could convince myself to squeeze something else in but all I ended up was horrified. I have eight WIPs in varying stages of not nearly finished . The sensible voice in my head has decreed I cant start anything else until I finish something old. (I hate that chick )  At this rate  I'll probably be finishing up my flower garden hexie quilt in the nursing home.

That didn't stop me from buying fabric last week.I'm counting that as a creative pursuit. 

I  promised myself I could start one new project for any two things I finish and woke Saturday full of good intentions. Then I popped out to help Miss P furniture shop ....which turned into 4 hours of retail therapy where she didn't buy anything furniture wise but we can now both flash our new undies in public without fear of ridicule if necessary.

I also managed to come home with furniture. Can I count that as something sewing related? 

The sleeping fairy sprinkled way too much fairy dust  about Saturday afternoon and sadly I fell asleep at tea time for a 5 hour Nanna nap. Technically I guess that's more of a coma than a nap. 

Despite me mimicking Rip Van Winkle a  dozen hour glass blocks materialised this week. 

And I did a load of prep for the next time motivation finds me

 I spent some time playing with hexies 

Lookeeeee here ...actual progress!

And I got some of my scraps out and threw them round my cutting table to make it look like I'd been incredibly busy and creative. It looks so realistic I almost fooled myself. 

There you have it - the week that was. At least I found my sewing machine this week! Linking up with Kate and the gang over at Life in Pieces . Pop on over and look at all the sewing brilliance. 

Favourite Things Friday

Twenty one years ago tonight I crept down to the hospital nursery to stare at my beautiful daughter in her humidity crib and marvelled that I had made something so tiny and perfect.  Even if she had made me sick for 8 entire months every single day and had prevented me from eating cheese for my entire pregnancy. The trade off was that she liked strawberries and chocolate milk so that's what I ate for 9 months. 

Between the ages of 14 - 18 I wanted wild gypsies to come and take her away in the middle of the night and return her again after she'd learned to be a human , but for the majority of the last 21 years I have been utterly , deeply and madly in love with her. So I want you all to indulge me today while we celebrate Chloe's 21st birthday because there have been times when I was pretty sure one of us wasn't going to survive to celebrate this rather large milestone. Having done so is my favourite thing this week. 

I'm resisting the urge to show naked baby shots and all the other embarrassments of her life (gawky pre-teen years , bad fashion mistakes, and all those shots of her scowling and looking rebellious and emo through her teen years ). It would be fun for me to play "lets stick all those incriminating photos on the internet" but if I do it today it'll lessen the impact when I do it next Saturday night at her party in front of people she actually knows. Sometimes you have to chose the greater of two evils.   

My life has taken a few twists and turns since that night in the nursery , many of them unexpected.  There really has been joy , and sorrow and challenges and jubilation. There has been happiness and anger, frustration and emotional highs and finally, over the last few years, a relationship based on us both being adults. (which doesn't mean I can tell her what to do occasionally because I am after all, her mother - and dammit Chloe you will listen to me because I know what I'm talking about ) 

Her Royal Highness  started the day by telling me I wasn't allowed to take any pictures of her until she had showered , dressed, slapped on make up and done her hair. Yep- she's always been a princess.

It isnt a birthday without balloons 

And flowers 

We went out for lunch 

Someone over indulged on the baby cinos...

Presents were unwrapped 

Cocktails were enjoyed 

And my cupcakes weren't a total disaster. 

So Chloe I just want you to know ...I love you once,  love you twice, love you more than beans and rice. 

XXX 

Oh and I was totally bullshitting about not showing nudey/ embarrassing shots of you . I have another set lined up for next weekend. 

Feel free to link up and show your embarrassing baby pictures or anything else you like this week too. 

To all of you who have emailed me this week offering your good wishes for my surgery obsessed family, my Dad is fine and Little P sailed through his surgery and woke this morning to wreak havoc through my house as usual. Thank you so much for your lovely emails.