The Calm After the Storm

I give up. There is no way I can catch up on all the blog posts that have been written in my absence this week. I did try but gave up after commenting on 30 and responding to about 60 emails from my inbox. I know if I haven't commented on one of your posts from this week you'll forgive me. Next time if you could all stop posting when I go AWOL that would be great. Thanks.


Relative peace has descended on Casa Pyjamas again with the exodus of Miss P and Little P. My parents arrive tomorrow. I need one of those revolving hotel doors round here. I could dress Mr. P as a bell hop.

There was a fair bit of sitting in my pyjamas this weekend catching up with what has been going on in the world and stuffing my face with mini Wagon Wheels. And like Pavlov's Dog as soon as I wrote Wagon Wheels I had to go and eat another one. OK, four. I'm safe- I've finished the packet now. But there are 5 packets of Tim Tams in the pantry calling my name. Miss P brought me home a Tim Tam show bag from work last week and I have thus far studiously ignored it. 

I was inspired by Kris's Miss 14 who made these cupcakes a couple of weeks ago. They went on my "I must do that when Little P is here " list. They were a big hit and I'm dreaming of a career in Sesame Street cupcakes as my next alternative job.  Having done them ,  I think I could quite easily pull off Elmo cupcakes too. Oscar the grouch would be do-able too if you could get you icing to look khaki. Sometimes that happens to me when I'm not even trying.  I have no photos of the process since I was supervising Little P who was "helping " me as I made these. If you can kid wrangle, deal with blue icing and manage to put together cupcakes while taking pictures then you are a better woman than I am . 

In fabulous news,  we are a two car household again (yay!)having finally found a new car this week. The price was right and it has wheels so it's all good. Mr. P can stop catching two buses to work.  

I managed to spend time in the sewing room this weekend and worked on multiple projects. A couple of finishes are in the wind over the next couple of weeks.   More on that tomorrow.

Favourite Things Friday

I'm late to my own linky party today since I've been on Little P babysitting duty this week.  Is it still Friday? It feels like eons since I did anything remotely adult.  I don't even know my own name at the moment let alone what day it might be. I count myself lucky I remembered to put underwear on this morning and I take my hat off to anyone who is doing this with more than one kid simultaneously. Are you barking mad?  I've spent most of the last 72 hours thanking my lucky stars that Little P isn't twins.

I have been awoken at 6.00am two out of the last three days by a child poking me in the eyeball. Yesterday it was with a licorice stick and a little voice yelling " I want this Bella" .."Here you are Bella" ..."Wake Up Bella"..."Eat this Bella".I love that Little P has that much enthusiasm in the morning before I've had my coffee. 

Mealtimes have been an utter circus. Little P has had oodles of fun feeding Indy and Lola from his fork at the table.  It took me four years to teach those dogs not to hover over people while they're eating and that habit has been broken in a mere three days. I love that Little P likes to share-even if it entails me taking a half sucked Bertie Beetle to be polite.

Changing a child who doesn’t want to get dressed is like trying to nail jelly to a tree. Eventually I worked out a system that involved sticking my knee in his stomach to anchor him down which is probably child abuse. Over the last three days I have spent 9 hours of my life employing my unique child changing method. It works. I love that Little P thought this was a game and spent 9 hours squealing with delight and squirming like a trapped snake.

Yesterday I drove Mr. P  to work with Little P tagging along for the ride.  It was apparently imperative for me to get excited every single time we saw a bus , which in peak hour is approximately every 15 seconds. I was   in the car for 90 minutes. By my reckoning that means I had to get loudly excited 360 times without the benefit of a second cup of coffee.  I love that Little P still gets excited by a bus whereas I see them as a traffic annoyance. 

Sleep deprivation  makes you  temporarily insane. I took Little P  grocery shopping. The  designers of supermarkets have a lot to answer for. Even though they make the aisles two trolleys wide they don’t account for children who seems to have extendo arms like Inspector Gadget. How can someone that small have the arm span of an adult eagle?  I had all sorts of things in my trolley by the time I got to the checkout  that I know I didn’t put in there and my bill came to  $586.36. But I love that Little P doesn't know how much a 70 gram tube of Roary the Racing Car yogurt works out to per kilo ($19.95 ) and thinks that Lightning McQueen Kleenex somehow cleans up boogers  differently to  regular tissues. 

Little P got 25 new toy cars yesterday and  before he went to bed last night he couldn’t find two of them. This led to a meltdown with him sobbing “I think they’re lost  - we find them in Bella’s house tomorrow? “ I love that he had complete faith that I would find them and make everything right with his world again. 

And while some of this my sound like grandma griping and like I've had a shit time of it this week, I'm here to tell you that my favourite thing this Friday (and yes it IS still Friday because I checked ) has been spending a lot of this week with my grandson who thinks I'm uber-cool and can do almost anything. But my absolute favourite thing was when he climbed up on my lap and we had the following exchange:

Little P : "I love you Bella"

Me: "I love you more" 

Little P : "Not possible"

This Bella gig is pretty good. 

Weekend ADD

Sometimes I swear I have undiagnosed ADD. This was in definitely in evidence this weekend where I found it almost impossible to stick to one task for longer than 15 minutes with the exception of gossiping on the phone with a friend. I can do that for hours.  On the positive side being easily distracted  meant I actually made progress on a few things that have been lurking round here making me feel guilty.

I made my first log cabin block ever for Kat's cheeky quilt. If I can find a moment to scratch myself this week to get to the post office this will be winging it's way across the country to become part of a much larger quilt.

I lashed out and made butterfly cakes. They flew straight into my mouth. Bastards.

Flurry saw the light of day for the first time in weeks. (Insert resounding clap here ) I've cut and sewn the border strips. Maybe this week they'll actually get attached. Everyone else is working on their backing so I have some catching up to do.

Tis The Season got a look in as well. These blocks are finished. I'll have a global mexican wave for that achievement thank you.

And these are part way done. Remain seated.

Little P's quilt finally got a label sewn on it.  I was only prompted by the fact he puked on it and it needed washing. That helped me recall I had been avoiding the label sewing for three months. 

I'm baby sitting Little P for a few days this week while Miss P works at the Royal Show so I went shopping and bought a few clothes for him to wear when he visits. I went overboard. I'm going to have to change him three times a day to ensure everything gets worn. I am also insanely contemplating toilet training him while he's here. 

Then I realised I didn't have any bibs to keep those pristine designer clothes clean so I whipped up a few. Last time I did bibs I made 25 at once and got all bibbed out. These came together so quickly I'm re-considering a career in bib making instead of my regular job. I'd only have to make 7587 bibs a year to break even.

It's going to be kid central here this week so if I'm not around much babysitting either killed me or I'm in a corner sobbing uncontrollably because there's pee and poop all over my house.  

Favourite Things Friday

Welcome to FTF for this week. You can show off one of your favourite things by writing your own post and linking up so wonderful people can troop over to your blog and have a look at something that's made your week a little brighter.  Today marks the one year anniversary of the start of FTF and I'd like to thank everyone who plays along, comments and drops by and visits. I love reading about your Favourite Things every week. 

I'm not a knick knacky person. I like clean surfaces and lots of space. But occasionally I see something in my travels that I have to have and such was the case when I saw these two paper mache angels well over 15 years ago. The detail on these angels is amazing.

I can't even remember where I bought them now, but  I do recall how much they cost because for the time they were very expensive. Something about them really appealed to me and they came home and took up residence. 

These angels have been watching over my household ever since. They're my own personal version of Gog and Magog from the Anne of Green Gables Series of books. (Does anyone else love those books as much as I do ?) 

I hope everyone has had a wonderful week and is looking forward to a weekend doing whatever you like to do to kick back and relax. The sewing room is calling my name and I'm planning a full day in there tomorrow. 

Moving Right Along ...

It's officially the first day of Spring Down Under. Get ready to hand over the sun Northern Hemisphere-ites!


Thank you to everyone who commented on the Flying Dutchman quilt. At 80 x 80 inches it was the biggest quilt I've ever made. It was a real challenge to push that quilt through this space on my little sewing machine. I bet you're all even more impressed now that you know I sew on a very basic sewing machine aren't you?

Mental note to self: Always send massive (by my standards) quilts out to be  quilted by my quilting Yoda in the future. 

Since the Flying Dutchman quilt had been taking up so much space (both figuratively and literally ) I decided it was high time to concentrate on one of the other four quilting projects that are  lurking round here laughing at me.  And since the sewing room looked like it had been ransacked by marauding goats I decided that needed to be my first order of business because seriously people I can't find a damn thing in there when it looks like this. 

I feel much more creative now that I can see my grubby carpet. 

In other news, I've had very exciting mail in the last week from amazing people. 

Melissa from clothwork did this post a while back about some prototype purses she made.  I fell in love with the linen and lace one and following my comment and series of emails, during which I promised her my next born child, cried, pleaded , begged and cajoled, she sent me the purse as a gift. 

But that wasn't all...the parcel was a mite bigger than I was expecting because it also contained a pincushion (with Babushka's - I love Babushkas!) . And can you see that little pin that looks like cake? I wanted to eat it up. Thank you Melissa. It's all so beautiful. I really need to find a talent so I can swap pretty gifts with people instead of copping out and sending them Haigh's chocolate.  

And from Helen(who doesn't have a blog) who I met through Nanci , this gorgeous hand knitted mohair hat all the way from Canada. Check out that colour!  She also thought of Mr. P  and sent him a black Fisherman's cap which I am going to have to prise off his head come wash day. I really wanted to get a picture of me wearing my hat but I'm having a bad hair day and I'm not wearing any make up. I don't want to scare anyone. Thank you Helen. I love it. 

And a fabric delivery this week. I have been looking at Soul Blossoms FOREVER and finally jumped on the bandwagon and got some. This is not my "usual" type of fabric and now that it's here I have no idea what to do with it. I just didn't want to want some in 6 months and not be able to get any. That's addiction for you.

Lastly, I have officially turned my Mother In Law over to the crafty side. We went shopping for a sewing machine for her yesterday. Sadly, she now has a better machine than I do. And I've already told her she needs to leave it to me in her will. 

Let this be a lesson to all of us ....

Procrastination is bad.

I convinced myself I could finish  the Flying Dutchman quilt on Saturday because after all,  I had no plans for the day beyond banking the cheque for my poor dead car and we weren't due out to my nephew's birthday dinner until 7.30pm . Plenty of time to get my act together and finish this at a leisurely pace during the day right?

Until we got a phone call Friday night inviting us to my in laws for a retirement celebration lunch on Saturday. Two social activities in one day is unheard of around here . What's up with that ?

I figured I could still pull it off  because I had all of Friday night to get the binding finished, print the label, wash and dry the quilt and sew the label on.

I fell asleep on the lounge at 9pm...oops. Having. Done. Exactly. Nothing.

Guess what I was doing at 7.20 this morning? Furiously attaching binding that's what!

And at 4.20 pm this afternoon as I de-linted it and wrapped it in beautiful flocked wrapping paper I have never been so glad to finish a quilt in my life! 

2/3rds of the front - this quilt is huge!

The back 

I'm off to pretty myself up for the birthday party. The birthday boy better be suitably grateful!

Favourite Things Friday

Welcome to Friday!

I'm keeping it short and sweet this week. I'm dedicating my FTF this week to one of the hardest working people I know. My mother in law, Shirley, who will probably kill me if she ever finds out I've posted her picture and her name on the internet.  

On Wednesday this week , my mother in law retired after over half a century of working. At one point when my MIL was in her 20's she held down multiple jobs simultaneously while bringing up a  toddler to make ends meet. Her energy still amazes me. And until this week she still worked 5 days a week starting at the very rude time of 7 am every day. And somehow still always managed to have a pristine house and  throw together impromptu family dinners for the clan. When I get home from work all I want to do is collapse... 

My favourite thing this week is  the idea that after years of working so hard she is finally going to get to do some of the things that she wants to do for herself. She told me her first job was going to be cleaning her house from top to bottom. Crazy. My first thing would be to sit on my arse and do nothing for a month. 

Happy Retirement Shirley. You deserve it. 

If you'd like to share one of your favourites this Friday, whack up a post and link to this one so we can come and share something you're loving this week. 

P.S. My father in law will be joining her in sleeping in and bumming round doing exactly what he wants when he retires next week. 

Excuses., Excuses...

You all know the sorry saga of how I left quilting the Flying Dutchman quilt until the last minute. I made a big song and dance publicly about having to do it all in a mere six  days. 6 days is a pretty tall order even for me, especially since I've cornered the market on avoidance lately. I'm seriously considering changing my blog name to Procrastinating in My Pyjamas. 


Straight up I'm going to confess I didn't touch it Wednesday or Thursday.

I ended up working all day Friday so I was shattered by the time I got home. Not so shattered that I couldn't make this though instead of doing what I was supposed to be doing. 4 days till deadline. Tick, Tock, Tick , Tock.

Saturday I planned to work on that quilt all day. Really. Miss P phoned at  10.15 am begging for help to move to her new house as  all  her friends had piked on helping her and she needed us to come with a trailer to pick up a "few" things. A few things turned out to be 3/4 of her house most of which was not yet packed. Three trips later with a cage trailer (and a lot of frenzied packing) and we finally got home at 6.15 last night. I was shattered. Not so shattered that I couldn't finish this though instead of what I was supposed to be doing. 3 days till deadline. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Today I woke to the certain knowledge that I had 41 hours to complete this quilt before D day. I was shattered. Not so shattered that I couldn't sit at the computer commenting on 30 blog posts and responding to about 20 emails this morning though. 

Finally at 9 am  I knew I could procrastinate no more....Nothing like a little bit of pressure to get your motivation going. And at 4.52pm I'm pretty sure I heard victory trumpets and angels singing to herald the finish of the quilting. I'm not showing it yet because it's the lint-iest quilt ever and I haven't brushed it down yet.

Now I just have to do the binding ...sigh...I hope your Sunday was full of crafty times. 

Favourite Things Friday

TGIF people. That's all I have to say this week. 

My morning routine every day for at least the last 25 years has been pretty much the same. I wake up and my brain instantly kicks into gear. After my poor brain works out what day it is (that's always my first thought ) I'm thinking about whether I have to go to work and what I have to accomplish for the day. I'm usually out of bed within about 60 seconds of waking up.  It sucks to be instantly awake. 

Every morning is the same. I stagger off to the bathroom and  turn on the kettle and computer on the way. Once the bathroom and I have finished  the most important ritual of my day occurs. 

I make coffee. 

I don't understand anyone who can leave the house in the morning without slurping down at least one cup of coffee. I need at least  two or I'm a cranky pants or at the very least fairly fuzzy round the edges by the time I get to work. 

When I was nursing and had to be at work at 7am, there was usually no time for that second cup. I had to get Miss P to childcare and I'd often leave home at 6.15 am. It became well known among the night nurses that the only way to have a handover conversation with me  was to have a hot steaming cup of coffee sitting on my desk when I walked in the door. It's like coffee lights up my brain and allows me think intelligent thoughts. 

image credit

At my worst point of addiction I was drinking about 8 cups a day. That stuff is more addictive than crack. You seriously do go through withdrawal when you're coming off it. 

image credit (we dont want to get sued now do we?)

I don't discriminate when it comes to coffee. Plunger, coffee machine, instant-I'll drink them all. Cappuccino, Mocha, Vienna, Flat White  - just brew it up and hand it over. Coffee makes me smart.

As far as I'm concerned a bad cup of coffee is better than no cup of coffee and it's one of my favourite things this week. Link away if you'd like to share one of your favourite things this week. 

15 Minute Challenge with Kate

I'm back for another week of Kate's 15 minute challenge and I'm feeling like a bit of a fraud. I don't have a lot to share this week. 


The Flying Dutchman Quilt 

I publicly announced I needed to finish the Flying Dutchman quilt this week. I'm publicly announcing that  I'm bringing this one down to the wire.  It's not as if I didn't touch it at all this week. I made the backing. Let's see how well I work under real pressure. It needs to be finished in 6 days. Last time I brought my finish this close to the actual giving I ended up staying up until 3 am Christmas Eve attaching binding so I could give the quilt to someone Christmas day. 

For reasons that are unknown to me the floor on which I normally baste my quilts has decided to become uncooperative at allowing masking tape to adhere to it.  Anyway I had to suck it up and baste this quilt on a very large couple of tables outside on Saturday. I'm not sure I love that method of basting and I'm not sure I did a great job. 

I started quilting - I like the black and white variegated thread. 

What I didn't like was the curvy lines I decided to do on the coloured parts ...so the seam picker and I had a session. I'm also dreading having to de-lint this quilt when it's finally done. 

Tis the Season Stitcheries/Quilt 
This week I finished two more stitcheries from the 'Tis The Season blocks.

And made some headway on the very last block. I'm disappointed this is almost done and will have to find some other hand stitching to do. Yes- you heard it here. I like hand stitching. Alert the media. 

And then I got really ambitious and decided to start making them into actual quilt blocks. (I think at this point I would have done almost anything to avoid the Flying Dutchman quilt ) 

Pop on over to Kate's to see what other crafters have been up to this week with their 15 minutes. 

P.S. Does anyone want to pop on over and quilt the Flying Dutchman for me?