some sewing!

I made myself a waterfall cardigan ages ago and am only now getting around to blogging about it. I used the Harper jacket pattern from StyleArc.

It made up really quickly and fits me really well - yay! - but the edges were to be left raw or overlocked. I overlocked mine - even though I didn't really like the idea of having unfinished edges. (To me, overlocked edges are not finished edges - they are on the inside of a garment but not on the outside!)

The first time I wore it, sure enough, the overlocking got caught in something and I just knew I had to do something about that. So I did. I made some bias binding with a navy blue polycotton which was a pretty close match and attached that to the edges. Much better now!

Here's the blankie I made for Emily after she arrived.

Originally, I was going to embroider the "worth the wait" bit on a piece of fleece and back it with the heart fabric but I somehow managed to embroider it sideways! What a numpty!

I had a bit of a rethink and came up with the idea of cutting out the embroidery into a big heart and attaching that to the heart fabric. I then attached the pink fleece to the back and quilted it in hearts. I used a bright pink for the binding which is pretty close to the colour of the fleece - and the hearts on the heart fabric.

I actually think the re-do is much better than my original idea was. I'm soooo pleased with it and Debbie told me it was her favourite blankie as it really is true. Awwwww!

Of course, I had to make a very special label for this very special baby's very special blankie!

I've spent this last week making lots of pinnies (7) and bags (14) for the tartan bee shop - more of those in a later post - but I did make a new pinny for myself. This was a remnant which cost me all of £1 and I had the tapes already. Bargain - and pretty with it!

meeting Emily

Debbie and baby Emily finally got home from the hospital on Tuesday so we went to visit them yesterday. I might be ever so slightly biased but Emily is gorgeous! Here she is asleep in her moses basket with a new blankie I made for her last weekend.

Cuddling with her mama.

Emily and her Grammie - my new name!

Emily and her Papa - Douglas's new name!

Emily with her Auntie Joanna - Tilly was not very sure at all about this wee thing that kept making funny noises.

Emily with her Grammie and Papa.

Emily with her daddy. I *love* this photo!!

The new family. Yes, Debbie has tears in her eyes - happy tears. Very happy tears!

And this one really made me giggle. I think Emily's going to fit right in with us! LOL

at last ... Emily

Our wee baby girl, Emily, finally put in an appearance this morning at 8.32am weighing in at 8lbs 12oz. Under the hat, her hair is dark (like her daddy's).

Mummy and Emily are both fine although Emily is in the baby care unit as she has a slight infection. Debbie is as well as can be expected after a l-o-n-g labour and an emergency c-section.

We're hoping to go and see them at the beginning of next week after they get home. In the meantime, thanks for all your best wishes and good thoughts. It's been a long couple of days for all of us!

cutting 4½" squares

Our baby girl has still not shown her wee face. We're hoping for her to come this week ... but then we said that last week ... and the week before that! Soon. She will be here soon.

In other news, I decided that, if I was going to make a few disappearing 9 patch (D9P) quilts, then I'd need to cut more 4½" squares. So I went through my scrap boxes taking out any that I'd get 4½" squares from. This is that pile!

Then I went through my fat quarters pulling out ones that I thought would be good in D9P quilts. Here they are:

After many afternoons of cutting, I ended up with a huge (untidy) box of squares.

I decided that that wasn't good enough so I tidied them into colours.

There were more of some colours than others - red and blue are the highest piles with only about 6 squares in the tartans pile. They're now all in boxes on my shelves and I've already made a blues D9P top with them.

Then this afternoon, I dived into the pink pile and chose some to make a pink D9P top. Having them in colour piles made choosing the squares so much quicker.

These will go into the tartan bee shop once I've quilted them to replace the ones that have sold recently. I wonder if I'll ever get bored of making these D9P quilts? I hope not - or at least not before I use up all those 4½ squares!!

oddments blankie

Baby girl is still keeping us waiting. We were all hoping that she would come today so we could call her "Pancake". 😁 Joanna (Auntie-in-waiting) and I were laughing this evening when I said that it looks like our baby girl was going to be a March baby. Joanna's reply was "at the rate she's going, she's going to be a pumpkin!". 🎃 LOL

Last time we went to see Debbie (mum-in-waiting), I forgot to take my crocheting with me so she handed me a basket full of granny squares and said "here you go". I spent the afternoon crocheting them together with my usual slip stitch in the gap then 3 chain to the next gap. It makes joining squares together much more enjoyable when you get them done fairly quickly.

I then brought the joined squares home with me, joined in all the ends - somebody needs to invent a way of doing that quickly! - and then did a 3 row border of granny trebles around the outside. I think it turned out really well considering there was little to no planning of what square went where.

Here's a photo with my slippers showing to show the size of the blankie - not big but fun, bright and will probably be well-loved by baby girl.

another disappearing 9 patch quilt

No sign of baby girl yet - she was due today. In the meantime, I've been keeping myself busy making another disappearing nine patch quilt. I started with a pile of 4½" squares and sewed them up into 9 patch blocks - 16 of those.

Then I cut those blocks in half horizontally and vertically ending up with 64 smaller blocks.

Those got joined together into the quilt top and pinned ready for quilting.

I did my usual diagonal quilting.

I had enough of the pink spotty which I had used for cornerstones (the wee squares) to make the binding.

And here it is in all its glory.

The back is a lovely white with a small pink rose on it.

I'm so pleased with the way this turned out. I already have plans to make more of this design - I've decided it's one of my all time favourites quilts to make.

owls quilt - finished

I finally finished the owls quilt I was making for Debbie with the fabrics bought in Canada when she and Jason were there last year.

She had chosen this pattern (click on the photo for the pattern) which Joanna had found on Pinterest.

I played around in Photoshop putting the colours of Debbie's fabrics in where they would go and came up with this:

Debbie thought that the fabrics looked like they were "floating" and I could see what she meant - no real definition of the blocks. So Douglas and I went through my pile of plain colours and decided a bright pink would look best.

Back to Photoshop and this is how it looked now. Much better!

The eagle-eyed amongst you might have spotted that I changed a starry fabric for a turquoise fabric - 1st block on the left, second row down. I don't know if it was a mistake in the original pattern but it was the only block that didn't have all the colours in it. So I changed it. As you do. Or at least I do!

Anyway, Debbie liked this layout so the sewing began. I managed to get the top sewn together but then I got sick and the quilt sat for about 3 weeks with nothing being done to it. Last week, I finally sat down and got it quilted. I just sewed diagonal lines - the quilting part of making a quilt is my least favourite part of the process and, if I can think of a quick way to do it, that's the way I'll go.

Here's the quilt on our bed.

Here's a close-up of the fabrics - those owls are so cute!

Here's a better photo of the quilt with my trusty quilt holder (Douglas) holding it up.

The back is a fleece given to me by Joanna - this quilt has turned into a real family affair! The pink on the snowflakes is almost exactly the same colour as the pink Douglas and I chose to boost the blocks. Pure coincidence!

It's less than 2 weeks now until the baby's due. We're getting excited/scared/impatient around here! :o)

a thank you rose and a baby cardie

I didn't get nearly as much done last week as I'd hoped as I was struck down with a really bad cold. I basically sat or lay on the couch for 4 whole days feeling yucky. I'm on the mend now, thankfully. Crumbs I do hate being unwell.

I got a lovely parcel whilst I was feeling sorry for myself which made me feel a lot better! It was a box from interflora!

Inside the box was a lovely rose.

There was a card:

And on the card it said -

Oh my goodness. I was stunned! Gail - who I made the diary cover for shown in my last post - sent me a rose to thank me! How lovely! How kind! I only hope I can keep it alive!

The only crafty thing I managed last week was to finish off this wee cardigan.

I really was surprised at how far apart the colour changes were in this yarn. There was also no repeat of the colours so I couldn't start the second front in the same place as the first front. It's a bit weird but I don't think it's horrible. If Debbie doesn't like it, she can always make it a sleeping-only cardie. I do remember having a few sleeping-only cardies when my two were wee. You know, the ones that are just a wee bit strange for some reason or another.

I dug out my Hague linker to sew it up - much quicker than sewing it by hand.

This is the back of the cardigan. It looks like it was deliberate to have those dark pinks matching at the top of the back and sleeves - it wasn't. It's pure fluke!

Now for a laugh. I was standing making a cup of coffee in the utility room last week when I noticed this on the mug cupboard door.

It's a Christmas poem written by one of the girls when they were at Primary school. It - along with many others - gets stuck on the kitchen/utility room cupboard doors as part of our Christmas decor. Why is it still there? We use that mug cupboard every single day - at least 4 times a day. How did we not see it? How did Joanna not see it? It made me laugh so hard when I saw it. I wonder if there are any other Christmas decorations still in full sight? I wouldn't be at all surprised! :oD

another catch up post!

I got into trouble yesterday when we went to see Debbie, Jason, Molly & baby bump for not blogging. Debbie told me in no uncertain terms she was fed up refreshing the page only to see the same photo of hyacinths again and again. Okay, next time you refresh, you'll see a photo of my sale jammies. Happy now? :oP

Yes, I bought some jammies in the sales - you just can't make jammies for £8 these days. Crumbs, a dressmaking pattern costs more than that! Anyway, I wore them for one night and *had* to do something about the buttons. They were so small that they kept coming out of the buttonholes - not good in this chilly weather! So, I went to replace the buttons and didn't have enough of the right size. Isn't that always the way? I have thousands of buttons - no word of a lie - and it's crazy how many times I don't have enough for what I want to do! Then I had a bit of a brainwave - why do they need to be the same? They don't! So the replacement buttons don't match and I don't care one hoot. I love these jammies. They are so comfy and cosy - especially now that they stay shut!

I made a couple of lemon cakes. I doubled the quantity as I had a lot of lemons to use up. They're all gone now but they were delicious! My mouth's watering just thinking about them!

I decided to stop crocheting the ripple blankie I was making for the new baby - blogged about here. I've not ripped it out, just put it away for now. Instead I've made the same kind of blankie I made for both our girls when they were babies - your good old traditional granny squares.

When we found out Debbie was pregnant, my next door neighbour asked me if Debbie would like a traditional shawl. Debbie was delighted at the idea and C gave it to us last week to give to Debbie. Oh. My. Goodness. It is absolutely gorgeous. What a lot of time and effort she's put into it! Debbie - having been brought up well ;o) - has already written a thank you note. She just loves it!

When Debbie and Jason went on holiday to Canada last year, a friend took her to the quilting shop we'd gone to in 2011 - blogged about here - and bought her fabric to make a quilt for the baby. At that time, Debbie didn't know what sex the baby was so the fabrics are non-gender-specific. I've spent the last week or so making them into a quilt top.

It's now pinned on to a fleece for the backing so I hope to get it quilted together this week.

One of Joanna's work colleagues was admiring her diary cover (blogged about here) and oohing and aahing and drooling over it. Maybe the last bit isn't quite true but it was a close thing! Joanna asked me if I'd make a cover for Gail. Of course, I said yes.

Here's the front:

The back:

The inside front cover showing part of the quote Joanna chose:

The inside back cover with the rest of the quote - I did the quote using my embroidery machine. So easy peasy!

I hope Gail likes it - I'm sure she will!

You might have noticed some wee paws in the photo showing the back cover. That's because Tilly decided she wanted in on the act. Butter wouldn't melt! :o)