Blogtoberfest day 31 - Thankful Thursday

Today I am grateful for a sensible child who comes home early from guising (trick or treating to non-Scots) when torrential rain starts. To thaw out in the bath with her spoils.

And I am grateful for a spouse who has his own interests and gives me peace to secretly cut lots of fabric for his Christmas quilt.

I'm also grateful for modern medicines even though Beechams hot lemons are minging. Colds are horrid. My skin is currently too small for my skull.

But most of all?  I'm glad to have made it to the end of October and managed a blog post every day. Thanks to all of you who have stuck with me, I know we've had some random topics and scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrell chat but at least one (or three) of you have commented on every paragraph of drivel so a mighty huge thank you from me. You all rock! I may never get round to replying to all your lovely comments - you may need to forgive me on that one. Now, if you'll excuse me I'm away to bile ma heid. *coughsniff*  Colds really are horrid.

Blogtoberfest day 30 - Marceline

Chook's Halloween disco was tonight which necessitated what may be our last costume making for the foreseeable future. I suspect next year at the Academy there won't be fancy dress! 

So. Tonight, Matthew, she wanted to be Marceline Abadeer, queen of the Vampires from the comic/cartoon "Adventure Time."

The actual costume part was easy. Skinny jeans and a grey tee. I think I was quite clever and covered her black riding boots in red wooly tights. The biggest trouble I had was finding a plain black wig! They're all 70's flicked-out jobs or pirate wenches with braids in the front. Good old Asda came up trumps, though, and after some grey facepaint and black eyeliner she was done.

 

That bass was another thing, though. It's basically a piece of scrap wood and some cardboard but there's four coats of paint on there. It could actually do with another final coat and it's got no strings but I was losing the will to live by this time. All I seem to have done the last few weeks is paint!

And, natch, a photo shoot with Chook isn't complete without some larking!

Last day of Blogtoberfest tomorrow! I don't know how you every-day-bloggers do it. Not just the contents of a post everyday but finding the time to actually DO it! I'm looking forward to getting back to two a week!

Blogtoberfest day 29 - postal goodies

I got awesome happy mail from my good friend Dolores the other day. She wanted to send something for Chook's new room and when she found out we needed to make more cushions?  She sent a whopping great slab of fabric.

Amazing, right? Those top cuts are a yard or bigger and Chook has requested 2 oversized cushions and a pillow case. And I've plans for piecing the bottom ones into stars and things for regular sized cushions. So exciting!

She also sent some of the coolest Halloween fabric I have seen! I absolutely love those cars in the bottom right.

And check this guy. He's been to school already but lives on the end of her bed. A perfect match! (How skinny are my boney girl arms? Yuk.)

Thanks again, Dee. You once again totally spoiled us with your generosity and all-round general brilliantness. In short,  you rock!

Blogtoberfest day 28 - axes and ponies.

With all that's been going on lately (with decorating bedrooms and changing riding schools and making model Anderson shelters) we mostly forgot that it's the Halloween disco on Wednesday.  Oops. So tonight found all 3 of us constructing a life size model bass guitar shaped like an axe. For the Queen of the Vampires to wield. Any Adventure Time fans about? She wants to be Marceline this year!

This is Spouse cutting some notches into the axe blade.  Ably assisted by that nutter Chook in the background!

So.  More black wig hunting tomorrow. It's surprisingly hard to find a plain wig!  And grey makeup. But I suspect all the zombies have bought it. *g*

Her lesson at her new/old stables today went really well. She was on a pony she had ridden before who is a bit of a blighter to get going! But once they had reached an understanding those jumps kept getting higher and higher. I have no photos or video because I stopped looking! But that meant things were going great for her and she's in a wee group of girls in a Saturday morning class. On a punky pony called Skittles! So hopefully we'll be nicely settled for a few more years.

Blogtoberfest day 27 - my week in Instagram

A fairly quiet week on IG the past 7 days. In fact, no cats until late last night!!!

Hand drawing graph paper for a quilt plan.  Before I knew you could download sheets of it from Incomptech.com. Which is genius!

The beginnings of the Anderson shelter project I shared a few days ago.

Inappropriate work shoes! I thought I'd broken my pinkie toe kicking the bed last week.  I don't think I have but the shoes I can comfortably wear are limited!

Hand quilting a quilt!! My first.  I've done about a quarter of it now - it's quite fun once you begin to embrace your imperfect stitches!

Rain necessitated even more inappropriate work footwear!

A last cuddle for Chook and her favourite pony, Fudge, yesterday. The owner of her riding school is retiring (she is 77!) and the stables are closing.  Yesterday was Chook's last day and we're all a bit sad over the whole affair.  It's not all bad, though. We're going back to her original school tomorrow for a test run. Her first instructor is back and the arenas are all newly surfaced and extended (our 2 reasons for leaving in the first place) so fingers crossed it goes well!

I am coming back as a cat. That is all.

So another busy week ends. I've sewn today with my extra hour since the clocks went back but can't show you yet - Chrimbo pressies!!

Blogtoberfest day 26 - The Blogger's Quilt Festival, Fall 2013

I participated in the second ever Blogger's Quilt Festival back in 2009 when Amy was still Park City Girl and I was very new to quilting. The quilt I entered was actually taught to me by Amy herself as a round of the Old Red Barn Co Quiltalong. I'm not sure I've entered since - certainly not in the last 2 years - so it's about time I did, eh?

The Tale of the Quilter of Whimsy-on-Sea.

*clears throat* Are we sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

Once upon a time there lived a wizened old fabulously attractive young quilter who lived in a house on a hill surrounded by toadstools and....er.....large building blocks. One day she was forced to move from her two-storey love nest by a large, newly privatised and fairly useless ogre. Let's call him Royal Mail. She set up her new home in a small but lovely cottage with a coal fire (with no chimney - oops) which nestled under a giant flower and more of the weird building blocks that plagued her area.

Despite the ogre's best attempts (and the odd building blocks) the small 2 house hamlet prospered and expanded. First with more of the weird geometric oddities, then with more houses making it into a proper village. A village with seagulls! And there grew a pasture at the end of the village with ponies and sheep.

And two dragons moved in! One a land dragon, one a sea dragon. It was okay, though, they were friendly and helped with roofing repairs. You know, from damage caused by the flying building blocks and such.

The sun always shone and the clouds were always fluffy and the breezes gentle in Whimsy-on-Sea.

The saplings the villagers planted on the outskirts flourished and became a wood.

And the last few abodes that would complete the village were built. Although there wasn't much room in that hot air balloon for bunk beds. And you had to be careful of naked flames. And the cat hated it.

And they all lived happily ever after.

 The end. *closes large dusty book with satisfaction*

Whaaat? Okay, you want the real story of Whimsy-on-Sea? Okay. In January of 2012 I was a member in the Old Red Barn Co quilt group's first round robin experience, Around the Bend and Across the Pond.. Also know as travelling quilts, these days, I sent out this block.

Which promptly got lost in the mail. So I made another. And they both turned up on the same day in New York despite being posted 4 weeks apart! Anyway, so began my wee blocks adventures. Every stop (8 in total, including mine) something was added. I asked for "whimsical" and, boy, did the girls do me proud or what! As each addition was added and sent onwards the girls also included a block with their location and signature that I pieced into the back.

When my very large top arrived home earlier this year I took my time deciding how to quilt it, finally plumping for a "breezy" wavy lines style and adding the perfect "Shelburn Falls" binding.

The plan is to hang the village in my wee sewing room (I added a sleeve while I was binding) but since he will take up a whole wall I need to do some furniture rejigging first! 

I could never, ever have imagined that this is what would result from my wee house block. My thanks eternal to the girls of my Ab Fab Free Bees group; Sara, Laney, Ellen, Brittany, Dena, Krista and Trudi. This really is my one-in-a-millon quilt.

Details:
Pattern - pfft. Hand crafted from the imaginations of the Around the Bend and Across the Pond subgroup - AFFB.
Fabrics - original inspiration from a Taali print by Monaluna. Backing is plain grey cotton, binding from Shelburne Falls by Denyse Schmidt.
size - it is a whopping (I thought I'd get a lap quilt home!) 76x73in.

Blogtoberfest day 25 - flashback Friday, vintage dresses

This photo lives in my living room. It is of my maternal Great-Grandfather*, his daughter my Wee Granny and her daughter, my mum. It was taken in our wee town high street around 1960. We reckon Mum is about 4. What I love best about it - apart from the sentimental familial connection - are the fashions. Mum remembers the wee dress she is wearing,  it was red with the white stripes and bows on it. I love that sharp suit Granny has on. And the beret. And oh my,  the gloves. All this for an ordinary Saturday morning trip to the shops? Class.

Vintage style clothes are massively trendy just now. But Mum and I were stunned and amazed when Chook chose this tea dress for her Christmas party outfit! She looks amazing in it, the dropped hem at the back is quirky but stylish and the wee collar is all kinds of modest. But it's really edgy looking on her.

 I've not run them by her yet but I think these shoes will totally rock! Little t-bar patent ballet pumps!

She definitely will NOT go for a rockabilly style pomp hairdo. But I think I might get away with a curly ponytail or small scale up do. It's times like this that I totally love having a girl!!

*My Mum called him Pop instead of Grandpa. And now my Chookie calls her maternal Grandfather (my Dad) Pop in his honour. Dad's not got a bunnet, though. *g*

Blogtoberfest day 24 - Thankful Thursday

Chook is doing the Second World War as her school topic this term and her homework this week is to build a model of a WWII Anderson Shelter. We've spent a lot of time this week after work and school cutting up cardboard, paper machieing and painting. But I think it was worth it - apart from getting to spend time together she's got a really cool wee diorama to take into school tomorrow.

I especially love her portrait of Churchill and the bomb sticking out of the crater. (No funky PicMonkey collage - our internet is all kinds of screwy tonight and getting pictures at all has involved phone blogging. Yuk.)

So today I am thankful for a kid who still not only needs my help but wants me to help. And I'm thankful for the skills and time to be able to help her with a degree of competence. But I'll be glad to get back to spelling homework and maths exercises next week!

Blogtoberfest day 23 - Chook's room

Here ya go, then, I know you've all been waiting on tenderhooks for the big reveal. Hardly. *g*

 

From the door - the masterpiece of a day bed. She fell in love with that mozzie net as soon as she saw it in Ikea and I do like how it adds some softness to the room. Especially since she has no curtains now. The green flowers holding it back are tie backs that we couldn't resist! She wanted a turquoise room (what I'd call a strong aqua - not too green) but with lime accents. Got a good eye, the kid! And she loves her St Louis quilt - yay!

 

This is the same wall right after the mini-makeover in March.

I love how cosy and welcoming but still airy this part is. She needs more cushions (oh, if only someone could sew! *g*) to make it properly a couch during the day. But it's perfectly functional for the time being.

Where her bed used to be are her new (huge!) bookcases. These boys can be fitted with doors of various combinations (gotta love Ikea!) which we may do later once we know how she uses the space.

It hasn't generated much more floorspace along the length of the room but I think it feels bigger. Maybe the ladder being gone?

Here's a better look at the bookcases. There's another DVD tower along the left hand side with all her films and videogames in. That one on the right is paperback novels. And do you see the four shelves of Breyers!! Geez. Toys (Littlest Pet Shops, My Little Ponies, Monster High dolls et al) are in the boxes down the bottom. She had a huge clear out or everything wouldn't have fitted. Kids have so much stuff, amiright?



Bye bye under-bed den!

Where she has gained space is up this other end. Her carpet isn't so poo-brown as this either! It's sea grass so is brown and black (almost a stripe effect) and very flat. She says it's awesome for toys standing on!

You see? We made space!



 

I love this bit that you see as soon as you come in the door. The butterfly is mine and a gift from my Mum a lot of years ago but it was so perfect here I selflessly offered it up to the shrine of Chook. (There's a blue one on the mozzie net, too.) And another gratuitous shot of the bedside table and lamp, natch.

 

So the only bit that's a still bit meh is her wardrobe. It needs kitted out inside properly but we're going to wait until after Christmas and do it properly. I think that's perhaps when the fifty-quid-a-roll pony wallpaper may get purchased to paper the doors. This photo was also taken before I discovered the butterflies were perfect!



 

You can see the floor space she has to play in now, though. It's a tiny wee room (the carpet was 10 by 13 feet and that 10 feet width takes into account the alcove the door is set into!) but I think we've managed to make it tidy, modern, easy to keep and cool enough to take her into her early teens. 

Blogtoberfest day 22 - Vinnie the Cat

It was dry this evening (after torrential rain all day!) so I got photos of my Vinnie the Cat quilt! I am so pleased with how it has turned out! 

This is my Hipbees quilt, the story of the top's birth (and subsequent naming) is here. That's my girls signature blocks below the awesome pink "Geekly Chic" specs.

It's quilted in regularly irregular straight lines to kinda echo what's happening in the blocks. In pink thread, obviously. *g* I do like pink.

Binding is the same Kona Smoke I sashed in (great colour - like a dark Ash) and it is very nice to have a totally modern quilt for a change. Since I have such subdued, vintagey leanings. Thank you for being a part of this, ladies! *waves*

Quilt Deets:

pattern - loosely based on Denyse Schmidt's "Drunk Love in a Log Cabin"

fabrics - Kona Cotton Solids in Ash, Dusky Peach, White, Butter, Brick, Melon and Smoke. Backing is more Ash and a Geekly Chic print. Binding is more Kona Smoke.

Size - 60 x 48in after washing.