Lily’s quilt

My first ever quilt! I thought I would do a show and tell – because I so very rarely finish anything of this magnitude (and it’s only a crib quilt!).

Actually, it’s been finished for quite a while now – but I hadn’t taken the time to photograph it. On Thursday both tikes spent a large amount of the day snuggled on the couch under their quilts so I got a chance to snap it in use.

This quilt couldn’t have got any simpler in design but I really like square quilts. That being said, I am sure if I mastered those tricky corners I would really like triangular quilts (looking at Fiona’s beauty – who couldn’t?).

I did lots of hand quilting on this thing – in retrospect, I think it’s too much. But I wanted to get that wrinkly vintage look.

And does it ever get used? Not really – Lily prefers her light, cheap Ikea doona. What can ya do. It’s good for those sick days on the couch. Next I have the hand quilting to do on Amelia’s quilt which will take me about 14 years, at least.

Library day (and lots of parentheses)

Still working my way through that big list of things to do.

Today I made a mad dash to the library to return a stack of books – but I took a moment to browse the shelves and borrow an even bigger stack of books for holiday reading (and listening – nothing like Library audio books for a long car drive). We’re off to the country for ten days and there’ll be plenty of sitting by the fire in the evenings reading books (usually through closed, exhausted eyelids) and talking about how good it would be if we had enough energy to get up and get out the scrabble board.

I love it when you find a title in the library which you have eyed off on the shelf at the book shop and decided that to purchase it would be way too indulgent but it’s very nice anyway (see above right).

I also love it when you find a title which you have seen on other lovely people’s blogs and thought “ohh I need to find a copy of that!” and to have it turn up like a little gem in amongst a couple of dozen other far less appealing dvds. (see above left).

I loved My Family and Other Animals when I was younger – I was determined that I would end my days living on a Greek island with a house full of animals (anyone who knows me and my fears and allergies will find this mildly amusing). I recently stepped out (which makes going out sound far more special, which it really is these days) to see that Abba movie … what was it called? Mama Mia! That’s right… with a bunch of girl friends and decided that my younger self had been entirely on the money when it came to nice places to end your days. Ok — enough of my free form ramblings. I am off to keep at that list!

Things I am doing

Today involves:
Packing for the school holidays
Buying champagne for my bestie’s baby shower
Ordering cakes for my bestie’s baby shower
Starting an illustration for some nice girls
Attending a “linen party”
Returning library books
Entertaining sick children
Grocery shopping
Thinking about zombies (well, I am)
Filling in forms for the Child Care Rebate
Sorting out an invoice with a doctor
Laundry
Dinner (chicken and basil and cashews? Mmm yes)

Other things I would like to be doing:
Watching Project Runway (both US and Aussie versions)
Crochet
Eating King Island Dairy vanilla yoghurt
Starting secret project for my bestie’s baby
Listening to some music
A proper blog post
Reading a book (rockin’)
Checking out my enormous list of favourite blogs
Pre-ordering Moomin book three

Rabbits are multiplying

I am getting there. I found a couple of spare hours today, ransacked Lily’s room to turn it into a photo studio of sorts (you should have seen my scary looking lighting set up… towers of bed-side lamps teetering of mountains of stacked furniture), did some very amateurish styling and photographed three of the five rabbits in various set ups and then my camera battery ran out… and then we had to find the recharger… and then I needed a cup of tea… and then I realised that the rabbits aren’t actually finished and I was going to sew little buttons on their dresses… how did I forget that?… and so it comes to a grinding halt for the time being.

I don’t know if I am going to get a chance to list them for sale until late October when we get back from Japan – perhaps by then the 5 rabbits will have become 10 as I have a whole bunch more cut out ready to be put together.

But I thought this was a cute shot regardless.

Shake it up

I’ve been getting super jealous of Pip and her photo shoot. It sounds like a dream come true. This afternoon I finally finished my small group of five rabbit/mice things and thought I might do a little photo shoot trial run ready for the next sunny day. I asked Lily if she’d hold on to one of the girls hoping that it would give potential buyers some kind of idea of how big the toys are – but despite being hugely enthusiastic she really didn’t quite understand what we were trying to achieve. We had lots of intense movement; head shaking, rabbit shaking, dancing around… A zakka photo shoot this was not.

This one is called “Mummy, rabbit attack camera”:

Less blury photos to come in the next few days.