Life Lessons

Throughout my life I've often been envious of other people's abilities and skills. I've often wanted to sew my own clothes, but thought 'that looks way too hard'. The same goes for knitting, crocheting and quilting. Part of my problem is that I try and teach myself and get frustrated when I can't work through steps - so I give up.
I remember the first time I watched How to Make and American Quilt the desire to make my own quilt was so strong - but once again I thought 'I can't do that'.

But, the urge was unrelenting so I decided that I would make a basic quilt and I would go to lessons and learn how to do it right. So I did - and it was great. The feeling of satisfaction was so immense - it made me glow (seriously - it made me smile from the inside out!).

The thing was though, once the quilt was made, I didn't want to give up the lessons - I wanted to continue on. So, I stayed whilst I made my mother's quilt. During this I saw someone's quilt sampler and I looked at it and thought 'wow, that's amazing, I bet I couldn't do that'. But my teacher had other ideas - she thought I could do it - so I am doing it and it's great fun. I've made four (and 1/4 - see bottom note) blocks and I can't wait till the next lesson so I can sew the next block. Six months ago I would never have imagined that I would be able to make a log cabin block or the court house steps........

Of course there is no way I can tackle triangles or curved pieces.......no way! lol

Log Cabin

Courthouse Steps

Bowties 1

Bowtie 2

nb - I'm also doing applique - I would tell you how that's going, but I don't like to swear in public.....

Cheers
l
x

Emily goes to Hospital

The title sounds a little like a children's book - but in actual fact it was a reality for her yesterday. We were all up at 5.30am so we could get to the hospital by 6.30am - it was a cold and stormy morning. Louis remarked that 'last night we went into town and tonight we are going into town again'. I explained that 'yes, we did go into town last night, but right now it was morning - it's just so early that the sun hasn't come up' ..... only 12 hours separated our journeys.

Anyway, the reason for hospital visit was for a dental procedure. About 2 1/2 years ago, the dentist realised that one of Emily's adult teeth hadn't come up. So we had xrays and eventually we were referred to an orthodontist who put braces on her bottom teeth in the hope that the space created would allow the tooth to come up. It didn't. So, we were then referred to the oral surgeon who said the tooth either had to come up or out. He also said, in a jolly sort of way, that while we were at it, we might as well get her wisdom teeth out as they would need to come out eventually. I figured that as she was going under anyway, he was probably right. Emily didn't feel as jolly about it though!

So, she ended up having surgery yesterday and today she is relieved that it is over, but feeling sore and a little sorry for herself.

Before and after shots - minus the blood dripping from her mouth - that was a little too gruesome!

I have to say that as a mother or rather, parent, there is nothing harder than watching your child hurt - whether physically or emotionally and it's horrible to see them feeling vulnerable too. I had been stressed for over a week - all I wanted was for the surgery to be over and for her to be okay. I got my wish! I guess part of the reason I was scared was because when I was about five years old, our next door neighbour's daughter was in an accident and she broke her leg. She was lucky that she wasn't hurt more, but the leg was broken badly and had to be pinned. She never came out of the anaesthetic. I know that the chances of that happening again are very, very slim, but you still can't help but worry. Anyway, Emily was lucky and so were we and for that I am grateful.

We are having a quiet day today - Em is off for the rest of the week. Hopefully as the week progresses she will be able to do some quilting.

Must go - I have to mediate between two bored boys!

Cheers
l
x

Happy Mother's Day

I had a lovely mother's day. I was woken (early) with lots of cuddles and mother's day wishes. The kids had decorated Emily's whiteboard with lots of lovely drawings and sentiments.

Julian had made me this lovely present at school. He was so proud of it. Inside are three little stones containing three wishes.

I got lots of mother's day kisses too - even from Julian who hates all that kissy stuff.

David went out of his way to make the day special too. He made a lovely roast chicken dinner together with Emily which was delicious.

I hope all the mother's out there had a lovely day too!

cheers
l
x

What a wonderful Weekend

About a month ago, there was a decision made to have a quilting weekend at my sister's house in Kadina. This had been postponed once but we finally made it. All in all there were eight of us - two of my sisters, Emily and four of my nieces and of course, me!

This is my sister, Dineke and my niece Emma. Emma is over from Holland and had come along for the weekend just to hang out and watch as she hasn't really done any sewing before, let alone quilting. Dineke had to go out to buy some fabric and Emma came along and was convinced to have a go at making a quilt.



In the end, Emma was the only one to finish a quilt top completely! She enjoyed the process a lot and, I must confess, did a better job than I did on my first quilt. This will be a lovely souvenir to take back to Holland with her.

Karen, cutting at the table, has made a few quilts but has not had any formal lessons. She was very happy to learn the art of cutting and other handy hints and tips that I managed to pass down from my few lessons. Elly, at the ironing board, had also just come along to watch, but she caught the bug herself and managed to make a little quilt too. She has since bought her border fabrics and will be dropping by tonight to do some more quilting.

Here is Madi, Emily and my sister Jo - all busy sewing. We started sewing early in the morning and finished sewing late at night. Every time someone hopped up from a sewing machine to iron, measure or cut, someone else would hop on. It really was a lovely weekend and it was so nice to get to know nieces a bit better and to spend time helping each other.



We hope to do this again soon. I was reluctant to leave the boys behind - I think it's the first time I have left them for a weekend but David and the boys had a great time and they are more than happy for me to do it again. And, amazingly enough, my house was not trashed when I got back - they had worked hard to make sure it was almost as I had left it! Not that it would have mattered - all I cared about was that everyone had fun.

Hope everyone else had a good weekend too!

Cheers
l
x

ps - a big thanks to Poppy and Mei for leaving such a lovely comment on my previous post. Famillionaire is now my absolute favourite word. Every time I say it I smile, from the inside out! Thank you Bec!

just to show you my camera works

Photo by Louis. This is a small (very, very small) sample of his car collection. He's mad about cars - especially Mazdas. Unfortunately Mazdas are really hard to buy so he has to content himself with various other brands. The red one at the top of the photos is his Opal Speedster - this is currently his absolute favourite.


If you look very carefully you will see a spiderweb in the rain. I got to use my zoom lens for this photo which was handy as I didn't want to stand out in the rain to take the photo.


Finally, I'm not sure why I added this photo, but I love it. We have a huge jade plant in our front yard. Jade plants are for prosperity. I was looking at it the other day and thinking that we aren't rich so it mustn't be working. Upon reflection though, I realised we have many riches in our lives and although we are not rolling in money we always have enough to pay the bills and eat good food. That makes us pretty rich I think.

Have a lovely weekend all.
l
x

I'm still here......

Sometimes life gets in the way of fun.
I haven't posted for ages and I'm sorry. My camera broke and I find photoless posts (like this one) a little sad.
I've got a new camera, but this week has been so busy with school going back that I've not had time to take photos or blog. Even now it's hard as Louis is asking a million and one questions and I find it a little hard to formulate sentences, type them and answer him.
But, on a good note, our postponed quilting weekend is going ahead this weekend so I will take lots of photos and blog about our time in Kadina. I'm looking forward to some time away from home - I think when I get back I will appreciate the boys more, and I'm pretty sure they will appreciate me more! lol
See you soon.
l
x