I finished another quilt

I am thrilled to have finished a second quilt! This one is just for snuggling under in the living room or for use on beds as needed - in other words, it wasn't made for anyone in particular, just general use. Here's the post talking about the fabrics, and of course I had to repost the picture of two-year-old Noah in his trendy shirt that became the lead fabric for this quilt.



Anyway, here is the quilt:



The back is voile, which I thought was a little flimsy so it's a double layer - one layer of white voile and then the floral voile.



I just did simple straight-line quilting with my walking foot:



A closer shot of the backing fabric:



I had some of the binding fabric leftover from Noah's quilt and it was a perfect match so I used it on this one too:



And of course a label finishes it off.



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The beach in winter

Although it's winter here we aren't locked into icy weather for months on end like we were in the UK. In fact, the weather today was very pleasant - 18 degrees and sunny. We had similar weather last week Saturday and decided to go to Karioitahi beach. We chose that beach as we can take the car onto the sand, find a pretty much deserted spot and Noah can "drive" (Grant does the peddles and Noah steers). He LOVES this!



I took a walk down the beach while they were doing that, and climbed up onto some rocks. I sat there in the sunshine for a while, hurting something fierce as I desperately missed special people left behind in England. Although it's been almost two years sometimes the pain is so sharp and fresh it feels like it hasn't dulled with time at all.









It was pretty sheltered where I sat but just offshore there was a stiff breeze pushing spray off the tops of each wave.



After a while Grant wandered along to find me.



We went back to the car together, where the boys stripped off and changed into swimsuits and played at the edge of the water. This is winter, remember!









After a little more driving we headed home, buying pies and chips as a treat on the way home. We ate them on the trampoline, soaking up the last of the sunshine.



Although I still get homesick and still grieve for the people I've lost to distance, I feel so blessed to live here. I just wish the ache of missing elements of my old life would fade.

Quilt details

Thank you so much for your lovely comments on my last post!

I wanted to share a few more details about Noah's quilt and how I put it together, for those who are interested.

The patterned fabric blocks are each 8 inch squares and I pieced them into strips with grey bars between them, then pieced the strips together with grey strips between:



When basting the quilt I puzzled over how I was going to get the road at the back to line up properly with a road at the front. This was important because of the hand-stitching that was so visible. First, I made the road at the back wider than the ones in front, which would help disguise a slight discrepency. Then I laid out some plastic train tracks of Noah's and used a wooden board to ensure they were pretty straight:



I laid the back of the quilt over the tracks, lining the road up with them, and taped the fabric to the carpet with masking tape.



I added the batting.



Then I rolled the quilt top over the batting.



As I rolled the top down I felt for the plastic tracks and made sure to keep the road in line with the tracks.



It didn't work perfectly - the stitched centre line is a bit off-centre in some places as you can see in this picture:



But overall it worked pretty well.

I basted the quilt with safety pins. I first quilted the line that ran through the road at the back, then did the shorter lines, then the rest of the long lines. My stitches aren't perfectly uniform but I'm okay with that - isn't that the point of hand-made - it's not perfect?



And lastly, some photos of Noah enjoying his quilt.



He currently has it laid out in the playroom - he is using it as a car mat! Please excuse the mismatched pyjamas and hole in the knee - we're just not that fancy around here.

Noah's road quilt

I finished a quilt! I am so excited. I have had four on the go so it's really satisfying to finally complete one. This is Noah's quilt.



It measures 147cm (4'10") wide and 244cm (8') long. Why so long? I have no idea. It is a mystery and puzzles me. I could have left of one or even two rows and it would have been plenty long enough; I have no clue why I made it as long as I did! But with quilts I always say rather too big than too small.

Here is the back:



The back has little cars appliqued on the single road running from top to bottom.



The grey sashing is hand-quilted so that it looks like lines on a road:



The quilt is bound in cornflour blue - Noah chose blue because he said it was like the sea around the roads and blocks, making it like an island.



The fabric squares represent different things you might see in a bird's-eye view of a town. We have fields of grass, flowers and shrubs:



There are some squares of paving:



We also have roofs:



Of course there are building sites, racetracks and traffic jams:



You'll also find dirt, mud and sand. Noah decided that the polka dotted yellow looked like sand with white shells on it, and the white is like white sand with bird tracks:



We also have swimming pools and ponds:



Lastly, I have a label in the bottom right corner of the back:



Hooray for completed projects!

2012 Blurb book

Eeek! I'm so excited, my 2012 Blurb book has arrived! It took me a while to get it ordered but it's here now and I love it.



It's a pretty fat one again.



And as usual it features a family photo on the cover - I love that doing Blurb books for our family photo albums forces us to take a family pic at least once a year.



Inside the pages are sturdy and beautifully printed. The colours are vibrant and true to my files. I couldn't be happier!





I've added the 2012 book to our collection.



Here is what I have so far: a book detailing our house renovations on a previous home we owned (8x10 inch);7 years of family photos (all 8x10 inch); and a small 7x7 inch book showcasing some of the cupcakes I've made.



I think they look so understated and classy on our bookcase and I love that they are so accessible and easy to store.



For those who haven't seen my "How I organise photos" post, I talk about how I sort my digital files and put them into Blurb books every year - you can see the post here.

Don't forget that Father's Day is almost upon us and if you act quickly you could order a fabulous Blurb photo book for the dad in your life AND save 20% in the process. Blurb Photo Books are easy to create, take about an hour, and start at just $12.99. Don't forget to enter the promo code JUSTFORDAD (valid through 10 June '13) ot save 20% on checkout.

Some ideas:

• For the gadget loving dad: Create an ebook for just $9.99. It's a beautiful, portable gift that dad can take anywhere.
• For the old school dad: Create a traditional photo book starting at $12.99 for him to look at when you're not around.
• For the check-list dad: Create a custom notebook or planner for all of his "to-do's".

 Have fun!



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