Completed Wonky Log Cabin
I have taken about 58,968 pictures of this damn thing and none of them are doing it any justice, the shadows from the stipling are drowning out the blocks, but I promise that it looks awesome in real life, just so long as you ignore the terrible binding - that’s something I just have to keep on practising 
I ended up backing it with a vintage pillowcase I picked up from St Vinnies for about 20c, it ties in really well with the other fabrics, the binding was a fat quarter from yesterday’s Spotlight trip, the green was meant to pick up the green in the yellow/green/purple fabric in an attempt to pull it out a bit more and make it look less lost against the stronger colours, but (IMO) it didn’t work. Poor fabric choice 
on my part, I should have just stuck with the purple, pink and blue, but once I’d built the blocks there was no way I was pulling them apart again! This is my first ever officially “finished” quilt, in that I actually bothered to label it, the Fern repeat makes me happy and I have ordered some little silver charms that say “made with love”, I left on the table, not any old table, but Declan’s drawing table (where we have conditioned him so much that that’s the only place he can draw, he had a breakdown when I suggested colouring in at the dining table last week, pointed his finger at me, said “NO!”, took the crayon and colouring book off me and took them straight to his “drawing table”!*), after taking the photos and when I returned he’d made his mark in purple crayon on the label, I love it 
I would like to turn the wall behind my sewing desk into something resembling this or this, at the moment it will just be me, but in a couple of months when I actually have some more free time from the babies and the ability to keep to my commitments I’d love to get involved in the doll quilt swap and get some other people’s artwork up there as well.
Whilst quilting it my feed dog plate slipped and the needle went through it, breaking both the needle and the plate. I swore considerably and intended on putting the quilt to the side and waiting until I could buy a new plate, until I clicked that as it was a more expensive machine than my old one I could probably lower the feed dogs and just be done with the plate. So I hunted around the back, found the lever to lower them and OMG it’s a totally different experience. I used to battle whilst doing any free motion work, the plate added so much thickness that it made it so difficult to move the work about, but with the feed dogs lowered it’s soooo much smoother, my stitches are neater and I’m having hardly any thread breakages.
Whilst I’m talking about sewing, Dan and I went out to Penrith yesterday to Spotlight, they had a huge selection of quilting fabrics priced from $3-$8pm… I may have indulged a little bit, but in my defence, I did have a $40 off voucher, so it could have been far, far, worse 
I also picked up some Thomas The Tank Engine fleece at 50% off to make a blanket for Declan when winter comes along, he’s currently going through a Thomas obsession and I don’t see it ending any time soon. SL were their usual speedy selves, the chick serving us decided to turn around and have a chat with her co-worker mid cut about how the new ticketing system wasn’t working, whilst Dan and I are battling with a bored toddler and hungry newborn, I’m surprised they could hear themsleves think over the screaming, let alone hold a conversation. It’s taking all my will power to not go to Auburn this weekend, with my UK card, and seeing what their selection is like and buying more, especially considering I have another -$40 voucher ($100 min spend, boo). They had a really nice selection in the $3, and 33m of quilting fabric for $60 sounds freakin’ awesome to me… but is it entirely sensible? Hmmm.
*Not the only time he’s told me off, earlier in the week I hurt myself somehow and shouted, only to get a very stern Declan raising his fingers to his lips and saying “Hey! Shush!” and pointing at his brother sleeping in the bouncer. Srsly guize, go get yourselves a toddler, 89cm of pure amusement.
Wonky Log Cabin Mini Quilt
Sydney was hit by a superb electrical storm last night, lightening that would illuminate the entire bedroom, even through the blinds. I love big rainy storms, but can’t deal with them once thunder and/or lightening starts, I eventually became freaked out enough that I got out of bed and came to sleep on the sofa so I could be in the same room as Dan, no joy, that just left me laying on the sofa wide awake whilst working out an escape route should lightening hit our home.
After calculating the risks involved of lightening hitting my sewing machine and frying me, verses the possibility of laying awake all night quietly panicking, I decided to take the bold decision and start sewing to take my mind off the activity going on outside, I needed something involved enough that it would completely absorb me, but small enough that I could finish it in a few hours because my time on the sewing machine is so limited at the moment… and probably will be until Declan and Connor are in their teens
And so the wonky log cabin mini quilt was born! Measuring 12×12 it only just comes under the “mini quilt” label (one size up and it’s a doll quilt), I’m not 100% sure whether I actually like it, this was me attempting to reach outside of my normal fabric and design preferences and although it was nice using different fabrics (repros of 1930s floral prints), it’s just not very “me”, but I am reserving my final decision for when it’s quilted and bound.
The back of the top is fab, I just love seeing all those seams, to me the front just looks so effortless and the back shows how much work went into it.
This Is… My Favourite Thing From Nature
This was an easy one for me! I am very grateful to be named after a plant that I actually like 
I love Fern leaves in all their various forms, and can’t go past a fabric shop without having a check to see if they have any fern leaf fabric to add to my collection, I have fern jewellery (which unfortunately rarely sees the light of day now due to my son being part magpie!) and even had ferns in my wedding bouquet.
I went through all of my photos trying to find a fern picture, I knew that any I had were still trapped on my broken laptop, but thought that my Mum was sure to have some hidden in her holiday snaps from New Zealand… apparently not! just under eight hundred photos from a month in the land of the silver fern and she managed to not get a single picture of one of them! I instead turned to flickr and found this beautiful picture of a sprouting frond, I love the curls and shapes formed here.
More “This is” at Three Buttons and a big thank you to Angela for all the work she’s done hosting
(Photo credit & thanks to Jaime Walsh)
Puts A Rose In Every Cheek
Since Connor was born Declan is fast learning self-sufficiency, he’s decided that if I’m busy then he may as well just take care of himself, a couple of mornings ago after we woke up I came out of the toilet to find that he’d already pulled the milk and raisin toast out of the fridge, placed the milk by the kettle in preparation for his morning cuppa and was trying to pull the tag off the bread to get into it.
<– Apparently this morning I was taking too long with breakfast, because at about eight he walked into the lounge like this.
Yes, that is exactly what it looks like, my son eating Vegemite by the spoonful, what can’t be captured by the camera was the sounds that accompanied this, the “MMMMM YUMMY!” and the smacking of his lips normally reserved for very expensive chocolate and lobster thermidor. Not for the most disgusting food ever invented by mankind, probably just for the purpose of winding up tourists and laughing as they pull amusing faces after ingesting the stuff.
Save A Life Today
I could never imagine one of the boys having a fatal illness, and knowing that any given day could be their last, unfortunately that is what my friend Lisa is going through as her daughter searches for a kidney donor, made even more difficult by slow hospitals and redtape and due to the fact that as she’s received a previous organ transplant when she was younger making it even harder to find a matching donor. Reading her story over the past year or so has brought tears to my eyes on several occasions, and I would really like to see Lisa, her daughter and their family find a happy ending to it all.
If you are in the states please read Lisa’s post and think about taking the steps to get tested and see if you’re one of the few people that may be a match for Marielle. Not only could you save a young girl’s life, but you could pick up some serious karma points, this is like extreme pay it forward It’s not often that I use my blog as a soapbox, but I know if one of my children was in this situation I would want it published absolutely everywhere, just in case that one person to have the right match does find it, puts their name forward and in turn saves a child’s life. This is one place where the internet is an amazing tool.
Say Cheese!
Hah, you didn’t really think I’d go a full week without a camera did you? I picked up a Fujifilm Finepix J15fd for an awesome price (particularly considering it was only released 11 days ago!) and grabbed the underwater casing as part of a deal, not because I’m planning on going scuba diving any time soon but to make summer time photos near the paddling pool* slightly less hairy!
Unfortunately I haven’t been able to play with it much as it arrived late in the day and my subject was in a less than cheery mood. It seems dinner wasn’t up to his highness’s standards, resulting in a full blown meltdown, but not before he’d smeared it all over his forehead and thrown it at the wall. If any one is interested there will be a listing for him on eBay by tomorrow morning with no reserve, get it quick and grab a bargain! If it goes over $100 I’ll even throw in Connor!
So far the camera seems great, not a huge upgrade from my previous one, but I wanted to grab a point and shoot as soon as possible, particularly as Connor is growing so quickly, and save up for a DSLR. I’ll play about with it a bit more tomorrow, particularly with a lightbox and some macroshots and give you my full review when I get a chance to write it up.
*The paddling pool that caused Sydney to go into a cold spell, after a week of boiling hot temperatures I bought the boys a little paddling pool to splash in and cool down, cue two weeks of Sydney’s coldest October ever.
This Is… My Favourite Quote
“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.“ - Scott Adams
I am self taught in all of my creative pursuits and although it took me a few years to get there, this is now the rule that I create by. It takes more unpicking, more fresh sheets of paper and more frogged pieces of crochet than doing everything perfectly first time would, but when something fab arrives by pure mistake, it makes all of that extra effort worth it
More “This is” at Three Buttons.
Helicopters have been buzzing around the house for about ten minutes now, Dan and I walked out to see what was going on and one of them flew by only a few foot above the roof. There’s been a fairly big accident about a hundred yards down the road, interestingly enough, the first one that I’ve seen since we moved in here, fairly impressive considering we live on a main road with six lanes of traffic outside our front door. There’s a mass migration of residents making their way down the road to go and gawk at what’s going on, desperately hoping to see some gore, the human species is very odd.
ETA: The crash made the news, apparently it was started by a “race brawl” at the local maccas that led to a police chase both passengers survived, but not much left of the car, article here.
Goodbye My Friend
The observant types may have noticed NaBloPoMo on NN coming to an abrupt end, unfortunately on Thursday we had a death in the family… my lovely little Konika Minolta 
Every picture I take is now covered in scanlines making it completely unusable, as far as I can tell it’s a CCD issue which is going to cost more to repair than it will to buy a new camera. That little compact has been awesome, it was just over four years old and had been used almost every day, so it had a good run, I’m just bummed that now I have to research which camera to get (and I can’t spend a year doing it like I did with my new sewing machine!) and of course save up for one and then learn how to use it how it reacts to certain things.
So, no new pictures of my world and my boys up for a while, boo to that. If you want to help towards the saving up for a new camera, maybe an early Christmas present, then feel free to make the most of the button below, I accept all major credit cards!
NaBloPoMo Day Five
Today I have a banging headache. Boo
Another Great Debate In The Treacy Household
VH1 is a constant source of arguments in our house, this morning’s debate is as follows…
Discuss.
I'm a twenty something WAHM, originally from England and now living in a land downunder.
