Sunday, planning.

It has been a very quiet week, blogging-wise, and I apologize, but my life has actually been very quiet as well! I have been trying (and not quite succeeding) at getting a few projects completed, but after last week (which was very full on) we all took a step back and just inhaled...exhaled..collapsed in a heap!

That isn't to say I did nothing all week. On the contrary. I got a shedload of grocery shopping done. I found time to write another 20,000 words. (What! CRAZY.) I cooked almost every night this week, no ordering in, which has been a bad habit left over from a) the baby being born and b) living on take-out during the renovation and our 18 hour working days. I even found time to scootch over to The Fabric Cave and Needlecraft Emporium and buy myself some vintage children's clothing patterns. (PS. I am not even kidding, but I got 20 patterns and four spools of thread for less than $15. If you don't know about Needlecraft Emporium/Fabric Cave and you live in Sydney, take heed, and get yourself down there. Good thrifting, good cause, and I always leave feeling chuffed!)

I did not have time to work on any of my projects that currently need working on. Instead I started a new one. (Nerrrr.) I began idly playing around with my 60º triangle ruler and some fabric I loved. I added a few more, and then a few more, until I had a stack I liked. Then bang, out came the rotary cutter. Whizz, slice, and voila: a whole new project to add to my list.

I have been organising and focusing a lot on my stash this past year, as you guys know, and I was surprised to see that I have mostly blue and green fabric. I was convinced I had no green, no orange, and mostly pink, but what I didn't have any of and hadn't even thought about was red.

I asked Mr Poppleton for some "me time" this weekend, as I'm feeling quite overwhelmed, and he happily pushed me out the door in the direction of Craft Depot, so I cruised the aisles feeling very loved. I found some reds I adored and brought them back to be part of my stash!

I make it a point to only buy fabric I REALLY love, and I REALLY love all of those scarlets!

Well, Miss Piper is not letting me finish this so I will conclude here...but stay tuned for a hopeful little plan of the week!

Cheers, Penny xx

busy bee!

I have been very slack with my crafting this week, not because I am not dying to sew, but because my 6-week-old has decided to fulfill her obligation as a growing child and, well, grow. At an alarming rate. One morning her jim-jams simply did not fit. Combined with the fussiness, sudden breast refusal, and super-clinginess, and not much sewing or writing was done. Or blogging. Urgh.

I took a much-needed break today and disappeared to the fabric store for half an hour, and picked up some pretty purples for a quilt idea I'm playing with. I generally buy my fabric first, let it simmer for a while on my desk or shelf (where I can see it), then see a pattern in a book, or online, and it clicks. I might not have the time to do that for this quilt, so I will give myself the weekend and start cutting by Monday. (I hope.) But the fabrics are quite pretty purple florals, so I hope I can put them to good use!

One thing I did get to do this week that I'd been planning for a long time was reorganizing my bookshelves. See, we Poppletons are readers. We have somewhere in the neighborhood of 900 books and for a long time, we had them haphazardly double-stacked, arranged willy-nilly, with pictures and receipts and pencil cups all mixed in. I got sick of it looking messy so I pulled everything off the shelves and organized them by color! Then I faced and fronted the books and found homes for the black and the white books (they were "extra"). It looks pretty great, if I do say so myself!

And the white:

(Next to the heater is my handmade mum bag, made with Melody Miller "Ruby Star Rising" fabric. I had View Finder as a kid and that fabric seemed perfect for toting around kid things! But I need to swap out the lining. I hate the lining.)

I also bought the Sarah Fielke "Night Garden" template set, which is teensy, but makes such a cute, sweet block! Her tutorial is great, and the quilt pattern is in her latest book, Quilting From Little Things. (I am planning on picking up my copy next week.) Since I don't really follow entire quilt patterns (ahem), choosing instead to arrange the interesting blocks in their own fun ways, I made up a few of these just to get the hang of sewing some Y-seams. I love the Lecien fabrics I chose:

And the teensy template:

Combine to make a pretty string of Night Garden blocks!

They are quite matchy-matchy so I think they'll be quilted in stripes, with alternating colors and styles to balance it out. But I do so love that block! It was a lucky leap of faith that led me to pick that template pack up last Saturday.

Next on my list is making a tiny Ruby Star Rising bag for my niece Sissy, and basting her quilt. It's my first quilt set on point and I plan to machine-quilt it with wavy lines (and put my new walking foot to good use), but I have to find half an hour to escape outside and spray-baste it together. It is so cute though, seriously:

This will be really fun to finish. I can't wait to send it to my niece! She is going to love it!

It is almost 10pm which means...I'd better get a few blocks at least cut out before my eyelids slide closed of their own accord!