sunday night plan #3

This week was busy in strange bursts, so I managed to squeeze in bits of sewing here and there. I have to admit, I thought babies napped a lot more than this...but Piper likes to condense her sleeps into the evenings, leaving the day with just a few grizzly short naps. Yikes. But I can't complain too much. She's so gorgeous and bright, always looking around and taking everything in.

I didn't get very much done this weekend, owing to aforementioned Miss Grizzles, but we did manage to finally buy a pram this week! I am looking forward to walking in fine weather. We took the inaugural walk to our favorite café and it felt amazing to stretch my legs. I forsee many hours out and about in our future!

A quick look at this past week before I get down to the nitty-gritty plans!

An explosion took place, and my goodness, the amount of Napisan it took to get that out! Of course I think all of this is hilarious. For someone so tiny, she can make a LOT of mess!

That picture is definitely going in the "21st Birthday Party Slideshow" file!

We caught up with Ellen and Joel. Ellen and I were pregnant together! They have a brand new baby girl, Olive (she's not even a week old!) who is eight weeks younger than Piper. Ellen is my age-ish and it is so nice having a friend close in age who is also a new mum. Where we live, the mums we encounter are mostly post-career women, in their mid- to late-thirties. This is Ellen, Joel, and Olive (in the sling).

Mr Poppleton's school friend Aaron and his wife Floss were up this weekend from Melbourne, so we took Piper to meet them. She especially liked Aaron and didn't complain once while he held her! But then he's always been charming to the ladies.

And of course, we distracted Elle. She is always sneaking off to have a hold of Piper, and always gets in trouble at work! Shame shame.

So we have been very social, and as a result I had a very cranky, overtired baby on Saturday afternoon and most of today. But she is happily sleeping now, so I can plan my week!

Sewing projects:

x sew J3's quilt top (still, I know I know, I'm SO slack)
x sew J5's quilt top (which I cut and pinned last week)
x design, work up, and cut out 2 cot quilts
x finish Happy Camper quilt top
x finish wrap shirt
x finish hand sewing last three curved hexagon blocks

Writing projects:

x diagram story
x write something every evening (even if it only 100 words)
x structure story toward a finish line

I have a few other things to do this week, in the "life projects" pile. We're considering a new dining table & chairs, so I'd like to sell my existing set. I also have four chairs I bought and reupholstered, and I just need to give them another coat of paint (or five!) to make them worth selling. I'm also converting all our media from physical to electronic, with a view of having a less-plastic lifestyle in the near future. So that's an ongoing set of projects to keep me busy. For now, I'm going to watch an episode of Gossip Girl and finish sewing this curved hexagon block. Maybe if I am really clever, I can get two blocks sewn before the end of the show! A worthy goal.

PS I read a fantastic book and I am going to write a review of it, so keep your eyes peeled!

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!