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b. if there are enough pinecones left for us to collect?
c. if it is ever going to be warm enough for us to shed our thermals? It's mid-November already people, Winter in Aotearoa should definitely be over by now!!
I sense a pinecone mission coming on, thermals notwithstanding...
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Miss Imogen is very interested in the craft of storytelling at the moment, and I am enthralled by the storylines that she comes up with - full of action, emotion, delight, and oodles of three year old versions of reality. One morning this weekend she and I were having a snuggle when she picked up a novel off my bedside table, and *read* me a story (holding the book upside down the entire time!) ...this is definitely my favourite to date (though it's so hard to choose!) Here it is:
This story is The Lady and The Moustache. Once upon a time the Lady and the Moustache went for a walk. They crossed a street and they crossed a road and they went to the zoo and then the crocodile came out of his cave and chased them and ate the Moustache and they all lived happily ever after.
I'm off to find her a publisher!
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I clearly enjoyed the suspense of wondering how Imogen's quilt top would turn out, because I've just done it again - last night I cut up an enormous mound of fabric for Cole's quilt. (Side note: her top turned out wonderfully...will share pics soon!) This is fabulous, and now all I have to do is decide which of the two pattern ideas I had for it I should do. You know, the minor details! It's down to a choice of two, and I'm contemplating being very un-me again and doing a model block of one design (the other doesn't really lend itself to small models!) to see if I do like it for this quilt after all...hmm.
And no, I haven't yet quilted Immy's one (or basted it, or in fact even made the back!) but I am working on those too, and I really want to have both quilts finished within a sliver of each other. I suck at surprises and wouldn't be able to keep one hidden for any length of time before revealing it to its new owner...and I would really like these to be put on the beds together...that and the three year olds chez Campbell take very seriously their 3yo duties of discovery of self and their place in the world...in other words *me first* is a cry that can be deafening around here some days, so I'm pulling out all the stops to remove the competition.
Who knew motherhood would make me strategise quiltmaking???
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Imogen's quilt has generated a rather obscene amount of offcuts of the teeny tiny variety...too small even for scraps. I was mucking around with a new way of doing log cabins so I cut differently and then trimmed after every strip rather than every round...it is great for accuracy (even when you're aiming for a deliberately wonky block) but I am such a fabric whore hoarder that seeing such a pile of bits that can't really be used for anything else did give me the shudders, never mind that I have enough fabric still to last me for several very intensive quiltmaking decades!!!
This piecing system also took longer than I am used to, and I really noticed that, especially given the little pockets of time that I had at my machine. But finally, the blocks are all finished - 40 for the top and an extra 5 that will probably go on to the back - and I just need to sew the rows together tomorrow and then I can piece the back and baste and get quilting. Yay! Oh yeah, and make Cole's quilt and the 2 birthday presents for this weekend's party and and and...
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...this little dude belting out Mamma Mia at the top of his lungs all afternoon.
(as far as Cole is concerned, Mamma Mia consists entirely of *mamma mia, here I go again* on a perpetual loop, with the occasional *my my* and *why why* for good measure)
...the first strawberry of our little harvest...
...the glee our own little strawberry monster had in savouring the first of the harvest.
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The house is quiet, the three lumps in bed are all snoring sweetly in unison, and I am using the glorious peace to try to figure out how to get my brilliant-advent-calendar-idea out if my head and into reality. Possibly even for this December. It's lovely.
....ha! I typed too soon...the little mouse has just found me!
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*eta: a day late and a dollar short...I'll confess that we got home to Rotorua last night in plenty of time to post this, and I had it all ready to go and all, but my bed was just entirely too inviting after we had had dinner and put on a little faux trick-or-treat for Cole and Immy...*
A bit of silly for you...do i need to tell you how many times this has been requested by the littles? It's pretty fun, and I've enjoyed teaching Cole and Immy and the Rocky Horror showtunes...oh my poor wee babes!
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