Introducing Mr Monkey

Poor old Mr Monkey! He has just had to undergo some major surgery! I have had to sew most of his leg seams back up! Not sure if it is a result of my workmanship or the fact that he is often caught up in a tug-o-war between the Little Man & the Little Fella! Both of whom want to take him to bed!

As I was sewing him up , I remembered that I had never introduced him to any of you!

I made Mr Monkey around this time last year, but was dissapointed in how he turned out! I made him all on the machine, except his mouth. I am not happy with his mouth but have not yet been able to find the sock-monkey-makers secret to a perfect mouth! I also used some verrrrry stretchy socks, which made a very large sock monkey and took nearly a whole cushion worth of stuffing! At one point I was going to bin him, but then the Little Man spotted him & spent the rest of the day dragging him around, so Mr Monkey ended up moving in to the Tamster household!

I have been meaning to make another, but need to find the secret to a perfect pout first! (anyone wanna share lol ???)

HELLOOOOOO...anyone still there???????

I'm back!!!

I finally finished the third & final quilt for my Niece a few weeks back. A bit late for Christmas but I managed to get it done before her 5th birthday! YAY


again it folds up into a pillow or "quillow". And is backed with cotton flannel and the same pink binding as the other two.


This was actually a very quick quilt top to make. (I have blogged about it earlier) The quilting was a pain however.

I saw a wavy pattern on a quilt in sew hip which I really liked. I couldn't find a wavy line anywhere (online or in any books) so I drew my own using a glass. However, the waves were too wavy & to quilt them involved LOTS of pivoting & turning so I ditched that idea and tried to do free hand waves. That didn't work either. So after two lots of quilting and two lots of unpicking I was back to square one!!! I ended up doing a mixture of stitching "in the ditch" and echo quilting.

Then came lots of machine problems. My machine was playing up so I sent it in for a service. In the meanwhile I borrowed my mums, which also played up. Then came Parent's evening, report writing and end of year assessments!

DH then commented on the fact that I was either sat at the computer doing "School" work or I was at the sewing machine sewing, and we rarely had an actual conversation beyond "how was your day?" So I had to abandon my poor machine for a brief spell in favour of the husband! lol Now the workload has tailed off a bit, I am back sewing :) guilt free!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I also managed to find some time to do another Saturday quilting course. "quilting on the go"
I need to take some photos and then I can share this fab method with you! No more wrestling large quilts under the machine. You make the quilt a block at a time, bast & quilt the block and then sew the blocks together already quilted!

hopefully you wont have too long to wait lol...

but then again ;)

comments from readers

Thank you to all of you who have taken the time to write a comment on my little blog. It really does make my day!

However, I am rather sorry that I have only just found some of your replies, and so didn't reply to them.

But now I have finally worked out how to get an email notification whenever someone comments, so I will never miss a post again!

A guest book for my cousin's wedding


Sadly I won't be there as the wedding is in New Zealand and being term time I wasn't able to get the time off. Yes teachers have lots of holiday but we have no flexibility or control over when we take it :(


So my parents kindly packed it in their luggage for me. I also stitched a little calico bag to store it in (but forgot to take a photo) and it fitted perfectly into the lid of a shoebox from my new work shoes!


My cousin asked for white, gold, pink or light pastel colours. In the end she got pink & ivory and some gold as I couldn't find what I wanted in white. Her wedding dress is NOT traditional white/Ivory, so I am very curious as to what her dress will be like! I am guessing pink which is why I have used so much!

And this is their card.

I used some lovely handmade paper that I have had for years, added a few pink pearls and some paper die cuts. The circles are nesties done on my cuttlebug. It took no time at all really. I quite like doing the step cards as you get a good result with little time & effort.

I had forgotten just how much papercrafting stuff I had lol!!!! I make such a mess when I am making cards, that the tidying up takes longer than what I spent creating! I used to be able to leave everything out for the next evening but with two little monkeys running around I don't have that luxury anymore!

I am hoping that the Japan Earthquake doesn't effect them too much. They are on the coast, in The Bay of Islands but are actually quite high above sea level.

Drum Roll Please.......

Ta Da!!
Two of the nieces quilts - Quillows actually - are finished!


The pillows above open out into these beauties...

These photos were taken before I had a chance to wash the blue quilt. There were some rare rays of sunshine yesterday, so I quickly cleared away the boys things to finally take some pics for you. The blue one was just quilted "in the ditch" although I quilted a heart in the top left corner where I added the label.

The pink one has been washed and has wrinkled up lovely! I was trying to get a picture of the back so that you could see the quilting on this one but The Little Fella had other ideas lol! As this was the first one I quilted, I was a bit adventurous and choose to quilt hearts & butterflies all over. However, in reality it was a right PITA to do on my poor Old Girl of a sewing machine. Hence the blue quilt being stitched in the ditch lol. However it does look really fab!

To do the quilting, I googled some heart & butterfly shapes & printed them off, then made some paper templates. I gave up on all the different fabric marking pens/chalks etc and used an Ikea pencil (as recommended by the lovely teacher at TikkiLondon). It has quite a soft lead, so doesn't stretch the fabric and it all washed out.

I then drew around the template. After stitching each shape, I went around it again using my foot edge to follow the stitching. I used my walking foot and had to stop quite often to pivot and also to go round the corners I sometimes had to turn the fabric back round the other way (ie instead of turning 90 degrees right, you turn 270 degrees left.) I did attempt to drop the feed dogs and use a darning foot but my stitches were going all over the place and were very uneven - think I need a lot of practice to develop that skill LOL!

So two down and one more to go!

Half term next week, so fingers crossed that I get the final one done! However, I am also in the middle of making a scrapbook/wedding album for my cousins wedding in March. She lives in NewZealand and unfortunately as her wedding is in term time, I wont be able to go :( My parents will be going however, and bringing the book with them!

Still - I could win the euro lotto tonight and be able to give up work & craft all day long! (and book that flight to NZ)

I love Blogland!!!

Like most of you no doubt, I have quite a few blogs that I follow. Mainly craft or teaching based in my case. I have hundreds of tutorials, and links from the various blogs that I have visited/followed. All waiting for "someday". lol And one of my favourite time wasting activities (usually when working on my planning or some other school-related admin) is to click "next blog" on the bar thingy at the top of the screen. It is amazing what people will blog about!

I set up my blog so that I could share my projects with the others in The Sewing Room at MSE. As a newbie on MSE, you are unable to post links for sometime, but I could add a homepage to my profile and share my makes that way.

I also follow lots of the others that use The Sewing Room and the other crafty threads in the MSE forums. One such person is Penny


The painter of this lovely piece of work, which now graces my living room shelf (still hunting for the right frame for it)

When I saw it, it reminded me of my little family - the eldest holding hands with Daddy & the little one with Mummy, as is the usual case with us too.

So Thank You Penny!

2 down...

one more to go!!

I have finally finished two of the three quilts that I was making for Christmas! 2010 that is.

All quilted, binded, washed and ready to go! (I read somewhere that you should always wash a quilt before giving so it has that lovely crinkly texture and also you can check your workmanship is up to scratch lol)

I do still have one to do before I gift them however, as I want the nieces to recieve them all at the same time.

I will post pictures tomorrow as I keep forgetting to bring my camera home.