My...Doesn't Time Fly??

Not necessarily because I've been having fun.......more to do with my excellent impersonations of The Headless Chicken. I promise you, one of these days I'm going to open my front door, only to find myself walking back through it!
In a previous life, when I lived in France and Daughters Nos. 1 and 2 were still at that lovely age when the only opinion that mattered was mine, I was A Kept Woman. I ran the household and raised my children, meals were cooked from scratch, laundry baskets were empty. I even had a social life. I EVEN, on occasion, had time (lower your voice here, please) to feel an eensy weensy bit bored.
Hit the Fast Forward button for a decade or so, slowing down to have The Son, speeding back up past The Divorce, and believe you me, there is not a spare nanno-second in my day to have so much as a fleeting glimpse of boredom. I dream of days where I'll have the time to sew.....to peruse patterns to my hearts delight.....However, as I'm a reasonably realistic sort of person, I DO realise that that day will, one day, be mine.......The fact that I'll be 93, blind as a bat and unable to hold a needle has very little to do with it!
I'm aware that I'm wittering. I'm also aware that you, too are very busy, so I'll show you what I have managed to do over the last 2 weeks........

I know that the photo quality is pretty poor (camera is doing that odd blue spot thing in the middle of the image again) but I have got 16 of them. Wonky Star blocks, not poor quality photos. Though if you add up all my poor photos over previous blog posts, I'd probably have 16 of those too.
And now I'm going to leave you, and desperately try to find some more sewing time to squeeze in between now and Christmas....any ideas anyone?? xx

Grey October Day.....

So once the football was over, lunch served and eaten and The Son bullied into finishing his homework, there was only one thing for it....English Paper Piecing.

I'm making progress on my Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt, and really enjoying it. This is the latest addition.......

Then I worked on a mug mat, for a beginners EPP class next Saturday. I needed to find a simple pattern, but had no particular wish to do anything too traditional, so adapted a Nine Patch. What do you think?

The trickiest bit is to remember to time myself, as obviously the pupils will want to take a finished article home with them at the end of the class, and not just a few scraps of material sewn together. This 7" block has taken me an hour and ten minutes from cutting out the paper templates to finishing the last stitches. Now I've got to sandwich, baste, quilt and bind. I've got another 5 hours available to me, but an hour of that is allocated for lunch. I'll see how I get on. The idea is that the class is completely hand sewn, but I may cheat a little and take my sewing machine along for company....and to attach the binding. A lot will depend on time. Watch this space, and I'll try and remember to show you the finished mat.
And if you're having a bit of a dreary day, look at these.......

...aren't they just lovely? I got them from here.....

I'm positively ITCHING to make something with them....I'm thinking of a Giant Star that I've seen over at judith-justjude.blogspot.com but need to find some solids to go with them. In the meantime, I shall content myself with patting!
But the best news of the day, is that this little lady.......

....REALLY doesn't like walks in the rain! Which means even more excuses to stay snuggled in the warm and dry, stitching happily away......
Thanks for dropping by. See you soon. xx

Just In The Nick Of Time........

I've been so busy, doing nothing much in particular, but lots of little things strung together....you know how it is.....Added to that The Son being off school for 10 days with shingles (bad mother that I am, thought it was just some mosquito bites to start with, and told him to "man up, Princess"!....Hmmm! Not winning Mother Of The Year Award this year, then.....) Also add to the mix severe sleep deprivation, on account of new "puppy" with separation issues, and hopefully you'll understand my lack of blogs recently.....
Anyway...onto what I HAVE been doing. Friends got married yesterday....

......it was a lovely day....a true celebration of love, laughter, families and friendships, and for it another friend, Emma, and I decided on a quilt/picnic rug/throw as a gift. I set to work, but in typical Kirstie style, left it a bit close to the wire.
I hadn't factored in being ssssoooo tired that I couldn't see straight enough to stitch. Traditionally, I stitch late in the evening until the early hours, but Belle has scuppered that routine for a while. I actually managed to sew down the binding about 3/4's of an hour before we were due to leave for the church.
Then came the worry of whether to take the time to wash it or not....but I really love a crinkled quilt, and also live in horror of it running on it's first wash, so it was bundled into my machine on a quick wash with the colour catcher. "Quick wash" my foot! NEVER in the history of man has 1/2 an hour taken sssssoooooo flippin long! And then it needed tumble drying. Even by my standards it was touch and go. I was pulling it from the dryer as The Husband was reversing off the drive!
As the song sort of goes "we got to the church on time", with just enough time to show Emma the finished gift, before popping it in the gift bag.......and B-R-E-A-T-H-E....
So here is the finished article.....

 

 

With feet, apparently!

 

 

 I love this material from Ikea that I used for the back- a real outdoors-y picnic feel to it.
And just because I can, here's a photo of The Sleep Depriver, Belle. It would appear that she is a sun worshipper.....though how she can be comfortable on the bottom stair like that, beats me. Perhaps if she slept a bit more AT NIGHT.......

Thanks for popping by. See you soon. xx