Don't look now!

Arrivals & departures ...

Earlier in the week Australia Post so kindly left a little package on my door step with a delightful little quilt inside from my DQS4 partner, Maya from Pavanshree.

 

It is very sweet and the little quilting stitches are magnificent.

Maya very generously included; 5 beautiful fat quarters, a sweet strawberry pin cushion and some great stickers, which disappeared as soon as the kids got home from school!  

 

Thank you so very much Maya!

 

I have spent much of my time this week at my machine working on my swap quilt. 

I finally finished my little tree last night and waved it good bye this morning, it is off to a place far, far away ...

     

I am sorry to see this one go ...

 

To everyone who has congratulated my sweet Megan thank you so very much! She is has been overwhelmed by all of your kindness. She has certainly been spurred on by all of the excitement this week! She has had her pencils out and has been very busy sketching away her design for next year’s competition! J

I received a pretty exciting offer this week that has provided me with another excuse to purchase so more fabric. I have made two trips to Amitie ... so you can return from your holiday next week Jenny feeling quite confident that the rent has been paid this month J!

We have had a quite mild week this week and today has been glorious. Right now I am going to go make myself a cup of tea and sit out on the deck and watch the kids run around like loonies before I cook tea. Have a great weekend!

Kellie 

A few months ago ...

Meggie from Life's Free Treats suggested that I should take a look at a competition in the Homespun Magazine, however, it wasn't the competition that Meggie suggested that caught my eye. I stumbled across the Young Designer of the Year Competition. I showed this to Megan and Jessica and they both were very excited to have a go.

Some of you might remember these shots of the girls with the plans for their projects ...

and these shots later on of them working on their designs ...

 

Miss Jessie tired of her's which is not surprising considering she was only 5 minutes away from turning 6 and really considering my record of finishing projects what else could you expect???

Megan, on the other hand, spent many hours on the couch on the weekends sewing away quietly by her self.

She persisted and persisted, one tiny stitch after another, she stabbed herself many times and lost two needles in the couch but look what she created with only direction regarding technique from me ... (except for the quilting of course)

Three weeks ago we were contacted by Homespun to let us know that her little quilt had been shortlisted and was now only one of 10 that was in the running for a prize...

Tonight Megan received another phone call from the magazine and there were many loud screams and some quite exuberant jumping up and down that occurred in the Dontlooknow household!

For the exact details of this phone call you will just have to go out and buy yourself a copy of the December issue of Homespun Magazine!

How cool is my daughter?????

Hope your week is going as nicely as ours!

Kellie

Rainy days ....

This week has seen more gloomy wet and cold weather. It seems that most everyday this week we have been rained on either dropping off at school or picking up ... or both! I must say that I'm over it ... bring on Spring!

It is Book Week here this week and our school had it's yearly Book Parade to help celebrate this event. The children participated by dressing up as a character from their favorite book. This year with three now at school much of the week was spent creating costumes for characters from these books ...

Megan went as Mr Strong ...

Benjamin as the wizard from our most favorite book The Magic Hat ...

and Jessica went as a Which-what-who from Dr Seuss' I wish that I had duck feet ... 

They always love dressing up so much! Unfortunately it poured with rain ALL day which made it hard for them to share their costumes with their friends.

I used some fabric paint to help with getting the right look for Ben's costume. This was a lot of fun and the paint was beautiful to use!

I have been waiting on some more linen to come in so that I can finish off the border of this quilt ...

I think that I will border it with a little more applique ... piecing just isn't doing it for me at the moment!

And thank you all so much for your kind comments regarding Ben's new dotty quilt top. It has progressed a little since last week ... it is no longer completely dotty!

You will have to come back to see what will come next! 

Have a great weekend!

Kellie

Distractions ....

In my last post a parcel had just arrived for Benjamin from our dear friend Lisa ...

How very cool is this? And Benjamin being Benjamin has worn this terrific octopus as a hat for much of the past week!

Joshua also received a little something, which has delighted him to no end! Thank you Lisa you really have spoilt the kids ... and they have loved every minute of it!

Since my last post I have made 109 meals, drank approximately 70 cups of tea, maybe 4 liters of diet Coke, made 35 beds, cleaned the floors not enough and 37 loads of washing. Apart from these and many other fun filled activities I have ...

finally finished the pillow for one of Megan's friends!

finished the applique on my Doll Quilt, sandwiched it and free motioned around all of the applique and ......

started a new project ...  I gave into temptation!

Have a great weekend!

Kellie

Friday already?

Life has returned to some semblance of normal this week after the past few weeks of hectic birthday happenings.

Earlier in the week I made these two little girls for a very sweet little girl over at Sue’s place. Jessica had decided that I should make Isabelle, twins because then even when she was at school the monkey would never be lonely ... a definite bonus of being a twin!

Although Jessie has discovered this year that her brother is beginning to branching out. You see Ben has fallen in love! He has been professing his undying love for a little girl in his class for some time now. I have quietly suggested to him that perhaps he is too young to have a girlfriend really and that perhaps at least for the next 20 years they should try out friendship first. He has scoffed at this telling me that “it doesn’t matter what you say I still love her!”.  On Wednesday Jessica came home dying to tell me that she had caught them kissing near the girls toilets .... mmmmm. And then on Thursday their teacher (who is the most delightful girl but only about 14 herself) came out to proudly show me Ben’s letter writing for the day .....

 

Oh well what can you do? It is obviously true love! I will have to teach him though that it is far more romantic to refer to a girls eyes or hair than their cheeks or ears. Mind you I did ask him what it was about her ears and cheeks that he liked so much ... his response was “I actually like her whole body!”. Oh good Lord what do you say to that????? I guess he is finally over his Oedipus complex!

Other than this I have been frantically arranging the leaves on my Doll Quilt whilst all the time desperately trying to avoid the desire to starting a new project.

 

Today I drove across the city to a fabric Mecca to spend all of my money and come home with 20% more than I would normally .... yay!!!!!!!!

 

More fabric for Ben's birthday quilt ... it is killing me not to make a start on this quilt! There were quite a few other fabrics that I brought home but as a group they didn't photograph well so you will have to wait to see them made up. Or maybe one day I will tidy my sewing room and take some pictures so you can see where I hang out and my beautiful stash ... now that just sounds weird!

Tonight I must finish the pillow that one of Megan’s party guests made, oh so long ago! She is coming over tomorrow night with her beautiful mother to sit with our little people so that my other half and I can go out for dinner and then on to Borders for some grown-up time ... aren’t we adventurous and so very risqué!!!!!!!

Jessica received the cutest knitted bear from the lovely Lisa this week which she is now sleeping with along with at least 100 other soft toys and pillows that she has enlisted to 'keep her safe' at night! I suspect that Customs also have the hots for Lisa's bears with knitted knickers ... as Ben's package arrived on the door step today a few days behind Jessie's with their tape wrapped around and around the box! As they are still in school I will share the contents of this box next time. Thank you so very much Lisa! I hope you are having fun sunning yourself in Greece!

I also found the most beautiful package of delightful things all for me in the mail box today!!!!

This eye candy is from the lovely Lizzie! You must go over and take a look at the beautiful things she makes and shares with us. I met Lizzie through Jenny first at Patchwork on Central Park and then in her little section of Amitie ... Broderie. Sadly she has moved on and I now am kicking my self that I never made the time to have her teach me some of the beautiful embroidery stitches that she is so skilled at. Lizzie thank you ... I cried when I opened this little package and saw that fabric and all of those beautiful threads and buttons that are so me! 

By far the most rewarding thing about my whole experience of blogging over the past 7 months has been meeting so many beautiful people. For someone who has isolated herself for such a long time I am enjoying your friendships and kindness so very much.

And on that note I must run! Have a fabulous weekend!

Kellie 

My little mad scientists!

Yesterday we had Benjamin's birthday party which is the last in our 'rush' period for birthdays. His theme was Mad Science and we all had an absolute ball ... it was messy and absolutely full-on for the entire 3 hours, but well worth it because all four of our kids said that they "had the most fun ever". Mind you they said that last week too!

I made all of the kids a very simple apron each and thank goodness I did as they were so very grotty by the end of the day!

I set up our family room as a science lab were we conducted all of our experiments. We discovered how starch can be both a liquid and a solid.

We learnt how to blow up a balloon with out using your breath!

We discovered that salt melts ice rapidly and how to pick up an ice cube without even using your fingers!

They made a wave in a bottle ...

They wrote each other notes with invisible ink and investigated the uniqueness of their finger prints ...

They watched as an egg was sucked into a bottle and discovered that vinegar causes egg shells to disappear! They bounced these rubbery eggs and peeked inside the transparent film that remained once the vinegar had corroded the shell.

They learnt that when you mix PVA glue, food colouring, water & Borax together you get the most fabulous green slime.

Finally we erupted a volcano ... that actually turned out to be a bit of a fizzer, however, all of the messy fun that was involved in making the salt dough for the mountain made up for that!

We all ate far too much yummy food and Ben especially loved cracking open his Piñata cake!

So now I can move back into the real world again until late in September when the delightful Joshua turns four!

Tonight I will be turning a sock into a monkey for a little girl not so far away. This week I need to spend some quality time with this DQS4 project which I have neglected while I have been busy indulging my babies dreams. I was going to toss in one more photo here but my computer has started warning me that it may freeze if typepad keeps up this snails pace! So rather I will save it for next time, I am too much of a chicken ... I couldn't face starting over! I also need to finish off the pillows that the girls started at Megan's birthday party this week some time.

Last week we confirmed our family holiday to a place far, far away. I am blown away by how excited the children are about this adventure. I hope that it lives up to their hopes & dreams. More on this one closer to the time but for now I am pretty excited about my trip across the city planned for Friday morning! 

Have a great week!

Kellie