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A:   A trip to Cambridge saw you and your sisters playing in the long thick grass as if you'd hit the jackpot. It was hilarious. Watching you dive around, attempt "grass angels" and then picking grass so that the mummy and baby bunnies (in the burrows you discovered) could see where they were going - just too funny. I can never get enough of your smile - your whole being smiles with you almost constantly - it is such a delight to my heart.

H:   Up and down in the tall grass - watching your little heads pop up and listening to the squeels and laughter. Who knew grass could be such fun?

L:   The second photo makes me laugh - you three were just in another world. You're keeping up more and more with your big sisters and your laungage is just exploding with amazing sentences and vocabulary coming out. It's such fun listening to you.

L xx

Joining in with Jodi @ Practising Simplicity.

Make your best mistakes...

This tune... The words... Love

Have an extraordinary weekend
L xx

Show & Tell: The Butterfly Challenge

Hey Everyone,

So, you know my friend Juliet, who's incredible paper piecing design talents I'm always harping on about?  Well.  Between taking over the world with her amazing patters (ahem - have you seen big bear??), getting published and being a great mum, she set a wee challenge last month around her Butterfly patterns. I do so love a good challenge... :)

A few ideas came and went but this one stuck the most... Turn those little butterflies into a flower :) I had a slightly bigger vision... of three butterfly-flowers in different colours, and perhaps turning them into a wee quilt... but you all know what time often does to grand dreams... Anyhoos - I present my one flower :)

The details:
- I used Juliet's small butterfly pattern and reduced it to 80% - in order for the flower not to be humongous once all the small butterflies were combined.  The total size as pictured is 18"x18".
- The petals were hand-drawn - I do like how they all ended up looking a bit like hearts :)
- I quilted the middle with pebbles - a first! My eyes actually started tearing up from not daring to blink while at it - didn't want to break the momentum!
- The wings have wee twirly-whirly bits quilted in them too - spurred on by not totally screwing up the pebbling, I thought I'd give it a go.

At one point I also envisioned there being extra petals between the butterfly ones. So I set about drawing a paper-pieced pattern to make it so! Was a bit happy with the result, though I decided against adding them in the end, and have the quilting make the picture.

So who knows what it will become - a large cushion? A bag? Maybe there will be some extra "flowers" one day to make it into a quilt? Or something else entirely? For now, it's a completed block for the challenge. A butterfly flower :) Or perhaps it's an inverted four leaf clover? Will it bring me luck? :p

Did you get into the challenge and do something a bit different with Juliet's butterflies? There's still time if you're keen! And did I mention the awesome prizes??
Looking forward to seeing what you've been making this week!
L xx



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L:   My little delight - a short trip to the beach had you trotting around precociously and collecting seashells to make yourself a seashell bracelet. And after settling on two french plaits in your hair you then changed your mind and decided your liked the 'bunches' instead. Then later named them spider bunches after you caught sight of them in your shadow. Classic.

H:   Folding the washing in an effort to earn more pom-poms... discussing life in your serious manner with Daddy. Your current uber-cuteness is drawing lots of xo's and the sound effects that go with them. "mwah", "aaahhh", "mwah", "aaahhh", representing the kisses and the hugs. Too delightful :)

A:   You are growing up so fast and into such a big girl so rapidly. Every time I look at you I can see how you're aging by the minute. You are an amazing lego "masterbuilder" your creations are clever, functional and so well executed and wonderfully creative. You never cease to amaze me xx

L xx

Joining in with Jodi @ Practising Simplicity.

And the media couldn't buy your soul

I sometimes feel like I was born in the wrong era too :)

Happy Friday!
L xx

Show & Tell: Just something small

Sooooo, how's it going?

Well there's always lots to do isn't there? A friend had a birthday coming up and I really wanted to find a few minutes to make a little something for her. Most of us need pincushions right? So that's what I made!

Drew up the dimensions and the mushroom and whipped it up. I really loved this cutie and I am a sucker for an excuse to do some outline hand-stitching. So effective, so pretty, and so enjoyable to do :)

What little quick and satisfying gifts have you whipped up and given in the past?
And out of interest...how many pincushions do you own?
L xx



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H & L:   Little toes and striped tights - you two love being close to each other and are usually on the same page in your day-to-day interactions. Watching and listening to you play and chat fills my heart.

A & L:   Having a big sister and having a little sister must be so awesome. Big sister loves sharing and teaching and helping, and little sister loves the attention, time, inclusion and feeling like she's part of the big kids too. Big sis devoured Matilda and is trying to get both little sisters to read it... now she's on BFG and little sis is "reading the pictures" in Matilda - so sweet!

L xx

Joining in with Jodi @ Practising Simplicity.

Under pressure precious things can break

Stumbled upon this the other day...oh my word...goosebumps...

Happy weekend to you all : )
L xx

Show & Tell: One plus One is Two done

Hi ho hi ho, here we go!

Whilst wrapping up Anya's quilt, I'd been thinking about what sort of quilt to do for Heidi. A very different girl in pretty much every way from her big sister - logical, detailed, loves orange, zebras and black and white, precise and loves manuals and instructions - along with all her other sweetness and light qualities of course ; ).

I saw lots of plus quilts over the last year or so and slowly it started sticking in my mind. A plan started evolving. The more it developed the more it seemed perfect for Heidi. So I drew up some coloured-in plans and Heidi fell in love with the concept. Hubster was away for most of May and in those few weeks I got cracking.

Every morning Heidi woke up and came to see which blocks had been completed and ticked them off against the drawn-up plan. She was pretty excited and loved being involved in the process. Can you imagine how striking it would have looked in solids? I decided to go for patterned fabric for the most part to soften it and hopefully help it stand the test of time. The whites were low volume or white on white for the most part.

And then the back...what to do what to do... oooo a big plus! So a few sums, some more drawing and colouring in later, the back came together using every last scrap. And Heidi really wanted her name on it too, so we made that happen :)

Off it went to Leeanne to be quilted. Despite the stupid mistake I made of pressing all the seams open, we came up with a plan.  We do so love what she did and how it turned out!  We were also really lucky to be able to collect it from her at the Kumeu Quilt Show a few weeks ago.  It was so lovely to meet Leeanne and Heidi talked about the "girl" who made the patterns on her quilt for days.  What a treat for us!!

We came home and I bound it straight away. Since then she has played, cuddled and been sleeping under it daily. She loves it to bits - warm happy fluffy feelings : )

And the plan for the third one is slowly taking shape... but it may be a wee way off for now!
What plans, big or small, are you working on?
Hope you have a happy day!
L xx



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A picnic at Pinders Pond, sausages cooked over an open fire and roasted marshmallows - a lovely outing on a cold and frosty, but sunny Central Otago's day.

A:   A wee pretend snooze in the sun. Peaceful and calm, but holding back the giggles. You are always so bright and colourful and stand out where-ever you go. Yesterday you asked Daddy how he was feeling: I'm ok thanks Anya, not quite as worn-out as this morning" he said. To which you asked: "So you're worn-in now?" :)

H:   Collecting rocks, stuffing all your pockets... so much so you had to hold your pants up. It was very entertaining to watch you on this challenging mission.

L:   There were a lot of rocks collected on this outing and you did your bit. Your pockets still had rocks in them, on the trip home a few days later. It is always intriguing to empty them and find all sort of things you've stored away! Chips, rocks, lego, lollies... And you are always particularly happy to discover a wee treat you saved!

L xx

Joining in with Jodi @ Practising Simplicity.

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A week down south in search of snow... Queenstown didn't play ball with all the melting snow and gale force winds forcing mountains to shut... Lucky is snowed closer to home a few days later and we managed to find just enough on Mt Teviot to make a few little dreams come true!

L:   Your favourite activity up the mountain in the little bit of snow was stomping in it and riding on the sled...  such delight!

A:   You had been hanging out for this... and you went gangbusters when you finally got your hands on some... The cold cold wind and melting snow was not fun all the time but you got back into it after a wee warm-up and dry gloves.  It was one of your favourite parts of the trip.  And I still chuckle when I think of you trying to make a snow angel the minute you bolted out of the car... priceless.

H:   Cuddling your snow-girl.  You carried her around with you between trowing snowballs, building snowmen, pulling and riding on the sled, attempting snow-angels and running around.  At one point you thought you had lost her, but we found her and cuddling resumed : )

L xx

Joining in with Jodi @ Practising Simplicity.

Now I'm leaking life faster than I'm leaking blood

I do so love David Grey - here's a happy ditty for your Friday :)

Happy weekend!
L xx

Show & Tell - One, Two, Toucan!

Hi everyone!

How're thing ticking along in your worlds? A couple of weeks ago I Finally did something with my Toucan block. Nothing mind-bending but you know - it's complete! A wee cushion to accompany the book as a birthday gift for a little boy. He's such a happy character that Toucan isn't he?

The completed test block has been sitting here for a while and I was pretty certain it would become a cushion cover to team up with the book. But it just didn't move up the to-do list very quickly. Then one evening I found my hands at a loose end and got cracking on hand-quilting around the little guy.

As soon as he was quilted, he got the border, the back, a cushion popped in and boom! Done! And ready for a new home :)

I so love finishing projects - Sticking it out through the not so fascinating, almost at the end parts just to reach that golden finished moment....ahhhh! What about you? Do you like to finish and finish it now or you know, whenevs?

Thanks for popping along today lovelies - looking forward to hearing from and seeing what you've been up to!
L xx



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