here's a pic of a cute little chicky i made for one of the girls for easter. the pattern is from the love bird tutorial by mollychicken.blogs.com and has a little love heart that would normally go in the pouch but i made an egg instead.

i am also making a bunny from wee wonderfuls but it's not quite finished yet.

we are packing and getting organised for our big trip on wednesday to the sunny coast for the wedding of the year.

i hope the girls manage to make it 10 hours in the car without sending us insane!

here's a couple more pics of the clothes i have been making for the little fishes. Stacey scored 2 new skirts to wear, one is a tiered swirly skirt made from some sweet little fat quarters mum got me and the other is made from some quilters fabric that's a bit japanese looking and some little dotted material i found in a drawer. Of course it had to have a doiley on it!

have finished all my sashes and even got round to organising my patterns in a folder so i could find them with out pulling the whole bookshelf apart. (not dressmaking patterns, they are in a box)

am taking some stitcheries to do on our holiday down to the sunny coast and hopefully they will get done. Claire, my partner in crime, I mean craft! will have lots of patterns and fabric for me to look through and I'll probably come home with even more things to do.

It is handy having a sisiter in law that gets the whole "stash" thing, it's hard explaining to a none crafter.

Have been busy sewing and trying to get lots of things finished before we go down south to aunty Sandy's wedding! the girls fairy outfits are done and I have made about a million (well it feels like it) little paper flowers to make string up around the marquee. i have been told I'll be making a speech which makes me a little nervous as I am not known for my public speaking abilities but i'll give it a try.

I finished my March quilt of love for the hospital, I am quite suprised that they are being made on schedule as I really thought i'd end up falling behind.

Zali also got some new pants made for our trip, It is usually colder there than here so thought some longer pants wouldn't go astray.

and have been trying to figure out how to get some stains out of the runner on Zali's chest of drawers, am not sure what exactly the stains are but they won't shift. I finally gave up trying to remove them and decided to cover them with some felt shapes instead. Thought i'd post my latest effort at an 'artistic' shot of the runner and the doll stickers on the wall behind it.

Am still working out how people take such great shots of their craft efforts and work spaces, they always seem to look so professional.

have got to iron about 1 million (feels like it) more sashes to drop off at the wedding shop before we go, they are easy to iron, it's the rolling up into bundles that's tricky.

have got some more things to sew this week and will post some pics when they are done :)

we had a great time on Hamilton Island visiting our lovely brother and sister in law and the other 2 little whitings. It was a bit rainy on the boat over but soon cleared up. The kids had a ball swimming and playing together and it was lovely to see my crafting buddy again and talk craft (the boys just left us to it).

It has been a bit rainy here again this week (surprise!) so i have managed to get a bit of sewing done. Aunty Sandy's wedding pressie is done and will be wrapped up soon. and Stacey has some new clothes to wear finally. I also finished my dolls from the panel i brought and i like them so much they are still in the sewing room so i can look at them.

Have got my next quilt of love half sewn and hope to get that finished this weekend. So I have been busy, just not busy doing the boring stuff (there's no point doing housework with himself at home as it makes no difference).

I just stumbled across a great website that everyone should know about. the name is one red robin and the very talented jhoanna monte aranez is the designer. she has some brilliant designs and a lovely website to browse through. http://oneredrobin.com/ i would highly recommend a look at this site for some great softie inspiration. on another note, we are going to hamilton island this weekend to catch up with the kureelpa whitings who are there for 3 weeks (lucky things) while steven does some locum work.

I have started to get through the pile of clothes i cut out the other day but i keep finding new projects that i want to start. There are not enough hous in the day. here's a pic of some beautiful fabric i got from kristen doran the other day. she has some gorgeous prints and panels.

will post a pic of what i made with them when i remember to take a photo.

What to do when it rains....

With a rather large cyclone heading our way this weekend there wasn't much choice but to stay indoors. So i actually managed to get a bit of cutting out done. The little fishes will be getting some new pants and skirts when i get around to making them.

We didn't end up getting much of the cyclone except for a bit of wind and quite a bit of rain so that was a bit of a fizzer. It might seem strange but it was almost a bit of a letdown- all that anticipation and then....nothing. but we are glad it has continued on it's way and now hopefully we will have some sunny weather to give our waterlogged ground a chance to dry out (and our waterlogged selves). Stacey had some fun playing in the mud that passes itself off as the backyard at the moment and managed to get most of it in her gumboots. and Zali just continued to eat her milk arrowroot biccie.

I keep finding all these great ideas and colour combinations to try on everyones blog so the list of things to do keeps getting bigger and bigger. oh well, it's good to have things to do. Am determined to follow through with my challenges i set for myself and make sure they don't get forgotten this year.

*I am going to make a quilt of love for the special care nursery at the hospital every month.

*I am going to make/thrift the majority of the girls clothes this year (maybe will try my clothes another year, but will definately make some of mine)

*I am going to clear out of my stash all the fabrics that have been there since i started at spotlight (seems like oh so long ago) and have never used and make room for some more fabrics that will actually get used and that I actually like and are not buying just for the heck of it.

*I am going to try and use the fabrics in my stash instead of just buying more because I can't be bothered looking in there.

Hopefully I will remember to do all these things and keep my challenges going, we'll just have to wait and see.....

Despite the fact we just had a cyclone pass by we are hoping to go up to Hamilton Island next weekend while my brother and sister in law and their 2 little fishes are staying there (yes they were very brave and stayed on the island through the cyclone) and have a little holiday. They haven't met Zali yet so it would be lovely to introduce them.

well not much crafting was done on the weekend, we spent much of it trying to clean up the garden which has been a bit neglected since the rain started. It seems to have settled down again now so we thought we better make a start as everything has been growing at a ridiculously fast rate. Stacey enjoyed playing outside again and seemed to like pretending to be a dog. The small bit we did get cleaned up looks great, now we just have to get stuck in and do the rest. hmmm.