Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to you! I hope everyone had a nice long Easter break. We had some surprise visitors come to see us for a few days. The little fishes got to spend some time with Nanny and Poppy Fish (Mr Fishes parents) who were on their way home from a month long road trip around the centre of our great big country. They were very excited to see them and we had a lovely few days of catching up. The boys even went out fishing one day and managed to catch enough for dinner! (That only seems to happen when Poppy Fish is here, he needs to come for a visit more often). Mr Fishes mum likes to have something to do so we got to work and finished painting the last wall of the house that has been waiting and waiting to be done. And we even managed to get the carport painted and some plants moved around. Apart from that we ate scones and pikelets and went to our favourite restaurant for a roast one night (our restaurant is my mum and dads place, all the grandparents get along really well and like to catch up when they can).

The fishes of course were beside themselves with excitement with the idea of the Easter Bunny leaving them with a surprise and wanted to stay up to catch a glimpse. Littlest fish even left a carrot out for it. The Easter bunny was then in the bad books for leaving the loot in a spot that was not immediately apparent and not leaving a trail of little eggs! The egg trail trouble was sorted as the Bunny had planned to have an egg hunt outside once it was considered to be morning and the chocolate bilbys and bunnies were quickly discovered. I guess the Easter Bunny better lift its game next year!

Oldest fish had a bit of an accident on the trampoline and after a few days of being rather sore we are pretty sure she sprained her wrist. It is much better now and she is going back to school tomorrow with strict instructions to try and be careful. This is a girl who rubbed her elbow on a tree because it was itchy and ended up needing a bandaid to cover the nice bit of blood that resulted! I'm ever hopeful. She is not as accident prone as her sister but has her moments.

Not much sewing has been done but I'm keen to get back into it when the routine gets back to normal. Hope everyone has a smooth back to work/school day!

She loved it!

We had an early start to the day on Saturday. Someone was very excited and couldn't wait to get up and turn 5. After lovingly patting and sitting on her new bike for positively ages she managed to get the rest of us up and in present mode. I was very happy that she liked her princess and the pea play set and book, phew! We had to read the story and then she went off to play with it for a while. I managed to spread the present giving out a bit and gave her a little parcel every half hour or so in the morning to keep her busy and interested. She got some books and a new moneybox and cute purse and some card/board games to play. Then she had to wait forever til her party.

Thank goodness she has a super cake making nanny! When a castle cake was requested we got out the old women's weekly cake book and also the new one to see what ideas we could find. Luckily there were two castle cakes to pick from and super nanny got to work.

We had a bit of a pink thing going on as it is now her favourite colour so a cheap plastic tablecloth was found and a pretty table runner (in pinks of course) livened things up a bit. We had the amazing cake, tea cup biscuits, pinwheels, lollies and some savoury snacks for the grown ups. And lots of fairies (not to eat, they were on everything). After a play with some little friends and lots of eating everyone was exhausted. We practised riding and hopping on and off the new bike and then relaxed for a while.

The next day we went down to the park for some bike riding and practice using the brakes. There's a nice flattish walkway that is perfect for riding on when you're a little kid. She got the hang of it pretty fast and remembered how to brake when going down a little slope.

Miss fish had a lovely day and I'm getting pretty good at playing kids board games!

Now I have to figure out how to make a mermaid cake for her little sisters birthday......

The Princess, the Pea and the little Fish.

It's oldest little fishes birthday tomorrow. She's gonna be the big 5! The last five years have really flown by, I can't believe she's at school already let alone turning 5. Anywhoo, as well as getting a bike for her birthday (she's been asking for a big girl bike for ages) I've made her a princess and the pea playset from the book 'more softies'.

She is into pink now. This is the girl that played with Thomas the tank trains and was a complete tomboy until not that long ago. Now she likes pink and princesses and fairies and unicorns and mermaids and especially likes pink pony unicorn mermaids. They do exist, go have a look at the my little pony section in the toy shop.

So we had to have some pink in the mix and for good measure we threw in some green and purple.

The pattern is pretty straightfoward and the cutting out took the longest, once you have cut lots of rectangles out you just sew them up and make a cute princess and a pea. Couldn't be easier!

I found a book with the story in to give as part of the pressie, it was suprisingly hard to find. I couldn't get the story on it's own but managed to find a book of princess stories that included it.

I'll let you know what she thinks of it!

Projects a go-go (or it's been raining a lot)

It's been raining a lot, hence quite a lot of things have been started or cut out or planned. After the boring stuff (housework) is done there's really no choice but to do a bit of sewing or crafting. What a shame! All the nearly finished outside jobs have been abandoned until the muddy bog outside has a chance to dry out. Should be a while since we're still waiting for the rain to actually stop. So meanwhile...... Littlest fish is getting a mermaid/underwater stitchery similar to the one I made for her sister a while ago (hers had a bit of a woodland critter theme). I'm using a beautiful mermaid pattern I found on little dear tracks etsy shop for the centre panel. Then I'm using some cute under the sea patterns from her lovely book Doodle Stitching (the motif collection) for the smaller panels around it, except for one which is a mermaid I found in Badbird's free stitchery patterns on her blog. The surrounding fabric patches will be made up of some much loved and hard to get hold of mendocino prints by Heather Ross. I'm going to very carefully fussy cut them out to get the best bits. If there's a bit left after this I'll make a cushion cover or something with the leftovers. Will show you some progress shots as it progresses.

I have aquired an interest in hawaiian applique and tivavae (similar but from the south pacific). I'm not sure how I aquired said interest but there you go, it's here so I may as well explore it.

I found a great website that sells patterns for cushion size projects up to giant Queen size beds (Poakalani, just google the name) and ordered a few to try. The first one is a 22" turtle pattern that I'm going to raw edge applique. I want to try another pattern using needleturn to give it a go. The turles have been cut out and pinned on to the backing fabric and so far so good. I'll try to remember to take some pics of the different steps as I go. Hawaiian applique in a nutshell is like those snowflakes you make out of paper when you're little. You fold up the paper and cut bits out then open up the paper to find a pretty pattern. Except with fabric. And a bit more thought out.

Next project a go-go is a planned quilt using this awsome pattern from Chasing Cottons, Who doesn't love sandcastles!? And they're fabric ones!

I'm going to first make a block up as a cushion cover for a little girls birthday pressie as after sifting through the stash I found some fabric that is sand looking with pretty little shells all over it, perfect for a sandcastle. You could do a fairytale theme or make it a bit boyish if you preferred, the fabrics on the picture are Heather Ross' far, far away prints which look beautiful.

And to finish off here's a pic of something that's just about done. I cut up a design roll (like a jelly roll but not from Moda) of Amy Butler's Soul Blossom range and did a sort of log cabiny thing with squares of other stuff in between. This lot was sewn together rag rug style and super quick. I'll post some more detailed pics and info in a separate post as soon as I find the other pics I took of it.

So there you go, heaps of things are on the go and with all this wet weather it's keeping me out of trouble. Now to figure out how to keep the rest of the fishes out of trouble.....