Some new prints and some b-b-bunting!

As well as a new bedspread oldest fishes room has had some other new additions. (That's little fish on the bed, she HAD to be in the photo). This is her birthday bunting that I made for her out of assorted pink and green prints with some rainbow ricrac to hang it off. I cut two triangles out of each print and sewed them together (wrong sides facing) and pinking sheared the edges then stitched them onto the ricrac. Quick and easy and pretty.

The other new addition is a group of various prints in some white frames. I have been accumulating white frames for a while as there was a plan in place to make a display wall out of them but since deciding on a different idea for the wall they have been sitting in a box waiting for inspiration to strike.

I got a bunch of them out and played around with positioning them (using pieces of paper the same size and some blu-tac) until they looked okay and then filled them up. Having the bits of paper on the wall made it easy to position the nails/hooks/sticky things that would hold the frames up. When she came home from school and found it she was very impressed. I got bonus points for putting some mermaids in the mix.

Have you made any little decorative changes lately?

Soul Blossom raggy quilt is done.

Here's a bit of a squizz at oldest fishes raggy quilt that was finished recently. I started out with a soul blossom designer roll (like a jelly roll) and pondered what to do with it.

Oldest fish has now decided to be a bit girly and is getting a bit obsessed with all things pretty and pink.

Her mother is not a big fan of pink and so we reached a compromise. The walls of her room will NOT be painted pink or any shade resembling pink. She can however have some accessories and bits and pieces in her room to increase the pinkness of it.

So the idea for a bed cover was born. The roll was chopped up into pieces that would be made into a very simple log cabin block. (I threw some other fabrics in to make up the number of blocks we needed). In between the log cabin blocks we put a square of printed fabric and after laying it all out and moving blocks around for a while we had a plan.

We then had to cut out the backing squares before sewing them all together. Being rather slack the raggy style of quilt rather suited this project as it was quick and easy. For anyone who hasn't made a raggy quilt before, it's pretty easy. Instead of piecing the top together first then basting your layers of wadding and backing together and quilting the whole lot, you make up your top in sections (blocks) and cut the backing blocks out the same so you can sew them as one layer, wrong sides together. The seams are left exposed on the top of the quilt as you sew one set of top/backing to the next set until you have sewn a row together. The rows are then sewn together and voila! You have a quilt! (you can put a square of wadding in between the layers if you like but since we rarely turn the fans off here it's easier to leave it out as it is not needed for warmth)

After the blocks were all sewn together I went round the edges of the quilt with a 1/2 inch seam to finish them off and stop them fraying too much. Then comes the fun bit.....

You have to get out your sharp scissors and make little snips in the seams all over the quilt and around the edges so that when it is washed (and preferably tumble dried) they look all raggy and fluffy. This takes a while and you will get sore hands if you try and do it all at once so pace yourself!

We don't have a drier so I just washed it and shook it a bit before hanging in the sun. You will get bits of thread in your machine filter (make sure you clean it out afterwards) and all over the floor if you flick it in the house so don't do that ;)

I made the sides wider than normal as I wanted it to nearly touch the floor and hide the spare mattress under her bed.

She likes it and the fact that it is pinky looking and pretty. I like it cause it was easy to make and means I don't have to look at pink walls. She got the bunting made for her birthday and now it hangs in her room to add a bit more pink and some green to the mix. Will show you a close up in the next post.

So we have used up all the soul blossoms roll now and oldest fish has a new quilt for herself.

Oh and she now has a hot pink cast on her arm. And because it's made from fibreglass she can get it wet! How awesome is that! Bath time is so much easier now.

She did really well at her hospital visit and had to get 2 xrays to check the cast was positioned correctly, walk to and from the different departments about 5 times (they are a looong way from each other) and have her old cast removed (no saw, just snippers) and the new one put on.

I am very proud of how good she was with all the things that we had to do and waiting at each department without complaining or whining, and most of all how good she was getting her cast redone. (I think the thought of a pink one helped).

She had to go back for another xray on Friday and if it's all good she will have it on for about 5 weeks.

Whoops!

Oldest Fish has now had a turn at being in hospital. The sore arm that we thought was sprained was actually broken :(

She fell off the trampoline while it was being moved last weekend and apart from saying it was sore when she put pressure on it there was not a lot of complaining about it. She went back to school after the holidays and was okay except for falling over at lunch time and hurting it. I had to go pick her up from school the next day when they rang to say she had fallen over in PE and landed on it. So a trip to the doctor followed. Then we had a trip to the x-ray place. Then another trip to the doctor to get the results. Then a trip to the hospital to get it fixed. We should have just gone straight to the hospital and saved ourselves 4 or 5 hours of running around, will remember that for the future.

The doctors and nurses were AMAZING and I can't thank them enough. The break was just bad enough for them to discuss straightening the bones, it was borderline but they decided in the end to do it as she is only young and it was going to be pretty easy.

It all happened pretty fast once we talked to the doctor, it was all systems go!

The only traumatic thing was that she wouldn't let the doctor put the drip in to give her a sedative so they had to knock her out very quickly with an injection. That was the worst bit. Once she was knocked out they got to work and that was where I should have exited the room.

The clever nurse knew what would happen so she got me a chair and a drink of water. Then she got me a bed.

I don't think I'm a squeamish person but when it's your little fish and its all happening so fast, it's probably best not to look.

Anyways I got back up after about 10 minutes (she was in a bed about 3 meters away so the nurse was keeping me updated) and got to sit next to her while she was waking up. It's really weird watching your little one wake up from being knocked out. She was quite funny a few times and said some strange things that lightened the mood a bit.

We had to stay til she was completely okay and could get up so we were there until dinner time.

I asked the nurse who was admitting us if it was strange that she didn't really complain about being in pain considering the break she had, but apparently kids react in strange ways to pain and don't always associate the pain with the area that is affected. So I guess the lesson learned was to get anything checked out that could be serious even if the reaction is not as big as you might think it should be. Once she had a big sleep that night she was really happy the next morning and didn't remember anything from the hospital. We have to go back next week to get the temporary cast off and a new fibreglass one on. (it's going to be pink)