Another Apron

My Mexican SIL loved the apron I made for a friend at Christmas from the Pretty Ditty pattern and also the sugar skulls embroidery from Sublime Stitching in Embroidered Effects.

So... I made her an apron with the sugar skulls embroidery. She loved it. And as you can see from the meat juice on it in the next picture, it got plenty of use at her birthday bbq.

Of course I don't have a better full length shot of it because I only finished it as I was supposed to be arriving at the party, as usual it was finish the item, take a couple of close ups and jump in the shower! And if the scale of the finished item doesn't look right, I made the small size and it is not being modeled by the recipient, rather a much taller in stature person.

I made the non-reversible option this time and got my base material from a linen skirt from the op-shop.

I'm still hoping to make myself one of these aprons some day.
Mx

Heartbeat

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Wowee! I had my first appointment with our midwife today, and heard our baby's heart beat for the first time. After managing not to cry I couldn't wipe the smile off my face.

At 15 weeks pregnant I'm not really showing yet or feeling anything and was starting to wonder if there really was a baby growing inside me, since the nausea has passed and I'm feeling quite okay (except for getting tired easily), but another heart beat has made it all much more real. I think I must be at the quiet before the storm phase.

By this stage we would have already had one ultrasound in Australia, but DH and I have chosen not to have routine ultrasound after reading the chapter UltraSound Scans - Cause for Concern? in Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering by Sarah J. Buckley. A book I highly recommend written by an Australian Doctor with 4 of her own children, all of whom where born at home.
Anyway, I was very happy and excited.
Mx

The photo up top there is titled The baby and the heart, IC1805, IC1848 in Cassiopeia from the photostream of Trois Merlettes. It is a photo of two large star nurseries, IC 1848 (top) and IC 1805 (bottom). IC 1805 is kinda heart shaped right? and apparently the baby has so much room in the uterus at this stage it is like floating around in space.

Great Easter craft tutorial and pattern

over at the massively talented Chez Beeper Bebe.

I been in love with the items Holly has in her gorgeous Etsy shop (check out these cute plushie duckies), for a while, and of course her blog. Now Holly has so very generously crafted a pattern and tutorial for an awesome Felt Egg Design Book for some little person in your life for Easter (or in fact any time) that I'm pretty sure would also be quite fun for the not so little.

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Not that I have kids yet, but I'm also guessing this would be a great quiet type toy to keep little darlings occupied while waiting at doctors surgeries and such. Click on over to her blog for the pattern and instructions.

Mx

Fabrics and Quilts

I popped into the fabric store the other week and was seduced by this bundle of Anna Maria Horner flannels.

I am planning on a making it into a baby quilt for the bun in the oven. Only problem is we wont know what we are having until we have it, and there is a heck of a lot of pink in that there bundle. There is also blue, grey and green, but I don't think that will be enough to dilute the pink if we end up having a baby of the male variety.

I was convinced we are having a girl, however my brother's wife has very prophetic dream visions and every time she sees me in her dreams I'm holding a boy baby who's the spitting image of DH. Hmmm.... I could always keep the quilt for myself, those flannels look so soft and snuggly.

And I haven't forgotten about my poor unfinished denim quilt, that perle cotton right up there on top of the bundle is how I plan to get over the problems I've had trying to machine quilt it. I think the king sized monster of a quilt is just too bulky to work nicely with my machine, or my sisters machine, even with the walking foot on and a new denim needle. I've never quilted by hand before, but it has to be better than this.

See that bunching on the back?! argh! I've unpicked it once already, and let me tell you distinguishing between black thread on black fabric can be a little tedious to say the least. Plus in this photo I only made it a little way down, this time I quilted the entire length!

I've never made a big quilt before, have you? how do you quilt them?

Mx

Mosaic

Not terribly exciting, never the less, I am excited to have made my first mosaic of cute things. I love photos of hearts in nature, those two kittens are my favourite. I also love aerial photos and land art, I think I can feel another mosaic coming on.

 1. Heart Strings, 2. good together, 3. My Heart Is Filled...., 4. Untitled

I used this mosaic maker from BigHugeLabs. I do have a couple of crafty things I've been meaning to post, I've just been too lazy to photograph.