quilts and gardens

I have finally planted some vege seedlings in the new garden. Some eggplants (which were great for Scott's homemade gluten-free pizzas last year), some weird round looking carrots and a strawberry plant which looked very healthy at the garden shop but already looks a little worse for wear. It wilts very quickly and so I have to remember to give it some water in the mornings before the sun starts to burn. Emma is actually out of shot watering the seedlings (her idea for a happening photo!)

The whole point of the pavers and chicken wire was to keep Kipper out. Dad built a little stile for the girls to climb over, but of course, Kipper, now climbs over as well. Out with the stile!

My only other Kipper proof garden (apart from my three hanging baskets) is filling up nicely with nasturtiums, lobelia and snapdragons. It brings me so much pleasure to see some colour when I look out of our front door (and, literally, past the dog's breakfast that is sitting on the patio).

I took this of the quilt fabric I bought a few weeks ago in readiness for my first quilting class. (E loved the yellow floral material and was so disappointed that I didn't choose it for the front of the quilt that I bought it for the back) The fabric cost much more than I bargained for so making the first cuts and stitching the first stitches was a little bit nerve wracking. After lesson two I am feeling more confident. I'm amazed how well my corners match up now that someone has shown me how to pin the seams together so that the corners match up! Sounds obvious, I know, but I was just making it up as I went along before and wondering why everything looked a little wonky. Never mind - at least my first two quilts don't look factory made!

I haven't been blogging much as life is a bit hectic and I am a little down and overwhelmed by life which is how I am sometimes. Sometimes, it's hard to know what to say or blog about and after admiring Beck's exquisite photographs and words and laughing at Tammie's dry wit, I'm a bit lost for inspiration. But of course, blogging is not a competition and the joy of it is that we are all ourselves and that's what makes it such a great patchwork of people and ideas and images to stumble around in. I am also conscious of editing what I say sometimes as some people I work with know about my blog and I don't want to completely spill my guts about every little thing. Perhaps I need a new "secret blog".

I'm enjoying seeing what you are all up to so keep blogging girls.

Another quick post

I was going to upload lots of photos but that seems to have ground to a halt. There are definitely gremlins in our computer at present - time to call the boys at Supergeek to come out in their Supergeek van and fix our IT woes for $80. (Sigh!)

Anyway...it's all been happening here at Hester's Garden. E and my husband had birthdays this week so it's been a crazy happy mess of new toys, clothes, and much too much cake and chocolate. Here is G helping out with E's new princess puzzle.


E also got some groovy new felt pens which smell like the appropriate fruit (ie strawberry for pink, you get the idea) and a sketch pad so she soon busied herself doing a portrait of Kipper. Kip, as you can see, still spends the night in the laundry behind baby bars. Em still gets up at 6am if not before. Then it is a cascade effect...she wakes Kipper....who wants to go outside....so a parent gets up....and the other members of the family soon follow. Why can't our dog sleep outside like a proper dog????? (ie - the one we had when I was a kid)

Finally, I took a break from making patchwork quilts to try my hand at applique to make a square for a baby quilt for the beautiful Jo, about to have her third baby. Her clever friend, Melissa, is organising a group effort for the quilt and I think it is going to look beautiful. I did a crash course on the internet by googling "How to applique" and bought some of that sticky iron on glue netting stuff which has made a slight mess of my ironing board. (Sorry, Scott, about the glue on your work shirts!). I also had to remind myself how to do a proper stem stitch and blanket stitch but worked it out eventually, again with help from the internet. How did we ever live without it? I did a lot of the embroidery on the train going to work and back which made me feel like an old woman in her dotage. Never mind....it got done and that's the main thing. We could decorate our square however we liked with something significant for Jo. Her firstborn came to our house when his little sister was being born at home just a few houses away from us and got busy in our sandpit with E. Hence the significance of the bucket and spade.

I have started my patchwork quilting class which was exciting but a little daunting. I thought my new quarter inch sewing foot on my machine would magically make all my patchwork seams perfect...but no.....there is still lots of room for error. I will post photos of my lovely fabric I'm using in the class when the camera returns from a work jaunt with Scott and his youngest daughter to Redcliffe.

Couldn't resist a quick post!

Hello Lovely Bloggy Friends

While I am still officially "on a break" from my blog, I just HAD to post a picture of my first baby quilt as I am such a proud newbie quilting girl. So ....here it is. Now it's on to the next one for E's grade 1 teacher who is having a baby in February. But school finishes for the year in just 7 or 8 weeks so I'd better get cracking.

The quilt has lots of corners that don't match up and wonky quilting stitches, but I'm quite happy with it as it was made with lots of love and is bright and colourful for a baby to lie on. I did pinch the idea of a baby quilt with a rainbow colour theme from one I saw on Etsy or ebay or somewhere but I changed the layout (honestly!).

A quick update from my garden. My gorgeous Dad has been slaving for a couple of hours each week creating a new wall around my old no dig vege garden. Even better than getting a new improved garden has been having Dad hang out our place with us, and sitting in the garden doing nothing but watching him work, patting the dog, and chatting about life. Thanks Dad! As you can see, G is the site inspector. The slightly ugly chicken wire and star pickets are to keep the pesky puppy off my yet to planted veges.

At the age of one year and a bit, Kippy has had his first hair cut at the puppy haircut shop. As you can see, it was a very close shave. Not what I wanted for our beautiful shaggy boy. He now looks more like a beagle than a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel. And that would be because, against my express wishes, they "accidentally" cut off the lovely feathering on his legs. Won't be going back to that doggy parlour! We still love him even if he looks a bit like a big rat.

I knew I wouldn't last too long without blogging but will try and abstain until I at least get our tax done. Is there a Bloggers Anonymous??

Blogging break

Well....I've said it a few times before , but I'm going to take a break from blogging. It's a year and a day since I started my blog on my 43rd birthday for a bit of a fun and an outlet for my chatterbox mind. It's been such a great year being part of a tiny corner of the blogging world. Somehow, some lovely people stumbled onto my blog and stayed around long enough to become friends. It's been just lovely to peek into your lives and welcome you into mine. It's kind of amazing how supportive people can be who have never actually met you. So thanks to everyone for taking the time to drop by Hester's Garden. I'll still drop in on you guys as I'll miss you otherwise and I love reading what you are up to. No doubt, I'll be unable to stop blogging for too long.

However, there are children to play with, doggy hairs to sweep off the floor, a neglected husband to give some wifely attention to, baby quilts to make, a pile of paperwork to attend to, and a few more episodes of Californication to watch. How the rest of you fit it all in, I've no idea. (I"m thinking particularly of you, Beck!)

See you soon, I hope. Take good care of yourselves.

Things making me happy

Just some random stuff that is making me happy. I seem to have lost my momentum with my blog but I guess it's just there for when I'm in the mood....it doesn't have to be something on my "to do" list. Sometimes, I just wait for inspiration to strike. As it did just now when E cried out "Look, Mummy...our first baby nasturtium!!". So....here it is. A simple, small thing I know, but it really makes me happy. All my lovely colourful petunias have gone scraggy and dead looking so after consultation with my green thumbed mother, I have hoiked most of them out. I will start again with some new baby plants. Also, my pansies are not coping with the warmer weather and I don't have time to water them EVERY morning so I might go with something more hardy like geraniums that I can neglect but still get pretty flowers from.

Recently, I have slackened off from my efforts to let the children have less time watching kids' TV/dvds and playing the computer (mostly my big girl, not the little one). But I resumed my guerilla warfare this week. My family doesn't respond well to "rules" and the Daddy is too soft to help me enforce them so I gently said one school morning that we were going to do "other fun stuff" rather than watch TV before school. (E usually gets up at 6am or earlier so is usually allowed to watch TV quietly before having breakfast and getting dressed). I put out scissors, glue, paper and magazines the night before and in the morning, told the girls we were going to cut out pictures of stuff that we would like in our life and stick them on paper to make a sort of life wish collage. That only occupied them for a little while. (Making the rainbow out of magazine pictures was much more successful. Don't know how to link to that post, though). Anyway....I also bought a packet of little coloured matchsticks and let the girls loose with them. E made pictures and G did a multi media installation!

So it made me happy to see them absorbed in creating rather than interacting with a screen.

Lastly, I don't watch that much "grown up" TV or get many DVDs out because by the time the girls are asleep, I'm just about ready for bed and can't manage to watch an hour or more of something. Scott is a night owl and had tried to get me to watch "Californication" but I thought it looked too sleazy. I gave it another try one night and, again, thought the first episode was a bit gross. All that sex with strange women put me off no end. But...I persisted and soon realised there is a lot more to the show than just the graphic sex scenes. It's funny and has it's deep moments and David Duchovny's character grew insidiously on me until I developed a bit of a crush. Yes...he's an irresponsible sex addict but he "loves the shit out of his daughter" and has a good heart and he makes me laugh. So now we have wizzed through the first season. I can manage a half hour of TV before bed without too many eyedrops and often say "Let's watch another episode!". Yep....I'm a real party girl.

After work this week, I had a rare chance to browse in the city shops as Scott was at home on duty with the girls. I decided to treat us to the next season of Hank and get a new dvd each for the girls. "Milly Molly" for E and a Hi Five dvd G has been wanting forever. It was nice to come home with a present for everyone. The budget doesn't run to presents much but it's good to lash out occasionally. So...if you want to snuggle up with someone and have a good laugh....give Hank a try. (By that I mean snuggle up with someone and watch Hank together. But I could definitely snuggle with Hank!)

First dolly quilt finished!

The first "practice" dolly quilt has finally been finished. I was amazed at how easy it was when I didn't panic or look too far ahead but just went step by step following the instructions I had from Claudia the quilt lady and a quilt magazine. I even managed to mitre the corners of the binding first time. The nicest part was sitting quietly on the couch and hand sewing the final edge of the binding to the back of the quilt in a sort of hem stitch. That was like a meditation. I remember doing it to a baby quilt my sister and I were making when Emma was born. I used to be so wired at 4.30 am on those summer mornings after giving her a feed that I couldn't get back to sleep so I would sit in the morning sunshine and sew for a couple of minutes until I felt sleepy again. (My sister used to do all the tricky bits like mitring the corners). It was great to have old scraps to practice on before I do another one.

Anyway...here's G and dolly giving the quilt a test drive.

garden photos

For the flower lovers among you, here is an update of what's happening in our garden.

Excitingly, we have our first freesias. This is the official arbinger of spring, according to my green thumbed mother who knows these things.

Snapdragons and pansies are doing well. Can't wait for some nasturtium flowers to fill in the gaps though.

I'm not a huge fan of our native bottlebrush tree as it is huge and the car gets bird poo on it when I park on the driveway, but it has just burst into flower and does look quite spectacular at the moment, so here it is.

And....my personal favourites....the hanging baskets are coming along. They looked so fresh after the rain that poured down on the weekend. Then the sun came out and everything looked clean and sparkly.