Contented

Quickie catch up (in pictures)

Dinosaurs and butterflies at the Natural History Museum.

Otters, an axolotl called Earl and Bonnie the bearded dragon at the rural college. (There was also a snake that J got to stroke but there was no way I was going anywhere near that!)

R x

Little things

I treated myself to a little Etsy purchase the other day, and it arrived this morning.

This gorgeous little bowl was purchased from here, and it's arrival was perfectly timed to make me smile in a moment when I was feeling particularly stressed.  

It's so dinky! Small, and perfectly formed.  It snapped me out of my grump, so worth every penny in my opinion!

R x

Slow stitching

I am slowly progressing with the quilting on this one.  I think I'm about a quarter done so far - I started off with a band of handquilting, then switched to do some by machine and have now gone back to the hand quilting.  Part of the problem with my machine quilting is that I have to keep re-adjusting my basting which is rather annoying (as I obviously did such an atrocious job of it in the first instance!)  But it's all fine - although I can't wait to see this quilt finished, I am determined to take my time and not rush on with it.  So it is slow.  Much like everything else around here at the moment.  We seem to be in another, rather deep slump home-ed wise at the moment.  I won't bore you with all the details, looking back over my blog this past year I have seen that it has been very much like a yo-yo - up one minute and down the next, so I'm sure we'll soon be on the up again.  Thank goodness the sun has come out, eh? Let's hope it hangs around for a while.

R x

Claiming my blog

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/2904479/?claim=h9fb8bm825p">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Like everyone else, it seems, I have made the move to Bloglovin, and so here I am, "claiming my blog" - whatever that means!!

R x

WIP

Back

Front

Or maybe that should read front and back?  Anyway, the quilting has begun...

R x

Backing up

Well, my photography is clearly not improving, as I am finding it impossible to get decent fabric shots lately, so this will have to do!  I just wanted to show you the finished backing for the pearl bracelets quilt, as I think I love this as much as, if not more than the front! I don't normally go in for thinking up clever names for my quilts (as I am rubbish at it) - but I am thinking of calling this Backwards or Rewind or something, (any other suggestions welcome!)  as I've done it all so back to front.  I so enjoyed putting this backing together, I just pulled out a load of fabrics and started cutting and sewing, I wanted it to look quite random.  I recently borrowed Cassandra Ellis's book, Quilt Love, from the library and she uses this style of piecing a lot - she calls it freestyle and I think it is pretty much my style too!  The batting has been ordered and I am really looking forward to quilting this one.  Although I struggled a bit with the hand quilting on my last quilt, I think I want to use a combination of quite intensive hand and machine quilting on this one.  I've been admiring Kantha quilts lately (a term I have only recently come across) and, whilst I don't think I could manage a whole quilt in that style, I would like to incorporate a little bit of it, and then do the rest on the machine.  Watch this space...

R x

Wordless Wednesday

Quilt backing made.  Next job - order more batting.

R x

Backwards

Contrary to what Julie Andrews might sing, sometimes the end can be a very good place to start too.  Yesterday I started pulling out fabrics and wondering what I could do with them and I kept being drawn to one particular fabric - a half yard of Lecien Flower Sugar in red.  I really love the fabric, but couldn't really see how it would work with the other fabrics I was thinking of using, but I had a feeling that it would make a bloody lovely binding.  So before I had time to talk myself out of it, I had chopped it up, stitched and pressed and, voila!

Beautiful binding!

And from there, things kind of snowballed a bit.  I was thinking of making a very simple quilt using my Pearl Bracelet fabrics, so I played around a bit & swapped in a bit more Flower Sugar in grey.  Then, just to stir things up a bit, I added a couple of Outfoxed fabrics (including another pearl bracelet in red). 

At this point I really wasn't sure how or even if this was going to work, but I was on a roll so I just kept going, and this morning I finished sewing it all together...

Apologies for the very dodgy photograph, but you get the idea. It's wonky and the seams don't line up and it's certainly not going to win any awards (not that anything I make ever would!) but I think I  rather like it.   Now, what shall I do about the backing...

R x

Random Thursday

After my little wobble last week, I'm feeling a little more relaxed about things.  I've realised that it's ok to just go with the flow for a while, even though it may seem like not much is happening.  Although many people will say that ASD kids need routine and structure, J just doesn't seem to respond to that, at least as far as home-ed is concerned,  so we have naturally slipped into a more laid back, almost unschooling type of learning.  And I've read enough unschooling blogs to know that there's no rush to learn things by a certain age.  Reading examples of children who didn't learn to read or write or whatever until much later is very reassuring for me, because it helps me to realise that there is still time, he will learn it when he is ready.  Reading at least is not a problem, thank goodness!  And, whilst there may not be much "work" to show for it, there is still plenty of learning going on. This probably won't be the last "wobble" that I'll have, but I know it's just a temporary thing and will pass.  

So, what have we been up to this week?  Well, like most of the country, on Tuesday we had a snow day, and W was very happy to get a day off school this time!  He went off sledging with his mates but J was happy to stay indoors and carried on watching episodes of Reboot on Youtube.  Although he did venture out very quickly - he wanted to tread on snow in bare feet so had a quick run outside and straight back in again!  Once the sun came out in the afternoon the snow started melting very quickly, there's only a tiny bit left on the grass now!

Our back garden, before it all melted.

I'm starting to feel a little inkling of wanting to make something again but haven't decided what yet.  I think I need to just start pulling some fabric out and see what happens.

Back on the subject of wobbles, J has two wobbly teeth! It's been an AGE since his last tooth came out - I checked back in my diary and it's been 3 years, although it feels like longer. But I checked my notes about W too, and he had the same three year gap, followed by a bumper year of lots of teeth coming out one after the other.  So it seems J may be in for a little windfall from the toothfairy!

I am starting to feel excited about a little trip next week - I have booked myself a ticket to go to the Country Living Fair in Islington, on my own.  I figured I deserved a day off, so P will be at home with J (no doubt they will go off and do some boy stuff together, bowling maybe) and I will have the whole day to wander around, looking at pretty things, and maybe buying a few treats too.  

R x

What home-ed looks like

This morning it looks like this - completely engrossed in a new game (The Sandbox) on the tablet.  It does seem pretty cool, he has to think creatively and logically to complete the challenges, plus he's using a stylus, so that must be good for his pen skills, right? ;-) 

R x