My Lucky Dip Life!

OK.. I admit it.  I forgot about the blog.  I made lots of stuff last year.  I even took a whole bunch of pictures.  But man this blogging stuff is time consuming.  The actual sitting down in front of the pc, uploading pics so I can edit them and make them all pretty... either I'm not working smart or this is how long it takes and makes me admire those hard core daily bloggers even more! So I thought I'd give it another go.... perhaps fewer photos and more text, or less text and more photos. I recently had a big freak out over photos.. or lack thereof.  You know when you always say you're gonna back up your photos and then you never get round to it.... Back. up. your. photos! Last week our pc went a bit loco and I'll not bore you with the details but suffice it to say our photos were a casualty of the meltdown. Thank goodness my husband has a bit of pc savvy and after a very long and nerve-wracking week he recovered the photos off the drive. ...

Well it seems I only get round to posting once a month and even managed to miss June out entirely! Before too much time passes I thought I'd better knuckle down and post some pics of the gifts I made my little girl for her 7th birthday!  This will be a picture heavy post with little text but it is all self explanatory. First up is something that has done the rounds on Pinterest over and over.  It is the super art case tutorial that can be found here.   This is really a very straightforward and easy to follow tutorial, even if you don't understand french.  The only thing I changed was I used Velcro tabs as a closure on the pencil case part as I didn't have any poppers!     Along the same theme, I made a pencil case for her to use at school... as much as she says she likes it, she tells me it is too BIG and won't fit in her desk.  Hmph! Thanks!  It is actually, a regular sized pencil case lol!  I l...

Crikey, it is weeks since I posted anything on this blog!  I've been quite busy though, honest! Found 5 minutes (an exaggeration I assure you) to sit down and load up a few pics.  Not the best photo, but here is block 6 of my quilt-a-long.  I do like this one and am itching to do the next one but have some birthday sewing to be getting on with this week.  Anyway, this isn't a huge blog post as such, just a little update... if you scroll along you can see the other blocks in this quilt.  I'm not clever enough to have sussed out how to group everything together yet!     

With the weather warming up (slightly) the girls have needed warm casual play wear.  My youngest loves the "easy trousers" she has, and when she saw this beige fabric she was rather keen for me to make her another pair.  Personally I'm not a fan of beige but she loved the colour. She asked for blue top stitching (her favourite colour) which left no room for mistakes! It was only once I'd cut out the fabric that I realised that it was a synthetic tracksuit fabric and would definitely need lining.. that will teach me for buying fabric in a hurry! So while she loves the idea of these joggers, Miss Fussy Pants is not that keen on wearing these because of the added bulk on the crotch seam.  Ah well, it was a good learning experience and since I made these....        I decided to make these orange joggers!  This year on the 30th April, the Netherlands saw Queen Beatrix abdicate the throne and hand over the reins to her so...

  I recently took part in a "craft fairy" exchange with the girls from my craft group.  I've mentioned my craft group before you might remember...we've been chatting away over the interweb since we were pregnant with our babies 7 years ago...who were all due in the month of May!  This year we thought it would be fun to make a gift for a May kiddo.     Here is what I came up with! My recipient likes Russian Dolls and also wears glasses... so I thought I'd make her a cool glasses case. If I made this cutie again, I'd do some things a little differently - there is always room for improvement!  Over all though, I'm happy with the way she turned out.                  

      You probably wouldn't think it, if you visited these shores from the southern hemisphere, that spring has finally made an appearance.  Even though we had snow and frost last week, the daffodils are nearly out, crocus in full bloom, and the tulips are well on their way out of the soil already. Usually, by the beginning of March I have gone through all my seed packets, drooled over online catalogues and decided what, where and when I'm sowing for the coming veg growing season.  This year it has been a lot colder than I can remember from seasons past and somehow the "lentekriebels" (as they say here, the spring fever) hasn't struck yet.... but regardless of how I've been feeling, the tomato seeds have to go in!  I've got a bit of a thing about tomatoes.  They are my favourite vegetable to grow and to eat!  If I wasn't limited by space I would go a little bit silly growing tomatoes I think.  There are hundreds of varieti...

Lots of posts from me today... like waiting for a bus, none will come for ages and then 3 will turn up at once! I've mentioned my online crafty group in the past, it is so good to have like minded people to bounce ideas off.  In January it was suggested we do a Quilt-a-long.  I got excited!  I've always thought that one day I may make a quilt for the girls... but never really pursued the idea.   Apart from scrappy patchwork bags I've never done formal patchwork blocks either. You know, I don't really "get" quilts - I'm a duvet girl and growning up in a warm climate, there wasn't much need for extra blankets and quilts to snuggle under come winter time. So although I was excited to be starting a new long term project (1 block per month) I wasn't quite sure we really did need a quilt in the house. The first quilt block was shared and the very much needed instructions, in the form of a photo tutorial.  Do you know I found it so HARD!!! I'm...