easter weekend

I hope your Easter weekend has been as good as ours. First we were invaded by bunny rabbits. Two have already been decapitated!

Then someone turned 41, so you can only really go BIG and FUN with a birthday like that!

This is a home-made Genoise Cake (recipe from Eric Lanlard) filled with fresh cream and strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. I calculated the calories and it's a terrifying 520 per slice!

Much lego has been built. Battle hideouts...

...and dragons.

Then we decided to go back to an old (but brief) haunt of ours, Godalming, Surrey.

There is a lovely riverside walk that we did, past the boathouse (who had rented all their rowing boats out by the time we got there!)

The lovely river itself. There were narrow boats, canonists, rowing boats and even someone punting! It reminded me of this song.

I love photographing my 3 boys! Look at the height difference! That's a 41 yr old, 8 yr old, 4 yr old! Even though the 8 year old is very tall, he's still small compared to his dad! (Not me, he comes up to my shoulder already). The boys walked along the river looking for wildlife, using a stick as a gun, a walking stick, a probe. Far too many dandelions were picked up and blown by my little one. Near misses with stinging nettles (how we got away without a sting, I don't know). At the end of our walk, a riverside pub for bitter shandy and lemonades.

There are some amazing houses that back onto the river. This house had beautiful lilac wisteria growing all it. On a day like yesterday, it felt like life was perfect.

The whole day was stunning. And our guilty pleasure on the way home (using our Chippy app to find a fish and chip shop!)

This is a selection of what I am growing for the summer, courgettes
(zuchini) and salad leaves and herbs plus raddishes in our shared plot.

Tea Cozy

I whipped up this tea cozy yesterday after my husband mentioned it
might be useful to have one. Who am I to disagree?

I used my insulating batting and normal cotton batting on the inside.
I measured the teapot and added c10cm in width to give enough room for
lining and battings and seam allowance. You need to make the interior
slightly smaller so it will fit in nicely. I also added c8cm to the
height for seam allowance and extra room as it's quite bulky.

All in all I'm very pleased with my quick project.

Now the cafetiere is saying what about me?!

weekend

Last weekend we had some good friends to stay, a wonky witch and a zombie lover! They came to support a family member running in the Brighton Marathon. They have 2 children, their youngest was only born in January.

As a present for the baby, I made him a quilt. I used the left over fabric from my son's Castle Peeps Quilt, and designed a quilt for him.

I can finally do a reveal:

For my son's quilt I used the pattern that Lizzy House made up. For this quilt I was inspired by other Castle Peeps Quilts I had seen on Flickr and other places. I measured all the fabric that I had left over, and designed the pattern so it used up all the fabric. (it was quite a headache due to the lack of peace and quiet in our house)

I didn't have enough fabric to do a traditional binding, so I sewed round the edges with 2 parallel rows of straight stitching. (the batting is enclosed as I sewed it right sides together and then flipped it to the right side out, and then I did the 2 rows of edge stitching.) I chose the diamond quilting design, as I felt that fitted in with the "medieval" look of the fabric.

I am very happy with this quilt.

Here's a reminder of my original quilt (from the Lizzy House pattern) :

I still have my eldest son's quilt to do. I'm not in a rush with that. And I have 2 quilt tops to either stick together or do 2 quilts from (they are from the Midwest Modern fabric range by Amy Butler) again, no rush!

sewing shoes

I've seen these a few times today (blogland, not on real feet) and thought that I would also share! Just the thing to feel glam in as you sew! $795 if you are interested.

Christian Louboutin Dressmaker shoes:

colour

For many years I have kept things simple and sleek in my kitchen, all stainless steel and black utensils. A very efficient look indeed.

But as time has gone on I got a bit bored with the austere look and wanted to brighten up my cooking. Not one to replace things just because I see something prettier, I have just added to my arsenal of utensils when I have had an actual need.

The red spoon and the green pastry brush are my latest additions, I have a few non scratch saucepans, so that has been useful. I wasn't sure whether the pastry brush would be any good, but it worked a treat when I applied an egg wash the other week.

The yellow bowl is my salad bowl (it's white on the inside). I definitely like going for the citrus colours, they cheer me up the most. I have bought most of these lovely colour things from Steamer Trading or Berts Homestore.

My dream bit of colour is a red Kitchenaid mixer : )

Is your kitchen brimming with colourful things, or do you have a thing for shiny stainless steel?!

calming art

After a 1.5 hour swimming class some quiet drawing is just thing to recharge the batteries! After we had a BIG refuel!

Doctor Who is the inspiration today.

Plum tart

First plum tart of the year - I can't wait!

don't forget

In recent weeks I have managed to leave the house without my lunch for work and without my keys! To be honest it's not surprising as our life is so busy with our family of four all going four different ways every day; nursery, school, work and work.

So due to our hectic schedule some pertinent reminders are needed to help our days go smoother.I have put together a don't forget lists in three colourways for anyone to use. An easy print out and put on the wall, by your front door! This has been quite a palaver involving google docs - I won't bore you!

Red : Blue : Green

Hopefully I wont have to sit on the floor outside my front door again (luckily my wifi worked on the outside, so I sat reading The Guardian on my phone, eating the olives I had bought at Brighton Farm Market).

british museum

The British Museum, London, is an incredible museum full of artifacts that tell the stories of civilizations over thousands of years.

My eldest son is doing a school project on ancient Egypt, and has become really caught up in finding out more. We took him to the museum yesterday, so he could see the artifacts that he has been told about, seen on websites and books for himself. Ok it's not as good as going to Egypt, but as that is out of the question, at the moment, this was almost as good.

Apart from what is on display, the building itself is glorious. The new coovered section, the great court, takes my breath every time I go in there. The architecture is stunning, and it transforms the museum into an even better building than it was.

Is there a quilt pattern that could be found in the roof or windows?