From the garden

A whole salad, fresh from our garden! Delicious!

Check out the size of these ones! We must be doing something right!

Baby gifts and football musings

I know it's a bit late for Christmas, the Easter Eggs are out already so I really should move on but I thought I'd share these goodies anyway. At our work Christmas lunch one of my colleagues asked if I thought little Baby A would get any Christmas presents this year. I laughed, thinking 'how silly', but of course when you add some excited grandparents to be the mix this is what you get!

Not a bad haul really! The book is very sweet. There is just one thing I'm not really impressed by - notice the colour theme? I think my MIL is trying to have some early influence on Baby A's choice of football team! A and I have already agreed that the influencing rights will be based on who wins the match between our teams (Essendon and Hawthorn) in July 2012! I am still considering writing a personal plea to James Hird to let him know exactly what is on the line here!

God forbid we let our child pick their own team! They might choose Collingwood or Brisbane or Carlton which just does not bear thinking about! There is a football story about A's father that always makes me laugh. When he was in primary school he came home one day and said to his mum, "I'm going to barrack for Collingwood." His mum quickly replied, saying, "Ok, well if you barrack for Collingwood, you know you'll have to always eat your cauliflower at dinnertime because that's what Collingwood supporters do." After thinking about it for a while A's dad came back and said "I've changed my mind, I think I'll barrack for Essendon instead." He couldn't think of a vegetable that sounded like Essendon so figured he'd be safe! How cute!

Anyway, speaking of family, I need to go clean up as I think we might have A's mum passing through tonight on the way to visit her dad in Taree.

Have a lovely day!

Adventures with a sewing machine

Being on holidays, with lots of time on my hands makes me want to do stuff I wouldn't normally bother with - like sewing. I'm not particularly talented at sewing, in fact it's hard work and I need clear instructions, but I think I'm getting better.

Before I get down to business with this post I'd better introduce the star of the show... my Nana's sewing machine. Apparently it was the first one she owned after the peddle version. The instruction manual introduces the 'latest' in Elna stitch technology developed in 1969 and presents some stunning pictures of  what one could create! Are you ready? I'm not sure you are....

However, laughs and stylish pictures aside, good old Elna is a sturdy workhorse and I can understand the very useful instruction book so I think we're on a winner!

So yesterday, a rainy Sunday, with the help of a Cuddly Quilt Kit from Spotlight and quite a few hours of patience this is what I achieved.

Finished size 76 x 91cm

Not too bad, huh? I did feel absolutely exhausted by the end though! 

This one will go to M + D, friends who are due the day before us!

There are no 'in progress' or 'how to' pictures as I needed all my concentration for the quilt. I will say though, it's really the logistics of cutting the right pieces to the right size that was the challenge, the sewing in itself is just lots of straight stitches in straight lines. So certainly not impossible for a novice sewer. I may even make another one yet!