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The 52 Project: A portrait of my children, once a week, every week in 2014

Linking up with Practicing Simplicity

We spent a beautiful day at Lorne beach today.

 Mimsy loves the beach more than anyone I know. She ran between teaching Juju how to build sand castles and trying to convince her dad or I to take her into the water.

 Juju was quite happy to sit with me in the shade and play in the sand. He has a new name for Mims, whenever he sees her he giggles and yells out Zsa Zsa, it's very cute.

T.G.I.F.F Giraffe Cot Quilt

This week Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday is being hosted by Glory Be Quilter. Some gorgeous projects if you follow the links.

I really am excited about this finished project! A quilt for my little man. He is almost 11 months old now, so it's been some time coming.

I used Giraffe Crossing from Riley Blake. I wanted something colourful and fun. We tend to use quilts for everything rather than simply for sleeping under, so I was happy to have bright colours and lots to look at.

I made each block using a charm square for the centre (fussy cut to include the various giraffes in the different colour ways) surrounded by 16x 2.5" blocks. It is sashed using the cream dots and the binding is made using the multi stripe.

I used straight line quilting on the cream dots in an attempt to make each block pop a little more.

Like each of the quilts I've made so far (this one is my third), there are plenty of mistakes and things to practice. But, I'm happy to have it finished, and Juju man gave his standard seal of approval - madly clapping his hands.

What have you been working on this week?

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The 52 Project: A portrait of my children, once a week, each week in 2014

Linking up with Practicing Simplicity

 Mimsy asked if she could take Juju's photo this week. I think she did quite a good job!

 We've been working hard in our garden this week. Our new house doesn't have a lemon tree, so we planted a new one. Mim was very proud of her planting efforts.

Tomato flavoured bread

I've decided to branch out in my crafty endeavours. Cooking and gardening are on my 'to do' list. I'm not skilled in either and funnily enough, as much as I can follow a sewing pattern, I'm terrible at sticking to a recipe. This does not bode well for my cook aspirations.

But, nevertheless, today I thought I'd make some tomato flavoured bread.

Juju was there to oversee the process.

I started with The Road to Loving my Thermomixer's go to bread recipe. I love Peta's recipes, they are well set out and easy to follow - important for me! Lucky me, I have a Thermomix, so I used that for my preparations.

I decided to just wing the quantities and initially simply replaced the water with a tin of tomatoes, that I had blitzed and warmed to 37 degrees. When I started kneading the bread I quickly realised it was too dry. I added about 120ml of water and this helped to combine all the ingredients. In the end it was possibly a little too wet, but it still worked.

I also got distracted with visitors and went out for lunch with my dough still sitting at my window sill. Instead of leaving it to rise for the recommended one hour, it was probably there for more than 2, whoops!

But, by the afternoon, I had a delicious loaf of tomato flavoured bread. It was quite dense, and it packed a bit of a tangy punch. Overall I was happy with my first attempt at it. I think next time I might add some basil through it for something extra.

We ate the bread, still warm, for afternoon tea. It was delicious and the kids loved it too.

52 Project catch up (again!)

Ok, I say this all the time, but this time I am determined to catch up on my blogging and stay on top of it! So here goes with my big catch up on what we've been up to lately.

The 52 Project: A portrait of my children, once a week, each week in 2014
Linking up with Practicing Simplicity

35/52 - it takes a lot of concentration playing with wrapping paper! Both Mim and Juju loved wrapping up their toys and rediscovering them while they played "birthdays".

36/52 - Spending a beautiful Father's Day at the beach. Mim and Ju have a wonderful relationship with their brilliant Dad. Playing upstairs with a ball is the current favourite activity for these three.

37/52 

 Mimsy styled her own photo this week.

 Juju watched on, somewhat amused.

33/52 and 34/52 and T.G.I.F.F!

I'm determined to get up to date with my sewing and blogging (oh and unpacking our new house, and my uni work, and market preparations - never a dull moment!). So, here is hopefully my last catch up on the 52 project and a few photos of my latest, finished, project.

The 52 Project: A portrait of my children, once a week, every week in 2014.
Linking up with Practicing Simplicity.

33/52

 Two peas in a pod, Little Man hanging out with his Grandad.

Miss Mims, Queen of the Castle.

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 Such a handsome boy, he doesn't always smile with his mouth, but he does often smile with his eyes.

We seem to have hit the stage of needing to constantly dress up in costumes. Here: two bows from my lovely friend at Ana Ma Petit Tresor, and a ballerina dress. This outfit was tame - usually we have gumboots, a scarf, some necklaces and a beanie added into the mix. Yep, I am turning into that mum that allows their child to dress up with every dress up they can find, just to be able to leave the house.

Please tell me I'm not alone!?

Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday

Linking up with Ms Midge

This one has been a little while coming. 

As part of one of my collections for Collaborate For A Cause (you can read about it here), my team offered a dolly blanket if the bidding reached a certain amount.

Unfortunately we did not initially reach the required bid to include a blanket, however, our lovely very generous winner asked us if she could increase her bid and include the blanket.

Our winner requested one with a ruffle around three edges.

As with the rest of the collaboration, the blanket is made using Tilda fabrics, including two of the fabrics featured in the collection.

 I made the ruffle with the help of this tutorial by Violet Craft on the Sew, Mama Sew blog. I used the Quick Turn Ruffle Edge technique, but extended the ruffle all the way around three sides (as opposed to two side on the blog).

While the front of the blanket was pieced using charm squares, the back is a solid piece of coordinating Tilda fabric.

This blanket has now been packaged up and posted, thus closing out Collaborate for a Cause for 2014. I'm so pleased to have been a part of raising $350 between my two collaborations, and $50,000 for the auction overall.

And hooray, completing this blanket, and this blog post, means ticking off two things from my list of things I'm working on!

Around the World Blog Hop

A couple of weeks ago Amy from Ladybugs and Daisy Chains asked me to join in the Around the World Blog Hop. I said yes of course, and then promptly became more sick with this horrible cold that seems to also be travelling around the world and completely forgot.

So, in my very first attempt, and also very first fail at a blog hop, here are my answers!

What am I working on?
A whole heap of things!

• I'm still working on my hexies made from the Kate Spain Aussie Charm Swap hosted by Ms Midge - I suspect this will continue to take me forever!

• I'm finishing off a bonus dolly quilt that became part of my submission to our Collaborate for a Cause collection after the winning bidder bumped up her bid. The lovely winner has been ever so patient while I have been recovering.
• I'm very exciting to be pattern testing for not just one person but two! Very exciting, more on that to come!
• Market preparation for the Maribrynong Makers Market coming up on September 13th
• A quilt for my son
• And a number of blog posts that I have fallen behind on!

How does my work differ from others?

Like most other responses I have read to this question, I'm not too sure. But, I try to stay true to using bright happy colours, bold prints and where possible I try to use patterns by fellow Australian designers.

Why do I write/create what I do?

Mainly because I enjoy it. It's a bit of me time, it's a create outlet and I get a lot of satisfaction out of completing a project.

I also have three fabulous people in my life who encourage me in all that I do. 

How does my creating process work?

If I'm completely honest, I usually have an idea with very little time to actually achieve it. I usually store it away in my mind until I am able to get some clear time and then I have a huge burst of creativity and make a whole lot in one go.

I'm meant to be passing this along to someone else to complete, but like I said, this is my first attempt and first fail. I'm well over a week late in completing my answers and along with forgetting to post this, I also forgot to invite others to answer the questions. So, if you are reading this, and feel like playing along, please consider this your invitation!