Hanies: August 2008

Spanish ABC Quilt

My brother-in-law and his wife are expecting a baby in November and so I have begun an ABC quilt for them in Spanish. For my brother's children and for Amelie I made alphabet quilts so I decided I would make them an alphabet quilt too. Given my current obsession with stencilling I am stencilling the animals instead of applique-ing them as I did for the other quilts. I initially thought this would be faster than applique-ing - but now I am not so sure. So many fiddly bits to cut!

Amelie Stamp

Amelie has just moved into the older group in her kindergarten. This is a very exciting event for her and she is not sure about it. Is it better to be the top dog with the little ones or the little fish with the big ones? The big ones get to do all sorts of things that Amelie is itching to do - but she can boss the little ones about and generally mother them! Such a dilemmna.

Anyway this move to the new group also entails lots of new things that she needs. Folders for her artwork, toothbrush, toothpaste, scissors.... So I thought I would make her a stamp so that we can label all her goodies so she stands a better chance of not losing them. This is Amelie doing what she does best - jumping. She has been imitating the gymnasts in the Olympics all week and the box was her favourite event!

Happiness Meme

Thanks to Tina for the Happiness award. Following suit I award it to 5 bloggers:

Lizzyhouse, Carina, Clothpaperstring, The Giving Flower, A Spoonful of Sugar

The six things that I am happy for are:

My two daughters who give me new challenges every day. They never seize to surprise and amaze me as well as test my patience to its full!
My husband who supports everything I do and who is very hands on with the children. I may not tell him often enough but I love him very much.
Living in Germany. One step closer to my family than America and I have made some great friends that have really made Germany feel like home to me and my family.
That I discovered fabric and my love for it! At school I hated needlework and it is a bit of a joke with friends and family in England that this should have turned out to be my passion.
The internet and telephone - that let me stay in such close contact with my family (thank goodness for cheap deals to the UK) and that have enabled me to "meet" other like-minded people online.
Chocolate - without which I would never have survived breast feeding until now.

All about teeth

Not much going on here at the minute. The last few days have been all about teeth.

Amelie almost knocked out her two top front teeth while playing in kindergarten. She was holding another child's hand when she fell over and was not able to get her hand free to break her fall. Luckily it doesn't look as if any serious damage has been done but we have spent an awful lot of time at dentists.

The silver lining to this story is that we have been eating a lot of ice cream as Amelie can't eat hard food. And more importantly I think we might have got rid of the dummy once and for all!

Then Hanna so as not to be outdone by her sister, has spent the last three days with fever before I finally discovered a little stub of a tooth in her mouth. Hanna's mouth is like Fort Knox. Not even Papa has seen this tooth yet!

Snail Quilt

So I finally finished the snail quilt. Initially I wanted to make a tree with each branch for the different colour and number of snails. But I thought that might be too confusing for Amelie and Hanna. Instead I think that individual flowers for each colour snail is much clearer for them. Here is a picture of the quilt without snails. Each leaf has a piece of velcro to attach the snail to. I free motion quilted all around the flowers to make it a bit sturdier for all the pulling of snails on and off the quilt. I also sewed veins on the leaves to make sure they were better attached to the quilt top so as withstand the vigours of my two little girls.

Today was the perfect day to test drive the quilt. It was wet and miserable and Amelie had great fun with the snails. We put all the snails in place not once, or twice but three times.

Here is another picture with all the snails in their rightful places.

More Freezer Paper Stencils

This time little dinosaurs to make a memory game to go inside the Dinosaur Bag. I am having great fun with freezer paper. I have a large roll but am eeking it out as I don't think they sell this stuff here in Germany. At least I have never seen it. So I actually used each stencil multiple times. It surprised me with its sticking power.

I have also cut some stencils for using with my screen. Just got to find the time.... We are off to Frankfurt this weekend to visit Great Grandma. So another weekend with no chance to get organised. I am hoping next week I will be able to sort out my space. But Hanna has decided to dramatically decrease the amount of time she spends sleeping both day and night so who knows......

Snail Quilt Sneak Peek

Here's a little glimpse of how the snail quilt is shaping up. Each set of coloured snails has a flower and each snail has a leaf. I used velcro so that Amelie can attach the snails to the leaves. Almost done now!

Freezer Paper Stencil

It was our 5 year wedding anniversary this Saturday. Which we both forgot! I wondered why my Mum asked me if we were doing anything special at the weekend. When I flipped the calendar to August I suddenly saw that it was our wedding anniversary. That is what 2 children under 2 1/2 do to you.

Still we had a lovely weekend with the children. We went to a flea market on Sunday where I got loads of fabric and we even went out for lunch with Amelie and Hanna, who were both wonderfully behaved. But it did mean I did not have time to clear the space for my screen printing session.

But I did find time to make some dinosaur freezer paper stencils to make a little bag for Lars Oliver who will be 3 next month.

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