Jamming With A Jelly Roll : :

My sister has just recently had her 3rd baby!! She now has 1 girl and 2 boys. So of course I made her a quilt as a present.  (I honestly feel like I write that that line at least once a month!)

Ive been hoarding a jelly roll of Sweet water 'Pure' since Mr Z was born (he just turned 3). If you remember I actually used the same fabric for his baby quilt!

Because it reminds me so much of Little Mr Z when he was a bubba, Ive been really reluctant to use it......but since its for my new nephew, I decided I could part with it. (Well, half of it. The other half I have stashed back away in my cupboard with every intention of keeping it forever)

I wanted a really quick sew, so I decided to use the 'Jelly Roll Jam II" pattern from The Fat Quarter Shop. Check out the youtube tutorial here.

So in between making fun of the American accents on the tutorial (ha ha you should hear my husband) and going to my brothers wedding, this quilt came together so so quickly.




I love it sooo much!! (can i just point out the blossoms on that tree? YAY! SPRING!!)

Out of all the quilts I have ever made, this quilt is the most well made. It is dead square. For some reason my quilts are never 100% square. But this one is.
Also all of my seams are perfect! (if I do say so myself).
I finally figured out why its so important to press seams in opposite directions so the seams 'nest' together! (slow learner)





The back I managed to scrounge out of the backing left-overs from the triangle quilt I made recently.
It took a while to cut all the trimmings into usable strips but I'm so glad I did. Its much better for the bank, and its a great scrap-buster!




To quilt it I decided just to use straight lines. I love it so much!! Its adds so much lovely texture!!
Another score with this quilt is that there are absolutely NO puckers on the back!! YES!! I think I may finally figured out how not to get puckers!! (we'll see how I go with the next quilt!)



The binding is a lovely linen look cotton that I picked up from my local craft store.

I love this quilt so much!! I've really noticed how much Ive improved at sewing when I look at this quilt...and especially when I compare it so some of my earlier ones.

Well, I'm going to chuck it in the mail today and it will soon be keeping a baby warm in sunny Cairns where my sister lives.  (or maybe it will be used as a floor quilt!! Ha ha its rather hot in Cairns!)

Jessica

Hot Water Bottles : :

For mothers day I made two hot water bottle covers. One for my mum, and one for my mother-in-law.

To be honest the fabric I used isn't really to my taste, but hey....trying to get my mum to like anything nice is near impossible (love you mum ha ha!)

The one for my mum is the country red coloured one on the right. I wasn't really sure what to make for my MIL, so I used some 'Glimmer' canvas (that I accidentally ordered instead of the cotton-oops!!) because I though it was a pretty safe option. 

I then wrapped them up with a hot water bottle each (a necessity when giving a hot water bottle cover) and VIOLA! Mothers day presents!

The pattern I used was borrowed from a friend. Its called "hot water bottle cover" by Amy Kallissa. If you want, you can find it on Etsy, or just make up your own.

Jessica

Another Baby Quilt : :

This is a project that I completed last year before sewing became un-enjoyable (for some reason it felt like such a chore while pregnant!!).
My brother and sister-in-law had a lovely little girl so I decided to make her a quilt!! (Like I do every time someone has a baby!)

Here is my labour of love (aka the quilt)...

Ha ha this photo makes me laugh! I had my 6'3'' husband hold up this quilt and told him to crouch down. Poor guy was so uncomfortable trying to keep his head out of the picture! The whole time he kept asking me to hurry up and take the photo. What I put that poor man through! Love him!

This pattern was from one of Camille Roskelly's books I have previously mentioned here, here and here (and probably half a dozen other places that I cant be bothered linking to right now!)

 I used the Riley Blake fabric line 'The simple life', which is pretty old now but I've been hoarding it for baby girl quilts!
I also threw in some Kona solid fabric for the boarders, background and binding, and backed it with some Tilda fabric I got from my local craft store. 
 I used my machine to attempten a loopy-type stitch using the BSR. Not too bad for a first go hey?
Of course the BSR helps immensely!

 I've really got to work on my free motion quilting...but practice makes perfect I guess. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it (although I know its a far cry from perfect!).

I've also started being 'good' and labelling my quilts!! I think this is the first quilt I have actually labelled! I know some people like to include information about the quilt and what-not on the label..but hey at least its a start!! 

I liked this pattern so much I started making a boy version. Its still sitting unfinished in my cupboard (of course), but I know as soon as someone has a boy, that will be the kick up the bum I need to whip it out and finish that one too!!

Jessica

New Baby and Baby Mobile : :

To see my balloons in the 'parade', click here http://craftschmaft.com/2015/04/09/the-balloonalong-parade/

Well after a crazy 9 months I'm back!!
Little Miss S made her entry to the world on Feb 24th 2015 (10 days overdue!!). She weighed just over 4 kgs (or 9lbs in old money).

She is now 6 weeks old and everyone loves her to bits. She's a really good baby, and after a little scare during the first week she is home and settling into the family routine (if you can call it that!)

One of my favourite things is when all 4 of them are happy and getting along with each other. I love watching the others sing to and play with their little sister!!  When Little Miss S starts crying, Little miss I is usually straight there singing her a song and talking to her. So cute!

So....onto what I've made! One of the first things I have made for Little Miss S is a baby mobile! This pattern is from Craft Schmaft (love that name) and you can get your own copy here.

I have wanted to make this pattern for a VERY long time but as we didn't know whether bubs was a pink or blue one I held out so everything she owned wouldn't be gender neutral.

Here it is... (please excuse my open wardrobe!!)

 

This pattern was so fun to make!! I loved everything from choosing the fabric to sewing those cute little baskets and clouds together. 

It was also a really quick make, which is important at the moment as my sewing time is limited to teeny-tiny snatches here and there, especially with Little Miss E and I on school holidays at the moment (yes they started school this year..where has the last 5 years gone? *sob*)

The fabric I used was pulled from my still-very-large stash!! (Still overflowing even though I haven't added to it since beginning my stash diet a loooong time ago...) Its really satisfying making things from my stash.....I really do have a lot of nice fabric in there...it just takes the time to dig it out and match it up.

I have to admit I love everything about this mobile, and it seems Little Miss S does too. Its really handy when I have a shower or go to the loo as it will give me 5-10 mins to myself *bliss!*

Nothing worse than a screaming child when your on the toilet...and yes I have been known to take her with me...and I'm sure I'm not the first mother to do it either!! (well I'd better not be!)

In keeping with my spend-no-money (or as least as possible) moto (which I'm carrying on into this year by the way), I found some sticks from my garden and spent the afternoon sanding them back until they were lovely and smooth instead of buying some dowel. I used them to hang the balloons from and I admit I love the look of it. I have decided to incorporate as much 'natural' material as possible into my kids rooms. Just adds that little bit of texture and nature!

Well I'm off. I have a kitchen to clean that I neglected last night (woops)!

Jessica

Newest Addition!! : :

I haven't posted for quite a while...mostly because I haven't been sewing!!
But that's not to say that I haven't been making something special.......

If you would all kindly turn your heads to the side...you may see something that resembles a BABY!!

This was my scan from 10 weeks I think.....I'm 20 weeks today!!
Still waiting for my 20 weeks scan.....and still deciding if Mr Handsome and I want to find out the sex...but we are both so excited to be having number 4!

It hit us last night that we will actually have 4 children.....ha ha couldn't stop laughing!!

So I'm due on Valentines Day (Feb 14th) 2015....I cant say how much I'm NOT looking forward to being huge in the hot hot summer...but it will be nice to have birthdays in the summer when we can parties outside!

I'm so looking forward to having cuddles with a newborn!! There is nothing in the world like your own newborn baby!

Jessica xx

Hello there!

So if your reading this you've obviously stumbled across my blog! Welcome :)

Since this is my first post I had better write a little about me (to save explaining myself later).

I'm a quilting, crafting, sewing, creative mother of three beautiful children. I have twin girls who are 4, lets call them little miss E and little miss I, and a one year old boy who we can call (yep, you guessed it) little Mr Z.

I'm also the wife of Mr handsome (sounds soppy? Well let me tell you that this is the shorted version! Yes, if I were to give you his full name it would be something like Mr incredibly handsome and muscled, funny, loving, awesome father, helps-me-with-dishes-EVERY night (yup you read that right!), most awesome best friend, perfect-for-me-in-every-way!)

Perhaps when I feel more comfortable sharing personal details on here I will, but since I don't know you and you don't know me, this is what were doing to start with.

My name is Jessica ( I feel comfortable telling you this as I share this name with my fellow 1/6th of the worlds population who also have unimaginative parents) and I'm 20-something years young.

I'm starting the blog to share with you my crafting adventures. I have many dreams and goals, which I'm sure I will bore you with soon enough, but now I can put a big tick next to "start my own blog"!

Over and Out!

Jessica