Little Projects

We're enjoying gorgeous warm weather here in Provence this final week of holidays before the kids head back to school.

Plenty to see around the garden. 

No idea what this is, but I love the colour. 

Sadly, these will go to waste. I'm having enough trouble preserving my sanity, let alone my olives. 

I've been working on some little projects, perfect for those small pockets of spare time I find every now and then. 

These newborn pants are about 30 minutes to sew. My 30 minutes had to be spaced throughout a whole day, but I got them done in the end. You can find the tutorial here at Made by Rae.  

Then I decided to make my darling daughter some skirts. This first one I actually made before the baby came, but it's a fab little tutorial which you can find here at Two Little Banshees.

I asked my daughter to wear this for me today and she tried to bribe me into letting her watch more television in exchange for modelling services. She gets a high-five for creativity but like the US, I don't negotiate with terrorists, so I took this photo when she wasn't paying attention.

Sewn with an on-sale pillowcase, should've run the stripes vertically and made the skirt shorter. Not my best effort. 

Next skirt - I tried this great little tutorial over at Dana's blog, Made. Thoroughly recommended.

The bias binding adds such a nice touch. 

The elephant came first - I made him about two years ago. I bought the pattern for it at Two Little Banshees; you can find it here.



Some behind-the-scenes photos that show my brilliant mothering skills.


The skirt had to be pinned on the shutters three times as my little assistant kept taking it down for me.

So I convinced my assistant to pick some lavender instead. Turns out the lavender can pull back. 

Bad mother. I took the photo first, rescued the child second. But I promise he wasn't crying, just surprised. 

Ahem. So back to the sewing. I made another one of Dana's skirts, this time with the double layers.

My model was more agreeable this time round. 

I also managed to finish the baby's quilt. The top and back were pieced before he was born, quilting was very simple - a single line on all the white sashing. Scrappy binding of the darker (blue and green) fabrics only.


The back was pieced so that the white sashing corresponded with sashing on the front.



I had every intention of taking some nice arty-farty photos after this, but the baby started yelling and my little helper reappeared.



Soon after taking this one I detected they'd both crapped themselves. Sigh, photo shoot over.

"You think this is bad, wait 'til you start eating solids." 

One day at a time, Kirsty. One day at a time.

Breaking News: Hard to get things done with a newborn in the house.

Just stating the obvious in case anyone is wondering why I've been such a terrible blogger so far this month.

But one of the (many) benefits of a newborn is:

PRESENTS!

Divine hand crocheted blanket (thank you Maaike) 

Finest Italian fashion (bisous Blandina)

Moda the dog; the newest addition to the family (merci Sarah)

Wise words (relatives) and a little something just for me, me, me (the Texan connection: Aidan and Sara Louise)

A little bit of sewing to machine quilt the baby's blanket. 

It's not going to bind itself, kid, hop to it.

Plenty of Patty Young's Sanctuary line, with a bit of Joel Dewberry's Modern Meadow and a navy Essex Linen/Cotton blend. Sashed with Kona White.

Hope you've all had a great weekend. Will continue to post when I can, but only if I have something interesting to say!

Oh Sleep, Sleep, Wherefore Art Thou Sleep?

Firstly, thank you so much for all your well wishes on the arrival of the baby - you guys are the greatest!

We are slowly getting ourselves into a bit of a routine; a very low key one that involves a lot of catnaps (and I'm talking about me here, not the baby).

Here he is chilling out on the pixelated quilt because I still haven't finished his yet, poor fourth child. It should be finished soon enough as I found a little time to work on it this weekend (visiting relatives took the bigger kids off our hands).

Otherwise, we have been enjoying some luverly flowers (courtesy of my parents):

And the whole clan took the baby on his first tour of the vineyard down the road from our house:

The vines were well into producing this year's harvest:

And there were plenty of other things for the kids to explore.

I love this view over our village from the end of our road:

Hope you've all had a great weekend with lots of lovely long sleeps. Bonne semaine!