red oak quilts

Now we are in February and I have hardly blogged at all, just once so far this year, my quilting has been just as slack...

These are a few gifts I have made for the some of the family. I love the Flying Geese design but haven't made much in it. The first two photos below are of a quilt I made for my youngest daughter for Christmas. I have used lovely plain cotton fabrics on calico. I dont know if others have noticed but IKEA sells beautiful calico fabric at just £2 per metre.

I have hand quilted this using very fine embroidery/crochet cotton in a natural colour. This is lovely to use and glides through the fabric and wadding smoothly.

The following photos are cushions I made for my eldest son, one for his birthday and two for Christmas, I have one more top waiting to be hand quilted and then made up into a cushion cover. I have use Irish linen for these cushion covers and hand quilted with sashiko thread which is also lovely to quilt with.

We have just returned from a week in Devon celebrating Gilby's fifth birthday, Amy's birthday and our 40th wedding anniversary.Hopefully I will get to blog about those events before the month ends :)

Christmas Fun

Well Christmas has been busy...my husband slipped and cracked some ribs a couple of days before and so all the jobs we would normally share I had to do without him, including the Christmas morning service! Thankfully our neighbour walked the dog until the family arrived and helped out. We still have Preston with us but he will be going to his new home next week sometime. Our youth pastor and his wife are going to have him live with them. He recovered from his illness, we thought it was a slipped disc but on reading up about beagles we discovered that they are prone to a form of meningitis and we think this may be what he had. The only way to know for sure is if he comes down with it again he has a spinal tap and the fluid is tested. I have added some family photo's taken over the Christmas period, the summery ones are taken of our family in South Africa, although there isnt one of Jesse or Cindi. My daughter doesnt have internet at the moment and so I am pinching photos from her friends facebook page

New Year is just a few hours away for us here in the UK, I pray that you will know God's abundant blessings and peace throughout 2011

 Amy and the twins...next baby due in February

 Dominic, Alice & Preston

 Andy & Amy

 Uncle Dom & Primrose

 Stroking the lambs at Occombe Farm, Devon

 Martin & Vashti in SA

Joseph in his super hero cape made by Auntie Amy

Messy Play

Messy Play is a great way for children to learn, it covers all areas of learning and development, Personal, Social and Emotional; Communication, Language and Literacy; Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy; Knowledge and Understanding of the World and Physical Development. It can be carried out inside and out and in all types of weather. Check out this

Messy Play information sheet

There are so many activities that can be enjoyed without spending much money or travelling far.

washing the Duplo that Grandma bought in the charity shop

Painting Session

lets begin

getting stuck in

checking the brushes

very serious business

the artists, Maggie & Primrose

trying another position

Printing with our hands

washing our hands

and our feet! (they couldn't resist this)

We found a slug

Trying out the crayons at Tridias Toy Shop