Handmade with love.......

This was the scene in our house on Christmas morning, the girls beginning to open their presents from us before breakfast.....although I can't quite remember breakfast actually happening. I think the girls were too excited to be hungry and perhaps too busy eating chocolate. I know that makes us sound like bad parents but hey its only for one day of the year and that's part of Christmas to me, having treats at odd times of the day.

Now lets have a little handmade gift show'n'tell.....

I made this pen roll for Caitlin as she kept stealing her sisters one and she LOVES to draw.

All rolled up and ready to travel with her.

This little threesome of gifts was for my Mum. She came shopping with Amelia and I a couple of weeks before Christmas and I got her to pick out some fabrics but I didn't tell her what they were for. I made her a lavender filled teapot stand (lavender from her garden and pattern from the spring issue of Stitch) a pot holder ( tutorial here) and a folding market tote made from a Heather Bailey pattern.

Here's the reverse side of the potholder and teapot stand.

And here's the market tote all folded out. This pattern was very easy to follow like all Heather's patterns seem to be and I will be definitely making more of these.

And this is a very large memo board I made Amelia for her new room that I'm currently redecorating for her. I manged to get Amelia to pick out some favourite fabrics without her knowing what they were for. I must say she has great taste as they were all Heather Bailey's. The print I ended up using is from her pop garden range and I think this project makes the most of this large scale print. The base is a large artists canvas (thanks for the tip Lara!) to which I added some cork board so things can be pinned onto it as well as tucked behind the ribbon. The board is 24" x 36", took about 4 metres of ribbon, 28 buttons and just a few hours to put together. I am so impressed with how well this turned out. I think I need one for my sewing attic! Oh and on a sad note my machine is broken as in "not repairable" broken!!! Luckily I had  finished my Christmas sewing when it happened, just, and my Mother has lent me hers in the meantime. It would be a great excuse to buy a new one with all the bells and whistles if only I could afford it but unfortunately it couldn't have happened at  a worse time for us.

 The girls and I have had a lot of fun playing this game too lately. I had always wanted it as a kid so I'm making up for lost time now. I think the girls played about 5 games in one day on Monday.

Do you have a favourite family board game??

My definition of satisfaction.

This week for Sew 'n' tell Friday I made another pencil case , this one is for Caitlin similar to the boxy pouch but it is round and probably large enough to be a small overnight toilet bag. It should fit all the pens and pencils etc she needs for school plus more. I also had a go at a crayon roll except for pens or pencils and thought it would be kinda cool for Amelia to put her gel pens in to take to school. I don't think Caitlin has seen it yet but I'm sure she will want one when she does. Hey even I want one! I'm thinking it would be an easy project for Amelia to tackle. I had both these items all cut out and ready to sew last Friday but ran out of time. Once they are cut out they take less than an hour to whip up. I like that quick satisfaction in a sewing project. You can find this quick and easy tutorial for the pencil/pen roll here. Don't forget to check out all the other Sew 'n' tell participants by clicking the button on the right hand side bar.

I got no sewing done over the weekend as I spent most of Saturday on my bike completing a 200km cycling event. This annual event is called the K2 and they say it is the toughest cycling race in the Southern hemisphere and yes it was pretty tough. It was a beautiful day here and perfect riding weather so that all helps. I have been training for this event for 6 months which was a big commitment but the satisfaction of completing a long ride like this was huge. You can check out the beautiful scenery that we rode past here. I spent Sunday not doing much but being kind to my body and letting it recover. I do find it hard to laze around and not do anything...I wonder if that puts me in the exercise addiction category. Maybe, because I've just signed up for another long cycle event in 3 weeks... the Lake Taupo Cycle challenge which is slightly shorter at 160kms. I know I'm a sucker for punishment !