I'm making very slow progress with my 9-patches, oh well :-/

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Well, it's certainly high time for another post from me!  Life is busy...getting to blog about it just isn't happening lately.

Anyway, we girls have had the sewing machine out again, busily making gifts for my Mum's 60th Birthday:

I can't wait to start another quilt!

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I have completed my first nine nine-patches for the quilt-along. 

Here they are:

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I've taken up AmandaJean's challenge to piece a nine patch block a day with the aim of using up scraps and ending up with a colourful quilt.  I made 4 blocks yesterday!

We'll see how long I can keep up, in between feeding a hungry baby boy and homeschooling the girls!

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This is Bethany's latest hand-sewn project she has been working on during "reading" time in bed at night :-)

It is based on a full-size tote bag pattern I used to make these.

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Well, it's been a long time between posts.  Life is busy with a 3 month old baby!  Thomas is doing really well though, he's now sleeping through the night, giving me some much needed sleep!  Here's a recent photo of him:

Last Saturday morning the girls got their sewing out and set to work.  Here's what they came up with:

Ainsley's pillow she hand-sewed for a wee friend of hers.

and another pillow I helped her sew for a friend

and another mini pillow Ainsley made for her Poppa who was here for the night.

Bethany made this pillow for her cousin's birthday.

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My sister-in-law, Helen, made this gorgeous quilt for Thomas, isn't it beautiful!

Here is a quilt I made this week for a friend who has just had her sixth baby girl :-) 

I bought a big packet of calico at Spotlight the other day and decided to try making some simple tote bags for the girls.  I scoured the internet for free tutorials and came up with this one at super eggplant.  Here are the first three I made for the girls.  They chose their own decorations & Bethany made the yoyos (patchworker's name for the fabric puffs attached to the tote with buttons).

Then I modified the pattern a little and added a patchwork strip to this slightly smaller tote for a little friend's birthday present:

Then last night, I got really ambitious and started this more complicated nappy bag (diaper bag for those of you in the US!), using some of the fabrics I had for the quilt.  This was a little more complicated and involved padding which made some of the seams very thick, but I got there in the end!

it includes interior pockets...

and here's baby's pram all made up with the new quilt and nappy bag...

I finished off the quilt for the baby last night!  This is a bassinet size quilt for the pram we will be sleeping him in at first.  I'll make a cot quilt later :-)