Are you ready? I'm super excited about this ta da moment.


All of the animals have been traced, cut, stuck and positioned on the quilt front... completely ahead of schedule. Ah, bank holiday weekends. Some of the animals go in two-by-two, and some are greedier: we have five quails, three zebras, three chickens, four fish, three newts.

I like to think that the hardest part is over, but now I need to find two pieces of quilt wadding THAT FIT to line the back, and start the free-motion outlining of each colour. Slow and steady.


Rainy weather is a great for getting things done. I've also cut back on work - slowly - so I'm doing less driving around and attending meetings (very good for the nausea), and more time working on illustrations and designs (very good for the soul). There are some exciting projects coming out of my studio, I hope to be able to share them with you soon!

In the meantime, I've also been doing some of this:


The result is a lot of little squares, slowly being pieced together to make a postage stamp quilt. I'm making them with 2.5" squares which results in a 2" square block on the quilt, and although I originally aimed for 2,000 blocks, it's probably going to be more like 900. My little sewing machine has been hard at work with the zip zipping along of quarter-inch seams.

The piecing is the fun bit: cutting down fat quarters into 2.5"squares is not fun. There's a lot of measuring and pressing involved, and the occasional unhappy exclamation when the perfect 2.5" square shifts at the last minute and puts out an entire row of "postage stamp" seams. I think this calls for a weekend in front of the TV with a cutting mat and an iron nearby.

This little quilt is all for me. My first ever "all for me" project. So indulgent.

Real honest-to-goodness ice creams from the ice-cream man's van. (I had an ice lolly. With Strawberry and Lime and Pineapple. Yep.)

And there has been some indoor progress too.

Oh it was so nice having a bank holiday this week. I'm still quite sick (ah the joys of pregnancy, they say) so I had a rather lazy weekend on the couch, in bed, in the sun. And then, all of a sudden-ly, it started to rain.


It's still lovely and bright outside, but the rain is glip-glopping on the pavement outside the windows and everything inside becomes hazy and snug and warm. It's quilt weather.

F is for fairy lights

Unicorns, and sparkly purple fabrics. Lots of late-night tracing, cutting, ironing and more cutting. Making good progress on the remaining animals - only four more sets to go. Then I need to assemble them, measure out the backing, and iron them on. Then lots and lots of free motion quilting. No pressure.

X is for X-Ray Fish

That's my sewing table, and it is absolutely covered from end to end with bits and pieces of colourful fabric. You never know when you might need a bit of yellow for Yaks, or a touch of orange for Vultures. Choosing fabrics is half the fun.

It's hard work not doing anything creative. My fingers twitch with memories of knitting, and all I want to do is get spinning to whip up some new yarn in a thousand different jewel tones I've imagined since I started feeling ill. Still, it's not that bad. I've done a bit of planning, organising, thinking.

And, best of all, I remembered about this quilt which has been "in progress" for about two years. It has been hiding away, tucked in between the pages of a notebook on my bookshelf. It is the "Animal Alphabet" quilt from Don'tLookNow.


It's a smallish quilt with lots and lots of applique shapes in a hundred different fabrics/colours. I bought the pattern at the quilt market two years ago, and have been slowly making my way through the various shapes ever since then.


I have chickens, all cut out and stuck in the book, waiting to be appliqued on to the quilt front. I also have alligators, elephants, fish, jellyfish, newts, monkeys, and sharks. The unicorns are missing their Us, and the yaks are more-or-less traced but not cut out yet.

I'm sorry I disappeared. I had a good reason though, I was sick. Yuck-I-can't-get-out-of-bed sick. I-feel-like-I-have-permanent-food-poisoning sick. Spend-two-weeks-of-not-getting-up sick.

Also known as morning sickness.

Whoever came up with that name was silly indeed. It lasts all day! And all night! And then it's back again in the morning, if you were able to get any sleep at all. You can't get up. You can't go out. You can't think about chocolate cakes (gasp!) or cups of tea (no!).

So yes: we're having a baby! It's all terribly exciting. Right now, I'm spending a lot of time hiding under the covers and not going out. I haven't knit a single stitch in two months. I haven't sewn, or stuck, or stitched, or glued, or sequinned, or baked, or eaten grown up food in two months. My diet consists mainly of Rich Tea Biscuits (a bit like marie biscuits for those of you in South Africa) and bottled water. Occasionally I have a whole meal - but it's a rare treat. It feels like my greatest accomplishment each week is getting up and getting dressed.

I've got it bad. Although, there is hope and light at the end of the tunnel. I am 14 weeks now, so it should be passing. In fact, I'm sitting here (in bed) typing this, which means I must be feeling better, ipso facto. I've been reading endless reams of Neil Gaiman and China Mievelle, which makes the good days fly by. I have dreams of knitting little cotton rabbits and making baby quilts. I long to finish the two lovely quilts sitting on my sewing table. One day, I will get out of bed and make myself some clothes that fit properly.

But for now.

For now I'll sit in bed with my biscuits. I'll watch re-runs of crime TV (currently Castle) and I'll hope for better days. For now I'll try to make it through the Short Fictions & Wonders accumulating in piles of library books next to my bed. I'll tentatively try out new things - a shortcake biscuit next week perhaps, instead of the Rich Tea.

Watch this space, as they say. Overload of baby crafting coming soon.