2010 - 2011

Wow it feels strange doing a look back over the year but as I'm back at work tomorrow and will be working on New Years day too, I need to do this post today!

This year has been an exciting one for me! I started this little blog of mine back in February and it's gone from strength to strength. The friends that I have made in this great community of ours is unbelievable, I love reading and commenting on blogs and the inspiration I get from each of you is priceless.

Here are a few snaps of the sewing that I have completed this year::

And here is a shot of some projects I intend to tackle in 2011::

For me 2011 is going to be more about quilting. I've decided not to partake in as many swaps and to really concentrate on churning out some quilts that I love. I've been preparing for this change in direction for the last couple of months and have got some of my favourite fabric lines all stashed and ready to go!

I'm planning on attending more Grey Circles Workshops run by the lovely Karen & Manda as well as going on at least one quilting retreat this year! I've also booked the 11-14th August off work so I can head down to Birmingham for the Festival Of Quilts. Phew! Big plans, just hope I can pull them off!

This year also saw lots happening in our family, the first being at last 'Mr. G' and I tied the knot!!

We had a great time in Florida with all our closest family, it was brilliant!


I took the plunge into the addictive world of Blythe::

I bought this Candy Carnival whom we named Boo! Since then I've acquired 3 more girls who I really need to photograph, another post maybe!

The little people have really grown both in the literal sense and in their personalities. 'Master M' really shocked us when he announced he wanted his locks cutting off just before Christmas!

And 'Little Miss H' well what can I say?! She is constant source of worry and amusement all at the same time! Moving her schools seems to have been the right choice, even though it was distressing for me, she seems to love it. My 'Little Miss H' appears happier, louder, more vocal, her speech is better and she just loves going on the school bus each morning!! No longer a stressed out, teary, quiet child - hooray!!

Finally, in terms of my personal life there are just a couple of wishes for 2011. 

I really need to lose some weight and I really want another baby! Mmmm, those wishes are a bit contradictory aren't they?? After miscarrying in late November though it really highlighted how much we both wanted another Henshaw around the place!

So here's looking forward to a crafty, productive 2011 with lots of quilts made and even more good times with my great family!

Wishing you all a very Happy, Peaceful and Prosperous New Year!

Like My New Look?

So I've spent quite a chunk of today working on my new blog layout, I hope you like it!

I wanted it to be cleaner and simpler and I think I've acheived what I wanted, though no doubt knowing me, I'll be tweaking it for a few days yet!

I've also been working on my photo editing and enhancing skills and so will show you a few more Christmas shots of my family!

'Little Miss H' rockin' out to the Paper Jams Guitar that 'Master M' received!

My lovely little Nan whom I thought I'd share with you seen as though I've been harping on about her quilt for so long!!

Yes a rare picture of moi! Already devouring books on my much wanted Kindle. Thanks soooo much 'Mr. G'.

And finally a shot of 'Master M'. Can you spot the change? I was so traumatised but knew the day would come eventually......

Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas to you all - I hope you had a really great day!

We had one of the best yet I think. The highlight of which was the whole family partaking in Glee Karaoke and Michael Jackson dancing on the Wii!! Hilarious. I kid you not!

This was the pile of presents under our tree on Christmas morning! There were lots as you can see!! Santa went a bit mad again - I blame the grandparents!!

I managed to make 'Master M' a Christmas stocking on Christmas Eve but unfortunately ran out of time to make 'Little Miss H' one! She used the one I made myself earlier in December and I'm going to whip her one up early in November 2011, I've diarised it you know!! I'll make 'Mr. G's' at the same time in a blue Treefall design stylie!


Can you see the gorgeous linen mice peeking out of the top of the stockings? Well they're from Beth who works under the name 'The Linen Cat'. Those who have been reading my blog for a while will know just how much I adore her work, we have several of her pieces and I can't wait to see what 2011 brings from her. If you don't know her work or blog already, I encourage you to check her out!!


Finally I'd like to show you the last of my finished hand made presents, everything I gave that was hand made went down a storm and I'll be doing it again next year for sure! 


Here's my Nan's lap quilt::

My Nan loved it! Bless her she'd bought a slankie blanket thingy that was huge on her (she's shrinking bless her, well she is 91!) So she loved this quilt for  snuggling under when watching TV,after we'd explained what it was!!!!

Anyway I want to point out that if it was not for the lovely I'm a Ginger Monkey, this quilt may not have been finished. My binding needs more practice and because I needed it to be perfect, Katy invited me to her house so she could help me/teach me/sew the binding on for me! I am eternally grateful and my little ones loved playing at her house with her youngest and keep asking to go back!

Now this lovely travel wallet I made for the little peoples childminder. I used the tutorial on the Seamstar blog and it turned out great! 

I made this because Lindsay is hopefully, fingers crossed, going to New York today to see one of her daughters get married at the Empire State building on New Years Eve. I do so hope that they can fly and that the wedding isn't cancelled. Fingers Crossed.

So before we see the New Year in, I plan another post looking forwards and back at my sewing achievements and plans for 2011. I'm hoping to tweek the blog a little (again) and streamline it somewhat. 

PS: If you're in need of a fabric fix, check out the great giveaway over at Retro Mummy

 

Lots of lovely sewing!

Lovely sewing is becoming a bit of recurrent theme on here of late! Thank the lord because that's why I started this little old blog of mine!!!!

So Saturday gone saw me spending the most lovely, relaxing, fabric filled sewtastic day with some bloggy friends (old and new) of mine! I attended a Grey Circles workshop hosted by Karen and Manda, at Karen's lovely home. There were just three of us who attended, Judi, Crissy and myself which made for a very relaxed affair, just right for a Saturday!

During the workshop we made beautiful Christmas stockings Treefall Design stylie, here's mine::

We had a lovely lunch of homemade soups with bread and cheese and lots of coffee and cake! The afternoon session saw us mastering the insertion of zips and producing lovely zipped pouches::

We got to bring home our wares and the girls also gave us a kit to make another pouch at home. 

There were lovely Fat Quarters for sale that had been supplied by Saints and Pinner, I treated myself to a Cloud 9 print that I'd been admiring! Manda had also got scrap packs for sale in red and blue so I grabbed one of each! I'm going to make Mr.G a Christmas stocking from the blues.

Please check out Karen's, Manda's and Judi's reviews of the fabby day! Grey Circles are planning more workshops with details being released in the New Year so keep your eye's firmly peeled here for more details!!


Finally for today I wanted to show you these great handmade labels I ordered from Michele. 

I'm going to use them on my quilts in 2011! You can find Michele here, here and here!

Sewing Up A Frenzy!

So my sewing frenzy I'm happy to say, has continued in earnest over the past couple of snowed in days! Inbetween entertaining the little people, who I must say by this point have got serious cabin fever, I've been finally stitching up some of the 1.5" hexies I've been making on and off for the past few months.

Now I've been struggling with what to make out of these hexies as they are truly mis-matched and scrappy in style, then, inspiration struck whilst cleaning up the dogs chewed to bits bed for the 4th time yesterday!! Yes I'm going to make them into a doggy quilt for the kitchen floor!!!

So here's where I was at yesterday morning::

Not the best photo as the light was rubbish and the Cath Kidston flowery ironing board cover is not the best background!!! Since this picture was taken of these two joined hexie flowers I have since added another five! The light's still not that good so I'll take a decent photo tomorrow so you can see, promise!

I've also made another scarf as a Christmas present, same script as before: Anna Maria Horner voile and flannel, tutorial from Seamstar!

Now the recipient of this scarf is the mummy of my little bridesmaid at my wedding this summer, the scarf is made from the same fabric design as the bridesmaids dress so is extra special for her. Awww! She's going to love it!

I've also finished the lap sized quilt top for my Nan for Christmas! Woop woop check me out!!

The fabric used is 'Dream On' and is made from about 9 FQ with enough left over to piece into the back, I'm thinking a 1.5" hexie band across the width of the quilt? The finished quilt will be 44" x 44" and backed in Bella Solids, light grey and bound in Kona Banana, thanks Mandy and Katy for helping me choose on Twitter this morning!!

I'll leave you with this picture of 'Little Miss H' dancing whilst watching Take That Circus DVD for the umpteenth time this week. Love it!!

So off Christmas shopping this afternoon, catch y'all later!!

Welcome Snowy December!

So it's from under snowfall like we've not seen for a longtime that I'm writing this blog post! I hope you're all having fun, keeping warm and not getting too stressed out by the current weather conditions!

I've been taking advantage of not having to leave the house and have started my Christmas gift sewing in earnest. I pledged to myself a couple of months ago that I would have a handmade Christmas this year and have managed to think of handmade gifts for everyone, I just hope I can pull it off in time!!!

So my 1st batch of sewing was lavender bags in pretty Cath Kidston fabric.

I bundle these up with ribbon in stacks of three and write a handmade luggage tag. They go down a storm everytime I make them for friends and family! I've got another 6 made but ran out of lavender so had to order more! I think I'll do these for teachers gifts this year too.

Master M also helped write some of the tags and fill the bags with lavender, he loves getting involved in making things.

He's also lost his 1st tooth this last week! My little man is getting to be a big boy now. Boo hoo!

I've also made the 1st of a couple of circle scarves using Anna Maria Horner voile and flannel, they're so lovely, soft and cosy! I followed a tutorial from Courtney over at the Seamstar blog which is super quick and easy, I'm going to finish making the other one this evening.

In non-sewing news my new found addiction to Blythe is growing. I am now the proud owner of 3 dolls with another one arriving before Christmas. Yay! This is the first 2, Boo (wearing the hat) and Betty.



I haven't staged any photo's with my 3rd girl Ryder what with everything that's been going on but I promise there will be pictures soon!

Thanks for all your lovely comments and emails after my last post, it means a lot to me it really does.

Surprise.......I'm back!!

So I suppose you're wondering where I've been?

Well we've had a bit of a traumatic time here at the Henshaw house this last few weeks, lots of illness all round, from the laptop to the kids and especially me. Unfortunately my illnesses have resulted with the distressing fact that I miscarried our third child last weekend. Gutted.

I don't really want to go into detail as its too upsetting. I just wanted to put it out there and acknowledge the fact that this has happened to us. I need to get back to some sort of normality and move on, for my sanity's sake.

I'll therefore be back very soon with pictures galore of the sewing I've been doing of late.

Thanks to all of you who have helped me through this tough time and kept me smiling via Twitter and email.

Its good to be back!

Swaptastic!

So my laptop is repaired kind of. It's working in bursts, mainly when it wants to and not when I need it to. Hence the big gap between posts. Arrggh. 


Good job it's nearly Xmas is all I can say (Mr.G if you're reading this, seen as though I've been a good girl can Santa please come early, pretty please, you know what I want - Macbook all the way, thanks.)


So this last week has seen me receive my Halloween Swap Goodies and my Savvy {Seasons} Swap goodies too. They actually both came on the same day, what a fabby day that was!


First up I'll show you my goodies from the Halloween Swap::

As you can see Claire had decorated the box a treat and the little people were more than excited to get stuck in opening all the presents inside!

As you can see the handmade elements of the swap were very cute! A lovely 'BOO' bunting that has creepy spiders attached to it and a lovely ghost softie that is now hung on the door handle. When you press its middle it makes spooky halloween noises!! 'Little Miss H' loves it!


Here is the rest of the parcel::

It was a great swap and thanks so much to Claire for the lovely gifts we received!

Now here's what I received in the Savvy {seasons} swap::

Now isn't that just the most adorable cushion and matching mug rug??

I was absolutley delighted when I opened this package, it will really add some festive cheer to my home this season. Thanks so so much to the Mighty Crumble for an excellent swap gift.

DISASTER.....

So you remember the sneak peek of the mini quilt I posted yesterday that looked like this.......

Well when I got home from gym club with 'Little Miss H' a few hours later it looked like this....

I had left it on the kitchen table and the dogs had decided they were going to add their input, or output by the state it was in, whilst I was out :(

Mr. G had arrived home before moi and found the kitchen trashed, my mini quilt in and amongst the carnage. Sometimes I hate having dogs. Mostly I like it but yesterday I most definitley hated it.

So, what's a girl to do? Cry? Yes. Yes I blooming well did! Frustration vented now onto the rescue mission......

Luckily today I got some fab goodies via the postman, just what I needed to cheer me up. First up was this::

A beautiful, beautiful fabric bound notebook that I won on a giveaway over at Dutch Sisters. Now you may think me silly as I certainly felt silly when I opened this parcel, but I wasn't expecting the notebook to be fabric bound or so large!! I clearly didn't read the giveaway post correctly and thought that I was just getting a manufactured notebook from Holland, not one that Corry and Heleen had covered. D'OH!! The flower on the front is actual cross stitch and yes, that is a little ceramic clog!!


Thank-you so so much ladies, I love this notebook soooo much.

Second up I received these scrappy {strips} from the lovely Michele::

This swap was done as a sideline to the Quilt-As-You-Go Round 2 so that all the participants could get a bigger variety of scraps for their quilts. I couldn't believe my luck when I saw them all, there's lots of whimsical strips in there which is just what I was after! Michele blogs here, pop over and say Hi and tell her I sent you, she writes a great blog with lots of eye candy!


Next up is this beauty::

The newest addition to the family, Velvet Minuet. How sweet is she? I adopted her from Katy who also popped in the little top she is wearing, it's a gift from BlytheCon which I failed to get a ticket for. Now I need a name for her, I'm thinking 'Betty'. What do you think?

Finally I received some vintage aqua embroidery hoops that I got from Etsy. Oh and the fabric is from Katy too - she didn't have tissue paper to wrap my pressie from BlytheCon in so she used fabric. There's a FQ there I think so she used way more than she needed to, thanks Hun!

PS:: I'll keep you updated on the rescue mission it's coming along grand, good job really deadline for posting for the swap is the 18th. Arrgghhh!

Its Been a Sewing Marathon....

Well this week I've been mostly sewing!! Hooray!!

This is a sneak peek of the mini quilt I'm making for the SavVy {Seasons} Swap, its quilted now and just needs binding and a few finishing touches making to the front. I'll be making fabric storage tubs to go in the parcel too.

I was also the lucky receipient of this too, well 'Master M' was::

Its a fab reversible lego hoodie made by Amanda of Kitschy Coo. The little man loves it and I struggle gettting it off him. Amanda makes gorgeous kids clothes, if you don't follow her already you really should go check her out.

I've also made a few more mug rugs which I'm really pleased with but can't show you yet as they are for other swaps, I'll show you once I know they have been received so as not to spoil the surprise.

This week is another sewing week as I need to finish off the following swap goodies:: SavVy {seasons}, Halloween Swap and Softie swap. Arrgghh!!

Choices Choices....

Today has been all about choices. 

First choice of the day - do I send the little peeps to school or not? Both had been coughing all night and awoke with rip roaring temperatures. Decision = No.

The second lot of choices were 'Master M's'. He's been harrassing me since the day this FQ bundle arrived from Seamstar.

photo courtesy of Seamstar

I fancied making him some Halloween bunting as he just loves all things spooky but no, what did he want. A ghost. A blinking ghost. The child is crackers about softies. I should have known.

So some sketching later from moi and some serious decision making from little fella, we came up with this::

A very cute ghost from our own pattern, fabric and buttons chosen by the man himself, cut and stiched by me! He even stuffed it himself. God love him.

Here he is proudly showing off his ghost, though he couldn't quite muster a smile and fell asleep on the sofa, ghost in arms shortly after this photo was taken.
Whilst I had the Halloween fabric out I cut some more of it up as I am going to use it to make a little something for the Halloween Swap I'm partaking in, more of that later though as I don't want to spoil the surprise for my partner!!

This evening I've also cut up this little lot::

There is 11oz of fabric strips to be sent to my partner for the Scrappy {Strips} Swap! I's an off shoot of the Quilt-As-You-Go Round 2 that Heather is hosting, it's a really great idea as you get lots more fabrics for your scrappy QAYG quilt. Yay! I've found a few more bits that I'm going to add in too and then off it will go tomorrow.

Finally here are my blocks for September Fresh Modern Bee 2, for Jessica::

Hope she likes them!