Amelia giveaway @ Quilting by the River

Really, all my crafty friends need to check out Connie Kreskin's Quilting by the River blog because not only has she made the most adorable twister quilt using Amelia by Me & My Sister for Moda but she's also having a giveaway where you can win 8x Amelia FQ's and a Twister template!

You won't regret following her blog, either.. she's always posting beautiful things!

Preparing for "Happy Pumpkin Day!"

My local shopping centre is running some Halloween themed kids' activities in the lead up to Halloween. Blossom, Bean and I headed down to the shopping centre to make some spider lollipops and look for Halloween pumpkins. 

Spider lollipops, check. I even made the kids wait until we got home before they devoured them so that they could show them to Daddy, and I'd planned to take a photo but they just couldn't wait that long! I turned around with my camera and they were already gone!

Halloween pumpkins @ supermarket #1 (Woolworths), fail. Apparently they'd only received 20 and another lady had come in and bought 15 of them. Supermarket #2 (Coles), fail. Oh dear.. not looking promising on the jack--o-lantern front. Perhaps some paper mache? No? Ok, let's try the Coles another 5 min down the road... Supermarket #3, WIN! Interestingly enough, both Woolies & Coles had pumpkins advertised for ~$4/kg.. but the Coles that we found the pumpkins at had them on sale for 69c/kg!! FTW!! At that price I figured I could afford to let the kids pick a pumpkin each as well as a couple for "Mummy & Daddy"... 4 pumpkins totalling ~11kg later I'd spent a grand total of $7.75! Had I found them at Supermarkets 1 or 2 I'd have been looking at $44 (or more precisely, only one pumpkin for the same price, because we definitely wouldn't have bought four!)

My husband's best friend (and the kids' favourite pseudo-uncle) came over to help out with some other stuff related to the house moving, and stayed for the "Carving of the pumpkins"...

Blossom "scooping out seeds"

Bean's jack-o-lantern design - the first cut.

First eye complete!

Uncle Bryden working on the mouth

Blossom's jack-o-lantern design, first eye complete!

Uncle Bryden working on the other mouth!

Finishing up the nose

Blossom's jack-o-lantern (no, it doesn't have ears, it was just a cool co-incidence!)

Uncle Bryden's new best friend (I don't know why he has pumpkin in his mouth)

Bean's jack-o-lantern 

Time to dim the lights and test them out!

Two more pumpkins to carve tomorrow, "Monster Donuts" to make at the shopping centre and some sewing & cutting I hope!

I won something!

How excitement! I won a Fisher Price prize pack through Samelia's Mum's blog!

Yay!

Another Giveaway!

Sunni from Love Affair with My Brother is having a giveaway! One of her lucky followers will win 4 charm packs of Etchings by 3 Sisters for Moda. You have to be a follower of her blog, so head on over and check her out! <3

Love Affair With My Brother...: Giveaway! Etchings

Baby GO! giveaway at The Pickledish Patch!

If you're keen to find out what all the hype is, you should "GO!" and check out the giveaway that Vicki is running on her blog The Pickledish Patch!

The Pickledish Patch: Go! Baby Giveaway…wooo hoooo!

Weekend Baking: Raisin bread & Choc chip bannocks

We ran out of bread yesterday, so instead of heading to the supermarket I whipped out my breadmaker and made a loaf of wholemeal bread (admittedly it was a packet mix - oh the shame!)..

Fresh out of the breadmaker!

But inspired by the aroma and joy of eating freshly baked bread, this morning I decided to make some raisin bread. I used the recipe from my breadmaker's recipe book, which I have made before. Sadly my pantry is in desperate need of re-stocking, so instead of putting in a combination of raisins, currants and sultanas I had to settle for just raisins. 

Clearly, it was a success as my husband dived right into it while it was still toasty warm. (I snapped a pic while he was buttering up - but I had to promise not to get him in the photo!)

I suggested to the kids (while the breadmaker was working its magic) that we should make some bannocks, but now that I was out of raisins, currants and sultanas (tomorrow must be grocery re-stock day!) AND maple syrup I had to improvise. What could I put in them instead of dried fruit that would be delightful without maple syrup? Chocolate chips, naturally! I also substituted vanilla extract for the cinnamon because I thought it would compliment the chocolate.

Look at that oaty, chocolatey goodness!

This isn't the best photo, but I didn't get a chance to take any more -
the kids ate them as fast as I could cook them!

Chocolate chip bannocks, huge success. The choc chips were all warm and melty in your mouth, and they were perfect on their own - no maple syrup, no butter, nothing else required! Bean declared them the 'best ever', which is high praise from my picky eater! I guess nothing can beat chocolate.

Poppies, parcels and progress..

It's been a pretty crazy week, but honestly I won't bore you with the details! Instead I'll share with you some photos that I took of flowers in my mother-in-law's garden, my order that arrived from Quiltjane, and some of the progress that I made on my Harry Potter quilt and my Christmas table runner..

 My mother-in-law used to have a garden filled with these beautiful pink mop-head poppies. When my husband and I were first dating I used to love going to their house when the poppies were out because they were just gorgeous and divine and beautiful. When we moved up into the hills 4 years ago my MIL gave me some of her poppy seedlings to plant in my garden. Every single one was plain red single layer poppies. Infact, every single poppy either of us has grown in the last 4 years has been red. We figured that the poppies must have reverted or something because my MIL had never had red poppies. And I was sad because I thought I'd never again see those beautiful pink mop-head poppies... and then on Wednesday, what did I see???? There was one little pink poppy amongst the red! Oh happy day!

 That doesn't mean that I don't like the red ones though, don't get me wrong.. there's just something kinda special about those pink ones, you know?

 And Cosmos.. I love cosmos. A couple of years ago I had them flowering profusely in my garden in shades of pink.. light, dark, in between! This year my winter grasses have taken over my garden and I've given up hope of anything being visible in there. But one, single plant has also come up in my MIL's garden.. doesn't it just look cheerful? I know I have some seeds saved somewhere.. when we move in I might scatter some more seeds and see what happens!

 My package from Quiltjane's Want it, Need it, Quilt! store came yesterday! Woohoo! Look at all that fabricy goodness. I must say that I was surprised by how much MORE I loved Kate Spain's Good Fortune in real life than I did online! I think I'll be buying more of that once I lift my fabric buying moratorium. I also can't wait to play with my Grace layer cake.... I think I have the perfect pattern picked out.

And isn't Jane a sweetie? She sent me a teeny tiny 2.5" square baby charm pack of Antique Fair. I love it!

 When I finally got around to doing some "real work" I cut some tumbler blocks out of my black backing fabric and then cut them in half so I can put them at either end of my tumbler rows. This way they will square up nicely and it will be easier to do the horizontal sashing. Unfortunately my MIL broke her ironing board(!!!) so I can't press my seams until Monday (Well, I suppose that's not strictly true, but it's a good excuse to move onto another part of my project!).

All my rows chained together (when I added the 1/2 tumblers to each end)

 And while I was chain piecing, I finished stage 1 of the Christmas table runner piecing..

I was clearing out the kids drawers the other day, putting aside all the clothes they've outgrown to keep or send to Good Sammy's (thrift shop).. but at the last minute I pulled out all the flannelette pyjamas. I think I might upcycle them into a snuggle rug. Maybe even try out a rag quilt. If I unpick all the seams I can then send them through my Accuquilt GO! and turn them into squares and half square triangles. I just loved my babies toddling around in their flannel pjs, and if I turn them into a quilt they can be used for sleepovers etc and I can enjoy them all over again. Is that a crazy idea?