Christmas Eve with the kids

The big kids came over just before lunch to spend the day with us and in this heat it didn’t take long for them to get into the swimming pool.  These two recently informed us that they will become parents late next year!

With the pregnant fairy out of the pool it was time for brother and sister to get rough.

I got so lucky to take care of Mayday for a couple of days.  Mayday is the African Grey parrot of a local fabric shop owner and as its name suggests, a mean character – or so they say.  From the first day Mayday and I saw each other, it was love at first sight and even the owners were stunned that Mayday allowed me to kiss and scratch it.  Speak of two-faced however, the moment it saw my son I was all forgotten and she sang and danced for him it was not even funny!  Meeko, our own parrot, not at all used to being in a cage, can be seen on the lower right of the photo.

Such a long wait before we could open gifts and as friend, Karin said when she sent me an SMS the cocktails do not help much to keep one awake.

So we played Wii tennis to while the time.

I am quite convinced it is a sin to eat as much as we did on this day and even the kittens had a ball having some ice cream with caramel sauce here.

Time to check out how these gifts work before we headed for bed.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Missing kitten

We woke up this morning realizing our black male kitten, Sasky, was missing.

If you know anything about my family you’d also know this meant major chaos in this house.  Everyone that wasn’t yet up, got up and dressed extremely fast and then we went walking like crazy people, calling “Sasky!” as if he’d answer.  Now anyone with pets will know that the most stupid thing any pet does, is to stop making any sounds if they see their owners – thinking you’d see them if they see you.

Our blonde was devastated as Sasky adopted her and the two of them are rather close.  She even searched the park across the street but to no avail.  I walked right around the house still calling frantically but nothing.

In the back of my mind I kept thinking that he got a fright and somehow ended up in a spot that he couldn’t get out of and still thinking this, I heard the blonde shout out and yip, there Sasky sat in the neighbors’ tree right in the enclosure they have for their very viscous German Shepherd.  Lucky for us the neighbor had his gardener in today and he distracted the dog to allow the blonde to get up the tree and try to rescue the petrified kitten.  Sasky must have some ragdoll genes as the moment he saw his owner with a continental pillow, it was just one flop downwards and he landed on in, no scratching, ever so trusting.

Reunited with his family - shame he must have been in the tree all night long - he ate, greeted the parrot and then disappeared under the blondes' bed for a well deserved sleep.

Apart from kitten searching I did very little of anything today – very little cleaning, no progress on the festival projects and very little quilting.  I however used the left over pre-quilted fabric I had from my Bright Idea wall hanging and sewn these into little Yin-Yang coasters.

Doing good over here

Next on my cleaning list was the kitchen.  Ah, what a pleasure.  DH closed shop for the year and with him at home he moved all the heavy appliances forward to allow me to clean under and behind these.

The rest of the kitchen was a breeze.  I am not too fond of cooking and kitchens and cook because I HAVE to.  So my kitchen has the bare basics with a place for everything and everything in its place.  I think I had to wipe clean 2 drawers (rusks and birdseed) and one cupboard (a couple of dead mosquito's), the rest was as crisp as the day I organized it.

So 2 areas done on my list of year-end cleaning and I could continue with my goody bag projects and finished my half for March 2012 this time with the help of Iessie Steenberg, festival coordinator, and ‘tannie’ (aunt)  Magriet, fellow quilter, who quilted backings for me.

Ash had a ball in my blue remnant drawer when I searched for strips to match my projects.

Other important things

Done with my Free-motion project for 2012 I had other important things to do.  With me doing my own cooking and cleaning I only have this time of the year to try and get my house back to its original state as once I start teaching in the evenings in February, there is simply no time to do anything but the basics.

So today I cleaned out the pantry and what a hell hot little room this is in summer!  I had to walk out several times and just stand at the nearest fan to allow the sweat running down my face to dry.  However it is done and now we’ll be able to find all the stuff I bought for the next couple of months – or maybe just until the next time I shop depending on the speed that I need to pack things away.

Then I quickly finished my goody bag projects for our National Quilt Festival 2013 and I am proud to say that I am actually ahead in that I finished my quota for February 2012.  I have to thank fellow quilter and National quilt judge, Frances van Schalkwyk, who helped me tremendously by quilting all the backings.  I could therefore just stitch the project together, trim and neaten it.

Sasky had an absolute ball with all the fabric snippets on the table.

Finalizing the free motion project

With having a public holiday in sunny South Africa DH was at home.  Now from the day we got married I realized this guy was a workaholic and knew it was up to me to entertain myself, which I did.  So having him at home all day long is ...... uh... different (opposed to annoying).  But he got himself 2 helpers and tackled the garden before the holidays however the day was still different in that I simply refuse to cook on public holidays.  One has to put your foot down occasionally.

So I got up, tidied the houses and even did the laundry and ironing before disappearing into my sewing room to finish up the free motion project.  Not much left to do and satin stitching around the thought bubble's edges went faster than doing the same around the smaller pattern pieces and the variegated thread looked so pretty!

Popped all the pieces into the washing machine to get rid of any blue markers and spray adhesive and served myself a cold cider to celebrate.  There are few better feelings than tidying your sewing room and putting away fabric and thread after finishing a project.

While waiting for the pattern pieces to dry and obviously with having had a cider during the daytime, I took a 'public-holiday-daytime' nap which was wonderful at the time.  Let's rather not discuss not being able to sleep that evening.

Then I used what was left of the day to assemble the whole lot to get my wall hanging as a unit. Mostly done by hand but by matching the tread to the thread color of the satin stitching and with the back thread being buried in the batting, I didn't have to worry about small or neat stitching.

This concludes my wall hanging - named Bright Idea - but I can see how others might want to add more 'bling' to their wall hanging and I think I'll leave this as a personal choice.

Now to type up the notes for teaching...............ugh!

Completed:  16 December 2011