Summing up Sunday: 2014 - Week 1

This week has been a whirlwind and has gone by in a quick blur.

New years was a last minute thing on our part because initially we were supposed to have a few friends here, but one thing led to another and no one could come! :-(  Instead we went to our friends' Linda and Claudio's house to celebrate with their friends and family as well as to meet their new baby son Giorgio. He is sooooo super cute!

I dedicated the first few days of the year to caching up on Sera's memory quilt and even started sewing some pieces together.  It's really much more satisfying than just cutting up all that baby clothes is.

I've also been on an organising/purging/cleaning kick and managed to tackle the compactum where we keep all our outerwear, our laundry 'room' (it's really a closet in the kitchen/den), my 'home office' (the closet upstairs) and Sera's toy kitchen.  Feels good to accomplish things.

YesterdayI made some doll clothes for Sera's Barbies (tutorial to come!) and then we went to Piacenza for lunch with Mauro and Carlotta.  Really a lot of good fun and good food!

A few photos from the week:

• sparkly glitter New-Year's nails
• first brekkie of the year: pomegranate, banana & clementines
• Sera learnt to draw 'Humpty Dumpties'
• lots of work on a memory quilt
• all dressed up for New-Year's party
• our newest friend Giorgio
• Sera slumber party
• playdate @ IKEA with Lele
• baby bloomers to Barbie clothes (tutorial post coming up this week!)

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Hitting Goals in January

Well, January is underway and despite having Sera at home with me until she's back at school on the 7th I've managed to cut new squares for her memory quilt and sew up the blocked ones that I cut last year.

You might recognise the fabric with the balloons from this skirt alteration I did in May. Well it's now on its third life being reused again in the quilt. Reusing fabrics has brought me more joy than I ever thought it could!

Other things I'd love to tackle January:

• plan Sera's 3rd birthday party; decide when, where, who and a budget!
• master grocery list planning in order to be able to do one on line order a week and avoid the chaos that is the local super market.
• de-clutter and donate clothes from my closet. No one needs 7 black tee-shirts!
• pack away tree and ornaments before it gets to be silly.
• drop off de-cluttering junk at the mercatino so that maybe it can get reused by someone who wants it
• assign new shots to animators on Hick! and work through the last tweaks on the rigs.
• catch up with some friends I haven't seen for a while
• create my Project Life spreads for November and December 2013 as well as the archived ones since January 2013.
• go get my documents of Italian citizenship at the Questura
• catch up on some medical tests and checkups

What have you got on your list of to-dos for January? How do you organise your time and goals? I've tried every software and app on the market and find that a pen and paper and a simple calendar works best for me... Speaking of to-dos and calendars, I must hang out new one for 2014!

memory quilting: part 2

< back to memory quilting part 1

I've finally decided on a quilt that I'm going to use as inspiration for Sera's memory quilt.  It's from Amanda Jean over at Crazy Mom Quilts. I wanted something simple with sashing that showcased the individual fabrics and yet kept everything neat and tidy. I came across this quilt while researching how to do the math for planning the quilt I had in mind and found that if instead of the 9-square blocks I just use plain, simple blocks then the quilt is exactly what I'm after and will allow me to use even more of the clothes I cut because of the beautiful and colourful border made up of tiny blocks.

Check out more of Amanda Jean's amazing blog and beautiful quilting!

I also started cutting up the "materials" for the quilt (sounds better than destroying my child's precious clothing). I knew it would be a hugely emotional task if I did it alone in the quiet of my upstairs office so I took a few items downstairs at a time and cut them while sitting in front of the TV with Sera and hubby.  I started with my favourite pieces/memories first figuring it would be a lot like ripping off a band aid and in fact it was a smart choice. From the moment I made the first cut into her raspberry corduroy romper with the tiny pockets there was no going back. From then on the quilt had-to be made or I would simply be a vandal.

I swear, not all of her clothes are pink of fuscia!!

On my third trip back from the clothes stash Sera spotted me holding a really fun skirt and stole it back. What do you know!?! It still fit! It goes to show you that the sizing labels on baby clothes are really crazy because the last I checked she's quite a lot bigger than an 6-month old. I'm going to let her wear it for the rest of the summer and then find it a spot in the quilt in a central location, now that I know how much it means to her.

There is still a very long way to go, even with just getting through the clothes so I can start cutting my squares, but so far I'm feeling a lot better about the project than I thought I would.  

Here's a quick idea of the numbers to get an idea of how much cutting ill be doing in the next few months. The finished quilt requires 70 coloured 6.5" squares and 308 2.5" squares for the border + all the sashing, which I haven't bothered calculating yet and possibly some more coloured squares for the backing.  I'm waiting for my nice new ruler and rotary cutter to arrive before I even let my mind wander towards those cuts at all yet.

Oh my oh my! I'd love to have this done by the end of January for Sera's 3rd birthday but who knows!

Memory quilting: Part 1

time to give new life to some old favourites!

I find that one of the hardest things about watching Sera grow up is parting with some of the clothes that I can remember her looking lovely in, or that she wore on some milestone or other. Kids' clothes get stained however, and there's only so much space in my little loft to keep everything and every season she grows out of more and more and the memories keep building up!

I do tend to give a lot away to other mums with younger daughters, but there are some pieces that I love too much and are too personal to part with.

I did try to do some altering of some clothes which we can still get some use out of like the pink and balloons skirt which I reworked to last longer, but not everything is suitable for that kind of modification, and anyhow, a solution like that is still only temporary.

Beautiful Chevrons - Heather at the Quilt Barn

For a while now I've been kicking around the idea of making a memory quilt with Sera's baby clothes and have finally gotten around to sorting what's really to keep for her for when she's older (or for another baby...?) and what needs to go into the quilt so it can be on display and so that she can cherish it for years to come.


I've never actually quilted before either so have done some research as to what's needed and ordered my tools on line... For now a rotary cutter, cutting mat, and quilting ruler.

Here are some quilts which inspire me... click on the links to visit their sites! I have no clue what kind of design to go for yet, but love the idea of mixing squares and stripes and different colours and patters.

If you're interested in seeing more of my inspiration and collection of tutorials for this project visit and follow my Memory Quilt Board on Pinterest!

go to memory quilting: part 2 >

Nadine has an etsy shop where you can buy treasures like this one

a gorgeous quilt by Amy Smart over at Diary of a Quilter