More family time

It has been another busy weekend with family guests arriving on Saturday. My mum and dad, my sister and my niece came for a short, but lovely visit. My niece has been keen to learn sewing, and I promised her some time in the holidays and we made good progress in a couple of days.

 It is always hard to know how to start them off, and I would have loved to get her into quilting, but that is not really a quick process, as I have discovered when teaching my granddaughters. I gave her a choice of projects and she chose to make a bean bag, and we were fortunate to have enough fabric and a pattern left over from when GD2 made one last year. She was a quick learner, and progress was achieved before bedtime that evening. Unfortunately we did not have any "beans" to fill it with, but used a few odds and ends of wadding, and her mum will fill it with beans when they get home.

 The smile says it all I think.

The next project was a diary cover, and she soon learnt how to rethread the machine with all the different coloured threads that she used on the hand dyed fabric. It was a good chance to try out the different stitches on my machine. She even did some couching.

Here she is showing Grandpa her finished project. It even has her name on the front, which I stitched using the alphabet on my machine.

And with a couple of hours spare until it was time to leave for home, she did another one the same, which will be a gift for someone soon.

All too soon it was time for home, and I was fortunate to offload a few of my surplus goods, which I am still sorting out after the move from The Sanctuary. And of course they had to fit the bean bag in too!

And if you have not got anyone to take a group photo, then you do a "selfie" photo, which gives the one with the camera, an "arms stretched out" look!

It has been many years since my sister and I have stayed at each other's homes, so it was a very precious time. We had lots of laughs, and reminiscing with mum and dad. My sister was born when I was nearly 17, and I had left school and was out working, and not living at home. I was the eldest child, then 3 brothers, and quite a few years later along came the sister I always wanted. When I married we moved about 3 hours away, and she was not quite 3 years old. Consequently we have not spent a lot of time together, and now that we are older, things are changing.

My niece is very pleased with her projects, and is talking about coming back soon, and I know my sister enjoyed her "time out" to chat and do some reading.

The weather is lovely again for a few days, after last week's heat, which culminated in a big storm in the early hours of Friday morning. We received about 20mls of rain, which was very welcome on the garden and in the tanks, even though it came with very high humidity. I took the opportunity to work in the garden and planted a few things.

This week I need to get back to some quilting again, and I hope to have some renovation progress to report on by the end of the week. And then there will be some more painting to do, and the shifting of furniture etc that goes with that. I can't wait until it is all finished. My sewing projects (including that wedding quilt!) are waiting patiently.

Have a good week,

Blessings, From Jude