This is the busiest time of the year for me, when I am organising the summer camp for the diocese. It has been a particularly difficult time because the school we have used for the last 9 summers suddenly increased their charges by 62%. It looked like the end of the camps, which have been running for over 50 years, and I had drafted my letter to the priests of the diocese and arranged a meeting with the bishop to break the news, when the Abbot of Buckfast Abbey came to our rescue and offered us the use of their guest house. So, I have been busy visiting Buckfast, attending meetings and getting out posters and application forms. It is all very exciting but really exhausting and I shall be involved in camp-related activities until the middle of August, so blogging is likely to be sporadic.
In between trips to Plymouth, Buckfast and Exeter I have been getting ready for the first visit of baby Amelia. The MM is off to London tomorrow to fetch her (and her mummy, of course). We will have them to ourselves for a week and then our son-in-law will come to claim them back! My daughter asked me to make a play mat as Millie is now six weeks old (today) and getting ready to learn! I have made a reversible mat so that she won't get bored: side one is some Suzy Spafford 'Suzy's Zoo' fabric and the reverse is the monix attempt at appliqué animals. I am expecting baby Amelia to know all the animal names and sounds by the end of the week.
I have managed to read my favourite blogs even though I've had no time to write anything myself. This post by D on 60goingon16 about '60s humour, including a clip of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, had me laughing all the way down the M5!
I'm adding lots of labels to this post to make up for my poor output!
PS Latest on 'The Enchanted April' - Tattytiara hasn't been in touch yet to claim her book prize. I'll wait a few more days and then draw another name out of the hat if I don't hear from her.
M - great to see a new post after what seems like weeks! And what a lovely playmat. But please help this ignorant reader: what is the yellow creature in the middle on the left? I've had a quick look through my Collins Field Guide to Animal Silhouettes and I think it might be a baby crocodile but I'm not absolutely sure - which makes me wonder: should you perhaps embroider the names beside each animal, so Millie can identify them?
ReplyDeleteVery good looking quilt, but what is a baby mat?
ReplyDeleteNow, now,J,just because you are artistically gifted there's no need to sneer at my efforts. I did think of writing the names on but Millie isn't going to learn to read until September!
ReplyDeletee, remember when we used to put babies down to kick and gurgle on a blanket? Well now they have a playmat!
Hey, M, I wasn't sneering - I genuinely wanted to know what the yellow creature was!!! If you had seen my short-lived efforts at creating nursery soft-furnishings you would understand that I am more than a little challenged in the quilting/smocking/applique-ing department myself, so I'm all admiration. And the only baby-cardi I ever knitted came out lopsided because I can't count and made one side of the front wider than the other. It ended up as a teddy-cardi.
ReplyDeleteJ, it is supposed to be a crocodile! The animals look better in the pictures I copied for my templates. I planned to embroider the details onto the shapes but really don't have the time. I'm going to get some fabric pens and ask the MM to draw in the feathers, scales and other features. Unlike me, he draws very well.
ReplyDeleteJust teasing ya, m. If you start Millie on phonics now, by September she'll be reading at the 8th grade level and won't want such a babyish play mat. Think ahead and make another one with algebraic equations and Latin declensions.
ReplyDeleteBTW - I think I may have solved the disappearing comments. Most of the time, I type my comments in MS Word then paste it into the comments box, copy down your crazy quilt [pun intended] word verification letters and then hit publish.
That works.
But sometimes, if the comment is short, I type it directly into the box and then hit preview first. That comes up okay, but when I hit publish, it disappears. So then I must go back and enter a new word verification and start all over again.
Check with your other reader who has problems with comments and see if this works for her.
e, I switched word verification on because I started to get spam but I'll take it off again if it is a nuisance. I don't see it on my page and forgot it was there!
ReplyDeleteI'll get working on the new quilt for Miss Amelia. Perhaps I could market it as the 'pushy grandma quilt'?
Lovely playmat! Enjoy your time with the new baby, they grow up all too fast.
ReplyDeleteMillie will know it is a crocodile because like the little fox, she will 'see with the heart'. Have a truly wonderful time together.
ReplyDeletecath and crinny - thank you both. I am looking forward to this vist so much I'm speechless!
ReplyDelete