Surely my head is going to explode!!!

It's been a busy old time around here, my first school holidays in a long time I have to work through (deserves me right for leaving my teaching job you might say!). Juggling the boys between DH's shifts and my working half-days plus Oma babysitting them for a day while trying to keeping the oldest boy's BSL (blood sugar level) under control - they always go crazy when he is not at school. Add in a 4 day trip to Hamilton (only 380 odd km one way - on NZ roads this takes me 5h) and yesterday my middle DS turned 10:

The Birthday Boy

Henry the Hedgehog (icecream cake for breakfast...)

His slightly crazy 12y old brother (well, what can you expect with this mother lol)

His still 7y old younger brother with birthdayboy's cat Tigger

10y old boys can be so complicated!!! You wouldn't believe the dramas we went through in organising his 'party': In our house you get a birthday party with games and things up to age 9, and you are allowed to invite as many children as your age, e.g. @ age 7 you invite 7 friends, @ age 8 you invite 8 friends - you get the drift. From age 10 you get to invite a few (no. is negotiable) and get to do sth. special, e.g. go to the movies and McD which is bday boy's chice for this time. He wants to see Diary of a Whimpy Kid Dog Days which only runs at Whangarei at the moment (about 90km south). Ok, we can do this. Then his best friend rings up, he will have a movie night / sleepover as an early celebration for his 11th birthday, on the same Friday afternoon. Now bday boy sees no other solution than having these two events clash and therefore neither of them taking place (more or less). He has eventually accepted my solution of going to the movies int he morning (with best friend) but while he wants to give said friend the present, he can't see himself going to the movie/sleep over (yet). Mother is slightly exhausted - and there I always thought boys were easy?!?!

Sewing therefore has been a bit neglected (and DH has pointed out repeatedly that the veggie garden needed work) but I have had another play around with those Quiltlet Cards:

I didn't like the look of that zigzag around the edges, so I took it out again

Looks better with binding, but would look even better with tighter binding!

With card attached - the card was very light, will have to find sth. better for this

I used Leah's FMQ from last week for this quiltlet, I think this is a good way to get the practice in and try out different designs with a purpose. I followed Helen's advice about using fusible and lighter weight card (except my card was very light). There is a lot of potential, but I will keep on working on this!

Last but not least: My QD9 To the Power of Four has been accepted into The Big Quilt Show at Northart Gallery in Auckland!!! Surely my head is going to grow so big that it will explode (if it hasn't yet from all the other stuff that's going on lol)!!! And even better, Suz's half log cabin at the Beach has been accepted also, so I see a trip to Auckland coming up early November to conincide with Auckland Festival of Quilts (formerly calico Christmas). Hopefully Rona from Layer upon Layer won't be (wo)manning the eftpos machine all day long so we can have a catch up!

I have a lot of ideas what I want to start next, but I  leave you with some pics of what I have back up on my design wall, would love to have this finished as a Christmas present for a teacher colleague:

Disappearing four patches (D4P) - just another 80 or so to go...

Happy Sewing!