Gigantic baby block!

My husbands cousin had a baby and I was invited to my first baby shower in Australia. I had no idea what to expect and of course had the added challenge of finding a gift to take. Whilst pondering over my options I stumbled across a pattern in a magazine for a baby block. "How sweet" I thought, I can make a little baby block and personalise it with the family name (they hadn't chosen a name and they didn't know if it was a boy or girl). I had some fabulous Sesame Street fabric I'd found in a thrift shop whilst rummaging and decided to team it together with a lilac and blue pin stripe fleece. I don't ever follow patterns as I usually come up with my own designs but on this occasion I followed the pattern to the letter. The result was very funny, half way through I realised to my amusement that the instructions were wrong and my little baby block was actually going to be gigantic. Someone had got the measurements wrong and now I was left with this huge baby block which needed masses of stuffing to make plump. The end result was a happy accident and received with great admiration and thanks. As for the baby shower it was a luxurious pampering session for ladies with great food, champagne and company. Yes I whole heartedly approve of this Australian tradition, long may it continue!

Coffee Pot, Oranges and Anxiety!

A good friend of mine is on an inspiring drawing course with the wonderful artist Melissa Becker. Having said to me privately only six weeks ago  "I can not draw anything, let's see what happens!" I was very surprised when she suggested a morning of art. Today we sat at my kitchen table and had a mini 'art class' of our own. We even went as far as challenging each other by setting up small still life compositions and just jumping right in with the drawing. At first I felt very nervous about putting anything on paper, with light strokes of my charcoal pencil I made some feeble lines. Then I thought ' blow it, lets just have fun!' suddenly the coffee pot came to life and the fears melted away. It was such a success that we're going to try it again, next time a landscape perhaps...then again maybe we'll wait for the advanced course before we tackle that!