a whole year later…

Things that always sneak up on me,

1. Pesky rabbits begging for treats while I’m making the tea.

2. Deadlines for writing school reports.

3. Drunkeness.

4. Family birthdays. Especially the ones of newer members who haven’t had a birthday before.

Which is why I was up until quite late last night making a quilt for Ella’s first birthday.

It’s hard to decide what to buy someone whose sole purpose in life is to climb up things like a monkey and put as many different things as possible into her mouth.  I mean, this is the kid who spent a good fifteen minutes chatting to and laughing at her bottle when I looked after her a couple of weeks ago.  And she has piles of toys.  Piles.  Sometimes when you look at the piles you half expect to see ET in the middle of them, wearing an old ladies hat or something. 

The patterns are from Pimp Stitch, home of some incredibly cute patterns.  The backing fabric is from Ikea and the stripe was 29p (29p!) a metre from my local fabric shop.  I don’t want to give it away. 

I remember when my sister was her age her favourite thing in the world was an SMA tin with a circular hole cut in the lid and six practise golf balls.  In the plastic balls go, shake them up a bit, out they come again.  In the plastic balls go, shake them up a bit, out they come again.  Repeat until The Moomins starts, bath and bed.

Thank you so much for all your film recommendations and favourite quotes!  Some of them I’ve seen already and it was a relief to find I’m not the only one with odd taste in movies, some of them have now been put on my LoveFilm order list.  I’m going to pick a winner at random later on this weekend and get going on their embroidery and prize parcel.  But for now, with the baby present sorted, I’m now off to find another one for a thirty year old man who is going to see Star Wars: The Clone Wars with John this week.  Now there’s a tricky person to buy for… x