When I was a little girl my Mum was a keen crafter. Dried flower arrangements, paint stencils and patchwork were the main things that went on in the house. Me and my brother both have a patchwork quilt each and I have a patchwork cushion as well. However as more siblings came along such things were replaced with painting, felt tip pens and ensuring none of us ran around with the scissors.

However my littlest sister is now 12 years old and able to be arty without assistance (although that didn't stop our brother helping her with glue and tissue today) and in the past year she has started to get back into patchwork sewing (and is currently learning to crochet). Both my sisters now have their own quilts, one was made as a Christmas present for my grandmother, another is being made for the living room, and at some point me and my brother have been told that new quilts will be made for us too (mine has gone all over the place, from my parents home to university and back again and now to Kew as well).

My cousin is currently at university and her walls are a bit bare, so my Mum made her a lovely patchwork wall-hanging.

Excuse the slight blurriness of the photo, it was taken with an iPad. As you can see, my Mum went with bright colours for this so it's a lovely, bright, cheerful quilt. The back is in the same dark pink and has my Mum's initials and the date embroidered in the corner. She did the edges in long strips of blue.

She alternated the thread used between royal blue, dark raspberry and a bright grass green so it shows up against the contrasting material (you can just see the green around the edge of the pink in this picture).

And for those of you wondering if we're an artistic family, my Dad dabbles in photography, my Little Brother is training to be a carpenter, Eldest Little Sister is a bit of a graphics/design fan and is a dab hand with a needle, and Youngest Little Sister is constantly doodling, painting and making things out of card and glue, and I write and also dabble in photography.

I think it's fair to say there's a bit of interest in crafts of all kinds in all of us XD

Have a good week everyone!

The Zodiac

After my post about Little Brother and Dad's birthdays last week I realised that me and my siblings cover each of the elements in the western zodiac, air, earth, fire and water. I actually find this quite a fun coincidence, so today we're having a look at star signs!

Subway Art- Aquarius by PaperBleu

Doing these in date order, first of all is Youngest Little Sister! Her birthday in January puts her in Aquarius, which is an Air sign. Out of that list above I'd say she's definitely friendly and thoughful, and quite intellectual as well. She's the first out of me and my siblings to be put in the top class for maths!

I am an Aries by blushface

As you might have guessed from my post last week, my brother is an Aries and therefore a fire sign. I'm not sure about energetic, he seems to spend most of his weekends sleeping, but he's pretty enthusiastic about cars and QPR, and generally thinks he's good at everything so that's the confidence sorted XD

Virgo Cell Phone Charm by loveyourathlete

Eldest Little Sister is a September baby, one of the earth signs. They tend to get stressed easily, and they like things to be neat and organised, which is VERY much how Eldest Little Sister is, to the point of borderline OCD. She also has a way of finding small things to do for people, like clearing the table for our Mum after dinner or sharing her chocolate with me, another Virgo trait :)

Scorpio Hammered Pendant by PointyKitty

And then last but not least there's me, the Scorpio, one of the water signs. Scorpios are often given a bad reputation for being unforgiving (true) and stubborn (also true) but we're not so bad. The keepers of both promises and secrets. And we're passionate, you've all seen me rant about the football XD

So there we have it, the four signs of my siblings and me, air, fire, earth and water!

Have a nice weekend everyone!