-Not the shiniest penny in the fountain/jar/pocket/well (but often just shortened to not the shiniest penny)
-A few sandwiches short of a picnic (my mum favours that one)
-Dumber than a box of hair, which I believe I heard used to describe Avril Lavigne a while back!

Slightly different but I also love “He’s about as useful as a chocolate teapot”

Brownies sound good! I made mini pumpkin muffins today but something wasn’t quite right, the texture was more like bread than cake…will need to try it again though with a few tweaks as they were definitely promising.

I am ridiculously jealous of all your sleep-ins! Glad you are getting alot of rest though and that Goma-chan is staying put for now. You do of course realise that after this scare, he will end up being late don’t you?!

a few fries short of a happy meal
not the ripest fruit in the bowl
not playing with a full deck

And the other day I heard these two which I thought were hilarous:

Her elevator doesn’t go all the way up
The bus doesn’t go where he lives

And today I’m loving having a week off work and relishing the chocolates I got from our Belgium trip from which we returned yesterday! Bliss!

If you’re machine quilting, I’d really recommend you do in-the-ditch quilting for a first go- just pick a seam line and follow it. If you’re just doing a bunch of squares, it would be easy to just run down each seam. It gives you a guide to follow, and you don’t have to worry about trickier manouveurs like curves. You’ll probably need a special foot to quilt with your machine- it’s called a walking foot, and it allows the top layer of fabric to be fed through at the same rate as the bottom layer (which is lying on top of the dog feeds)– without it, you’ll probably get puckering in the fabric.

Your last option, and the easiest, is to tie the quilt. That’s definitely the easiest, I’m not sure if it’s the quickest because I’ve never tried. All you do is make a little stitch with some decorative thread (embroidery thread would work well), and tie the ends of at the front.

The key with the quilting, especially for a baby quilt that will get washed lots, is to make sure there’s lots of quilting holding the three layers together. A good rule is to leave no space larger than a fist without any quilting. Plain fabric will work fine for the back, it’s a good idea to use 100% cotton fabric for patchwork/quilting because it won’t have a stretch to it, which will affect the outcome.

Wow. That’s a little essay for you! A good tutorial for beginners is here: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=305294.0

If you need any help once you get started, let me know!

Your other loves- mmm… brownies. I want some, now! Yay for 34 weeks! I love winter PJs, too

You had know problem baking them in a Japanese oven? I pretty much gave up on brownies and converted to hedgehog slice.

And my favourite of those sayings is a sandwich short of a picnic. You’ve gotta ask Nay- one of the characters on Home and Away is ALWAYS sporting those sayings!

Quilting, hmmm really sort of depends on what you are making and how you are doing it. Hand stuff takes forever to do especially if its something more complex, but if its just a bunch of squares you could probably do shapes inside each square like a star or since its for Goma-chan different types of vehicles perhaps.

Oh and I’m totally with you on Brownie mix! I’m tempted to go buy some and make some today, but I’ve been decidedly slack with the gym lately and things are all feeling a bit tight :s

Finally, big cheers for 34 weeks and Goma-chan! That has to be a huge worry off your shoulders!