Girl Lacer turned 7 today, which means I’m a mummy of a 7 year old (sorry, feeling old there for a moment). She’s a lucky thing because her birthday always (at least so far) falls over the half term holiday, so she had a nice lazy day and didn’t even get out of her pyjamas. The big birthday trip out was on Sunday when we went to Legoland for the annual birthday related trip to see the fireworks, where I would share some photos with you, as the fireworks were pretty spectacular, except I can’t, as I lost my camera on the way home 
Do not trust me with expensive electrical gadgets basically, which shows some lovely daughterly love from Girl Lacer, as she got a new camera from her grandad for her birthday and she says I can borrow it whenever I like it, which is very lucky as I won’t be able to afford a new camera until after Christmas and as I still can’t find my iPhone . . .
Girl Lacer got a good haul of birthday presents, she’s upped her previously small collection of Barbies, got a Sylvanian bunny car, a camera like I said from my incredibly generous dad, a classic joke book I remember from my own childhood, an anti-colouring book which she spent all day doing inbetween having a Dora the Explorer marathon and (and this is what it feels like I’ve been doing nothing but for the last few days) a quilt from me.
The quilt is an adaptation of the Tulip Field Quilt from Jane Brocket’s The Gentle Art of Quilt Making (which in the book is a double bed sized quilt consisting of two columns of stripes and is in a slightly more grown up colour way). The colours were chosen by Girl Lacer but I was restricted a bit by the fabric choice in Kingston (I had planned on going shopping for this in central London but this was round the time Boy Lacer was off sick from school a bit, so I had to stick local). The fabric is a mixture between Amy Butler, Tanya Whelan, Liberty and some unknown manufacturer for the purple border. The quilt top was fairly easy to put together, it was making the quilt sandwich that was the tricky bit due to lack of space (heaven knows what I’d do if I were quilting a double) and consequently the backing isn’t particularly smooth in places. But even so it is incredibly soft and comfortable, I’d love to quilt all winter if it meant doing a craft that cosy.
Still the binding went on a lot better this time, although it took till half way round the quilt till I twigged the proper way to stitch it on and then it went on a lot quicker! Over all I’m quite impressed with it, not bad as my second attempt to making a quilt.
For her birthday cake this year Girl Lacer wanted a Victoria sponge, she didn’t name it as a Victoria sponge but I knew immediately what it was from the way she described it and I knew instantly that I might as well go and buy one as I’m rubbish at making them, they never rise for me (I think due to having to mix by hand and having a rubbish oven). So this year was a (very small) shop bought cake slathered in shop bought icing and decorated with sprinkles and lolly pops.
But of course there were the traditional birthday age biscuits (Nigella’s butter cut-out biscuits from Domestic Goddess, I never ice them these days, I’m a bit rubbish at icing to and I think it detracts from the lovely buttery taste of the biscuits as well).
A big thank you to Girl Lacer who if it weren’t for her letting me borrow her new camera I would be blogging with no photos for quite some time.
