Wednesday 31 October 2007

happy pumpkin day


happy pumpkin day!

Monday 29 October 2007

not just mess



just to prove that we didn't just spend half term making a giant enormous huge mess (although that's what it feels like) here are the results of sewing club. the theme was skinny landscapes and each child chose a picture, and then portrayed it in fabric and embroidery. miss K loved it, and this is her poppy picture, she was like a cat with the cream, sitting there with an embroidery hoop, and lots of lovely threads.

e-boy was less contended this time, he wanted to play with the button box and the beads, which was rather frowned upon, and there were no landscapes with jet planes, or x-wings or rebel tie -fighters. but we found some nice sheep, which I had to help with quite a lot - no problem there, I rather like sheep, and then he was happy to sit and draw while big sister finished her masterpiece.


sorry the colours are so awful, the poppies are much more lovely in real life, and I thought the light was quite good when I took the pictures.

Sunday 28 October 2007

little helpers

well I didn't manage to make the birthday present bag - I got as far as making some faux chenille for a panel, but no further. a glass vase with pebbles and hyacinth bulbs in became the emergency back up present..
this weekend seems to have been spent tidying up the aftermath of half term, except the peeps do anything to avoid tidying up "I'm playing with that pile of dust in the middle of the room you just swept up, it has glitter in"
and then there were the other helpers to contend with, I wanted to put something on that shelf!


thanks for the comments on the pay it forward idea, email me your addresses so I can post you your handmade gift, I wonder what it will be?

Saturday 27 October 2007

more reasons

more reasons not to read blogs.
Tracy at cupcakes at home, recommended visiting this blog, written by the husband of a friend.
so I did.
and I cried.
go and visit, read it all from the beginning (it's not very long)
but not if you're not wearing waterproof mascara.

Friday 26 October 2007

pay it forward

I've decided that reading lots of blogs can be dangerous, I've been seduced into a "Pay it Forward" by pink green because she makes such lovely things.
I only seem to be motivated to make things right now if they are gifts (can't find time to make things for myself), and it will be lovely to make something for my new blog friends. Don't know what yet, watch this space..

So, if you want to join in the fun:

I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

If you wish to participate please leave me a comment and copy the above paragraph and paste it into your next post.

now I need to go and drink a strong cup of tea to convince myself that this is a good idea, and to try and ward off a cold that has been brewing all week, and I could really do without.

Thursday 25 October 2007

sharks

a trip to see the sharks is usually a birthday treat in December for my two peeps and their uncle; two share a birthday, and one is three days earlier. But it's their cousins birthday tomorrow (cupcake quilt girl) so we went on Tuesday.

MISTAKE!
never go anywhere at half term, it was way too busy,
when the divers were feeding the sharks (by hand!) I had to lift the peeps up so they could see, I just about managed to give Miss K a piggy back, she's much too heavy to go on my shoulders, but not tall enough to see.

these little sharks are in a tank which is glass to the floor, perfect for little ones to see, and has an open top - better for photos, all the ones I took through glass are blurry and have reflections.

tomorrow will bring (hopefully) photos from sewing club, and a present I've started to make for a friends birthday, I hope it will be ready by sunday...

Monday 22 October 2007

a good day out

the quilters regional day was a great sucess,the young quilters did fabric painting in the morning, and in the afternoon sewed up their fabric into tote bags, and made little log cabin style patchwork cards.

Miss K was in heaven, there were 4 others girls there, all older than her (and 3 of them had won prizes at the Festival of Quilts! ) and she quietly got on with it in her own way, and got to use a sewing machine for the first time which just made her day! They had these great machines that had no foot pedal just an on/off switch, and you could make them go real slow. perfect for children and beginners. and apparently for japanese people that sew whilst sitting on the floor...

We had a talk by Phillippa Naylor who made this beauty, and many others whilst living in Saudi Arabia, and she talked about living there, and learning to quilt. more about her here






and after the talk we did a hand sewn block, and the winner of a raffle got to take them all home, and make them up into a quilt, I was so relieved it wasn't me!

Saturday 20 October 2007

half term

so half term has started and something tells me it might be a crafty one. Miss K and I are going to the Quilters Guild regional day today, so she can go to the young quilters workshop, she's been a member for a while since someone recommended it, and she likes the YG section of the quilter magazine, but we've never been to anything. I get to listen to a talk, and do a post card challenge, and a block lotto challenge neither of which I understand, or feel upto. Not sure what Miss K gets to do, but boy is she excited about it!
E-boy (not his name, although his name does begin with E - he just gets called it, dad started it when he was a baby, and it sort of stuck, fortunately he really likes it, although personally I always just think of him as E) is excited about a whole day with dad, thinks he'll be playing star wars games on the computer all day, and watching tv.
Later in the week we have what the kids call sewing club, which are embroiderer's guild workshops, run by these wonderful "grannies" every half term for two mornings. E-boy used to have to come by default, because I couldn't leave Miss K on her own till she was 8, now he wants to come anyway - this is his picture from the summer, none of the embroiderer's had ever done a helicopter or a plane before - well we like to broaden horizons, he designed it all, I cut out the felt shapes, and between us we stitched it all together. and it has pride of place in his room, except when anyone comes, and he goes and gets it to show them!



This is Miss K's which she did this all mostly all by herself - its called nearly there (the theme was "on the move") just out of the picture is the mouse hole - useless photography sorry.



right time to make pancakes for breakfast, it's getting noisier upstairs, and there may be a riot soon.

Thanks for all the lovely supportive comments about the kitchen, it was lovely to read them. I have days when it drives me insane, mostly I am resigned to the chaos, hopefully SOON I can show some photos of progress, and when its finished and I have worktops, and a cooker that works I'll bake cake and we can celebrate!

Wednesday 17 October 2007

a corner of my home - the kitchen

first there was this, a once lovely but rather tired looking kitchen.


so after months of hard work; sanding, painting, new worktops and a new sink there was this.

A refurbished kitchen which wasn't new but looked a whole lot better, didn't cost the earth, but had taken rather longer than we anticipated!

and then in May water poured through the ceiling from the bathroom above, and soaked into the wall and the cupboards, so now we have this


still. In October...



Tuesday 16 October 2007

glue sticks

don't you just love glue sticks, all that creativity and no mess.





Monday 15 October 2007

spider

when I was photographing the bunting in the garden yesterday I met this little fella, he was still there today, so I guess that meant he wanted his photo taken too...


love these leaves, although one by one they are falling off, and looking sad on the ground.


and some blue sky which came out for about 5 minutes, just long enough to grab the camera and lie on the grass in the front garden - the neighbours probably think I'm insane....

Sunday 14 October 2007

yet more bunting!

Making the birthday bunting was such fun, (easy and quick results, nice after the length of time a quilt takes) that I got a bit addicted, and have made some Halloween bunting ready for the 31st - I'm usually a bit more last minute! I photographed it in the garden to show off the gorgeous reds of the Virginia creeper, the autumn colours are amazing this year.



And for Rosie - the most spoilt baby dolly in the world, a little pillow and quilt, don't think I did all those patchwork squares, it was recycled from a very pretty child's sundress that was outgrown. Rosie loves it apparently.


Also well appreciated was the cupcake quilt, she immediately lay down on it, saying "my bed my bed" and just about managed "my wilt"!

Friday 12 October 2007

gooseberry fool

Tonight I'm going out for dinner with a group of friends that all met when our children were babies, and we went to baby groups, toddlers, gym classes, coffee mornings.... with each other. The original babies grew, more were born, (one of us had 4!) and now most of the children are at school. And you suddenly find yourself not seeing a group of friends who have been your support, your inspiration, your source of information about everything, who won't judge you when there are dishes to be washed in the sink, when the children are driving you up the wall, and you really need someone to just give you a cup of tea.

So we now try really hard to keep in touch, organise evenings of food, or wine, or book swaps, or just to chat, and catch up, and sometimes we even manage not to talk about the children!

Tonight is a contribution evening, everyone takes something, usually there's some kind of theme, tonight it's puddings! As the oven is sick (- well to be honest it's more than sick, it's deceased), I'm making gooseberry fool, and I hope it tastes ok because I looked at so many recipes on the internet that and I combined something from most of them, so I'm not sure if I've messed up somewhere along the way - (there are definitely disadvantages to google - if I'd just had one recipe I'd have followed it precisely). I'll let you know tomorrow.....

Wednesday 10 October 2007

chicken pox

Didn't get any further yet with the lettering on the birthday bunting, as the recipient has chicken pox and came to play today as she couldn't go to nursery. So instead we went for a lovely walk in the Autumn sunshine to see the ducks.
These guys enjoyed the sun today too, I think they were playing "I'm the king of the castle"....

Tuesday 9 October 2007

birthday bunting


I've nearly finished the birthday bunting to go with the cupcake quilt for the birthday girl, just need to cut out some letters - and I'm going to cheat and "bondaweb" them on. With the scraps that were too small I made a quick length for around K's bed, she has a cabin bed so it should look sweet wrapped round the frame, I'll take a photo if it looks nice.


It poured with rain on the way to school this morning, the kids were happy because they got to use their silly umbrellas (a frog and a ladybird), and I got to wear my pink wellies - none of the other mums ever walk to school in wellies, maybe they just have green ones......

Monday 8 October 2007

only 11 months late!




Last night I managed to finish my neice's first birthday present, a pink and purple cupcake quilt. The fact that her 2nd birthday is in less than 3 weeks was quite an incentive to finally get it finished, I mean I know she won't realise that her auntie was 11 months late, but I was beginning to worry she'd be a teenager before I finished it. Don't know why it took so long, could have been that there was no design and I just made it up as I went along, which was fun, but less fun when I tried to work out if I'd made enough blocks, and when it came to put it all together.





I wasn't pleased with the quilting, I used a free motion foot, and whatever I did couldn't get a decent tension on the back, it would be ok for a while and then go like this... any suggestions as to what I'm doing wrong?

Sunday 7 October 2007

pointy kitty

Yesterday we had a lovely day out in the Autumn sunshine and went to see this.
We have a budding sculpture artist in the making, on a slightly smaller scale!






ok so its better the right way up, but I'm defeated as to how to turn it round, you'll just have to turn your head - sorry.



And now to introduce pointy kitty, thanks to weewonderfuls for the pattern, and see other pointy kitties here!
so that's 2 from the list, I must be able to cross off some of the others, meanwhile it's 48 to go....

Saturday 6 October 2007

Post card challenge

Thought this sounded fun, Done by Tuesday has started a post card challenge group on flickr inspired by Sew Mama Sew, the idea is to make everything from the list here. I've joined with my cat quilt, and hope to make some more things from the list SOON, think it might have to be no.3 a soft toy.


Friday 5 October 2007

misty mornings

I love those mornings when everything is covered in dew, and the walk to school becomes a journey of discoveries, and everything looks different. This pictures doesn't do it justice, but it was the best I could find. Need to improve my photography skills. This months challenge maybe....

Wednesday 3 October 2007

cupcakes

forgot to say earlier that I got this lovely cupcake keyring in the post this week from Laura at Cupcakes for Clara. I'd seen one on her etsy site but it was sold, so she made me one specially. I love it. And it was beautifully packaged too.




blogging

Today I'm finding blogging impossible, its just taken me an hour and a half to put a link to flickr in the side bar, and I found the way to do it ages ago, just didn't understand what it meant. Oh I hope this gets easier.


I have Beth at Fibrespace to thank for getting me into this, I went on one of her wonderful felting workshops, and she posted pictures of what everyone made on her blog, and on flickr. Whilst looking at those I started reading some of the blogs she had listed, and that was fatal, I was addicted!


I need a cup of coffee now!

Tuesday 2 October 2007

favourite places


My favourite place, wish I was there; Rockport Ma. USA