Memories.

It’s finished!!!  Ready for the tad-dah moment ?  I give you flowers.  Flowers  everywhere to drape a round my neck….

Something to brighten up the day when the wind blows – as it is doing now!  Yes the clouds are fair scuttling across the sky.   It is very blue and the sun is shining, but the little clouds are whizzing  past.  So it will be a day to wrap up warm!

Or stay in and play!  Yes I did it.  I had a playtime.  I did what I said I would do and I enjoyed it!  I finished the ironing and thought while the board was out I would iron flat all my little pieces of fabric.  The bits that I pop in a basket.

Little bits that I think will make an eye or a centre.  Bigger bits that I had every intension of cutting neatly to make patches.  All nicely ironed flat and colour coded.

Reds and green, yellows and blues.

All ready to position and sew.  And then the smile came.  The light bulb went on.  The smile became a grin and then a warm glow.  I knew what I would sew it on.  Last week I went fishing.  Fishing in the cupboard under the stairs.  I brought out Mum’s machine.  The machine she bought in the war up in Scotland.  The machine she made our clothes on.  The machine my sister learnt to use and the one I used, making dresses, skirts, jackets, trousers, bags.  You name it we made it.  Mum’s machine….

with its decoration and silver parts…

Oh the memories….  and it was good to sit and sew at a leisurely pace.  Stopping and creeping along.  Turning the handle as slow as I wanted.  Yes I enjoyed it and I made a block…

All neatly trimmed and filed for the next one!

And in the evening a little bit of stash busting with my hook….

Well I had to hook didn’t I?!

Ta-dah!

It’s finished!  Yes I finally finished my attic24 Granny Stripe at the weekend.  It has been nearly there for a couple of weeks but I just couldn’t get myself into the groove.  You know what I mean – every hook, twist and turn was just that bit too laborious.  I’d do a couple and then put it down.  My mind wasn’t with it.  But Saturday came and I didn’t feel like doing a lot so I sat curled up on the settee – my knee will shout about that! – and tried a couple of trebles and then sat and then a couple of trebles….. You get the picture I’m sure! And before I knew it…… tadah!!!!!

The sun was streaming through the window making all the colours so vibrant.

I love the mix and the clashes.  They are part and parcel of my little bundle.  But the edging……

Bellisssiiimmmmo!!  The little picot edging was… well… somewhat frustrating.  I tried three different patterns and frogged them all, before adapting the last one.  3dc into the dcs below, 4ch and then a ss into the space between the previous dcs, and it worked a treat!

It is now folded and ready and waiting for the warmer weather – I know, blankets are for winter – but this one is going into the caravan to add a splash of colour to the neutral interior.  So now what?

Well, Sunday saw me browse through my new magazine.

I was in for a surprise, for there on page 30 was Sewing Daisies and a few pages further on Comfortstitching!!  These two ladies are soooo inspirational  and I have followed there blogs for quite a while now.  Well done ladies for making it into print again!!  Now to live up to their example, particularly Sewing Daisies.  24 projects from Sew Hip in a year!  Pheeww!!  So iI turned and studied and turned and looked.  I wanted to do something where I could sit cosily and sew.  With my glasses on and then off!  It didn’t matter about watching the tv, it was only football!  (Sadly Forest lost, but they played well!)  So I went for the corsage….

The cutting out was easy and once I had worked out how to fold the strips the sewing was a doddle too!  Then the fun started.  I layered and sewed, and then unpicked.  Repeat!  Twice more I sewed and unpicked.  The curls would not lay for me, but I persevered and after three hours I came up with this….

Yes it had to be purple!

And I think a fair attempt at something a little fiddly which was classed for a beginner!  Like the beads?  A little bit of me!  So one productive weekend.

A little careful sewing.

My needle has been busy over the last few nights.  Carefully stabbing the felt, going in and out.  Carefully for two reasons.  One, I wanted the tiny stitches to be just right, just so, and secondly, I have to sew with my glasses off.  Yes I have reached that stage!  That stage in life when varifocals get in the way.  I remember my Dad having two pairs of glasses, one for distance and one for reading.  He needed both pairs to paint.  One to view and the other to work, to dab and daub.  Boy oh boy did he get frustrated, swapping them around after every two or three fine touches, and now I know what he meant!  But aren’t varifocals supposed to help?  Hmmmm….  Anyway, if I sew I can’t watch television while I do, so no alibi!  Unless of course I put them on when I swap colour in my thread and then I get side tracked into watching for five minutes!!!!  This is what I have been up to.

Four more little key rings to add to the green one I made last week.  Come a little closer.

I actually made five more but one went to a friend on her birthday.  I think this one is my favourite, a bit pink, well very pink, but I love the contrast!

Key ring mark 1 – paisley!  Oh yes and here is a camera action…. I’m still playing.  Trying to be creative…

Skies do it all for you really!

Grannying again!

What a busy weekend!  Not that we have been dashing here there and everywhere, just a lot of pottering and 20 minuting!  Saturday was a day for house work.  Oh boy has it been neglected over the past week and a bit!  So Saturday saw the hoover come out and the Christmas decorations finally put up into the loft.  They have been languishing on my dining room table waiting for the boxes to be brought down.  All six of them and a black bag!  We have a lot of decorations.  Baubles, tinsel, trees, wreaths etc..  I don’t put them all out.  Just the ones that appeal to me at the start of the festive season.  But they do ALL have to be unpacked and then packed away again!!  It takes an age!  Then when they have all gone away you have to dust and hoover and generally have a good clean – which we did!  So that was Saturday done and dusted…..

Sunday was a crafting day.  I have been knitting a cardigan, with a bargain bag of wool, over the holiday period.  I wanted to do something that I didn’t have to concentrate on.  It progressed quite well.  The back and two sides complete. But then it stopped.  It stopped dead when I no longer had to sit beside the fire (or candles as our fire is out of action at the moment!!).  And now I am having problems picking it up again.  I will do, I promise but not yet!  No on Sunday I picked up my Attic 24 Granny Stripe. I ran out of wool to finish the stripes and then there was the border to do.  It sort of got left.  You know how it is. Well the stripes are now finished and the border is progressing…..

It takes an age to go all the way around it….

I love the corners.  They are working out so precise and neat.  I have a couple of more rows of trebles to do and then a couple of double crochet, before working the picot edging.  Nearly there but guess what?  I have run out  of the next colour so I will just have to visit Heath’s Country Store.  What a hardship!!  OOooooo I love this little store in Ollerton!  Tomorrow will be the day to go.  The car is already ‘bagged’ for the afternoon and I can’t wait!!!  Something else I must show you is my wool bag, overflowing with twisted balls…..

Love, love, love it!

Sunday also saw me start my paisley designs.  I have been doodling these and added a bit of colour…

I didn’t feel like getting my sewing machine out, so sat with needle and embroidery threads and felt.  Voila, one key ring.  Not bad for the first attempt…

Before I go I have a thank you to do.  A very BIG thank you.  A thank you to Heidi for giving me a blogging award!!!  My very first!  Thank you Heidi  it really made my day!  I know I now have to do something with it, but I will leave that until next time.  Happy crafting!

Ready, Steady……

Well hello there!  A whole month has passed by and I’ve been busy, busy, busy.  Click click click, clack clack clack, in and out, and through and pull; busy, busy, busy, BuSy!!!!!  Tomorrow is the day for the Sunshine School Coffee Morning and yesterday afternoon was spent cleaning and altering the lay out of my little home.  Photos were put away, cupboard tops were cleared.  Even the ivories on the old piano had to hide.  In it’s place?  Well in it’s place I have positioned very carefully……

Snowmen and stars.  Very topical!

Dangles and gift tags.

Cards and notelets.

Christmas goodies, from egg cosies to cosy hats, stockings both large and small, and hens.  How Christmassy is that!

Bags and coat hangers, carefully covered by MIL and prettied up with a few flowers.

Things to hug and squeeze.

Things to pretty up that party frock.

And lots and lots of little stocking fillers, plus a few plants…

And finally my special notelets.  The Christmas card that is just a little more.  Left blank for that special Christmas letter.  Designed by me, tweaked by the Son, and kindly printed by Conservatree.  And I love them…

So tomorrow it will be go, gO, GOOOOOO!

A little light reading.

Yes I have been to the library again and they had a selection of new craft books!  A lot of new try before you buy books!!  So my bag was very heavy on the way home!  Naughty or what!?!  I have started thinking of things to make for the November Sun Shine evening and needed to some new inspiration.  I can get a lot of the inspiration to have a go from all my blogland friends, but  I don’t like to take an idea and make it mine without asking first.  So the books are good for getting the ball rolling.  A little card making, needle felting, crochet and patchwork….

Don’t you just love the picture on the front of the top book.  Bright and bold and very in your face….

A book full of Fat Quarter bags and purses.  Now I have a whole load of Fat Quarters neatly folded in a basket.  They are dipped into every now and then but I never feel as if I do them justice.  I love to look at them and touch them, but am always at a loss as to what to actually do with them.  They cry out a quilt, but I just don’t have the confidence to make a proper one.  I need to practise first and this book is full of things to practise on…..

Bags and purses with handles and drawstrings.  Zips and pockets and….

gussets and  then I spied this in the bottom corner….

It matched my latest Fat Quarter bundle exactly!!  Mum-in-law found this striking little bundle while shopping….

All black and white and crisp, with dots and squares and teeny tiny paisley swirls….

The brain is starting to whirrrrrrrr and creak and just the beginnings of an idea coming together.  So watch this space as they say!!  But I am also jumping up and down because it is in!!!!!!!!!  It is there in print!!!!!!!  I didn’t send it in to appear.  I was asked if they could use it!!!!!   Oooooooooeeeeeeeeee!  From time to time I buy this magazine and from time to time I make something from it and they have a Flickr page and well I popped it on and now it is here….  Stop burbling and show….

The said magazine….

and the picture is….

Can you see the blue hippo?  That’s mine!!  Well not mine now, as it was a birthday present and now lives in a school.  But oooooo it is there!  Thank you for making my day Sew Hip!!  Enjoy yours!!

Silver Linings!

House work.  Love it or loathe it , it is always there.  Waiting for you.  Around every corner.  Through every door.  From the moment you wake up, to the moment you go to sleep.  You can always see something that needs doing!!!!  Aarghhhhhhh!  Well this weekend it went out the window!  Yes, I flung it far away.  I closed my eyes to it all!  (not literally – I didn’t want to fall over and bump my head!)  I had the perfect excuse.  I have pulled the ligaments around my knee.  I haven’t done it for a long time and it is my own fault it has happened again!  You see I have to sit in a chair in a lady like manner. Lady like manner haha!!  I have to sit with my little footsies on a stool or flat on the floor. And this week I was so carried away with my hooking that I forgot and I sat curled up in the corner of the settee with my feet tucked underneath.  All cosy like.  But when I came to stand up  - oooooowwwww!  Knees didn’t like it!  Not one bit!  And I have been paying for it since.  It will go away and it is a lot better, but…..

BUT, BUT, but it meant that I have been able to sit in one spot, eyes averted from the cobwebs and the smeary windows and read and hook and sew.  Bliss!  Every cloud has a silver lining!  And the silver lining meant I could sit – properly – with some comfort things….

Books from the library.  Jane Brockett’s Gentle Arts continue to make me go ooooo and ahhhhh.  Definitely one on my wish list.  And the quilting techniques book compliments well with clear illustrations on how to do so much.

Mr Monkey is jazzing it up quite nicely.

And my rainbow….  is growing and growing and growing.  I really did loose myself in this yesterday.

And last but definitely not least were my favourite magazines.

Between the pages of which I dreamed of my own little shed/workplace/hideaway, call it what you may, at the bottom of the garden…………..  But more of that another day.  A little gentle walking this morning, and light duties at work this afternoon, before…. feet up time tonight!

Whistle while you work!

I love working in the conservatory.  It is so bright and so airy. With music in the background playing gently away, I played, on Wednesday, to my heart’s content.  Finishing off little purses and bags.  Adding bright ginghams to their interiors.  Finding pearlised buttons in my tin of old buttons.  Stitching with tiny stitches and viola!

Yes they are Granny Squares and it has probably been done before, but this is my twist!  Three little purses.  Want to see in side?

And around the back?

Now comes the crunch question.  Do I add a little strap or do I leave it as it is, to pop inside a little girl’s bag?  To do or not to do, that is the question? Hhhhmmmmm……

Eight little Granny Squares went into the little bags too.  This is the yellow one….

with its pretty gingham lining….

I really do love my hook.  It is so easy to pick it up and crochet a few stitches.  Disappearing off to do a job or two and knowing exactly where I am when I come back to it.  Lots of 20 minute sessions.  Passing it by but hearing it shout ‘Yooooohoooo!  I’m here!’  And then coming back to it and adding a stripe.  Yes my ‘Blankie’ is coming along nicely….

And that red I was so bothered about?  Well it is really working in quite nicely.  I love it’s stripiness.  Love it’s rainbow of colour.  I just love it!

But I did promise to sew on Wednesday.   So sewing is what i did making two journal covers.  I have made these before but having bought the Sew Hip magazine I thought I would take note of the instructions inside it’s cover.  So with a little bit of this and a little bit of that, out came these two….

They are now sitting on the back bed waiting for their price tag.  Two more little things for the Sun Shine stall.  Oh yes!  I nearly forgot!  The monkey.   Remember this….

Well time ran out on Wednesday, but it did get as far as this…

A little light sewing today?   Possibly.  A short burst of hooking?   Definitely!  So whatever you get up to today and over the weekend …… enjoy!

Sssshhhhhh!

Yes, ssshhhhh……  don’t tell anyone, but I have a day to myself today.  A whole day!  In fact a day and an evening!  Mr A is away at work all day – well apart from his lunch hour when he usually nips home – and tonight he is at his Hebrew class!  Yes, that’s right his Hebrew class!!  Languages were never his forte but he is really enjoying taxing his brain and learning how to speak, write, and read this complicated language.  So good on you Mr A!!!  But it means that Wednesday night is a ‘me’ night and today I get a ‘me’ day too!

So what will I be doing on my ‘me’ day?  Well there is the usual – washing, ironing – of which there is a mountain! – hoovering, tidying, etc. etc……  But there will be the odd 20 minutes to break up the jobs! Yes, yes, yes!! Now, it takes me about 20 minutes to get across my blanket so there will be some hooking going on…

And later there will be some finishing off to be done on the Sun Shine School things. The craft stall is getting nearer.  But even later, I will be setting up my sewing machine downstairs.  Carrying it down the stairs, through the hallway, through the lounge and into the conservatory. Why?  So I can spread myself out.  Cover all the surfaces with fabrics and beads and cottons and silks and….?   And get ready to sew.  Sew some more rainbows of colour…

Cover these books with the fabric from my fat quarter basket…

And turn these stripey socks into the little character on the front of Sew Hip….

Except my Crafty Monkey will have my ‘twist’ to his face!  So I can’t wait to get started!  But… oh yes there are all the other jobs to do first!  I remember!  Enjoy what ever ‘me’ time you have today.

Peace and quiet.

It has been a while since I last went tap tap tap on the keys.  A while since I last said ‘hello there!’  But I have not forgotten you.  I have been visiting.  Looking at what you have been up to, and some of my blog land friends have been very busy.  Busy with their fingers and hands making beautiful bags and things.  On the other hand some have been quiet.  Hiding away, cocooned safe and sound in their own little private world and if that is you – I have missed you.  I have missed you but understand the need for space, so take care and come back soon when you are able.

So what have I been up to?  Well we have been sitting in the garden ’til late at night.  Listening to the birds and watching them fly around.  Darting here, there, and everywhere!  Watching the sun play of the flowers….

The clematis at the bottom of the garden is absolutely ladden with blossom….

And the Granny Bonnets are nodding their heads….

Both of these make me jump up and down, as do rainbows of colour.  Yes I know we have not had any rain, but my back bed is a wash with colour. All the colours of the rainbow….

I have laid it all out.  All those 20 minutes worth of love.  Just to see where I am going.  The time for the stall is approaching fast and I needed to look and see where the holes are, what was needed to fill the gap.  And I was pleasantly surprised!  I really like all the sewing and knitting and crocheting that I have done!  Take a peek …

A rainbow of hessian bags all with a button trim…

Three little hens…

with gangly legs and knobbly knees…

An explosion of flowers with hair bobbles and slides….

And last but not least a new little Granny Square bag for little hands to carry…

(Sorry – a bit dark!)

So with all this brightness around I thought I needed jazzing up!  I bought this linen skirt last year.  Why I bought a black one I will never know!  It has been hanging in the wardrobe and only seen the light of day once, but now…  Now, it is no longer plain.  No the flower explosion has happened again!  I have embroidered some big flowers all the way around it.  In a rainbow of colours…

They float and move just like they are in a breeze.  One wearable skirt!!  Happy crafting!