Contented

Casting off and casting on

This week I finished knitting these socks,

 

knit in the gorgeous "Prize Fuschia" colourway from junofibrearts@etsy.com, and then promptly cast on again for another pair, this time in a self patterning wool from modernknitting,

 

I almost can't wait for the cooler weather just so I can wear them!

I have also completed the wordplay challenge for this month - even though the deadline is not till 20th Sept, once I had the idea I had to run with it!

 

I'll do a proper reveal in another post.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

R x

Two of my favourite things...

 

...freshly baked and decorated cake (complete with small child fingerprints in the icing!)...

 

... and a lovely pile of scrummy new fabrics.

Bliss!

R x

TLBG Wednesday

Just a quickie - I've just written a post about our attempts to cut down on the amount of plastic bottles we use at home, and you can read it over at that little bit greener.

Happy Wednesday!

R x

Starting small

It feels like an absolute age since I've started any new sewing projects.  Since finishing the quilt, the only sewing going on has been the very boring but necessary, back-to-school kind - taking up trousers and sewing in name tapes etc.  Amazing how quickly you can fall out of the habit of doing something!  And, although the hols aren't over quite yet, this morning I felt like I really wanted to start on something now.  I recently discovered this lovely blog and browsing through the posts this morning gave me just the inspiration I needed!  Melissa makes some amazing things from felt and when I found this fab tutorial of hers on Sew-Mama-Sew I knew it was the perfect project to get me back in the swing of things!  Unfortunately, I also decided that it would make a lovely present for someone, so I can't show you any pics of the finished article yet - sorry! 

 

But it was such fun to make, choosing all the different colours and cutting out the little shapes.  And I think it's given me just the oomph that I needed, so that now I cannot wait til I can get the sewing maching out again, and maybe start on another quilt!

Have a great week!

R x

TLBG update

Just a quick reminder that the next TLBG Wednesday is this week, 26th Aug.  Pop over to the site for the full details.  Hopefully, I'll be back again later today for a proper, contented post too!

R x

Trying to keep up

There are now just two weeks of the summer holidays left.  It's gone so fast and has, actually, been relatively pain free so far!  We've not been particularly busy, but I am starting to feel like I just can't keep up with everything - housework especially.  Now, you know that housework is not my strong point (!) but, honestly, with the kids around all the time it's just getting ridiculous!   No sooner do I tidy something up, than they come in and trash it all again!  Joe's toys are EVERYWHERE, and William is still leaving his stuff all over the place, despite several reminders to pull his finger out.  Although I'm not yet at the stage of wanting to scream, I'm starting to feel it might be nice to have some time to myself again.  Not least because I want to be able to get the sewing machine out and spread some fabric all over the place without having to stop every five minutes to see to the kids! 

Talking of fabric, that reminds me of several things that I have been meaning to show for ages and have not yet gotten around to (another thing I can't keep up with!). 

First of all, my parcels for the seaside swap.  I had two partners and I decided to make them a mini quilt each (I really love making mini quilts, so fun!)

 

This one went to Marie at Protect the Cookie.  The embroidered words at the bottom mean "gone to the beach" in French.  I made a similar mini quilt for Maxine at Tiny White Daisies:

 

Oh dear, that looks horribly crumpled doesn't it?  My quilt photography skills leave a great deal to be desired!  I also sent them a little zippy pouch each, a candle, a little seaside sign, some embroidered applique motifs, some body spray and chocolate.

 

Thanks so much for swapping with me ladies!  I had great fun, and I have really enjoyed seeing all the other swap goodies popping up over blogland.  I think I can call my first go at swap arranging a success!  I do already have an idea for another swap, but I'll wait till we're all settled back at school before I post details, probably at the end of Sept/start of October - so watch this space..

Before I go, I did promise some pictures of my finished Georgina quilt, didn't I?  Well, this is about the best I could come up with!

 

In the garden, and here it is in it's proper home, on our bed:

 

Again, looking horribly crumpled (probably because it is - ha!).  I didn't actually quilt this, it would have taken me FOREVER to hand quilt it and I just didn't feel confident enough to put it through the machine so I tied it instead - there's one tie at each corner of the patterned rectangles.

 

Because the weather is so hot and muggy at the moment, this is perfect on our bed, with just a duvet cover (without the duvet) underneath.

Happy Thursday!

R x

Corner of my home

Seeing as I finished the painting of our hallway last weekend, this week I persuaded Peter to visit Ikea to pick up a new chest of drawers and a shelf.  After some assembling and screwing of things to the walls, followed by some very enjoyable arranging of "stuff", our hallway now looks like this:

 

 

I love it!  It now looks neat and tidy and welcoming, things that it has never looked before!!  I'm thinking of making some little linen storage pocket type things to hang from the hooks under the shelf.  I also put up some pictures that I've had sitting around for ages, they're just shop bought cards in cheap (Ikea!) frames, but they look great.

Now, every time I pass through the hallway I pause to look at it all and give a little sigh of contentment!   I am determined that this part of the house will not become a dumping ground, and is going stay looking lovely all the time! 

However, in the interests of "keeping it real", I thought you might be interested to see the other end of the hallway, the black hole of doom otherwise known as "under the stairs"...

 

Clearly, I still have quite some way to go...

Enjoy your weekend!

R x

TLBG Wednesday

Just a quick post to let you know that I've just written my first post for TLBG Wednesday, and you can find it here!  Please do go and take a look, and join in too if you'd like!  We have about 14 members already, which is fantastic for the first week, but we'd love more people to join in so please do take the time to see what it's all about.  Thanks!

P.S. Unrelated, but I'm still working on getting a decent shot of the quilt, without much luck so far!  I'll keep trying though.

R x

Getting things done

You know how satisfying it is to cross things off your to-do list?   Do you know how much more satisfying it is when those things have been on the said list for quite some time?  Well, this weekend I managed to cross two big things off the list, and it feels very good indeed! 

Yesterday morning I packed the kids off to stay at my parents' for the night and came home to finish painting our hallway - painting that I started in April of last year!!!  There is still more to be done there (like the woodwork for instance - I hate painting woodwork!) but finishing the walls makes a big difference. 

Peter was out at cricket yesterday so I had the house to myself, so once I had finished the painting I decided to make the most of it and crack on with binding my Georgina quilt.  It's so much easier spreading things out on the floor when there aren't any kids around!  I'd already cut and joined all the binding strips so it was just a case of attaching it to the quilt - the perfect opportunity to take my new walking foot for a test run!  I'm pleased to report that it performed very well, no more puckers for me!  I managed the mitred corners ok, but did have to resort to a bit of web surfing when it came to finishing off.  Luckily, I remembered seeing the perfect tutorial recently on The Sometimes Crafter, so a few clicks, a bit of checking back and forth between quilt and laptop, and I was done!   I finished handsewing the binding to the back this morning - hooray! 

 

I'm so pleased with how it's turned out!  It's on our bed now and it looks lovely.  Unfortunately, I left it too late to get a photo of it up there, so you'll just have make do with this shot of the binding for now and I'll try and get a decent photo tomorrow morning.  I still have a lot to learn about making quilts, (I think my handstitching needs a bit of refining) but I do feel like I'm getting there, albeit slowly.

Now I can start planning the next one!

R x

The secret's out!

 

At last, I can let you all in on our secret project!  I'm very excited about this but a bit nervous too, so I hope you'll like it!  Emmaand I have launched today a new blog called, as if you couldn't guess from the above pic, That Little Bit Greener, and you can find us HERE!  Please do click over and take a look.  The basic idea is for it to be a central point for all of us in this crafty/bloggy community to share information, links, tutorials etc that will, hopefully, help us to become "that little bit greener".  We are not expecting everyone to become 100% green, eco-warriors (because we are certainly not that either!) but rather to just encourage each other in making small changes, that will hopefully add up to make a difference.   The site will obviously be developing as we go along, so please do let us know your thoughts or suggestions. 

So what are you waiting for?  Click overand take a look!

R x