Contented

Finished Christmas table runner

This morning I finished making the Rail Fence table runner from Sew Hip magazine.  It was really straightforward to put together - no unpicking required!

I'm so pleased with how it turned out.  It's a little smaller than I anticipated, but I can live with that.  And I just love the fabrics - they're such "happy" prints, pretty but not too girly.

Next on the to-do list is a set of 4 Christmas stockings that my friend has asked me to make for her kids.  Just waiting for some more fabric to arrive...
 

R x

Eye candy part two - Country Living Christmas Fair

I had a lovely day out on Friday with my best friend Hazel, at the Country Living Christmas Fair up in Islington (despite the absolutely God-awful weather!)  We managed to find each other on the train and had a lovely natter on the way up - I don't get to see her very often and, when I do, it's normally with the kids, so this was extra-specially nice!  Neither of us had ever been to the fair before, so weren't quite sure what to expect, but we weren't disappointed!  The place is huge - over 3 levels - and it was absolutely HEAVING!!  I'm so glad we got there early.  Needless to say, we had a wonderful time, really enjoyed looking at all the lovely things, and found plenty to spend our pennies on!  Having said that, I was actually very good and did keep within my budget, although there were several stalls that I thought I might go back to and never did - for which I'm quietly kicking myself now - and there were probably lots that we didn't even see as it was so jam packed, especially on the top level.  (Good reason for me to go back again next year, I say!!)

So, do you want to see what I got?

a wooden "noel" sign and some pretty paper chains...

a little ceramic heart...

a terracotta robin and some beautiful ceramic snowflakes...

another ceramic birdie and two more hearts (do you sense a theme developing here?)...

two little Christmassy stamps and ink pads...

oh, and what's this?  Not more birds?!  What can I say, I just love that kind of birdie shape.  This beautiful garland was actually bought for me by Hazel as a belated birthday present (thank you honey!)  I also bought a little ceramic tile decoration with an oyster catcher on, as a gift for my mum, but, of course, completely forgot to take a pic of it before I gave it to her!

Although this is all very Christmassy stuff, I strongly suspect that one or two of the items will end up staying on permanent display!  
 

By about two o'clock we were starting to feel pretty tired so we called it a day.  My feet were killing me by the time I got home, but it was so worth it, we had a fab day out.  I'm now really hoping to go to the Spring fair next March - best start saving!

R x
 
 
 

Eye candy part one - Swap goodies!

WARNING: Picture heavy post!

Last week, Thursday I think it was, I received my paperbag swap parcel from my partner, Claire.

All beautifully wrapped, and I love the stripy string Claire used!  You will notice in the above picture that the top parcel is labelled "early christmas present" - well of course I opened that one first!!  Yes, I admit I have no restraint whatsoever!  Inside was this lovely stocking...

which contained these lovely little parcels...

which contained all these lovely goodies!

You can't really see it properly, but the book is a colouring book, full of winter scenes...

I love it!  Such an original idea.   Anyway, onto the main parcel, which contained the items made with the fabric I had sent to Claire - once again, beautifully wrapped in pink tissue paper and ribbon.

The sweetest little fabric and felt house picture, in a lovely antique effect frame.

A GORGEOUS fabric owl garland, already hanging in pride of place in my hallway.  Not sure if you can see but the letters on the owls spell out "WELCOME"

This last item is in fact an apron, which I just realised I didn't get round to photographing in it's entirety but, trust me, it's beautiful!  It has the two hexagon flowers on the front, the back is lined in pretty pink gingham and there are sweet little daisies embroidered on the waistband.  (I will try and get a proper pic of it for next time - promise!).  I admitted to Claire that I don't actually wear aprons at home normally, but I think she might have changed all that!  Thank you SO MUCH Claire, I love all the goodies you sent me and I just hope you will like what I'm sending you.
 
I'm aiming to post my parcel to Claire tomorrow, so will hopefully be able to show you what I made for her later this week.  To all the other paperbag swappers - please do let me know once you have blogged about your parcels so that I can pop by and check them all out!
 
Tomorrow I shall be back to tell you all about the wonderful Country Living Christmas Fair.

See you then!

R x
 
 
 
 

 
 

And the winner is...

Thanks for all your comments on my giveaway!  I think owls probably came out as the top choice for your favourite birds, but robins, ducks, penguins, blue tits and hummingbirds all got several votes.  But you really just came here to find out who the winner was, right? ;)  I used a random number generator to pick out the winner and it was...

Number 6 which was Maria!  Congratulations Maria, if you could email me your address I'll get your prize sent off asap.

(By the way, if anyone can tell me how to get a pic of the number generator screen onto the blog, I'd be very grateful!)

Big thanks to everyone who took part but also a HUGE thanks to everyone who has taken the time to leave me a comment over the last 18 months or so - I really do appreciate every single one of them!

I will be back again next week to share with you news of a lovely swap parcel and, of course, my day out at the Country Living Christmas Fair - I have some serious eye candy to show off!

Take care

R x

Freebie time!

I noticed that I just passed the 1000 comments mark, so have decided to have a little giveaway to celebrate!

Up for grabs is this cute owl fabric zippered pouch, which is about 8x6inches big, and which I will fill with goodies.  If you'd like the chance to win it, leave me a comment and I'll pick a winner out of the hat on Saturday (14th).  Just to make it a bit more fun, tell me what your favourite bird is - mine is the robin, so cute and so Christmassy too!

Good luck!

R x
 

Abel & Cole - meat

After the success of the delicious chicken we had recently from Abel & Cole, we decided to try some of their other meat products.  I was sent some beef mince, pork chopsand smoked bacon.  Unfortunately, only the bacon was certified organic, but the pork was "free range" and the mince "slow reared".  Now, maybe I had set my hopes too high, but I have to admit that we were somewhat underwhelmed by all of these products.  Don't get me wrong, they all tasted perfectly nice, just not really any better than the regular supermarket varieties.   The texture of the chops and bacon was slightly different, they were both cut thicker than normal and they tasted "meatier" - I guess with the bacon there was no added water - but we really couldn't detect much difference in the actual flavour.  Would I buy these products in the future?  Probably not.  They are more expensive than buying at a supermarket (although we were lucky enough to try them for free again) and, certainly with the mince and chops not even being organic, I just wouldn't feel it was worth the extra expense.  It's a shame really, as I really wanted to be able to give a good review, but these particular products just didn't do it for us this time.

R x

A little bit of family history

A few of you guessed what my special present was, and Clare got it spot on.  This was my Nana's sewing machine.  Isn't she a beauty?  She's been stuck up in my parents'  loft for the last 20 odd years.   At various times over the years my mum has mentioned either getting it fixed or getting rid of it, as she would never use it, but I asked her this week if I could have it - and here she is!   My mum said that my Nana used to make her clothes with it when she was little, and I do recall that, one summer, Nana helped me to make a skirt as well, when I was, maybe 9 or 10?  

 
 
It dates from 1931 and still has the original instruction book and all the attachments.  I spent ages with it yesterday, picking about half a ton of lint out of the mechanism (!) and then trying to figure out how to insert the bobbin and thread the needle.  I couldn't get it to wind a bobbin but, luckily, there was one already wound in the little tool compartment, so I set it up - and it worked!

The tension was all way off but I was so pleased that it did actually work!  I'm going to give our local sewing shop a call to see if they might be able to service it for me, even though I don't suppose I will ever actually use it for sewing, but I just really wanted to have it.  It's such a beautiful piece of machinery, and it reminds me of my Nana too, of course.  We don't even have room for it!  If I had my own sewing room then I could have it permanently on display.  I really don't want to just put it back up into our loft, so I'm going to see if I can re-jig things downstairs and find a nice home for it.

 R x

Seven

Yesterday was Joe's 7th birthday.  He had a really lovely day, went into school happily, came out of school happily, was thrilled with all his presents and enjoyed all the attention.  We had his birthday outing on Sunday (Joe called this his "fake birthday"!) when we took him and two of his friends (and William) to see Fantastic Mr Fox at the cinema.  All the kids really enjoyed the film - I did too although it's not at all your typical children's movie.  After the film we came back here for birthday cake mark one...

And then of course I had to make another cake for his actual birthday too!

Yum....

I also got a very special present yesterday, but you'll have to come back tomorrow to find out what it was.  Here's a sneaky peak...

 
 R x