Contented

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

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

A week in pictures

This week I have been...

... sewing,

 

coin purses for my stall,

 

secret sewing for the Freestyle swap,

 

and, AT LAST, starting to piece my Georgina quilt top,

... receiving,

 

scrummy fat quarters purchased from here,

... reading,

 

a new magazine and a new book,

... and planting,

 

three little strawberry plants, bought for Joe, which he is going to take care of (with some help!)

There has also been plenty of other stuff that I don't have pictures for - such as knitting (secret), baking (eaten!) and a fair bit of Joe stuff, but I'll save all that for another post.

Hope you're all enjoying the beautiful weather we're having this weekend.  Tomorrow I'm off to Penshurst craft fair with the parents - so you can bet there will be a bit of show and tell afterwards!

Oh, and I just couldn't post without mentioning, but is it just me or did anyone else watch Kirstie's Homemade Home on Thursday and feel a bit shocked that she'd hung a "Never Mind the Bollocks" poster in the children's playroom?!! 

Happy Bank Holiday Weekend!

R x

Busy

I feel like I've been really busy this week (although I suspect in reality I've been nothing of the sort - I'm just so lazy that it seems busy to me!).  So far, I have:

* Made and bought stuff for the heart swap

* Been to Tunbridge Wells where I bought, amongst other things, these sweet little Easter egg ornaments

 

and the cutest teatowels in Paperchase!

 

I have already made something with one of them, but it's going to be for my blog's birthday giveaway in a couple of weeks so you'll just have to be patient!

* I also went into the sewing shop to look into getting a walking foot for my machine - HOW MUCH???!!!  My jaw almost hit the floor, I had no idea they would be so expensive (for the record, £37!!!)  Suffice to say I shall be investigating ebay for this particular item!

* I have hemmed 5 tablecloths for the school fundraising committee for a quiz night this Friday. (I also have to make a tray of brownies and bake 20 potatoes!)

* Placed several online orders, some of which have arrived already - 11 squares of lovely felt from Sarah:

 

I also ordered some bag making supplies from U-handbag, so hopefully there will be some bags to show you in the not too distant future!

* Filled in and posted another impossible questionairre about Joe (for the Social Comms clinic - I'm hoping this means he's in the system and that we won't have to wait too long for our appointment).

* Had a conversation with someone from the speech and language dept who saw Joe yesterday (school didn't let me know so was a bit of a surprise!).  She basically agreed with everything that has been said so far and is referring him on to a specialist speech & language therapist, but also gave us a couple of good tips for using at home.  His actual speech and vocab are very good, but his listening skills are poor so that's something we can be working on in the meantime.

What else, oh yes, inspired by that lovely easter twig tree in Country Living and my little mini egg ornaments that I bought, this morning I had a little play around and came up with this:

 

It actually turned out almost exactly as I imagined it, so I expect I shall be making a few more over the next couple of weeks.

There's still plenty going on in my "to-do" book for the rest of the week, and then on Saturday Peter is taking me out to help spend his 15 year employment reward!!

Enjoy the rest of the week.

R x

3/28 - Tuesday

* Took the kids to school  (yes, it was business as usual)

* Cups of tea with friends

* Home for a little Wii Fit time

* A bit of sewing (it's for a birthday present so can't show it yet)

* A bit of knitting

 

* Quite a lot of blog reading!

* Noticed with some surprise that my comments had hit 400!! Thank you to everyone who has left me comments so far - I really appreciate them.  No. 400 was Jackie!  (If you let me have your address I'll send you a little something).

How was your Tuesday?

R x

2/28 - Snow

 

We woke up to a couple of inches this morning, and it's been snowing steadily for most of the day.  The kids went to school as usual but it closed early, so I went to fetch them at around 2ish.  They went straight out into the garden to build a snowman, and then Peter (who was working from home today) went out to join them and they had a bit of a snowball fight! 

 

William's school trip tomorrow has been cancelled and it remains to be seen whether school will be open.  Whilst it would be lovely not to have to go out, it would mean missing my regular Tuesday morning mum's get-together!

R x

Finally feeling festive

I do love Christmas but it takes a while for me to get into it - I think I'm finally getting there.  I think the fact that this morning I braved the hoardes of shoppers and finished my Christmas shopping may have something to do with it - now I can pretty much relax and wait for the big day to arrive.  This afternoon we got the decorations down from the loft and the tree is now up and looking very pretty - and as I type the Muppet Christmas Carol movie is on in the background and they're singing "it feels like Christmas"!

 

We have one more week of school to go, which includes a church carol service on Tuesday which is always lovely.  I still have the teacher presents to put together but they're going to get parcels of homemade chocolate fudge so that will get made sometime this week.  I made some other little gifts for Joe's teachers, so I'll try and remember to take photos before it all gets wrapped up.

Yesterday I had the appointment with the behaviour specialist regarding Joe.  It went really well, the lady was very nice and we had a good long chat about it all.  She had spent some time observing him and remarked (amongst other things) that he seemed to be always fidgeting and very impulsive, then wondered if he could have ADHD - which had actually crossed my mind just the other week!  So she has suggested that I ask for a referral to a paediatrician to get that checked out, and in the meantime she is going to suggest some strategies for school and will see me again in the new year.  I have slightly mixed feelings about this really - I'm really happy that it has been acknowledged that he does have some issues, and that something is being done about it, but at the same time I do feel a bit sad that he might get labelled with something.  I'm staying positive though - even if he does turn out to have ADHD, I'm not going to view this as being something "wrong" with him - it's just part of who he is and won't change how we feel about him.  He's still the most adorable, funny, affectionate little boy and such a special part of our family.  We'll just have to wait and see what happens.  Must dash now, Strictly's on!

R x

I have nothing to post about...

I'm in a strange mood this week, feeling a bit lethargic, not really in the mood to do anything very much.  So I have nothing new to show you.  However, as I am trying to make the effort to blog regularly, I thought I would show you my favourite little corner of my home. 

This is a corner of the wall on my side of the bed.  It is my little shrine of girliness!  As I am the only girl in the house I think I felt a need to have at least a little bit of sparkle somewhere.  You can't see it very well in the photo but above the peg rail there is a little bit of paper that William made saying "Shh, mum is sleeping!"  They know me so well!   Looking at this little display always makes me smile.  I know this has been done before in blogland, but I love looking at other people's homes so thought I would join in, albeit belatedly!  What's your favourite spot in your home?