Flowers to lift the spirits

Flowers are always a bit of a luxury in our house, I don't often buy them as they're not on the 'essentials' shopping list and I must admit to forgetting to water them on a regular basis!
So when I'm lucky enough to receive some as a gift, it's always a lovely treat and I was very lucky at the weekend to get these from my other half, not because it's Valentines Day but just because, ahh!

This weekend I have been wrestling with the pattern sheet from this months Sew Hip,

My youngest liked the dungarees so to be actually 'asked' to make her something is a rare privilege, so I photocopied the sheet at work on Friday, then sat down for a cutting out session on Saturday morning.  It was then that I actually looked at the pattern and realised that one copy was not going to be enough, in usual fashion the pattern pieces are all overlaid and a real nightmare to 'de-tangle' visually, I realised I should have made multiple copies.  This faff with all Sew Hip's pattern's is a real bug-bear of mine, it's such a long winded process to copy the right pieces, even with a photocopier, I much prefer the pattern layout from 'Sew' magazine, the copy price is similar so I do wish Sew Hip would convert, or just not overlay everything into a dis-organised jumble, colour coding is worth nothing on a b/w photocopy!
Ok, gripe over! And I should say that I prefer the actual things to make in Sew Hip rather than Sew!

Well I was in the mood to finish this, so I had to go old-school and crack out the pencil and greaseproof paper and get tracing!

No light-box but a large window!  After all that when we went into our local fabric shop I couldn't find any material that a) daughter liked or b) was a suitable thickness!

Will have to trawl the interweb, but it's so hard to gauge fabric/weight on-line, I may wait until I go to the NEC in March for the 'Sewing for Pleasure' show.


Speaking of Sew Hip, here finally is a pic of the mouse I made for my sister for Christmas, I was quite pleased how it turned out, the eyes were a bit wonky though!

After a gorgeous sunny day yesterday, I was very proud when my youngest came home from school to show me what she'd been practicing at school...

At four & a half she has learnt to ride her bike with no stabilisers!  I was so proud of her, she didn't want any help but gamely went back and forth, wobbling around looking very pleased with herself.  One of those milestone moments that makes you realise how time is passing.

Have a good week!