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!

Recent booty!

The sun is shining, the car boots are full, jumble sales are springing up, it only means one thing, it must be Spring! The one good thing about spring cleaning is when other people chuck out their old things, which means rummaging & finding!

I found these in a carrier bag in our local boot last Sunday morning, the sun shone, I went alone ! (no kids, yay!!) and cycled down in relative peace & quiet, it was bliss!
All of them have been pieced and basted, I can't imagine the time it took for some one to lovingly create all these and then sadly never get round to putting them together. The cards are all from the 80's by the look of them, so I can only imagine that an elderly relative had them and never got round to finishing them before they were 'inherited'? All that work for only £3, I felt quite guilty.

I'm playing around with a pattern and then I intend on putting them all together, should be a lovely intro to patchwork.

This whole box was at our local 'Sobell House warehouse' for £3! Lovely selection of patterns from the seventies to the nineties, I'm currently going through them all to see if they are all complete as I would like to put them onto Folksy to sell cheaply. I've managed to set up my shop - ThriftyFab, so will be listing soon...
This lovely tin was from today's WI jumble sale, was a bit of a bun fight! Got this for only 10p!

From all the above places I've also been stocking up on pillow-cases, sheets, duvet covers etc for making summer dresses for the girls. Today I've been working on a pillow-case tunic from Sew Hip, will take pics tomorrow....

AND only 1 week to go to the Vintage & Handmade Fair in Chipping Sodbury, I'm already excited!!