Fabric Haul

I have had a fabulous time in one of our local charity shops this week, they have moved all their linens to a new upstairs room, so now there is lots of space and lots of fabric items in it!!

They've got a lot of duvet covers, sheets, tablecloths, napkins, tea-towels, curtains and lace doilies etc so I've had a good rummage round and spent a nice time in there while kiddie-less!

So for my first haul I got a large length of tartan which even though it feels like upholstery weight I'm going to try a dress pattern out on it, as it was only £2 I feel able to muck it up and not feel too bad!

The floral duvet is hopefully going to be a dress for my eldest when I can sort through and find a pattern to fit, she's five but her sizing is more like a seven and it's getting harder to find free patterns in magazines for this size, they all seem to concentrate on 2-5's!

The pink & white cottons as for my stash, as I knew my eldest would love them, but not sure what they will become yet!

And a Country Living to top it off, with a cuppa (and being able to read it in peace!) - bliss!

Girly Den

One of many jobs, done and dusted..


I finally got round to finishing off the space under the eldest's cabin bed. The fabric she chose from Ikea which is lovely and not too thick so it doesn't get TOO dark under there!!
We've moved the Christmas cushions in and made a little area (her office apparently!)for the typewriter and her CD & tape players. I just hemmed a channel at the top of the fabric and fixed some net curtain wire to the bed frame, very easy and very cheap! It also helps hide the laundry basket and general toy mess! I love hearing the girls whispering while playing in there, every child reserves a den!!

Portrait Bookmark

Here we are finally finished and photograhed, am due to see my Mum tomorrow so we will be able to finally give her a Christmas gift! Hope she likes it!!

Have also put together the Babushka Bunny kit by Area Thrifty One I got from the Vintage & Handmade Fair in November from Donna Flower, which I think looks fab, may try to get another one in a different colour and would probably iron in some interfacing for the ears so they stand up a bit more.

Lastly, my favourite Christmas biscuit tin, from M&S which is aparently designed by Sanna Annukka, has been featured on Print & Pattern, which is a lovely blog to get the creative mind salivating!

Sunny Crisp Snow Day

Another beautiful restful day, the sun was shining, the birds were back singing and you could hear the steady drip, drip of the snow melting off the roofs, it was bliss, I sat out on our front bench enjoying a cuppa. A good day for the soul.

Snow Day

Six inches of snow and no school/work, I LOVE snow days!! Everything looked so peaceful and the quiet was heavenly this morning, it always seems a shame to walk on it and spoil the perfection! The crunch underfoot is irresistible though!

The kids get cold and wet quite quickly though, despite layering them up so we've spent much of today going in and out, drying out and warming up!

Casserole's nearly ready now and I can't wait, nice warm comfort food, with dumplings too!

School is off tomorrow as well aparently so it'll be more of the same hopefully.

The Christmas hyacinths have started their blooming, so they're providing a bit of colour after the bareness of taking the decorations down, which hasn't been so terrible this year as it's nice trying to have a sort out and de-clutter at the same time. I feel it won't last long though!

Unfinished Christmas Crafting...

This is the flip side of crafting for Christmas...too many projects taken on and having to decide who misses out...I'm ashamed to say that this year it was a gift for my Mum. This year we all agreed on no presents as every ones finances have been stretched for various reasons, so I felt very guilty when I DID receive the lovely presents I blogged about previously and had nothing to give in return.

I had wanted to do something fairly quick and simple that involved the kids, I browsed through my bookshelf and found the lovely bookmark idea from Amanda Blake Soule's lovely 'Handmade Home' which involves your little one doing a drawing of a favourite person and then embroidering over it with a simple back stitch. So I had some cotton scraps and I got my eldest (five) to draw a picture of Granny! I got her to do it on paper first as I worried about how it would turn out! I then traced it through onto the fabric by holding it up to the window and then spent some lovely hours relaxingly stitching away!! Mostly all watching Star Trek I'm slightly embarrassed to say! I'd forgotten how much I like embroidery, I used to do a lot of cross-stitch but embroidery is much nicer as you don't have to keep looking at a chart!

So I've now added her writing of 'Granny' to the top and now just need to sew it all up, I'm trying to get her to do other family members this week so I can do a whole set! It's lovely taking her artwork and making something personal and lasting, as her drawing style is constantly changing/developing. The other feel-good factor is how it hasn't cost any pennies, all made with scraps and stuff I already had and mostly with love. I'll post the finished photo when done!

Am thinking of ringing in the New Year with a visit to Ikea at Milton Keynes! Much better then having a hangover! I'll let you know....need to do some sofa research and of course just to LOOK at the textiles!!!

Post Christmas

After the rush to get things ready it always seems to flash past doesn't it the big day!!

With last minute crafting and doing a proper roast since we've had kids, it seems to have been a lot of effort for a short period!!

So I tried really hard this year to make the girls something which inevitably led to a last minute panic!! But I really enjoyed it and was very proud to see their faces when the saw....

the finished knitted mouses and the fleecy floor cushions. It made the 2am Christmas Eve morning finish all worthwhile!!

Mary Christmouse was from Knit Today, issue 39, Nov 2009, pattern by Val Pierce, which as a novice knitter I found very easy, there's a lot of sewing together though and I still haven't got the hang of charming faces! The info is also on my Ravelry page, (HoldMyHand).

The floor cushions were a late brain-wave, I had an old king size duvet which I was going to Freecycle but then as a couldn't afford bean-bags for the girls I wondered if I could cut it into squares as large floor cushions! So I measured out a generous size and doing some calculations made the 60cm squares which made 16 squares, eight per cushion.

I then sewed a square inner cover for them out of an old sheet and the used the three metres of very bright fleece that's been waiting for a project to make simple pillow-case type opening covers. I added some flaps of fleece and different ribbon to identify them at the top corners. The best thing is they cost nothing!! And more importantly the girls love them and have been lounging on the all Christmas!! I hope they'll end up in the room under the cabin bed where I hope to finish creating a reading/listening chill-out area for them!! The curtain to go around the opening of the bed is the next project, when I can find a large piece of appropriate fabric (I'm thinking of Ikea)!!

Me and the kids didn't really do a huge amount of Christmas crafting this year, I've really noticed the difference from last year when I was only working two days a week (what bliss!!), it's been a bit sad having to rush to fit everything in, we didn't even visit santa, although both the girls have seen him via school/nursery.

We did get to decorate pine cones for our card display

I found a pack of ribbon with small pegs at Clinton Cards for only £1.99 which although it wasn't as nice as the Cath kidston washing line version I fancied, the cheaper then £5 price tag won me over!!

I can also now reveal the present my Mum got for me from the Vintage & Handmade Fairback in November....

Meet Bea, from the lovely Vintage Magpie, isn't she lovely, a much loved addition to our family.

I was also lucky enough to receive...

a lovely Lindt Matroyshka dolly, hyacinths planted by the girls and a tea set with a lovely Cath mug!

I'm still waiting for my knitting counter I was promised by the other half!!

I'm getting withdrawal symptoms from knitting now too, I'm itching to get started on a sleeveless cardie which is my next project, again details on Ravelry.

I'm also looking at the benefits of changing to a different provider for blogging as the lack of features on Blogger is slowing me down, especially the add image function which as a fairly important one, is infuriatingly rubbish! Any comments/info would be very welcome.

I hope all blog readers had a lovely crafty Christmas and here's to making 2010 New Year's crafting resolutions/to do lists!