Attempt no.1

Attempting your first sewing project with a headach, an overtired 5 year old 'helping' and a rather grumpy and loud 3 year old is not to be advised. However I had promised Lightning we could have a go after school as he is hugely excited by the whole thing, so here it is, my first attempt.

The stitching is wonky, I had no concentration, I did lots of things in the wrong order, and I haven't pressed it, but it is an actual working bag! So I'm proud, but I will do the next project on a day my brain works!

A small patch of beauty

A quick start and finish

I have never crocheted an actual garment before, but I have a new niece on the way so here is my first attempt.

I'm just hoping it fits as the dress seem so small and my sister in laws bump is so big. I think it may be a dolly dress very quickly! Its a very simple pattern but I am pleased with how it turned out.

The guilty crafter

I'm one of those crafters who is forever starting new projects when I should be finishing others. So what is the last thing this crafter needs to do? I'll give you a clue.

A bit vague, or have you got it yet? Shall I show you?

A sewing machine! Someone I know is moving to Germany, and can't take everything with her, so I will be picking my new (significantly older then me) sewing maching on saturday! And of course I had to do a bit of spending to go with it.

Exciting, watch this space!

The gifts of giving

There are few things lovelier then when you make something for someone and they are completely over the moon with it.

Yesterday I presented a little boy with a blanket for his 6th birthday. His reaction was so lovely, he would not be seperated from it and was full of grins and snuggles under it. Unfortunately I don't have any proper pictures of it as I finished sewing in all the ends while the boys were actually at the party! But the important thing is it was done in time to give him when they finished playing. So here is a picture the night before when the ends weren't all done, and a bit of a blurred picture of him with it.

In the jungle

Two posts in as many days, that makes a change!  The past few weeks I have been trying to do more in the garden, it is a tiny little jungle but that is how I like it, although a few less weed would be a bit better. A new patio would be nice too, one without grass between the flags, and space for a greenhouse, but I am very grateful for the garden I have and all that it produces. It looks like I will have a good crop of fruit again this year, no late frosts meant the blossom did well and we should have masses of plums, damsons, currants, and hopefully loads of strawberries and raspberries too.

Unfortunately my gooseberries have had one more the their last chance.  One of the bushes was dug up last year and the other is definitely going this year, maybe I need to try again but in a pot somewhere a bit more open, I think this was partly bad placing on my part.

I am also starting to branch out into flowers a bit more this past couple of years, so here are some of the current splashes of colour.

And as always the main thorn in my garden is the local cats, broken courgette plant today, dug up violas on sunday, and always replaced with poo. One day I will find a deterrent that really works! Until then I shall rant about them and the time and money they cost me.

Overall though I'm feeling really happy with my garden at the moment, and to make it better I have found a garden centre that sells the nicest banoffee pie I have ever tasted. So rambly post over, but that is just a taste of my rambly garden.

A day in the English countryside

Today we went for a day out to the Derbyshire dales and the tiny village of Ilam, which I think is just over the border in Staffordshire . We went to the Dovedale fete which is one of those quaint little village fairs with cake sales, skittles,  owls, face painting, a fell run, and a maypole, which we missed. Throw in a beer tent, a man with a guitar, a tombola, an ice cream van and a tea room and I'm sure you get the idea.

The main reason we headed over though was because I had read that one of my favourite artists,  Ann Marie Bone, was going to be there and selling some of her pieces at a very good price. So here is what we bought. The boys chose a small one each and I was just so taken with the big one we kind of splashed out.

We had a lovely day, we wandered around the church yard as well, hopefully next time we will have time to have a proper walk through the countryside too.