A little teeny bit of a catch up

Erm, okaaaay, so it's been a while...I'm thinking that if I just write like I've never been away then maybe you won't notice...attempting to fill you in on all my goings-on over the past two weeks would, frankly, be a) daft and b) a bit boring for all of us, so here are the edited highlights, presented in bullet point form (I used to have a proper job once upon a time, you know, one where I was forever using bullet points.  There's not so much call for them now I spend my days running around after small, noisy people...)
✪ I have hoovered the entire contents of not just one but two boxes of Rice Krispies off the floor/worktop/bread board/cooker.
✪ I have caught a regurgitated marshmallow as it flew from middle n's mouth (think Witches of Eastwick and you have an idea of what my Saturday night was like).  Nice.
✪ I have finished my blinds!  Yaaaaaaayyyyyyy....no more goldfish bowl-effect sitting room for us:

I'm absolutely thrilled with them - they have turned out exactly how I'd pictured them and they make such a difference to the general cosiness of the sitting room. 

✪ I've also finished my cowl.  (Pause for a happy dance).  No pictures today though - there'll be more on that when I've found someone to take pics of me modelling it (in a headless way, of course...)

✪ I bought a dresser on a whim; as you do:

Love it!

✪ There's been plenty of crochet action on my summer hols blanket too:

It's neeeearly fiiiiiniiiished.

✪ An exciting parcel also plopped onto my front door mat this week.  Here it is in action, Claire:

This is the most stunningly well-made and beautiful tea cosy I have ever seen - Claire is a real artist and I urge you to visit her lovely blog if you haven't already done so!

And now I need to go - Mr N's just walked in the door after spending three days in Paris with 90 14-year-olds.  Who'd be a teacher, eh? x

Vintage embroidery inspiration

Despite being slightly jaded (hung over) I am all fired up and excited about what I have to show you today.  You may remember a while back I mentioned that my lovely granny had given me a load of her crafty bits that she can no longer use due to her arthritis (poor granny).  Some of these bits were used to make my spotty cushion for my sitting room, but a big stash of something tremendously exciting has been waiting in the lovely folder in the photo above (hand embroidered by my gran, of course...) for the perfect moment for me to photograph for you.  That moment presented itself today when Mr N and the boys were at the swimming pool and baby n was asleep.  So would you like to see what's getting my creative juices flowing?

An amazing collection of vintage embroidery transfers.  Most of these date from the 1930s, with a few from around 1940.  They are so beautiful and I can't believe they're all still pristine and largely unused.  Hooray for granny and her hoarder tendencies!

This little book is dated 1933.

I particularly love this one, which not only has the original transfer (from a magazine, like most of the others) but also a colour picture of how it is supposed to look when it is completed:

I could go on like this for hours, but I'll restrain myself.  Suffice to say, I am raring to get sewing - I find hand sewing so calming and therapeutic and I am so inspired by this lovely lot.  I have so many ideas for what to make with these: squares of white linen with small, single-colour pictures hung as bunting in my sitting room; plain white hankies with little pictures in one corner to give to my female relatives as Christmas presents (if you are, indeed, female and happen to be related to me, please ignore what I've just written there...); lovely embroidered cushions... hmmmm....the possibilities are endless.

And on a completely other note, I wanted to update you on a couple of rather pressing matters: I can confirm that my mattress topper is, quite possibly, the most exciting thing to happen to my bed for a long time (snort); and the tweed cowl...hmmmm...the pattern said it uses two skeins of yarn, but either I am doing something completely wrong, or this is a mistake.  Anyway, I am rejigging it to make something similar with my two skeins and I'll update you when I've managed to create something wearable (it is a very lovely yarn though, that's for sure).

Hope you all had a jolly weekend, wherever you are in the world. x

PS - Just to say 'hello' to my new followers and all you lovely gals who leave me comments - I really, honestly love reading what you have to say and I am so grateful that you stop by to read my ramblings.  I often read your blogs on my phone, which won't let me leave comments, and I just wanted to say that if I am a bit rubbish about commenting it's not because I don't visit, it's because I spend my life running round like a headless chicken and have a memory like a sieve! x

Squisssshhhhhh

In a fit of enthusiasm to finish the job of 'joojjing up' my sitting room, I recently found myself sitting at my crafting station (dining room table) surrounded by fabric, scissors, bits of thread and various other sewing-related paraphernalia:

A bit of jiggery-pokery later, and I had a new cushion for my sofa.  What do you think?

The spotty fabric is an off-cut from my mum, the buttons were knocking about in my button tin, and the ribbon and animal fabric are both vintage delights that my granny gave me on my recent trip to Dorset.  Thanks gran!  The animal fabric was, in fact, a lampshade (natch) and it does have a seam down the middle of it, but I love it so much I just had to use it.

I am leaning against it as I type this and I can confirm that it is, indeed, very pleasingly squishy - just as a cushion should be.
Before I go, I need to say a big 'thank you' to Faith who recently awarded me theVersatile Blogger award. Faith has a lovely, funny blog that always makes me smile.  And yes, Faith, I think it would be a brilliant idea for you to open your posh cake shop next to my dreamy yarn shop - I think that would, in fact, be a match made in heaven.  (I need to point out here that the Wiggly Willow thing is a joint venture with Cuckoo, but I am more than sure that she would approve of the yarn shop/cake shop scenario.)  And, while I'm on the subject, of course you could have a part-time job Jo - I would require you to bring in cupcakes on a regular basis though.

I know at this point I am supposed to do my interesting facts, but frankly, I've run out of them - I'm terribly boring in real life.  I am planning to do a 'seven things on my wishlist' post imminently though, in lieu of interesting-ness. x

Lovely little trinkets

You may remember from my last post that I mentioned I've been experiencing a certain level of muddle-headedness as far as my WIPs are concerned.  Frankly, I've got enough other gumpf in my life to make me muddle-headed, without WIPs getting in on the act too; so I've decided to be calm and logical and try to tackle them one at a time.  (I'm trying to imagine how I would have approached it in the days when I had a proper job and wore a suit, but my memory's shot and I've given all my suits to charity, so it's not working very well.)
Today saw me sitting outside in the sun, surrounded by piles of flags and bits of bias binding and pins - attempting to finish off my latest and absolutely final batch of tent bunting.  I feel I may now be approaching the point where people are likely to walk past my tent and mutter to themselves 'hmmm, she's overdone it a bit on the old bunting-front there.  Over-egged the pudding, as it were'.  And if there's one thing I certainly don't want, it's an over-egged pudding tent.  Anyhooo, I made my first lot in a very efficient and logical fashion from some rather delectable winceyette (just had to check the spelling of that on Google.  It's a funny old word - makes me shudder a bit.  It seems totally inappropriate for the thing that it's describing.  A bit like sleet.  I always think that's just completely wrong):

And then, with about 500 flags still to go, I ran out of bias binding.  So that was a bit of a pain.

So I moved on to something else: a really simple skirt for baby n, which I'd seen in 'Handmade Living'.  But like a true numpty, I cut the fabric to exactly the width of her waist, as opposed to twice the width of her waist, and that was just annoying; so I left that and moved on to something else...
Do you see where I'm going with this?
Calm?  Logical?  I think not.
So now I'm moving on to something that doesn't get me quite as het-up as my current crafty makes: the rather exciting things that have been arriving through my letter box this week.  Actually, the first rather thrilling blog-related thing that arrived at my house came a couple of weeks ago.  Now, before I go any further with this, I just want to set the scene: I had left the house in the usual flap that accompanies every morning's school run - I walked (ran) up the road to school with the children; meandered back towards home with a couple of friends; decided to pop into the village before going back home, to get some bread (had to borrow a couple of quid from a friend to purchase said bread - which reminds me, I still haven't paid her back.  Ooops); had a chat with a couple of people I bumped into; strolled home again an hour after I'd left, to find the front door standing wide open and an envelope on the front door mat.  After checking that my handbag, which I'd left in full view of the front door, was still there (it was - phew) I realised that I hadn't been burgled, I'd just been a complete goon and forgotten to shut the door in my rush to get to school.  Note to self...  Anyway, the point of all that is that the envelope was from the lovely Cuckoo, and contained the recipe for the elderflower cup cakes that I blogged about before.  So - thank you, Cuckoo - they were yum!
And on Tuesday I had a double-whammy of post-related excitement: this rather cutesome outfit that my auntie kindly bought for baby n:

Thank you, mushroom one!

And this lovely cube for big n's teacher, which I ordered from the very talented Fee.

I'm secretly a bit disappointed I can't keep it for myself because it's absolutely lovely, but sadly my name's not Miss Dorsett and I'm not a teacher, so it just wouldn't look right:

It was extra great of Fee to send this to me as I haven't actually paid her for it yet - thanks Fee, don't forget to let me know how much I owe you!

Blimey, this post's turning into a bit of a tome (by my standards, anyway).  I'm going to finish today with a snippet of my life: yesterday, while trying to make the dinner amongst the usual background of tv noise (boys), computer games (boys), the radio (me), shouting (everyone) I became aware of baby n standing near me saying 'uh oh, uh oh'.  This is a fairly recent piece of language for her, and it's one that never fails to make my heart sink when I hear it.  I turned from my position by the cooker, noting the strong smell of cinnamon in the air, to see bun-bun (baby n's absolute favourite toy in the whole wide world) lying on the floor looking like a victim of some awful, frenzied knife-related crime:

Note to self: must get a catch on the spice drawer... x

Cushion appreciation

This is just going to be a very quick post today - I have finally decided what to do with my lovely yarn that I blogged about in my 'we love Dorset' post and am itching to get on with it as I think it's going to be pretty quick to make and the thought that I might soon be able to actually wear it is very, very exciting indeed.  So I'll just show you a little something I made the other day for a bit of instant gratification:

I thought that my little flower squares cushion was looking a bit lonely all on its own on the sofa, so I made a friend for it out of some deckchair fabric that I bought on my recent trip to Dorset.

It's not quite as rock n roll as my CK-inspired lovely, but I still love it, and I don't hyperventilate quite so much when the children go near it with sticky hands, so that's a bonus. x

Bobbly joy

After a fierce internal debate the other day ("the floors really are very mucky.....Hmmmm, but there's that rather lovely remnant of CK fabric upstairs.....C'mon, mop the floors woman.....Ooooh, but I could make a.....") I decided to dust off my sewing machine and whip up a little something for some instant gratification.  And what could be more instantly gratifying than a stripy tablecloth with a cheery, bobbly red edging, I ask you?
My poor old sewing machine has been a bit neglected of late.  Lying patiently under the bed, it's just been waiting for me to return to it.  I've been very wrapped up in my shiny new friend, crochet, but really, sewing is still like the old pair of comfy slippers I return to again and again.

I trimmed a bit off the width, hemmed the edges, then hand sewed the bobbly edging on.  I love hand sewing - very satisfying and therapeutic.  And here it is, looking all lovely on the dining room table:

The floors are still mucky, but you know, I smile every time I walk into the dining room.

Work on the springtime throw is coming on a-pace:

It's very satisfying to see the little piles of squares growing, slowly but surely.

And goodness me, as if all that activity wasn't enough to make me need to have a little sit down with a cup of tea, I've also started my next book club book.

Baby Nut's not fully got to grips with the finer details yet! x