Wednesday 27 June 2012

MATERIAL GIRL



Hello, its me again after such a long time - I have been trying to do this post since last week, and now I am a week behind myself!   It has mostly been about my mum being in hospital (who is now recovering at home) and DH's dad who is still in hospital, but slowly getting better (we hope!).  And we have also been quite busy with DD who has had so many things going on at school  such as D of E (involving overnight camping) and days out with school and other activities, which although she is very good at planning and doing things herself, it still requires a large input from us as parents and needless to say, lots of 'picking up' and 'dropping off'.  Phew!!!  (note to parents who have small children and who think they will have loads more time when their children are teenagers one day, I thought that I would have more time by now, but for some reason I seem to have less time?).


Anyway, I have managed to snatch a bit of time to sign in and say hello.  I took the above pictures about two weeks ago, when the sun made a rare appearance.  The bees seemed to be really enjoying the patch of chives in our garden.  I wanted to get a close up of a bee but it was nearly impossible - they never keep still for long enough.  So I decided to do a little montage of the shots I managed to get.  No wonder they are known as 'busy' as they truly do not stay still for more than a second or two.  I think that I have been like a bee this week.




(1,3, 5 & 7) home dyed cotton fabric  (2) recycled fabric from an old Laura Ashley dress 
(4 & 6) vintage fabric given to me by an elderly neighbour (8) lovely crisp cotton sheeting (which has previously been an Ancient Greek costume for DS's Greek day in Primary School 
(9) yellow cotton fabric which I can't remember why on earth I bought it.


As previously mentioned on this blog, I seem to have formed a small mountain of haberdashery in our spare room (aka as my work room lol).  It has reached critical proportions now, so much so that even DH has offered to help organise things for me (although his way to manage the problem would probably involve a skip). 


I had a look through my fabric cupboard the other day (the place where I keep my very best fabric, there are several other fabric storage areas around the house, shhh don't tell DH) and I was pretty impressed with the collection I have amassed in there.  There are fabrics for several Amy Butler projects that I have in mind and I keep thinking that one day I will also make a beautiful quilt.  There are also some Tilda fabrics which again, have been bought with several projects in mind from Tilda's books.  I have therefore given myself a thorough good talking to.  What is the use of all these beautiful fabrics in a cupboard where nobody gets to see them except me when I open the doors?  I need to get busy and produce some of the lovely projects that I have in mind.  And another thing, because of this recession and economic downturn it has certainly made me distinguish between what I want and what I need.  We have had to restrict our spending so much this year in our household and I have not been able to go out and spend money on things 'just because I like them'.  So I need to put all the lovely things I have to good use, and hopefully when things pick up again, I will be able to restock my stash.  Out of all my crafty pursuits I am definitely a 'Material Girl' at heart.


I have started with the fabric in the above picture.  For some time I have been thinking about making a patchwork table cloth for our kitchen table and I thought the above fabrics would be suitable.  The home dyed fabrics above have not been put to good use as they came out quite patchy (others were more successful and have since been used).  I thought that by using them in patchwork, it would be a good way to work around the less successful parts (I hate to waste anything).  The vintage fabrics were given to me some time ago by an elderly neighbour who no longer had any use for them.  She gave me  a whole great big bag of fabrics and I felt like I had won the lottery!  I have made a start on the tablecloth, but I have not taken any photo's yet. I will let you know how I get on.  I am intending on sewing it by hand using the paper piecing method, so I think it will take quite a while.  I have tried this method before, but I was in primary school at the time and I can't even remember what I actually made in the end - all I remember was cutting out the shapes and sewing around the papers.  My recent inspiration has come from this lovely blog and I will let you know how I get on.  Also in progress is my crochet granny square blanket which is slowly growing.


I also have a few ideas for updating the look of my blog, but I never seem to have enough time to do it (i'm still looking out for Dr Who's Tardis on ebay so that I can buy it and use it to 'meet myself coming backwards' lol.  Until next time X







Friday 8 June 2012

Under Pressure - For Blog Titles


Not much work done this week due to the school holidays and jubilee celebrations


and the weather, well i'm not even going there or anywhere in fact!  Poor DS is at the Download Festival in Donnington Park this weekend.  I'm not looking forward to his muddy washing!

No, instead I thought I would take this opportunity to explain my blog titles, as I am sure that by now, if you have been kind enough to follow my blog, you will perhaps have noticed my continual use of song titles.  I will try to explain myself, as some of you may, by now, be finding this quite tedious and irritating, but I hope that you will bear with me and that you will understand my explanation.

I have given myself a challenge.  Yes indeed!  It is a therapy of sorts.  I have to keep this song title thing up for one whole year and then I will not be Under Pressure (you see, there we go, I had one title lined up for this post and I have just had to change it as this song title is now in my head!).

This has come about because of my life-long association with music and the sudden urge to associate a song with a situation.  Now I know at this point, you may be assuming that I am copying Miranda Hart who seems to suffer from the same affliction of suddenly bursting into song and dance at the mention of a word.  I absolutely love watching Miranda, because she is so funny, but I can absolutely promise you, with hand on heart, and 100% that I have had this song association problem for most of my life .  My mother has done exactly the same thing for as far back as I can remember (about 42 years).  Just the mention of a word can bring out favourites like Elvis, Bill Hayley, Abba and a particular favourite in the 80s Shaking Stevens,  'This Old House'.  So if somebody said 'house' off mum would go singing and dancing around the kitchen (she still does it now).

My own daughter (DD) has put up with me singing 'I Don't Like Monday's', 'I Don't Like Bread and Butter', and Dancing Queen etc first thing in the morning (and she's not always such a happy bunny in the morning).  She finds my so called 'bum wiggle' dance that accompanies so much of my singing, particularly distressing.  But guess what?  The other day I said something to DD in the kitchen and she burst into song (see it is in the genes!).  So the only way to overcome this habit of mine may be to have total saturation of song titles, until I can no longer think of any more by regularly having to produce them as blog titles for a whole year.  They may not always be songs that I like, but as long as they fit the theme that's fine and I will only use them in the title (trying not to upset the copyright police here).

If anybody else out there suffers from this same condition, I would love to hear from you.  Perhaps you would like to take up the challenge too (but it is for one whole year, its going to be tough).  It may be quite comforting when 'you are not alone' Oops, sorry couldn't resist that one.

Until next time X