Back to life .... back to reality

Well that's the festive season over and done with for another year .... all packed away till next time.

The children were back to school on Wednesday and husband back to work to be given the wonderful news that he will be on a three day week again from 16th January .... he does get paid at basic rate so mustn't grumble but then will have to pay back the time on a Saturday when it suits the company of course.  They seem to be gradually working towards an 'on demand' workforce that they can pick up and drop when the fancy takes them .... the permanent workforce is dwindling and being replaced with contractors at a much cheaper rate (no surprise there!)

Good job I sneaked a visit to the Cath Kidston factory shop at St Neots last weekend ..... or Kid Caffrey as Ellie is calling it ..... she is getting to be quite a CK officianado having visited the St Pancras store last week too.  She really needed a new school bag and pencil case apparently so soft touch nanny got caught again!

We had just stepped in the door and who should we bump into ..... Tilly Rose ..... also having a bit of Cath retail therapy.  It was nice to have a chat and a little catch up and I really must get along to her new venture this year .... I just ran out of time towards the end of 2011.

They had a good range of fabric and I also treated myself to a little spring loaded tape measure and a glasses case.

New Year ..... new start ..... I am going to concentrate this year on the Vintage & Handmade Fairs run by Ann & Trevor and my little outlet at Country Matters in Hexton.   Unsold Christmas stock has been retrieved from Hexton and I am pleased to say that there wasn't a lot left and I will be joining the Vintage & Handmade Jumble in Northampton on Saturday 14th January with lots of clearance items including fabric, textiles, books, ceramics and some handmade items.

Do please come along to this great event if you can.

I have been stashing away blue fabrics for ages in the hope that I could get around to making a blue & white themed quilt for myself and this week made a start on cutting out the squares for the first blocks.

There is a mix of modern prints together with vintage Laura Ashley and other vintage cottons. 

The first little bargain find of 2012 ..... a green leaf design Carlton Ware cup from the charity shop for one whole pound



and finally a little collage of my previous quilt makes

Happy New Year all x

Slack Alice ;-)

I've certainly been one of these on the blogging front lately .... those of you of a certain magnificent age will remember dear old Larry Grayson ..... Slack Alice was one his characters along with Apricot Lil, Pop It in Pete (the postie) and of course his immortal catchphrase 'shut that door'.

My menobrain is in a tizz at the moment .... first craft fair this weekend and then the following Saturday it is the Northampton Vintage Fair.  I don't know why I am anxious because I have been organising myself with stock for both events but I find when I get into bed my brain is still planning how to set out the table!!  Is it just me or does everyone feel the same ????

I have finished the star quilt and it has sold already which is brilliant and it will be on its way to the lovely new owner this week.  Which means of course it's time to start planning the next project.  Inspired by some Kaffe Fassett books from the library I have decided that the next one is for me.  Regular readers will know my penchant for blue & white vintage china, so I have been stashing blue and white fabrics and the work on something like this will begin in next couple of weeks. 

I've also been busy on letter cushion orders

and I finally plucked up the courage to take some of my vintage and handmade goodies down to Country Matters in Hexton ..... fingers crossed that there will be some sales down there too.

I couldn't finish without slipping a photo of this little lady in .... she is 8 weeks old this week .... how did that happen!

The penultimate day of January 2011

Where did January go???  I can't say I will be sorry to see the back end of it as it must be my least favourite month of the year. 

I have booked my first fairs of the year and will be at Potten End Village Hall on Saturday 12th March for a Craft Fair and the following weekend I will be at the 4th Northampton Vintage Fair which is a lovely mix of vintage goodies and handmade items.  This has meant a flurry of activity in the sewing room with two new patchwork quilts on the go ..... one is a hand sewn Granny's Flower Garden hexagon quilt which I am doing in the evenings in front of the goggle box and the other is a Spider's Web courtesy of Marit over at Quilt It which is being machine sewn during my child free moments.  Here are the first five blocks ...

doesn't it make the most wonderful kaleidoscope effect

and better late than never I recently received this award from Linda over at Tabbyroo

So now I need to:

1.  Thank and link back to the person who awarded you.

2.  Share 7 things about yourself

3.  Award 15 bloggers

4.  Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award.

Well number one is done and here goes on the seven things about me (not very interesting I am afraid)

1.  I cannot swim .... as much as I would love to be able to I am just petrified of large expanses of water which maybe down to my fire sign of Aries (and yes I am rather a ram at times) and the fact that I was taken to the local swimming baths aged about 8 yrs by an older girl who lived opposite us.  Her idea of teaching us to swim was to take us to the deep end and leave us !

2.  I have never had a bedroom all to myself (get the violins out!)  ..... during my life I have shared with my parents, siblings and then my husband

3.  I met my husband at High School and we started going out on 10th December 1973 .... the decade that taste forgot ;-)

4.  I hate men with long hair especially the ones with ponytails and nothing on top!

5.  I have been a jack of all trades and master of none since I left school working in  manufacturing, travel agency, estate agency, retail, leisure, publishing and childcare with a spell in the 80s when I went back to college to get an Access qualification so that I could do a degree course.  I completed 2 years of the degree course but then financial pressures meant I had to give it up to return to work.

6.  My dream would be to have a small period house with room for lots of animals and children with a sewing room overlooking our wonderful English countryside or the sea (not too close though bearing in mind No. 1  !)

7.  My nan taught me to knit, my sister in law helped me to get to grips with crochet and the only sewing tuition I have had was at school ..... everything else has been self taught along the way.

I am going to cheat now and offer this award to all of my lovely readers and leave it up to you whether you post or not.

Don't forget the blogiversary giveaway is to be drawn tomorrow evening .... there is still time to enter here

Sunshine on a rainy day .......

.......  and my first completed item for Annie the Felt Fairy's 2011 Monthly Make Challenge

Fed up to the back teeth of rain, greyness and lack of sunshine I looked to my fabric stash for something to brighten my week up.  What better than yellow and orange ..... I chose a mix of vintage embroidered fabric and contempory plain/floral/gingham/stripe and I am calling this one Oranges and Lemons.

Hope it's brought you a little sunshine too x

Getting things done ...........

I was just commenting on Monday that I was fed up to the back teeth with greyness and rain and would gladly trade them in for some blue sky and sunshine even if it meant that it got a little colder.  Someone must have been listening to me because yesterday and today have been glorious which has certainly spurred me on.

Our local library service has an online facility to search for and reserve books from all over the borough ... it is so easy and I just request to collect them from the little library that is next door to the school that I pick the children up from.  This is my selection for this week ...

that should keep me going with inspiration and ideas for a while!

Yesterday I popped to my favourite yarn shop for some supplies to finish off a couple of UFOs .... one is a chunky crochet scarf

The other is a ripple blanket which is next on my list and I had told myself I mustn't buy anything else until these were finished but as I stood at the counter waiting to pay my eye was drawn to a display and I was hooked once again.

This springy soft scarf needs just one ball and it is amazing ..... when opened out it looks like a crochet mesh and all you have to do is knit with 00 needles along the top edge ..... sounds easy but we shall see!   This range of yarns comes from Spain and they are lovely quality and very reasonably priced .... a fantastic alternative to the pricier yarns by Debbie Bliss and Rowan.

Mr Postie also visited yesterday with a fabric delivery from Patch Fabric & Haberdashery .... I needed some more of the Tanya Whelan Darla to finish a quilt and treated myself to some more Michael Miller .... the mini gingham checks & red heart fabrics are by Makower and these came from an excellent seller via Ebay.

Here is the finished mini quilt which I have called Spring Greens in anticipation of seeing some green shoots in the garden soon (not shown in true colours I am afraid because I still cannot locate my camera cable and have to use my phone)

and still on a green theme I found this book in the CS today for a princely 20p

and I couldn't leave without another photo of our little lady who has been officially registered today as Millie May

big brother Charlie holding her hand

How does your garden grow ?????

Back in November I started on another quilt completely using reclaimed/scrap materials ..... some cream cotton curtain lining and curtain fabric samples acquired from my local scrapstore and from a gorgeous fellow blogger Bloomin' Myrtle.  Even the threads used are from my stash of vintage threads ..... how eco-friendly is that????

I found a lovely book in a charity shop and scoured it for ideas ..... I never stick completely to a pattern or instructions (it's the non-confirmist in me!) and tend to choose a basic idea and let it evolve from there. 

I chose Granny's Flower Garden

It's a lovely easy one consisting of small hexagons sewn in in a flower shape and appliqued onto a backing square.   I have used some more of the curtain fabric samples to make larger hexagons for the border and binding.

So this ....

now looks like this ......

My first completed project in 2011!

Getting ready for a special day

Tomorrow is doubly special because it is Princess Ellie Rose's 6th birthday (how did that happen???) ... one minute I was just a mum and now I am a nan to three soon to be four!  and also number one son comes home for a couple of weeks.

I finished Ellie's birthday quilt just in time this morning and almost forgot that I had bought her a lovely book at the St Albans craft fair a couple of weeks ago.  If you get a chance pop along to this website .... the author was at St Albans himself and has signed it especially for Ellie.  He writes and illustrates them and they are beautiful.

Here is the finished quilt ... I had originally intended to do a girly pink one but once I had seen the Snow White panel I decided to surround it in rainbow colours and it is backed in red cotton.

I also came across a website via another blog (sorry I have forgotten which one) where photo mosaics can be made and here is my first attempt ... taken in the garden before the rainstorms this week.

What's black and white and red all over ????

My latest mini string block quilt of course

I've been playing around with some fabrics and thought that the black framed the coloured prints perfectly and this one isn't as random as my others.  I have backed it in the pretty vintage style rose print that appear in the strings.  This is the last one before the craft fair in Hitchin on the 17th July and I have just one more to finish for a special little lady who is 6 next week ..... my grand-daughter Ellie.  Here is the work in progress ....

I saw this panel in the Crafty Quilter's shop at the Olde Watermill in Barton a few weeks back ... it is absolutely beautiful and I fell in love with it straight away

With the help of Joanna I chose these co-ordinating prints and it now looks like this

I just have to edge it in the yellow and back it in a plain red cotton.  I do hope my little princess likes it.

Job done ....

At the beginning of December I took a look round my little sewing sanctuary and decided it was about time I used some of the vintage textiles that I have accummulated.  I scoured my book collection, websites and blogs for inspiration and finally settled on the idea that I could recycle or upcycle quite a lot of them into a quilt.

Today I am proud to present my circle quilt

Apart from the new polyester wadding inside it everything else is vintage.  The white squares were a damask tablecloth in a previous life which had some stains and holes but still some very useable fabric in it.  The circles were from table mats, runners, tray cloths, seat covers ...... some hand embroidered, Sanderson print, vintage oriental bird .... a multitude of colours all complimenting each other.  The border fabric is very old and was a door curtain from a children's home.  The backing fabric in a gorgeous Liberty print called Corsham was a pair of curtains.  The sewing thread came from an old cantilever sewing box acquired last year too.

I can honestly say I have never felt such satisfaction in one of my makes as I have with this one.  Made with love and I hope you will agree that it has given a new lease of life to some wonderful textiles that most people would bin.

Now comes the hard bit ..... it would make a lovely heirloom but not for this family .... I have decided that this one will be for sale but I haven't decided where or for how much yet. 

I hope I have inspired some of you to try something similar and for my next project I have decided to join Loft Creations No Strings Attached challenge.  Go on give it a go .... you know you want to ;-)

This weekend's booty

Yesterday we went to our first Saturday morning car boot and I was so surprised to get this lovely jug .... I thought the dealers would have spotted it .... it dates to around 1830 and is called Village Church ... if you take a peek at my header photo you can see a platter I have in this design in the centre of the top shelf ... it is a lovely English country scene of a village church, thatched cottage and two countrymen chatting over a gate. It sat on a pile of cheap old china and I recognised it instantly ... the seller only wanted a pound! Although there is some damage it is still worth around £30/40 but it is staying in my collection and now sits in front of my matching platter (which I also got at a car boot a couple of years ago for the princely sum of a fiver - it's worth around £200)

I also found these two Suffolk Pottery storage jars for onions and garlic, a book on curtain making for doll's houses, a Rowan pattern book and a Quilting Book.

Today I found this lovely Royal Albert Old Country Roses cake stand for £3.00 and a pair of Laura Ashley Charlotte (Sweet Pea) curtains and tie-backs in the cornflower blue/pink colourway. The children did well too with a set of Thomas Tank Engine Books, Brio Thomas The Tank train track set, a Megasketcher, new wellies & crocs. Today's boot was very large but somehow there seemed to be an awful lot of overpriced tat .... nevertheless I am delighted with this week's finds.
On the way home the grandchildren conked out (they were on sleepover with me last night and Ellie decided she was going to get everyone up at 6.15 ... Charlie usually stays in bed till around 8.00)


The view from the car boot, we seem to have bright yellow fields of oilseed rape all around us this year ... so glad I don't suffer with hay fever.