Goodies

Well, I was hoping to be showing you all pics of my first attempt at machine quilting but unfortunately it's been put on the back burner for a little while, through no fault of my own I might add. We are having walking foot problems, I have been told by the man in my sewing machine shop that they never made them for my machine ( as it's about 30 years old) and has a "long shank". He gave me a generic one to try but it wouldn't fit so he said I have to go back at the end of the week and he will try to find something else as he doesn't like to be beaten. I just hope he finds something. Any of you knowledgeable ladies out there have any advice?
So instead I have been doing some knitting, a jumper for my nephew for Christmas.

Want to see my presents?

I saw this fabric in Ikea and just it was love at first sight so Hub kindly bought some for me. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it yet though.



Isn't it pretty, and can you see what it's lying on? Yeah a cutting mat, Hub found one in a bookshop that we were browsing in , we thing it was incorrectly priced as it's A2 size and was only £7 !! Isn't my Hub just great...



Want to see what else I got last week - yes, there is more.

Soo offered to send me a magazine as a thank you for organising the magazine swap - and here is what she sent. Thank you so much Soo, it really was very kind of you.



Last but not least, Sarah sent me these, now this parcel was a complete surprise and what makes it even better is that the Holiday Crafts magazine is the one with Lina's contributions in so that's a double wow. A girl can never have too many magazines . Thank you so much Sarah



If anyone has recieved their magazine from the swap please can you let me know so that I can cross you off my list. Soo, I have noted yours.

Thank you for all the well wishes , we still have germs but not nearly so bad as they were. Hope everyone else is well, enjoy your week. I'm off to do some reading now.

Early morning .......

Normally on a Friday morning after we have dropped Milo off at school Baby G and myself head off to toddler group where Baby G loves to cause havoc - sorry play. It's a really nice little group and everyone is really friendly. Unfortunately today we have had to give it a miss due to the dreaded cold germs that seem to be affecting us and lots of other people at the minute. I didn't think it would be fair to subject all his little friends and their parents for that matter to night times full of coughing and daytimes of non stop runny noses!!!
Instead , after saying bye to Milo we took a quick walk through the park on our way to get some milk before heading home.

This morning it was so quiet, dew drops sparkled on the grass like thousands of little diamonds and spider webs draped across branches like gossamer fairy wings.



The suns rays shone through the trees giving everything a weird kind of glow



the dew drops from the branches up high fell as though it were raining



it's hard to describe exactly what the drops looked like as they fell through the rays, like tiny rainbows as they entered which disappeared as they left



Two little squirrels ran backwards and forwards across the path in front of us, one even sat nibbling on a pine cone watching us with interest , as we watched him.



My park is set for a makeover, it has been granted a few million pounds from the lottery fund, the plans have been finalised and work will begin shortly. I know they are building fountains and have plans for sensory works of art!!! I'm scared they will spoil somewhere that is so dear to me. I will just have to watch and see how it goes.................

On a brighter note today is indeed the 26th which means ta dah - the results of my giveaway. I deliberately made sure that Milo wasn't in his jama's this time :-)



The name pulled out of the mini pan was " Retro Rose " . Congratulations Gayle I have sent you an e-mail as I need your address please.
Have a lovely weekend everyone..

Quilting Week Part 1

Firstly, thank you for all your lovely comments about Lola, according to Spiderman she was very well recieved.



So, when I finished Lola, I couldn't decide on what to do next. I looked at my list of things to do and one thing jumped out at me.... Milo's big boy quilt which I bought the fabric for back in April. I set myself a challenge - Lets see how much I can get done in a week???

I decided to do this pattern from Buttonberry but make it a bit bigger using 12 FQ's instead of 9.

Sunday night I cut out all the squares . I don't have a rotary cutter or mat ( hello santa) so I made cardboard templates and used a pair of scissors.





Monday night I made all the squares up into blocks



Tuesday night I finished the quilt top





Tonight I'm going to attempt some backing. I'm trying to only use fabric I already have so this will be a challenge. Wish me luck..

Oh and don't forget my giveaway

Saturday Afternoon..

So what do you do on a Saturday afternoon when Hub is at work until 10pm and you have 2 boys to entertain...
You play football



You play with sticks



and you play with bubbles



big bubbles



You will notice in the above photo that Baby G is starting to look a bit dis-interested. So what did he do to amuse himself??? He ran and I mean sprinted ( with me running after him ) across the field and proceeded to stand in the middle of the most rancid and smelliest 3" deep puddle ever!!! I had to go into this yukky horrible puddle to get him out as he stood there just laughing at me. Unfortunately this put an end to our fun filled afternoon as we had to get home asap to get out of wet, smelly germ ridden clothes....................

We had just got changed when ring ring, ring ring... hello this is Grandad Mickey , would Milo like to come to a party tomorrow, it's for a little girl and she will be 5? We will pick him up at 10am.

Whhhhaaattt, girl ,, 10am ,, party,, I have to find a gift -- what do I do???????? Panic............
No , calm down, think..... ah ha got it.

Thanks to Audrey and Maude, and some fabric I won in a giveaway from the very lovely Kathy
3 hours slog later I produced Lola. Sounds like I gave birth doesn't it chuckle. Hub named her , as he thought she looked very Charlie and Lolaish.





I have to say it's the first time I have ever made anything using a pattern as such , she came together so easily and I definately think I will be making some more.

What A Find - Or Is It?

It's been so busy the past few days I don't feel like I've had time to turn around. Milo is at school full time now and so far I'm finding it harder than when he was here. It's just getting into a routine I suppose, plus I miss the little tinker!!

Anyway, on Sunday we went for a walk to look for all things Autumnal and this is what we found



Acorns and pine cones all tightly closed against the damp, I didn't think you would want to see more fungi as there were lots , oh and these



They were outside a flower shop but aren't they pretty and definately Autumnal colours. I think the half yellow half green ones are my favourites.

Today I had a little job to do in a part of town that I don't normally go to. After I'd finished I was standing at the bus stop , when I spotted a little charity shop so thought I'd go have a rake about, as you do, boy was I happy that I did as you will never guess what I found......

shall I tell you or rather should I show you?

here goes



Isn't it lovely - a full size afghan blanket, it's a bit smelly but nothing that a good wash won't fix.



Baby G seems to have taken a liking to them





Sorry did I say THEM, yep I did say THEM, there were 2 blankets not just 1 but 2!!



There was also this little green one, well , when I say little I just mean smaller than the other one. It measures 47" x 30" so would be perfect as a lap blanket or I suppose you could even crochet more squares and add them if you wanted to. There are a couple of little holes in it but they are definately fixable. It's a little cutie isn't it?

Would you like it , seriously would you ? Yep you heard right - I'm going to give this little Afghan away , all you have to do is leave a comment on here and I'll randomly pick a winner on the 26th of September . Tell everyone you know , the more the merrier.

p.s It's in the wash now so it will be nice and clean. Good Luck...

Take Your Partners By The Hand

Well here we go, the swap closed at midnight last night so first thing this morning I had Milo picking names out of tubs. I put everyone from the UK in one and everyone not from the UK in another. I so hope I haven't missed anyone off. Two ladies, Laurie and Tanya, I'm sorry but I have been unable to include you. You both said you would like to participate , I replied to your requests on my Blog but neither of you have replied back and this was the only way I had to get in touch with you as neither of gave me a blog or an e-mail address.



Are you ready - here we go

Sarahs House and Rhondamum
Brigantia Designs and Kingdom Of The Birds
Louise @ Home Is Where The Heart Is and Some Of A Kind
Miss Sew n Sew and Linaloo
Just Original and Bon Souvenir
French Knots and Don't Look Now
Linden Grove and Lululollylegs
Driftwood and Rachel Rabbit
Periwinkle and Jellywares
Sew Funky and Alas 3 Lads
Upstate Lisa and My Little Space
Thyme And Lavender and Bits And Odd Pieces Of Mindys Kingdom
Moss Stitch and As Is Proper
One Voluptuos Cat And Some Yarn and Fiona from Nz.

I am waiting for Fiona to give me some details but if I don't hear from her in the next couple of days I will do the swap with Voluptuos Cat myself. Hope that is okay with everyone?

There are just a few rules to follow............

1) Find out what type of magazine your partner would like.
2) Let your partner know when the magazine has been posted.
3) Let your partner know when your magazine has been recieved.
4) All magazines should be recieved by December 7th ( post depending of course).
5) If anyone has any problems please let me know and if you could also let me know when you have recieved your magazine .

I've left it open until December just in case anyone wants Christmas magazines.

I hope everyone has fun with this as I've never done a swap before so I'm bound to have got something wrong somewhere!!!!! Thank you to all the new people I have met too, it's great to meet you all and hopefully I'll get around to reading your blogs soon.

Also one thing I have learned from this is that there is a Blog just for swaps http://swapdex.blogspot.com/. Go check it out.

Now this picture has no relevance at all to the swap - I just liked it :-)

Magazine Anyone?

Just a little reminder if anyone else would like to join in with the magazine swap. I'll leave it open until midnight on the 7th September. Come on girls - it could be your chance to get hold of something special!!

So far we have

Rachel Rabbit

Some Of A Kind

Linaloo

Upstate Lisa

My Little Space

Don't Look Now

Lululollylegs

Sarahs House

Driftwood

Louise @ Home Is Where The Heart Is

Just Original

Miss Sew n Sew

Me
edited to add
Jellywares
French Knots
Linden Grove
Bon Souvenir
Bits And Odd Pieces Of Mindys Kingdom
Kingdom Of The Birds
Brigantia Designs
Thyme And Lavender
Sew Funky
As Is Proper
One Voluptuos Cat And Some Yarn
Moss Stitch
Alas 3 Lads
Rhondamum
Fiona from NZ

Now I don't know about anyone else but last night Hub updated me to this new Google Chrome thing and I'm having a right job getting used to it -- I'm not one for change and I can't find anything!!!

Yesterday Milo went back to school as did so many thousands of others. This week he's only doing 9 til 11.30 , next week it will be 10 til 2 to get everyone used to having lunch at school and the week after it will be full time 8.55 til 3.30. It's going to be so strange not having him around all day, but I'm sure I'll get used to it.

I finished Baby G's jumper - even though I did it for age 1 -2 it's a bit short. I forgot that he has quite a long body. Doesn't take after me and my little short body - chuckle. I quite enjoyed doing this one and it came together really quickly.

and with the wool that was left over I made a little hat