Tree Fall

One day I'll actually manage to start making my own clothes and to prepare for that wonderful day I spend an awful lot of time buying both fabrics and patterns. I've found that, as with lipstick and eyeshadow I tend to buy a variation of the same thing over and over again - a tunic/smock/shirtdress type of thing that can be worn over polo neck and jeans. I love that fact that these patterns are so versatile and live in hope that they'll be easy to master. 

One of my latest buys is the Japanese pattern book  'Stylish Dress Book', which I first saw on one of my favourite blogs . Although Amy is most definitely a much more accomplished sewer than I am,  I take comfort and hope from the fact that she has made dresses from this book and figure that if all else fails a begging email might mean that she'll explain a few of the more difficult looking stages to me!

 

As well as the numerous pattern books, copies of Ottobre and individual patterns that I own I have also amassed a fairly large collection of shirting, linens and cotton lawns, all waiting patiently to be made in to dresses and smocks as well as the odd skirt (my one and only Anna Maria Horner pattern is still top of the list).

I'm not sure that I'm quite ready to tackle one of these patterns yet - possibly it would be prudent to start with a pattern written in a language I can read, but I'm determined to have a go as soon as I can.

Bella was very excited about Halloween this year. Last year was the first year that she really looked forward to it, but it was somewhat tainted by the fact that Jim and I separated 2 days before - although that didn't stop me having our annual party (a slightly more stressful one than normal admittedly - although less than it might have been thanks to a very helpful friend, who was truly kind enough to help me prepare whilst I was busy being snappy and uncommunicative!).

The day before Halloween I bought tickets for the girls and some friends to go to a party at a local soft play centre, planning on tiring them out and feeding them there so that I could then spend Friday night cooking the food, decorating and making the party bags for Saturdays party. Allowing me then to spend Saturday morning relatively (it's all relative) relaxed.

Anyway, it was a lovely plan and maybe next year it will work. This year though Bella and I went pretty much straight from the party to the hospital. And instead of spending Friday night preparing for our party on Saturday, I spent it sat in hospital while Bella had yet more steroids, two lots of nebuliser and a ton of her inhaler. 

After getting home at 1am and Jim heading out to do a food shop at 2am, we did kind of contemplate cancelling the party but it seemed mean when the only thing that got Bella to comply to the nebuliser was being told that if we got her better she could stil have the party! So... after only 4 hours sleep...

...no pumpkins were carved (first year ever), a lot of decorations didn't go up and the goodie bags weren't made, but beef bourginon, chicken and pumpkin stew and some (admittedly awful) soup was made. And although Jim and I were still throwing our hands up in the air and threatening to cancel right up until the very second that the first guest knocked on the door, within twenty minutes of everyone arriving and the first glass of wine being inhaled, I remembered exactly why I do this every year.  We all had so much fun (and so much wine) that no one worried about the state of the place, least of all me!

And we followed it up with a very lazy Sunday, where Jim and I claimed our stakes at the new kitchen table/bench combo that we've got going on (the rest of the kitchen is being put in in less than a week - wahoo!) and Bella and I stayed in our pj's all day!

 

I'm so torn about the colour scheme for our new kitchen. The doors are white, the tiles are white and the floor's going to be light coloured too, so I know that I want to inject some colour, but I'm still not sure if I want to change it so completely from what is has been for the last few years.

I love mustardy yellows and teal blues, but lets face it, by any other name it's a blue and yellow kitchen - the scourge of the 80's kitchen colour scheme (for those that didn't have terracota like me!). Also, we're heading at a break neck speed towards Christmas and the red and white colour scheme that I so love, which would clash pretty horribly with a mustard and teal background.

I'm obviously going to wait until the kitchen is actually in before I decide, but in the meantime I sit here umming and ahhing over modern yellow and blue or classic scandinavian blue and white (with a touch of red). It's not such a bad problem to be faced with, is it.

I'm stressed. But at least the new Toast catalog arrived. Of course now I'm stressed about the fact that I can't afford anything in it. I can dream though. When I can find the time to sleep...

 

See, they get to sleep in the Toast catalog!

 

And they get to wear orange velvet dresses.  I'm sure things are more fun in an orange velvet dress.

 

I know it's not good to want things. But really. It's all just so nice.

We've been working on the kitchen again this weekend. We're having to do as much of the actual work as we can, so the last couple of weekends have been taken up with destroying the old kitchen and putting in some of the new kitchen. I've fitted kitchens before, so it's not all new to me but I've never been happy with the finish and I've been determined this time that the finish will be up to scratch. So we've got people in to do the solid wood worktop, the plumbing and the tiling but we're doing the rest. And it's taking forever and is exhausting - especially with our two little helpers, ummm, helping.

I've been taking pics as we go along, but I'm not going to post them until it's all finished because I always find it really frustrating when people post pics of work in progress and it's months or never before you see the finished article. Something that I have found interesting though is that my colour scheme has suddenly completely changed and after years of scandi blue and white, I've suddenly decided to brighten things up with a teal wall. It's going to be interesting to see how things turn out. And as we finally have the kitchen fitter booked for 2 weeks time, apparently it's not going to be too long before that actually happens.

Today though was spent ripping out the old carpet and lino, destroying and removing the old kitchen island (much to the girl's annoyance) and hanging the penultimate wall unit. And tomorrow will be much of the same, along with taking Bella and a friend to the flicks to see Up and getting some actual work done. Maybe.

One of the frustrating things about selling wholesale is that you tend to get caught up in a bit of a production line, making twelve billion of the same things over and over again. Not that I necessarily mind, but I do miss having the time to play around with new ideas and new fabrics, especially when I get most of my ideas whilst working on other things.

This new cushion was a request from a buyer who asked for a cushion to compliment my cot quilts that she stocks. I decided to combine my Random Cushion design with my Vintage cushion design but using a smaller cushion insert that normal. I had a bit of a 'duh' moment as soon as I put the two designs together and am now wondering how this didn't occur to me in the first place! I'm doing these in the full range of animals that I use in my Vintage collection, and in my usual three colourways. And although this wasn't strictly speaking a 'new' design it was nice to take a bit of time out to play with it.

 

Other happenings around here include me getting out of bed this morning, picking up a hammer and chisel and spending the next 6 hours knocking six shades of crap out of the two layers of tiles on my kitchen walls. Followed by stripping the walls of all cabinets and wallpaper in preparation for the new wall cabinets that Jim and the girls spent the afternoon buying (whilst I did all the hard work - yeah I know....).

So after I swore that I was not going to fit our new kitchen because I truly do not have the time, inclination or energy, I have spent all of my sunday doing just that. Ugghh, I am well past the stage of enjoying this type of hard work and really truly wanted to actually, finally, pay someone else to do it. But it turns out that our insurance money (after a flood in the kitchen at the beginning of the year) will either pay for a new kitchen or the installation of a new kitchen and not, unfortunately both. So we now have 2 of the 6 wall cabinets hung and a lot of bare plaster. Who knows what will happen next weekend! Like I said...Ugghhh

This wonderful, crazy, crazy girl has just started nursery two days a week. It's 4 months earlier than Bella started and one day longer, but I think that's often the case with second children. With Bella I worried desperately about leaving her with someone else and how she would cope and yet with Lily I've worried endlessly about her being lonely, left only with me when Bella goes to school. So four months earlier and one day longer, Lily has started nursery.  And is by all accounts, including her own, loving it.

There have been a lot of changes and a lot of stress in the last month, with 2 hospital stays for Bella and one for Lily, as well as starting school, starting nursery, starting new daily steriods, cutting new molars, and huge, huge changes in our daily routines.

All of which have led to changes in behaviour and personalities in ways that I haven't been prepared for or expecting. Some of it good - Lily has suddenly become hugely loving and affectionate after always being beautifully friendly and happy but not massively demonstrative or needy. And some of it bad - Bella has become horribly aggresive and arguementative and at times is unrecognisable in her in behaviour.

It's meant that the last few weeks have been slightly more trying than I would have liked and I'm not too proud to say that there have been moments when I've floundered noticeably as a parent. Bella's behaviour in particular has led to a fair amount of tears (from all of us) and has really tested me at times. So much so that I'm taking her off her steriods so that I can see if that makes a difference because I've just been so shocked by her aggresive behaviour in the last few weeks.

Thank goodness then that Lily has continued to be the complete nut job that she's always been, making us all laugh even in some of our worse moments. And the added extra hugs and kisses have been invaluable. And have of course led me to feel super guilty for deserting her at nursery! Which I'm sure has been her plan all along!

Part of the preparation for Lily going to nursery was making her shoebag, which I managed at midnight, the night before she started (obviously!!). I've made a number of the shoes bags at our nursery (as favours for friends) and wanted to make sure that Lily's was as good as all the others, if not better, so I combined a blue striped canvas that I love with a red and white polkadot, along with a red and natural linen deer applique.

Lily likes it. Bella likes nothing. Such is life....

This blue Hopscotch cot quilt is part of a wholesale order that I've been working on.

It started life up on my felt wall, where I chose the 9 or so prints that I'm going to use and decide on the layout. I do a certain amount of swapping blocks around until I'm happy with the combination of light and dark prints and then I leave it be, so that I don't over think it and lose the spontaneity.

 

I was torn at first about the best way to quilt this design. Because it's just straight forward square blocks, I usually quilt following the seams (not in the ditch because that can weaken the stitching and I think often looks messy - but alongside the seam), but that tends to make this size of quilt feel quiet stiff. Freehand machine quilting makes quilts all drapey (it's a word!) and I love the feel of it, but I wasn't sure to begin with whether or not it would end up making the quilt look too busy, what with competing with so many different prints as well as so many straight lines.

In the end though I decided to go with the freehand quilting and I'm really pleased that I did. As well as loving the way it looks (super crinkly) I really enjoying this form of quilting so much more than any other. I think that freehand quilting is akin to zips for a lot of people, with it being assumed that it's difficult and that you need some kind of special foot etc to do it. Which couldn't be further from the truth, at least as far as freehand quilting is concerned - I don't know about zips, I'm too scared to try because it's too difficult....

All you need to quilt freehand is a darning foot and the ability to lower the feed dogs and away you go. I always draw a freehand pattern all over the quilt top first, using a water soluble pen (check it does wash out before doing this!!) because I find it much easier and I get a strange satisfaction from following the line, it's like one of those follow the path quizzes that Bella loves to do.

I also always use Sulky Variegated thread when I freehand quilt because I love the subtle changes in colour as you follow the meandering lines.
For me, the fun thing about a simple quilt design like this, is giving it added movement and depth, whether it's through the actual quilting or the choice of prints or just the thread you use. Such fun.

As I was heading out the door yesterday in my new skirt, I mentioned to Jim that if we had time I'd like to pop in to a few shops to try and find a new scarf. I tend to stick to a plain black pashmina type of scarf most days, but it's just so boring and I've been wanting to get something a little more interesting - especially as most of my winter clothes are grey or black and as I get older I realise more and more that a little colour really does make all the difference ( I sound like a middle aged woman.. oh wait...). That said, we didn't get to any shops yesterday and so I didn't get to look for anything new.

But then late last night I was catching up with a little bit of blog reading and read this post, which left me nodding in absolute agreement and thinking about the amount of times that it just hasn't occurred to me to Make. It. Myself.

A little bit later I was reading about Blair's new scarf and how she Made. It. Herself......

and.... EUREKA!

I can be just a little slow off the mark sometimes, although in all fairness, it was midnight by this point and I was a little tired. Moments later however, I pulled out some gorgeous linen that I've been saving, cut two long strips, about 13" wide, stitched them together, right sides facing, left the selvedge edges raw and hey presto, a new scarf.

Who'd have thought that all this sewing would come in handy one day!

(Wearing it at 1am. A little tired.)

I find that I wear skirts and dresses in the winter months a lot more than the summer months, because I'm big on tights and not so much on bare legs (eeek). This is my new wool skirt teamed with my favourite teal tights - if you're in the UK and looking for coloured tights that are thick enough for winter (well autumn anyway) but not woolly, then try Gap, I'm loving the colours and the fact that they're not too sheer.

We all managed to venture out briefly today, just so that Bella could get her face painted at Borders (she stunned everyone to begin with by asking for her face to be painted like a pig!!) and have a hot chocolate. We had planned to stay out for lunch but it became evident pretty quickly that no one had the energy or patience to really commit to it, so we cut it short and came back home instead for a day of tv watching, reading and sewing.