Tree Fall

I don't knit. I wish I did, but I don't and I very probably never will (make that a definitely), but that doesn't mean I don't love yarn. Which is why I was more than happy to find the perfect Christmas inspired excuse to buy some. This little pile is set to become a Christmas decoration. Very soon. 

Of course, we all know that I don't need an excuse to buy fabric, so I don't need to justify this pile at all!

Except I can, because none of it's new and it's all destined to become Lily's Christmas stocking. Very soon.

I'm pretty excited about Christmas this year. Although the fact that it's 40 days away is freaking me out just a little!

Piles of various fabrics, catalogs and notebooks have started accumulating in the almost, almost finished kitchen. I don't want to speak to soon, but we're very nearly at the exciting stage of kitchen refits. I'm off to buy paint and then we're spending the rest of the day painting, which shouldn't take too long because my wonderful mother has both our wonderful children until tomorrow. Like I said - exciting!

We're slap, bang in the middle of the kitchen refit and I'm finding that I have to keep staring at this picture otherwise I'm going to lose sight of why we have no water, no cooker, no units, bare wires and no real floor!

It will be worth it, it will be worth it, it will be worth it!

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....