Sharon's crafty musings

2012-02-10T10:20:00.000Z

Hello to all my readers :o)

Well, looks likeanother cold day here in East Sussex for us, although the sun is just starting to peep through the clouds. We still have alot of snow left here from Saturday nights' snowfall. It is of course now iced over and very dangerous. I love waking up to the snow on the morning after it was laid but the novelty soon wears off once it gets iced over! Now I just want it gone. Last night they predicted more for us, but I am pleased to say we didn't get it, thank god!

Anyway, what d o you think of these cuties? They are Russian Dolls (obviously!) but I have made them into doorstops. They are stuffed with polyfill and in the bottom there are a number of pebbles to weight them. These are goingto be a fantastic way of using up some of my leftover bits of fabric and I really enjoyed seeing them come together. I have plans to make three or four more today as Lisa at 'A Flock Of Crafty Birds' wants some in her shop :o)

The ones I make today I think I am going to give them pink rosey cheeks and a red mouth, rather than all red. Well....that is if I can find some pink embroidery thread! Yesterday whilst hoovering (I have one of those damn roller head type dysons)there was some cotton hanging out of my sewing box...I saw it too late....the dyson grabbed it and it rolled and rolled and rolled, spinning so fast I couldn't stop the Dyson quick enough, until...the entire spool, or what was left on it was empty and wrapped around the roller of the Dyson...grrr. I hate that hoover, have done for years. I chuck it around I kick it, I abuse it and have

even been known to drop it down the stairs and the thing still won't break!! I want it gone, I want a hoover with no roller so all Kellies' long hair that falls on the floor and every single piece of cotton that also drops on the floor, can end up actually inside the hoover and not wrapped around the roller.

Anyway, heres the dolls/doorstops

...and the backs

A close up of the face. Kellie actually thought that the red cheeks were the eyes and that the black closed eyes were eyebrows!! Can you leave me a comment if you thought the same please. When I look at the face, I see it as its supposed to be and had to look very hard to imagine it the way Kellie was seeing it.

A close up of the stitching

These are the zippy purse key rings that Lisa now has stocked in her shop. I know I have shown you some of them before but I have a few more added now..

A close up of two of my favourite ones

A couple of owl keyrings for the shop too...Lisa sold one of the ones I gave her last week, the day after she started stocking them :o)

Yes...more phone cases...quick and easy and a good seller too. These are all in happy spring colours and I used my favourite buttons I brought from a fete last year. I'd been saving these buttons but thought they'd look good on this cases and they do.

A few more monogrammed key fobs. I'm trying to make these as and when with different initials to build more of a collection up in the shop. Lisa specifically asked for more of these in random letters and fabrics.

Saturday was a hen rescue day for FRESHSTARTFORHENS 840 hens were rehomed on this day. They were in a very sad sorry state, possibly the worst ones I have seen and they STUNK. I wish I'd put my name down for some as I only have two hens now. My third hen was put to sleep a few weeks ago, she got very ill over the past couple of months and it was the kindest thing for her :o(

If you are interested in adopting ex battery hens, please click on the link and put your name down for the next rehoming.

Waiting in the warm in my utility room for their new owners to arrive.

...and of course, I have to include a couple of fox pictures too :o) Eveer get the feeling you are being watched?

.....and the bigger picture!! My hen house is made with thick mesh that is fox proof, concrete floors and concrete around the outside too. The eglu gives me great peace of mind. This is the plastic igloo type hen house that I was lucky enough to get off freecycle a few years back. They are made of like wheelie bin type plastic and are totally fox proof...guaranteed no fox could ever get into one of these...ever. So I sleep easy at night knowing the hens are safe and sound. I know the foxes lurk around here at night as I saw their footprints in the recent snowfall and they also 'scent' this area, I smell it every time I go to the hen house. Actually I 'saw' it too in the snow this morning, all the way up the garden too!!

You gotta love a picture of a fox in the snow...very pretty

Sunday morning first thing, our garden looked like this...

I think a seagull must have dropped this piece of bread on the frozen pond...I spotted this Thrush enjoying the bread and chucking it all over the pond.

The mystery footprints across the ice on the pond...a cat or a fox? That's one of Kellies' snowballs too!

Last week, Kellies' school had a Victorian Day. They had to dress up as a Victorian. We went for the Victorian maid look. Here she is wearing my black funeral dress and I made her the white pinny out of an old pillowcase. She looked brilliant even if I say so myself when she left for school. These photos are taken when she came home so she looks a bit dishevelled....maybe shes been cleaning out the fire places!! LOL. Here she is with THAT photo face on again!

..the back

That is it for the moment...I'm now off to do some sewing and will be blog hopping and catching up over the weekend with all your blogs....byeee

2012-01-27T17:48:00.000Z

I was sewing in the conservatory today when I saw the fox come through the hedge. I haven't seen a fox in our garden for absolutely months. I only said to Clint about this last week and he said they are in our garden every night. Last week after he dropped some work off to a company just up the road in Hastings, he sat in his van watching about ten foxes playing on the industrial estate!

Anyway, sewing forgotten for the mext half hour as I was fox watching now :o) He made a beeline for the hens, like you would expect! Here he is looking at the hens and the hens are looking at hime! Once again, I think they are used to seeing him because they weren't threatened by him being so close to them at all. I don't worry about the foxes getting my hens as I check the run regularly and they are locked in the eglu at night.

To the left of this picture is my poorly hen, the one on the right is her friend, another ex battery hen abd Matilda hen is up on the high perch, you can just see her feet.

The fox soon seem to loose interest in the hens and enjoyed the sun for a while before having a scratch that lasted........ages

,,,and ages!

Then it was time for a good sniff around in the compost bins...lots of interesting smells in there no doubt...its where the chicken poo goes :o)

A bit more sunbathing and watching the world go by....before settling down and....

Having a snooze...

The fox stayed here asleep for around three hours and t hen I suddenly saw another one!!!!!

How can anyone not like foxes....beautiful, I love them and they'll always be welcome in my garden. I know I'm a hen owner but if he gets my hens it'll be my fault not his, he'll only be doing what comes naturally so I'm not going to give him the chance! :o)

Hope you enjoyed the pictures

2012-01-27T17:10:00.001Z

Today I have been trying out some more cheap and cheerful makes. These are the first three monogrammed key fobs I made. The black one is made from Grants' old school trousers! The denim is from an old pair of my jeans. The red fabric is from a pair of curtains and on the right is an old Cath Kidston duvet cover that I was given ages ago. It is quite thin where it has had so much washing but I like the pattern alot. The only new piece of fabric in these three is the piece of pink and white polka dot that the monogram is stitched on. I enjoyed making these and am going to make a whole load of them, some in manly fabrics with straight quilted lines and stippled and diamond quilting for the ladies ones.

I have also spent some time quilting the back of more of the little zippy purses as I think these would be ideal for the local craft shop to stock.

I made these three yesterday. The top one is Cath Kidston London fabric, the left one is my absolute favourite fabric of no name and the one on the right is Hello Kitty, left over from Kellies netbook case I made her for Xmas.

The backs...

All lined...

I have some more photos to post on my laptop in the minute...you will live these, well you will if you like animals, like me :0)
Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

2012-01-25T19:02:00.000Z

At last I got the pictures of the camera that I wanted to show you all. I took this photo of the Blue Tit a few weeks ago before the last few leaves had fallen off the trees in our garden. I really do like to watch the birds and have a pair of binoculars that live on the conservatory window sill, especially for this purpose.

What we never expected to see again though, was this young man (or lady). This Moor hen came to our garden for a fleeting visit quite a few months ago, but we never expected to see him again. It was quite funny as it came about, because we were sat in the conservatory and Grant came out there from the house and casually mentioned there was a bird having a bath in the pond!! Hahaha.

When we looked we realised it was the Moor hen back again for another visit.

He had a walk around the garden...

Then stood on the special stone we have for the frogs and toads to get out the pond. He had another splash about and a quick swim, which sadly I failed to capture on the camera.

Note the hens behind, probably wondering who and what the hell the black visitor with the bright orange beak is! Yes, the little hen on the right is my ill hen that keeps getting well and then standing like this again, which says shes not feeling well again!

Just out of the pond and having a shake

We spent quite a few hours on Sunday in the garden tidying up and weeding. I let the hens out to wander around the garden for a few hours too. Well actually they were helping me weed the vegetable patch and loving every minute. Unfortunately I didn't have my phone down the garden with me. If I had I could have probably got an award winning photo of all three hens stood next to each other on the edge of the pond, all having a drink at the same time...damn. It was a funny sight though.

Thank you to Ilona (Life after money) for the seatbelt cover idea. I am going to spend a bit of time looking into that as yes, I reckon that might be a pretty good idea. Especially for kids seatbelts, perhaps with their names embroidered on them. I think my Mum has some black seatbelt covers that fix with velcro in her car as they always seem to dig into your neck!

Wendz thank you so much for the blog award. I am going to leave it until tomorrow to sort out and post on other blogs, thanks again. Not sure if this is gaining in popularity or not but its okay if its not, as really I only started it so my parents could read what I had been up to, It would be nice though if more people did get to read my blog, especially now I'm updating it regurlarly :o)

2012-01-25T10:11:00.001Z

I thought I would show you what I've been making. This was just a random make up bag I made last week. Mainly I wanted to try the little bird appliqué pattern I found for free online. I won't be using this one again it took longer than the make up bag to stitch out! I also have this design in a much bigger size which is going to be more suitable I think. I would like to put it on a cushion cover...anyway that's a future project. Back to the present now, the make up bag....

I never thought I'd hear the day I said this but this particular make up bag comes out alot better made in cotton duck fabric than it does lightweight cotton.

Anyway these are the little cheap and cheerful things I had in mind to make for eBay. They take alot longer to make than I expected but as anyone that makes craft things will know, you never get money for your time, only the product. I found if I cut lots of the fabric pieces out ready, then went through like a production line of quilting all the backs first it makes the process a little faster. Yesterday I had two machines going at the same time and had four little purses in hoops all at various stages of being made. I am still very much in learning mode on getting this cute little things perfect but for the time being here they are...

Then I made some round ones, I think I prefer the square ones though. I'm wondering whether to make some of these in baby prints with a plastic keyring thingy on the end that can be attached to a pushchair. They are the ideal size for a dummy (if anyone still uses them these days!)

Here's the pile that made it to completion with two in the bin and one that needs a little TLC before it will be good for anything lol.

BTW these were all made from scraps that I've been trying to use up for ages. They measure about 4.5" square/round.

The strawberry shortcake one is Kellie's, that's the one with purple stitching and pink fabric.

I will get the photos off my camera TODAY and stop being so lazy keep blogging off my phone :0)
Back later x

2012-01-23T13:35:00.001Z

Hi, now I know you must all be sick of seeing my iPad/netbook cases or my phone cases, but bear with me on this one as I've just this minute finished making this netbook case and I want to try out the camera mode on BlogPress. I have a phone case to see the button on then they're ready to be posted.

I got a supply of longer zips through the post this morning. They came from Germany. I ordered them on Ebay on Friday and they arrived today! Excellent postal service lately. I needed longer zips as I have a kindle case pattern I want to try out. I also have some little zipped purses on key rings that I'm working on too.

Anyway this is just a quick trial update and I hope to do a proper blog post tonight as I have some pictures on my camera I want to show you.
Chat later x

2012-01-22T08:09:00.001Z

Hi, this is just a test post. I finally got The BlogPress app on my phone. This means I can blog straight here direct from wherever I am at the time via my phone. I have been trying to get this app for ages and it always came up that it wasn't available in the UK. Well I have it now so I hope to be around on here a bit more now, as it is so much easier to to edit and post photos direct from my phone rather than going through my laptop. So...testing 1 2 3 :0)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

2012-01-15T14:12:00.000Z

Hello, I'm back. Although I didn't broadcast it, I did have good intentions of blogging alot more often this year, so it hasn't happened....yet! I'm going to aim for twice a week to start with and by the spring I hope to be back blogging every other day like I used to be.

So far 2012 has not been good. New Year was crap. Kellie and I were on our own for New Year and went to bed at 9.30pm New Years Eve. Grant stayed with his girlfriend and her family and Clint was away from the 28th December until 2nd January in Thailand, sorting out a hopefully new business venture. Things are not good at home at the moment and feeling happy is a thing of the past. Hopefully it will all get resolved and everything will be hunky dory again soon.

I have been itching to use this rose fabric, ever since my Mum found it in a fabric shop in Portsmouth a

little while back. I have been experimenting with this kindle case as I thought this fabric would really work with the Cath Kidston red sprig initial panel. This was the second attempt at it as the first one was too small! This second attempt is 'ok' but its still not as big as I would like it so it will hopefully be third time lucky.

I made this with my new machine, it sews like a dream as you can see by the close ups. Everything is so much easier with this machine as I don't even need to use any software to enlarge patterns. All I have to do is enlarge them on the touch screen of my sewing machine. Even I can manage that LOL. I used pink variegated embroidery thread for the quilting and the monogram.

A close up of the initial stitching...

This is the back. As you can see it has a flap which needs a snap put on it. I never bothered putting one on with this case as I knew it wasn't going to be the one I was going to use.

The finished case with my kindle, complete with new 'skin'

This is an Ebay order I made last week. Its another Ipad case, but I have never made one in this fabric before. I think I like the case with the name embroidered in the same fabric best, rather than the same as the lining fabric. The lady was really pleased with it so I'm happy about that. I seem incapable of taking a straight photo of an Ipad case, this one is no exception!

I decided to have a sale on my phone cases for the whole of January, I my extend it yet into February, we'll see how the sales go. I reduced them from £11 to just £8 each. These ones were from the first two days of the sale so not bad going. Two of them are on their way to Western Australia!! Wow!

I have spent alot of time over the past two weeks, thinking of new things to make. The phone cases and the ipad/netbook cases are good sellers but I would also like to make some entirely different things....small and cheap, but good quality things. I have purchased some absolutely beautiful applique designs that I can't wait to try out, so I may make some little make up bags or coin purses with them.

Over Christmas, I was contacted by Lisa who owns, A Flock Of Crafty Birds, which I blogged about back in October. Click on the link below, to be taken back to the post and scroll down the page until you come to the 8th October post.

A FLOCK OF CRAFTY BIRDS

She said she would be interested in stocking some of my makes in her craft shop...whoop whoop! That really made my day I can tell you. I still haven't been down to see her though and really need to get my finger out and take some things down with me to show her and have a chat.

Yesterday Kellie and I travelled by train from St Leonards On Sea, East Sussex, to Gun Wharf Quays at Portsmouth Harbour in Hampshire.

After looking up train times and prices online the day before we were all set for our day trip. Online the total price for one adult and one child was £21.25 day return. We caught the bus from our local bustop down to Warrior Square train station in St Leonards. Imagine how chuffed I was when it turns out the fare was £15 return for myself and £1 return for Kellie!! I was well chuffed about that as I had a feeling this trip was not going to be very cheap! We changed trains at Brighton for the Portsmouth Harbour train and sat back to enjoy the ride. In total it took nearly three hours but Gun Wharf Quays is such a lovely place to visit we didn't mind...well, I didn't but madam made her usual noise of 'are we there yet? How much further?

There was only one shop I really wanted to visit (yes really) and that was the Cath Kidston outlet because i don't have a local shop near me so I try to stock up when I go near one. I brought five metres of fabric and got dragged out the shop almost straight away by Kellie! She hates Cath Kidston shops, so to keep the peace we left the shop without looking around :o(

Kellie wanted a bag in Claires with Justin Beiber on it! We found Claires, found the bag, found a pencilcase, found a make up bag...all with the beloved Justin on them. It was buy two get one free so she got a bargain there as everything was also reduced to quite stupid prices. The Christmas money comes out to pay for the goods and off we go. Next stop...the perfume shop!! With Justins 'Someday' perfume at £28 a bottle (no she didn't want the small bottle!!) she was £8 short! Of course Mum to the rescue, out comes the debit card! Result..one happy little ten year old (yes 10!!) She said she'll pay me back out of her bank, then I remembered I gave Grant £10 as I thought the train fare was going to cost more for Kellie than it actually did, so we'll call it quits I think.

Up to the Spinnaker tower, of course, what trip to Gun Wharf could be complete without going up the tower? £14 lighter and we're up the tower again. This place is like a magnet...you just have to go up there, even if you have to pay through the nose to look at the view again! If you are a Portsmouth resident you can get a concession price though, although you do have to produce proof of this.

A hot chocolate in the Spinnaker Cafe and a very small slab of pre packed brownie cake each came to a whopping £8.52!!! Not sure I'd do this again although the hot chocolate was very nice and the cake very sickly lol. It was a very enjoyable fifteen minutes I have to admit but the prices are definitely reserved for a very rare treat. Actually, a flask and sandwiches could just as easily be consumed and if they didn't let you eat it in the cafe you could always go the next level up to the viewing platform. Its quite a trek up the stairs but well worth it. Wrap up warm its windy up there!

The automatic moody looks that comes across her face as soon as I mention a photo!! Greta back drop though if you look past the moody child :o)

Looking down through the floor, it is hell of a way down...

She just couldn't resist the urge to walk across that glass floor again..

A ferry arriving in from France..

I love this picture. It is looking over at the Isle Of Wight with a stormy sky overhead...love those sunbeams :o)

Navy boats...

See you soon and by that I mean within a week not a month!!

2011-12-28T09:05:00.000Z

Hi, Christmas is over..phew, I'm glad, I wasn't in the mood for it this year. Yesterday I took the Christmas trees down from the lounge and conservatory, I just wanted them gone and to get back to normal. I sound like scrooge don't I...LOL.

Our Christmas was a very quiet one, with just us four. It was okay but it did feel a bit strange without my parents being here. Mum came out of hospital on the 19th December and is busy sat at home recuperating from the operation. Its going to be a long recovery period for her as she is not allowed to put any weight on her foot whatsoever and is struggling to get the hang of crutches. Dad is run ragged doing everything for them both but thats love for you....mind you they'll probably hate the sight of each other by March when Mum gets the plaster off...haha.

We brought alot less presents this year, although I'm not actually sure if we saved any money as the kids main presents were a bit pricey! We opened all the presents but kept the two main ones back for later. We hung it out as long as we could before giving them these ones.....here they are posing for the camera before opening them....

I love the anticipation of whats in a present before opening it...unfortunately, the kids don't and couldn't wait...Kellie being faster and more eager than Grant to rip that paper off!!

Her face says it all....

Love the concentration tongue....

A rare smile from the moody teenager!!! Think he likes his netbook....we got something right then lol. Shame I didn't though...I got the boxes mixed uo when I wrapped them and they had the wrong colours, she had blue, he had pink..tut!

A very quiet day followed. Sorry for the slightly blurred pictures, I took them with my phone but didn't hold it too steady by the looks of it!

I had some lovely presents, although I forgot to photograph them all before putting them away/using them. I got a lovely sewing box from my Mum and Dad that I will photograph later. In fact there were so many lovely presents from Mum and Dad, who always give too much at Christmas, that I couldn't possibly choose which one I liked best, everything was lovely. They also gave us all £20 each...we're saving our money as we are off to Gun Wharf Quays in Portsmouth on the 7th January to the outlet stores. I want to go back up and have another look from the Spinnaker Tower too.

Clint got me this hoop I wanted for my new sewing machine. I have to say that for the price of that new Brother machine, this is one size hoop that should be included as its the most common size hoop that people with embroidery machines use! I already have two of this size for my little Brother machine but they have a different type of fitting (cunning ploy by Brother?) Clint had no intention in getting me this hoop as he does not like my sewing machines at all and moans constantly about cotton on the floor. I don't use the machines when hes home if I can help it. He hasn't seen the new machine in action yet! He brought me some new Sketchers boots like the ones I got for Christmas a few years ago. Those ones have just started leaking and I love them so he thought he'd replace them...but...Amazon lost the parcel and they had no more in my size so in desperation he asked me what I wanted and I said the hoop :o) Better than a pair of boots anyday :o)

The only other thing that I really wanted and dropped alot of hints about, was this mirror from Boots. It is huge and it has a light around the edge for easier make up application. I was thrilled to get this as everytime I went into Boots the stock of mirrors was getting lower, until the last time I went in there they weren't any at all. I was a bit apprehensive as to what my 47 year old face was going to look like, lit up and magnified, god knows how many times in this mirror lol. It is excellent for make up though and I am really pleased with it, even if I do look like an old hag close up in it!

Of course, I had to make a netbook case for Kellie's netbook. I looked everywhere for the Liberty Hello Kitty fabric that was released this year but it seems to have disapeared. I found this one though. I brought it online and although very pleased with it I was initially a little disapointed with the size of the pattern print as I thought it would be smaller...hence no Kittys on the actual case! I tried to comensate this by making the name label with a piece of fabric with kitty on it. Kellie loves it anyway. The idea was, that I was making Grant a case too out of one of his Drop Dead T shirts but unfortunately it didn't work out so I binned it. He wasn't happy to hear I had cut up and binned the t shirt though as it was one of his favourites...whoops. We gave him £20 to buy his own choice of netbook bag instead.

Here's the inside of Kellies case...

...and the front....

A couple of Ebay orders that were Christmas presents for people. I hope they were pleased with them.

This one was brought by a man for his partner and he wanted her nickname put on it....bet she was shocked to see that, its not the sort of personalised name you would ever come across in a shop :o) The beauty of handmade :o)

I do like this strawberry fabric, it always looks great when its been made into something. You must all be fed up with ipad and netbook cases on my blog now...I have made so many in the run up to Christmas which is why you have seen nothing but these cases on my blog for ages and ages. I have my thinking cap on for new things to make in the New Year, although I will keep my ipad and phone case listings on ebay I think as there must be alot of new phone or ipad owners out there after Christmas.

Lastly, but not least..here are a couple of pictures of the hamsters. Well, there are two but I can only seem to phoograph one of them as they are always asleep or are too fast to capture on the camera. We will not be getting anymore of these hamsters when their days are over....they bite like hell and draw blood every time. When its time to clean them out Kellie captures them in a pint glass....Lol...we learnt the hard way about their teeth!!

Very bad grainy picture but she only kept still for two seconds before she was off again so I had to be quick!

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas xxx

2011-12-18T22:31:00.001Z

Today we have been to Winchester, to visit my Mum who is in hospital, having had a foot operation last week. She is hoping to be coming home tomorrow but she has low blood pressure so they may keep her in a bit longer. The operation was a success and now she has the long road to recovery with at least three months of her foot being in plaster...not good. Its her Birthday on Tuesday so it would be great if she can come home tomorrow (Monday). We had lunch with my Dad and then all went up to visit Mum in the local hospital. We had to leave around 4.30pm for the long drive back home, so we left Dad up there with Mum. It was a bus ride from the hospital to the town centre (parking at the hospital is diabolical), then walk to Mum and Dads' housefrom the town, which takes about 15 minutes, picked up our bits from their house and drove home to Hastings/St Leonards. It seemed to take ages today, the drive home, but we got back early evening. Coming down the M25 is normally a mistake but tonight it paid off as it was clear :o)

I have a new hen!! Her name is Matilda, although for some strange reason I don't name my hens. Matilda already came with her name attached. As I was doen to two hens with one of them not very well, I was getting worried. It is not acceptable to keep just one hen on her own as they like to be part of a flock. Luck would have it that Taz (my friend who I met at a hen rescue in Dartford, when I collected my very first hens), had been asked to rehome a hen. The home that she had lined up for her fell through and she offered her to me instead.

Steve and Taz drove down from Kent last Sunday to deliver Matilda to us. She has settled in really well and funnily enough, my hen that I thought would have to be put to sleep is still with us and going strong, although not 100%

I took this photo last week. As you can see it was still a bit of me and them last Tuesday when the photo was taken...seperate sides of the straw bale!! Things are alot better now and the two old hens are letting Matilda eat with them now and not make her wait until they have finished!

Matilda, the new hen looking very fit and proud. She is of the same breed as an ex battery hen, but is not an ex batt. She has her full pointed beak which I've never seen in one of my hens before, its quite strange after getting used to sawn off beaks!

This is the conservatory Christmas Tree. For some reason we always have two trees, with one being in the conservatory and the other in the lounge. I only realised today, that last Wednesday was the 4th year anniversary of living in this house and moving to East Sussex from Hampshire.

This is the lounge tree. It looks a bit bare around the bottom without any presents under it. I hadn't actually noticed that until I saw the photo. I've put artificial ivy garland, entwined with red and white lights across the mantle piece.It looks quite christmassy I reckon..

...and here is the long awaited for by me...open fire. Its lovely and even if it is another cleaning job that needs to be done daily, to me it is well worth it. You may notice that this was taken before I finished decorating the mantle piece..hence, no lights or ivy!

I was asked by somebody on Ebay to make a Netbook Case is Cath Kidston Briar Rose fabric. This is now discontinued but I managed to buy some from an Ebay seller that I have used before in Hong Kong. She was brilliant and fast at posting too. The fabric arrived within four days, so I could get to work on the case asap. As this is a Christmas present from a husband to his wife, I wanted to make sure I made a good job of it. I got the measurements just right to fit my own netbook, which is the same size as the one I needed to make the case for. On my new sewing machine I enlarged the ipad pattern to fit a netbook. It was so easy, I am so impressed with this facility on the new Brother machine. This is the case opened with my netbook in it to make sure it fits okay.

A close up of the stitching on the seam..

The case closed...

Personalised with what I was asked to embroider on it. He sent me an amzing email telling me how much he liked it and how it was a perfect fit for the netbook. The email really made my day.

I have sold so much on Ebay these last few weeks that every day I have been making phone cases or Ipad cases. I only have the two listinbgs on Ebay so was pretty surprised with the amount I have had to make these last two weeks.

and lastly, but not least....the quilted Christmas table mats...finished :o)

I am way behind on reading my favourite blogs...bear with me, I will catch up very soon. xx

2011-12-02T15:28:00.000Z

Hello, I'm back after another long absence. No reason why I haven't blogged before really, just one of those things. This post should have been published two days ago as you can see by the date, but my laptop went flat and I went to bed....then last night, I was addicted to the soaps on tv!

Anyway, Kellie got to carry the flag at her Brownie toy giving parade at the church where she attends Brownies. Look at that happy face!! Thats because she knew I was taking a photo! Its not a great photo I know but it was taken from a fair distance away and then I mucked it up even more with my photo editing thingy on my phone..haha.

Just a random moment with the hens. I let them free range one afternoon last week, whilst I froze to death watching them. Then they didn't want to go back in their run and made me chase them for around ten minutes! I only have the two hens left now. I worry about only having two, this is a very bad number to have, as if one gets ill and dies I am left with a lone hen! Not good at all. I would still like to get a couple of bantams to go with my two ex batts. I'm not sure I will ever go back to having the maximum number I have ever had of eleven though! That is alot of poo picking every day. Two to four hens is ideal for me, I can actually enjoy the hens and not have to clean mountains of poo all the time.

Another random photo, but this time of my cat Jessie...she always does that 'thing' with her tail. :o)

How about this for random.......

I was leaving a comment on somebodies blog and this was my verification word!!! My hubbys name, I did a double take when I saw that.

This year I totally forgot to blog Kellies' birthday but it was last week and she is now 10!! I thought for a change we would have cupcakes instead of a cake. The fire thing on the top is one of those drop down candle things that play happy birthday...and no it was not an actual fire on the top of the stand, although it actually looks like on from my picture.

The cupcakes were beautiful, they tasted as good as they looked. I'm afraid I didn't make them, I got them in Asda!

Look at the butterfly ones, all edible too.

Here she is waiting for the bus home with her birthday present and no its not a budgie.

Here is one of them. She has two dwarf hamsters and they both look the same. She was so excited because we didn't tell her what we were getting in town. She was beside herself with excitemnt in the pet shop. The lady working in there was laughing at her jumping up and down! A neighbour gave us the hamster set up a few months ago as he was going to chuck it away. Kellie saw it and asked if she could have it and he said yes. It was okay but we treatedd her to a new one which just happens to be pink! The green one we are keeping as a spare when they get cleaned out. Cute theses little critters might be but crikey, they don't half bite!! I will try to get a better photo of them both over the weekend.

Hmmmmm what else can I talk about? Ohhh yes...I've been making some quilted christmas table mats. They have taken me many hours and I am probably mad, because come Chritsmas Day they will probably get gravy spilt on them haha...sods law you know!!

Here they are at the stage of attatching the three layers and stitching in the ditch....well, I'm not brave enough to try any other method of quilting yet, but I will

eventually....

I am actually alot further on than this stage now and one is totally finished with the binding done too. Updated pictures over the weekend to follow.

Not looking forward to this late afternoon/early evening. I've got a dentist check up in about an hour and then I have the pleasure of standing by Hastings ice rink for the next two hours watching the Brownies and Guides skate!! Have you ever stood nect to one of those travelling icerinks? They blow out freezing cold air all the way round...ask me how I know? Go on....I did the same thing last year!!! I was frozen to the bone by the time I got home. Oh well, I think I will get a bottle of wine on the way home to console my freezing bones later on tonight...in front of the coal fire. Yes, thats right, we now have a coal fire as of last weekend...

Catch you later, got to get ready for dentist...byeee

2011-11-14T21:50:00.001Z

I've been playing with the machine alot lately (as you would expect!) There was some patterns that I have looked at literally hundreds of times...but could never make them as my hoop size was too small. Well, now I have this huge hoop size, the skies the limit. The first thing I did was to buy two of the patterns I have wanted for ages. An ipad case and a new kindle case, all made in the hoop. These are my first attempts at both of them so, they are not perfect but I totally get how the pattern goes together now. This is the kindle case. Inside there is no raw seams and it is all totally lined in the red polka dot fabric.

The front of the case is quilted in wavy lines...

This is what it looks like inside with my kindle in it. Watch this space though, because there's a better case coming up over the next few days which is totally CUTE and a seller hopefully. I'm thinking with the new Kindle just released and with Christmas coming up they would make great presents. Anyway, like I said, these are just first efforts and the good ones are yet to come :o)

Here's the first attempt Ipad case I made. I'm not too sure on the square flap....I think it needs to be shaped. I might have a play around with my embroidery software and see if I can change the shape of it a bit. I made some of the little pinwheel flowers to decorate it as I thought the flap was far to bland and SQUARE. It may look better if I made the flap the same fabric as the base,,,hmmm!

Inside..

Close up of the stitching to join the two fabrics for the flap

Then, I wanted to try out the embroidery side of the machine. All Brother machines come with built in embroidery patterns and fonts, but I have to confess I never use them, I prefer to find my own online and purchase them from embroidery sites. This design caught my eye when I was checking through them all though. Not only beause I liked the design but because it is BIG. Unfortunately, despite being taken over by piles of fabric, I surprisingly don't own any plain fabric! I found a brand new 99p pillowcase that I brought some years go to embroider, but never got around to it. So, I cut that up and used it to try out the design. Very thin polycotton fabric is not the ideal fabric to embroider with a machine but I stabilised it well and its not too bad. I wouldn't embroider of this fabric again, but it came out okay. I then decided that I'd use it to make a cushion cover. I know I have used that flowery fabric alot in this post, but I really like it. Its one that my Mum brought me down from Southampton. I thought it went quite well with the embroidered tree because of the turquoise in both th4e embroidery and the floral fabric.

A close up of the embroidered tree. I should have given it a better press really but the stupid steam button on my two month old iron has jammed and just won't let me use the steam! Bet I can't find the guarantee!

Just a quick simple envelope opening on the back. I just wanted this to be a quick and easy thing to make as I have so many things I want to sew and so many options on my machine to try out.

At Brownies last week, Kellie made a huge snowflake out of paper. I was so impressed with it as it looked so complicated. On Saturday morning she said she'd make another one. I didn't actually expect her to remember how to do it, but she did! If fact she made two! That evening she went on the webcam with her little friend Amy and showed Amy how to make them too. It was like Blue Peter LOL. Kellie making one this end, showing Amy how to cut and staple, whilst Amy had her pile of paper and was following Kellie's instructions, it kept them amused for over an hour. They also play their recorders together on the webcam too! Both playing the same song of course. Other nights its them both singing together...enough said on the singing!!!

...and the coloured snowflake. They look great don't they.

2011-11-11T10:38:00.001Z

Well, here I am again with lots more photos. I was so busy with the machine yesterday I didn't manage to get back to my blog, sorry about that.

Here are the two machines that I am the proud owner of :o)

On the left we have little baby aka Brother innov is 2000 (now called 2500) and on the right is big baby Brother innov is 1e. As you can see the new machine is BIG. Notice the work space between the needle and the actual machine to the right. This is going to be brilliant for quilts and big things. I struggled to get that little patchwork quilt I made Kellie, in the space on the little machine rolled up as I was quilting it. The new machine has a maximum space of five inches between the needle plate and the needle if extra height is needed, like for quilts. Oh and I was also wrong about the no lever for dropping the foot...there is, it is just further back than I am used to :o)

Look at these hoops. The small one in the middle is for 5" x 7" embroidery designs and belongs to my little machine. This is the biggest hoop size it can do. The big hoop is the largest size that my new machine can do, it is for embroidery designs and patterns measuring up to 12" x 8". Believe me that has opened a lot more doors for me. It may only be one more inch across but the patterns I will now be able to stitch out, mainly in the hoop projects are amazing.

Here it is...all packed up. The only thing I can't find a home for is the knee lifting bar which is on the table, I need to read more of the book to see where it is kept when not in use.

Here is my first project with the new machine. In this photo I am just doing the decorative stitching on the velcro of an ipad case I am making. Its very fast and I had to turn it down quite alot when doing the satin stitching around the velcro. It would probably have been fine at top speed but for my own peace of mind I turned it down so it was a lot slower.

In this picture the machine is doing decorative stitching across the joining of the flap and the body of the ipad case. I am today just making some little pinwheel flowers to go on the flap. I will post a picture of the case finished as soon as it is done.

Last night Clint went to some Thai Festival on the beach. He said it was fantastic and sent me these pictures today when he finally got internet access again. He mentioned the best banana fritters he'd ever tasted, so I'm assuming thats what this man is cooking below.

Doesn't this little Thai girl look lovely, I reckon thats her proud Mum behind her :o) She is holding a candle that they light and put in the sea at midnight at this special festival.

Clint brought two, one for me and him and one for the kids. He said they represent good luck and happiness as in like a blessing.

They're all handmade, so pretty

Lit and floating out to sea...

Clints second candle on the beach....

...and floating out to sea. He said it made the hairs stand up on your neck seeing all these thousands of floating candles all over the sea. Unfortunately he struggled to get a good photo of them all together.

The sky was also filled with chinese lanterns, thousands of them. Here he is, just about to release one of the three he released for us back home :o) He told me to look out for them but to date...no sightings yet! :o)

Thank you for the comments on my last post.

Wendy, the name of the antique market thing in Kings Road is called 'Bazaar' I am sure you must have already been in there if you have been to Kings Road (which I think you have). It is on the right hand side of the road walking towards Warrior Square Station. You would be forgiven if you thought it was one big shop (I did at first) But it is full of independent traders stalls. I never come out empty handed, although some is a bit pricey, but there are bargains to be had if you rummage around. Thanks for the link on the fabric shop, I know the hotel, so will have a nose around next time I am there, I've never heard of them before.

2011-11-09T21:34:00.000Z

I'm back with loads of photos to show you. Do you remember that sewing machine I mentioned I so badly wanted? Well.....TODAY IT ARRIVED!!! Yes, really. I thought it was coming on Thursday but it came today instead. I looked at the box for ages before opening it....relishing the moment of anticipation. The box was so big it wouldn't go anywhere except for my hallway. I had to take it out bit by bit into the conservatory. It is heavy thats for sure. It took all my strength to pull the machine out of the box that was also within its own box!

I wasn't expecting to get the machine yet but by some miracle it happened, I could get it sooner rather than later. I am literally like a kid with a new toy I can't stop looking at it.

I wish Mum and Dad were still here so they could see it, they left for home yesterday after staying with us for a week. I really enjoyed them staying here, even though they do watch rubbish programmes on TV :o)

This is the accessories in this box. There is even a graphics tablet that plugs directly into the machine, you draw a picture and the machine will sew the picture. Clever eh? I think that is going to come into its own with Kellie drawing one of her sponge bob pictures and then getting the machine to embroider it. She could have it on a cushion or something. There is every foot you can think of with this machine, except, strangely enough....a 1/4" seam foot that is used for patchwork. Its not a problem as I already have one anyway, with my other machine. I have an open toe free motion embroidery foot which I am very pleased about. I have never tried the free motion embroidery so thats something to try out in the future.

Now this huge protective case holds the embroidery arm and hoops. Plus it also has a storage compartment with a lid for other bits and pieces. When I saw the size of the hoops with this machine I couldn't believe it. They are MASSIVE! There is also a large quilting hoop that is going to come into its own when I need to quilt my current patchwork quilt in progress. Everything is all unpacked with the bags removed now and I will take some pictures of the hoops tomorrow against my old embroidery hoop, so you can see the difference in the sizes. All the photos are taken with my iphone 4 so they're not too bad, as Clint has our Canon EOS with him, so forgive me if the photos aren't fantastic.

Here is the actual machine with its vry posh computer as you can see from the picture, you can also see me in it taking the photo! :o) I know you can't see from the piece of red fabric very well, but this was me testing the different stitches. It just hums along, it truely is an amazing machine on its own, without the embroidery side of it. Tomorrow I am going to try some embroidery on it. One of the reasons I wanted another Brother machine is because I know my little one inside out and they are all very similar, as I found out today. All the symbols and buttons have the same thing on them. One thing about this machine that is going to take a bit of getting used to, is that there is no lever to life the foot with. I keep goingto manually life the foot with my hand, but it is a button on the machine :o) I haven't found anything I don't like about it yet. Its eye candy just sitting on my dining table :o) Oh yes, I am definatley going to need my own sewing space with this monster. I will show you the size of it tomorrow with the embroidery unit attached, I am pretty sure it will take up most of my table and that is a very long table, I think it is just over six foot long.

On Monday, Mum, Dad and I went down to Kings Road in St Leonards On Sea. I have mentioned this road before and there is always a bargain somewhere as it is the home of junk shops, antique shops and charity shops. I found this single duvet cover with two matching pillow cases for £2.50. I had to have them as the pattern is so pretty and colourful. Even though they are in perfect condition, I'm thinking of cutting them up for patchwork. I don't need any more single duvet covers and anyway Kellie doesn't like this one so she won't want it on her bed.

In one of the charity shops I found this little brown jug....(my wife and I lived all alone, in a little old hut we called our home, she loved gin and I loved rum....)LOL, sorry, that just brought back child hood memories saying little brown jug!! To anyone who doesn't know the song or whos isn't old enough to know it just ignore this paragraph! Anyway....the jug caught my eye and it was only 60p so I brought it. Funnily enough after the charity shop we went to a big antique market with traders all under one roof, but the name escapes me and my Mum found the little brown basket that matches the jug. She brought it for me...a little dearer than the jug at £2.50 I think it was but wow, what a set. I've put them in my bureau with the little china posies I collect.

Now, this piece of fabric which is actually a ready made tab curtain, a very big one too, is also a charity shop find, although this is a brand new item. The picture just doesn't do it justice. It is a beautiful bright, vibrant yellow with the pattern on it also being very vibrant. I just couldn't get the colour right on screen so you will have to take my word for it. I am thinking of making cushion covers with this. There is alot of fabric in it and it is also very long. It cost £10 but the price tag on the packet is £50. It was made for an up market shop that my Mum tells me is very expensive but I don't recall the name of it now. It is not a shop I have heard of myself but it sells homewares.

On Saturday we had a browse around Eastbourne. I haven't been there for a while. I was really looking forward to looking around C&H Fabrics. There is a huge branch in Winchester where Mum and Dad live and it has a huge range of fabrics. I had never noticed before when I have been to the Eastbourne branch that they don't actually have a very good selection of fabrics at all. They said, when I asked about the small selection, compared to Winchester that because Winchester has the Art & Textile College they sell alot more and need a bigger choice for the students. This fabric above and below was reduced from £15.99 per metre down to £2.99 per metre. It is of course, if you haven't already noticed, Royal Wedding fabric. It was the last bolt of it and understandably it wouldn't be made again so I brought 3 metres in the blue colourway...

..and three metres in the white. I don't know what I am going to make with it yet but I'm thinking some patchwork cushions would be a nice Royal Wedding keepsake, Especially if I combined the two fabrics with some of the navy and red polka dot below.

The range of polka dot is great in C & H Fabrics, they do alot of different shades of blues/greens/beiges/reds/pinks. The ones above are what I currently have, I think these make fantastic linings for cases,really lovely colours.

Mum brought me these fabrics from Southampton, she knows me well, I love them all, thanks Mum xx

Clint has sent me some photos back so I thought I would post a few that make good viewing. This is a dress shop he is going back to on Friday to buy Kellie a couple of dresses to bring back. You have to bartar fro them and he reckons they are going to cost about £20 each, so not really that cheap but very, very pretty. We are hoping that the shop has the white dress with flowers on it (second from right) and the one next to it, the pink one. They are the ones Kellie likes.

Grant has t shirts and hoodies and dvds. I have a hard case for my iphone 4 that I really badly need, I dropped it the other day...thank god it still works fine.

Would you like to work on this scaffolding?? Its enough to make your heart stop. Isn't it awful that they have to work with no regard for health and safety! Clint says workers fall to their deaths weekly from scaffolding like this in Thailand :o(

I badly want this cat. He lives at one of the temples and Clint says there are loads and loads of cats and dogs there and that they all get on well together. He brought food to feed them when he visited here. I have no idea where it is but it is somewhere in the south of Thailand.

I won't know for definate, until he comes home but I am guessing this was the highlight of his holiday. The main thing he wanted to see was the elephants. He actually rode and elephant through the jungle which he was ecstatic about. Here the elephant is giving him a cuddle. Clint looks happy :o)

The mind boggles....adults with crash helmets, little girl without. This was something Clint mentioned last time he went to Thailand. That all the adults wear helmets but none of the children do! Scarey!

Clint sent me these flowers last week via interflora. They are beautiful and the fressias and lillies are just coming out properly now. The roses aren't doing too brilliant now but the flowers were sent nearly a week ago so I'm not complaining. Aren't they gorgeous.

2011-11-01T19:11:00.001Z

Boo!!!

This was Kellie after buying some face paints from the local shop. I did all of it except for the black stitches she's added all over her face! This was just a trial run and a mess around with the paints really. Thank god they came off easily with soap and water.

Kellie wanted to buy halloween decorations but I'm far to tight for that. I couldn't see the point in buying decorations that would be up for one day! To be honest I think halloween is a load of rubbish anyway, very over rated and another ploy to get your money! Anyway...when you have kids I suppose you have to play along or end up with very upset, bad tempered kids because, everyone else is going trick or treating! I had a google and found a diy milk carton lantern tutorial. We just got all the milk cartons out of the green bin and washed them out. Cut a square flap in the back and Kellie drew the faces with black marker pen on the front. We then put tea light candles inside. A bit dangerous so I wouldn't have them in the house. We put them out on the drive away from the house LOL. I made regular checks on them to make sure they hadn't melted! I'm glad to report they were fine and after an hour of the door bell ringing with trick or treaters we ran out of sweets!! So we blew the candles out, brought the lanterns into the back garden and put a sign on the front door saying 'sorry we've run out of sweets'. The door bell didn't go again after that!

Here she is, already to go trick or treating with a neighbour and his son from across the road. They only ever go to the houses in our road but she managed to fill her witches cauldron up pretty good. I did her face...I think she looks quite scarey actually...she certainly has the stare thats for sure!!

Tomorrow my parents are coming down to stay for the week. I'm looking forward to it as they haven't been down since the spring. We have some charity shopping planned aroundthe local areas.

I have heard from Clint alot this week, every day. He has bronchitis, a fever, sore throat and a load of anti biotics to take. He has been in bed for days now. He isn't well enough to travel out of Bangkok, but hopefully in the next few days he will be well enough. They are safe where they are staying as it isn't badly flooded there, but they can't travel north yet as thats flooded and can't travel south yet as if they let the water defences go, the water will fo south after them! Clint wants to go north first to see the elephants and the jungle so they will have to fly as the trains can't run and of course, nor can the taxis. He was hoping to do an over nighter on the train which is a bit like the Orient Express, but that's not going to happen because of the floods.

He has just this minute text me to say he has no wifi and no electric! I am so glad I didn't go, I've just told him, I would have been on the first flight back home, not my idea of a holiday, I like a bit of luxury, not to mention electric!! LOL....and no wifi, I can live without food but not wifi :o)

EDITED TO ADD: He has just text me again to say today they helped hand out food and water to the Thai people and help make sandbags. He is in his element and said that this alone has really made his holiday...bless him <3

2011-10-25T17:03:00.000+01:00

Hi, thank you for all your lovely comments, they really did cheer me up, thank you.

I am feeling much, much better now and getting used to Clint not being here. I have a spick and span house and am now ready to tackle some sewing :o)

Talking of sewing.....My Dream Machine This is the machine I am lusting after. When I told my Mum how much it was she was shocked and said it was the price of a small car! It is yes, but this machine would probably me the last one I would ever buy. It has EVERYTHING I want in a sewing machine and a huge embroidery hoop, which is something I want VERY bad, I could quilt with this machine as it has a long arm space and also has the adjustable needle height which means you could easily get a quilt under the needle no matter how thick it is. There are 100 other reasons I want this machine but I won't bore you :o) For the moment I will dream....

I have heard from Clint and Bangkok is still very much having a flooding problem. Tomorrow they will be making their plans as to what direction they are going in and what they are going to do first. A must do for Clint is the elephant trek through the jungle, breakfast with the Buddhist monks, feeding the monks rescue tigers, bathing with the elephants, visiting the River Kai and the burial grounds of the prisoners of war and visiting the temples. I think they are also hoping to go down to the southern part of Thailand too to see the beaches.

My Ebay sales are going very well and I have sold four phone cases and an Ipad case over the past two days, so I am very pleased about that. I am also looking at a way forward with my quilt. I randomly made the pinwheels and hearts and now am wondering how I am going to piece it all together. In my mind I was going to start in the middle and work my way out..but, I found a book in my book case that I forgot I had. Its called 'Sew a row quilts'. So now I am thinking about making a totally random quilt literally in rows of different patterns but using all the same fabrics to bring it together. I also want to do some applique somewhere on it too with some long flowers stems and 3d type fabric flowers attached just by their centres......ideas are in full swing now :o)

2011-10-23T18:26:00.001+01:00

Today I feel very down and sad. Grant has ben out for most of the day and Kellie is on Brownie camp, she's due back in the next hour. I haven't seen her since Friday afternoon when off she went with her HUGE suitcase, with her pillow under her arm :o)

Today I have done nothing, apart from flitting around doing a bit of washing, blog reading, wandering down the garden..you get the idea.

Yesterday Clint left for Thailand, he will be gone a month. I promised myself I wouldn't get upset when he left and wish him a lovely holiday. In reality it didn't work like that...I was a mess!! I could barely say goodbye I was crying so much :o( I'm missing him like mad, it will probably be easier once Kellie is back. I am so glad she wasn't here on Saturday when he left. She skipped off to Brownie camp on Friday knowing Clint wouldn't be here when she got back but she had other things on her mind...like having fun at the camp.

We agreed, Clint and I, that he could go away with the lads and I would upgrade my sewing machine as you know. At this moment in time I am regretting agreeing to this holiday but come the time when I get my new machine it will all be worth it. This is the last time we holiday seperately, I don't think he will want to go away again without us after this holiday either...a month is a long time. We are used to being seperated as he used to be a carp fisherman and I was a fishing widow once Kellie came along and I didn't go with him anymore.

My parents are coming down to stay one of the weeks, so I have that to look forward to. After half term is over I will have all the time in the world for sewing with no one moaning about my fabric or cotton over the table (and floor!). I just hope I can get motivated to carry on with my quilt, I'm sure I will once I get used to the ~~silence~~ peace!

The diet is hard going as I feel I just want to stuff myself with comfort food today...mustn't give in, only 7lbs to go.....

2011-10-20T14:21:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone, just a quick update post. Yesterday I made some phone cases for Ebay. As all the old pictures on my listings were of phone cases made of fabrics that are getting harder and harder to find, I decided to make a load out of all my new fabrics (some old ones too).

I made thirteen different ones in the end....

I even used some of my precious Tanya Whelan fabrics that I am making my quilt from....

Now for all the button sewing...

Done at last..

Cath Kidston phone case's...

Tanya Whelan phone cases <3

Michael Miller Paris in Spring phone cases. I have claimed the one on the left for my own :o)

And this grumpy looking thing is a pirate all ready for school, for the grand opening of the 'Jolly Roger' climbing frame/boat at the school. I really have no idea why she pulled this face as she was as happy as larry with the way she looked as she skipped out the door to school!

An update on the hen situation is that I have managed to eliminate the red mite and everything is looking rosey. The hens are back in their run, their combs are back looking red and they seem alot happier. Better still they are no longer scratching and pulling their feathers out. I am going to be extra vigilant now. Every day I do a red mite search in the eglu. It is not going to happen again...ever! Now its gone I'm thinking I'd really like a couple more hens.......

The cats have the all clear also..phew, it must have been hell of a month temperature wise to get these outbreaks like this, thank god everything is okay now.

Parents evening tonight... I have never looked forward to this with either of my kids. One day...one day, the teacher is going to tell me something really good, but for the time being, I will just live in hope for the day!

Defend the big move

2011-10-18T16:58:00.000+01:00

I would be so grateful if all my readers would help the battery hens in the countries that are lagging behind over the ban of the barren battery cages in 2012. A quick read of the below link will leave you stunned and frustrated if you care about animal welfare. Sorry for the plug but you know how much I love animals and Compassion In World Farming is my favourite and the only one I like to donate to when I can afford it.
Thanks again.

Defend the big move

2011-10-15T20:41:00.000+01:00

What do you think?? My own personal Jack Sparrow :o)

Of course, you would be forgiven for not having a clue who this is because even I, his wife would have to look twice LOL. Of course its Clint. Our neighbour Gloria, (Regs' wife) is a bit of a dab hand with pirates and Clint needed to be one tonight.

Tonight is Hastings bonfire night. It is a huge event in the town and is very popular, in the town of Hastings and also St Leonards. People travel from quite a distance to go to this event. Every year they make and burn an effigy. No one knows what the effigy is going to be as it is a closely guarded secret until the night. It is usually something that has been a bug bear to people that particular year. A couple of years ago I remember it was Katie Price LOL. This was the year she split with Peter and was dragging him through the dirt.

Anyway Kellie, as a Brownie gets to be in the VIP area and in the procession through the town and along the seafront...but....she had to have her own adult pirate!! Hence Clint dressing up. I think he looks brilliant, Gloria has made an excellent job on him.

This is how the hen run looks today. I am so fed up. This morning I thought, a it was a nice day I would get the hens cleaned out nice and early. My plan was, to take the eglu apart, wash it out and replace it again. I started taking it apart and noticed the hens were eating bugs where the eglu was before I started dismantling it....always a bad sign!! Yep, sure enough, when I took the little perches out of the eglu there was thousands of red mite...all red, filled with the hens blood. I was upset, angry, fed up and bloody livid. Not again!! I have spent the entire day cleaning and scrubbing and dusting the hens with diatom powder. The big run has been washed out with jeyes fluid and I've just left it like that to dry. I am going to do it again either tomorrow or Monday. The hens aren't going to be able to go back in there for a while until I'm sure its clear of redmite. So now they are in the small eglu run on the concrete! I have put a dust bath in there that they promtly dug out all over the patio where they are sited but thats ok. I feel so sorry for them, they have been eating alive and they haven't looked too good for the past couple of weeks either. Now I know why. I thought they needed worming and that why they looked a little peaky. I wormed them last week so thats another job done.

Regular readers of my blog will know I wasn't too chuffed about Clint wanting my hen house as a shed/workshop and making the garage into a sewing room for me. Yes, I want a sewing room but not at the expense of having to give up the hens. Well, today I have reached a decision. After this being the third red mite attack in the past two years I have had enough. I will volutarily not be replacing these hens. Yes, I do feel sad because I really do love keeping hens but I just can't take the red mite infestations. There are so many of them and they multiply so quick it is a very hard thing to erase permenantly. I've had enough!!

So my poor little girls....all three of them that I have left are living in here for the next week...not good at all, so little space after them being used to a huge run :o(

Before I found the red mite, we were in the conservatory having a coffee when Kellie found a bug on the floor. She picked it up and said 'Hey look, I've got a pet bug'. She showed it to me and asked me what it was. 'I don't know' I said, show Daddy. Clint had a look and then it promptly jumped!!! He squashed it quick...Kellie said 'Oh, so much for my pet bug!' Yes, you guessed it, the cats have got fleas, despite being treated last month...aaaarrrrrggggghhhh!! Would any more parasites like to join us? Oh yes, they would actually. Today was the hen rehoming of the ex battery hens. Clint did everything on his own, from picking them up in Kent, to seeing them all safely handed over to their new owners. Everything went smoothly with the rescue, until Taz text me that was, to say they had just found lice on the hens that they had left for re homing...omg it just gets worst. I had to let all the rehomers know so they could treat their hens asap. Hmmm, this is the first time the rehoming charity have used this farm, this has never been an issue before with the other farm....the farmer has gone free range so another farm was needed for ex batts to be rehomed. Well looks like we got a bit more than we bargained for!! So glad I'm vegetarian, if I wasn't I think I would be now...

2011-10-14T14:02:00.000+01:00

I'm taking part in a Modern Xmas Charm Swap over at EMILYS' BLOG these are my contributions. I looked at this one for ages before deciding on it. When it arrived I was so glad I went for it as it is stunning. The photo does not do it justice at all. There is alot of gold in the pattern and it really does look christmassy.

This next one is by Michael Miller and is so colourful. This swap is going to be amazing when all the charms are sent back. I have entered it twice which means by the time I get two squares from each recipient in the swap TWICE I will have a total of 112, 5"x5" Christmas themed charm squares all ready to be made into some christmas themed thing :o) I am thinking of maybe aking a christmas quilt for Kellies' bed, only to be brought out at Christmas..a heirloom of the future perhaps? Or making some patchwork cushions to be put out at Christmas time to replace the all year round ones...decisions, decisions!

I've been working on the pink pinwheels over the past couple of days. Every spare minute sees a bit of quilting done towards the quilt I'm making. I am liking the pink squares alot. Rubbish photos as usual but you can see the three colourways together now. I've made four pink ones so far and I'm getting better at it as I go along....ha, look at that centre of one of the pink ones, thats very good for me :o)

Do you remember that fabulous painted/embroidered picture I chose for my birthday back in March? Painted and hand embroidered by the very talented PENELOPE Well I finally got it out of the framers last week. I am well chuffed with how it looks in this simple black frame with no mount. I specifically asked for it like this so it will match some of the vintage embroideries I have on the wall already. It seems the black narrow frame was the way to go in 'vintage' time gone by. I now have my Nan & Grandads' wedding photo in the framers having a new piece of glass put in it. It had a small loose triangle shaped piece of glass in the left hand corner where it had got broke over the years. I will be putting that up in the lounge once its back from the framers.

NEWSFLASH:

I started back on the Cambridge Diet again last week, as one stone has crept back on over the summer months :o(

Its my fault, a bottle of wine every weekend plays havoc with my waist!! It ha to stop...well it has now because I'm dieting again.

My weight last week was 8st 9lbs.

I have just seen the diet counsellor half an hour ago for my first weigh in and yes, I know you loose alot of water the first week but....

eight and a half pounds off....yayyyyyyyyyyy

I'm so pleased and shocked at the same time. Normally I only loose 5lb in the first week. Fantsastic weight loss, I'm not going to be on this diet for long this time around thats for sure. Seven pound left and I'm out of here!!!

2011-10-11T11:29:00.000+01:00

Sorry, I was meant to be back yesterday to show you these photos, but got sidetracked by the housework. This is the brooch/hairpin I brought from 'A Flock Of Crafty Birds' in St Leonards that I was telling you about. Its pretty isn't it.

The picture below is of my next two pinwheel squares for my quilt. As you may notice...I have sewn one of the blue pinwheels upside down!! Arrrggghhh, I'm going to put that one right today...so time consuming but so worth it in the end (the end? Is that in sight??). Anyway its a pleasure not a chore, I'm enjoying myself, just not when I piece them wrong! I can now make some in pink too now I have the new fabric here. It is really strange that Tanya Whelan designed all these fabrics but never designed a pink paisley like she did the blue and the green. I am substituting the non existant pink paisly for the pink check intead, so there will still be three different fabric designs from the same range. Hopefully I may have a chance to do a pink one today :o) Oh and yes, the patches below in the photo could have done with an iron before posting them here!!

Here's a close up of one of the blue pinwheels.

I then thought I'd add some hearts too. I have no idea where these will be going in the quilt but I'm sure I will find somewhere. I'm afraid I am not planning this quilt very well and am far too eager to sew the blocks and worry about where they will be placed later. I'm not sure if this is the qualities of a good quilt maker but what the hell...I'm having fun :o)

Here's a close up of one of the blue hearts. I am not usually a blue sort of person but I am really liking these summery shades of blue, they do remind you of blue skies don't they.

Thank you for the comments on my last blog post, my heart always speeds a little when I see somebody has commented and I go off to read it :o)

Anna in Southampton, you really must get that blog of yours sorted. It is over a year old and you have done one post :oP

I can't believe I rattled on so much about my new favourite fabric seller on ebay and never told you who she is! Sorry about that, I had meant to post a link to her. You can find her on the below link. She also doesn't rip you off with postage like alot of ebay sellers do.

FABRICSANDFANCIES

2011-10-08T20:49:00.000+01:00

Well, I am back after a rather long absence. I had quite a shock when I saw the date on my last post! Talk about life passing you by!!

Anyway, look at this fab looking shop that is right here in St Leonards On Sea. It has been here since the begining of the summer but it was only last weekend I actually went in to have a look around. The ladies that run this shop are all crafty genius's and have some beautiful things for sale. Everything is hand made and there are things to suit every pocket. I brought a lovely fabric flower brooch/hairslide with a massive great pearl bead for the centre. I haven't photographed it because I forgot but I will do it in the morning when the light is better. I know I could have made the brooch/hairpin myself but as it was only £5 and I wanted to support a local craft shop, I decided to buy it. Picture tomorrow. As you can see from the outside of the shop there is a wide variety of crafts going on in there. The dog outside is owned by one of the ladies that was in there, he actually looks pretty good outside the shop doesn't he, although I nearly didn't go in the shop because he wouldn't move out the way LOL. For any local people wanting to visit the shop it is at 130 London Road, St Leonards On Sea, East Sussex. They have a page on Facebook too where you can see lots of photos of the things for sale in the shop. They take commissions too for lampshades, curtains, blinds...just about anything really. Worth checking out? Definately.

I made this Ipad case for Anna who is a follower of this blog *Hi Anna* I love these fabrics together. Sadly this was the lastv of my Cath Kidston pink polka dot and it appears to now have been discontinued and impossible to find anywhere. My Mum has been all over the place looking for it for me...even Gun Wharf Quays outlet shop doesn't stock it. Maybe I might take a trip to Brighton on half term week and have a browse around their store to see if they have any...a browse around the shops in The Lanes would be worth the train fare alone.

Thursday I was feeling very low. Clint is off to Thailand again, but this time for a month :o( It is creeping up really fast and he leaves two weeks today. When I jokingly said last year about going for a month, I didn't think he actually would! His partt of the deal for me is a new sewing machine, so it may be worth it in the long run :o) I haven't got it yet though and it hasn't even been ordered yet either so......

Remember those fabric from my last post? The ones I chose as part of my giveaway prize that I said I was keeping just for me? I have started piecing them into these quilt blocks. They are not squared off in these photos so look a bit tatty around the edges. I had no idea this design would be so hard to line up to make the start meet up perfectly in the middle. I took these apart three times before I was happy with them. These are the first two and although they are not 100% perfect, I think I can jusst get away with these. I did two more yesterday in exactly the same fabric range by Tanya Whelan but in blue. I'll photograph them in the morning to show you. I am thinking that the two green and two blue squares may form the middle of the quilt. I have a long way to go yet though...its a super king size!

Well, here are a couple of my hens before we took the runner beans down last week. I sat down the garden reading on my kindle and thought I'd let the hens freerange and scratch around on the vegetable patch. They loved it. I only have three hens left now and I don't know if I will be getting any more :o( I want to carry on keeping hens but Clint wants their house for his shed! He wants to extend the garage and turn it into a sewing room for me, so that all my sewing clutter is on one place. It would be so good to have a proper room and a place for everything that is only my space and nobody elses. If we do this though, I want there to be a good quality sofa bed in there so that we have room to put people up when they visit. Mainly my Mum and Dad. It will have a new roof and be insulated with heating and everything. There is already a utility area in there with a toilet and shower so it could be ideal. I want this so bad but I want to carry on keeping hens so I need to come up with something to allow me to carry on being a hen keeper. Just perhaps in a different part of the garden.

You may also notice the very snazzy looking filmstrip borders on the hen photos with the captions written underneath :o) These were done on my new iphone 4. I downloaded a better camera app for it and it allows you to add all sorts of borders and cool things :o) I couldn't live without an iphone now, its a massive part of my life. Is that sad??

What do you think of the colours? LOL flourescent leaves...I quite like this.

In that beautiful hot weather we had last week, we could frequently find the cats fast asleep and stretched out in the sun. This picture made me laugh though. This is Jessie, flat out, fast asleep and very hot by the looks of it with her tongue hanging out.

This was a custom order for somebody on Ebay. I was pleased how this came out. I love the pink polka dot fabric which I think is alot more feminine in colour than the 'hot' pink of the CK one.

This was Timmy on Monday. I was getting very worried about him. There was 'something going on' with his rear end and I had convinced myself that he must have bowel cancer. We took him to the vet that day and got a much better diagnosis than we were expecting.

The vet shaved some of the fur away near the place that was in question! He showed me. What had ahppened was, Timmy had been bitten by another cat (he is a fighter!), it had turned into an absess and had burst! Hence the 'something going on' was actually the contents of his absess. He was obviously in alot of pain with it too. He is now on anti biotics and has to go back later this coming week for a check up. He has changed alot this week, he hardly goes out at all now and can be found curled up in the warm asleep all day and all night, which is very rare for a tom cat. I'm happy hes okay. Did I mention that 10 minutes in the vets and a pack of anti biotics cost £53!!

I don't know if anybody else has noticed that virtually all fabric sellers online only sell fabric by the stupid fat quarter! These are totally useless when you are trying to make a larger item, or need alot of afabric...hence the quilt in progress. After scanning Ebay for ages, I found a seller that sells the very fabric that I want to make my quilt out of and also sells it by the metre...yay!

This is the second parcel of fabric that I have had from her in the past couple of weeks. Receiving a parcel from her is like opening a birthday present :o) Look at how they arrive...

These are all my fabric that will go into the quilt. I will post updates on my squares as I make them. Ohhh before I forget...my Sizzix long cutting plates arrived fromn the US this week. Was I glad to see them. They took three weeks exactly to arrive. All they are is long pieces of acrylic, Clint reckons I could have got away with just buying acrylic sheetss from B&Q. Thinking about it I probably could have but anyway, they are here now so I'm happy.

Kellie's friend Amy is staying with us for the weekend. She lives just along the coast from us in Seaford (beautiful place to live). Today we have walked the length of St Leonards to Hastings promenade, eaten some Thai food for lunch, walked over back to the Seafront for the girls to go on the trampolines, came back home after a little bit of shopping in town, then they went back down to town to the cinema to watch the Lion King in 3D. Tomorrow it is swimming or ten pin bowling, not sure which yet :o)

I took this photo if them today in front of what remains of Hastings Pier.

Phew...that was some catchup. xx

Giveaway prizes have arrived :o)

2011-09-24T20:09:00.049+01:00

Yesterday there was great excitement for me when the postman brought the book on quilts I won in the giveaway. It is an amazing book and just know I am going to use it alot. Quilts are really interesting me lately. After finally getting Kellie's quilt finished I have the bug!! I can highly reccomend this book for quilting patterns its brillant. A big thank you to The Sewing Directory on Facebook.

Today, the postman came again, with another parcel for me. I was expecting this one as I had chosen all the fabrics I would like out of the £40 giveaway prize. It took me ages to choose....two hours actually LOL. I emailed Ann at Suffolk Sewing School whose giveaway it was with my choices and she put them all in the post immediately. I'm so pleased with my choices. I have never purchased fabrics from these designers before as I usually only buy fabric that I need to make things to sell.

I am keeping these fabrics all for ME! Some are Tanya Wheelan, some are Michael Miller, one is Riley Blake and the green toile fabrc is unknown to me. The green and white toile was reduced to £6 per metre so I asked for two metres as I love toile in any colour. All these fabrics are going to go into the quilt, I have planned to make for our bed in the very near future. I am really looking forward to starting it, but I want to make sure I have all the fabrics sorted out first and that I have enough of each design. We have a super king size bed (why??) so this quilt is going to be a huge challenge for me. Again a huge thank you, but this time to Ann of Suffolk Sewing School.

These are the fabrics I have chosen as my giveaway prize.

Hen Rehoming date, Sewing & a WIN!!

2011-09-21T14:36:00.001+01:00

There is another Hen Rehoming day coming up for anyone who is interested in rehoming ex battery hens.

The date is 15th October. If you are interested please register your interest on the Fresh Start For Hens website below. There are plenty of pick up points around the country so there is bound to be one near you :o)

We are helping out at this rescue ourselves so, if you are in my area you will pick up your hens from us :o)

We don't have long to find homes for all the hens that are coming out of the cages on this day so please spread the word to others, even if you do not want hens yourself. Word of mouth goes a long way. Thanks for that xx

FRESHSTARTFORHENS

A couple of days ago I saw an online giveaway for £40 worth of fabric and a book on Jelly roll quilting advertised on Facebook. I thought I had nothing to loose by entering it so I did. Last night I was sat watching the TV with Kellie when I just randomly picked up my phone and went to Facebook. Not for any paticular reason, but anyway I saw the announcement that the winner had been picked. Guess who it was????
LOOK
Now I don't win prizes ever...probably because I never enter anything, but that has now all changed. I will enter every giveaway and competition I can find. My luck has changed. I was so excited last night when I read the above page out to Kellie that the neighbours probably heard me LOL. I'm so excited as The Suffolk Sewing School has many lovely fabrics in their shop, with new ones arriving soon...Micheal Miller here I come :o) (He's a fabulous fabric designer for those not in the know).

On Friday I made a couple more little cushion covers to go over the Ikea cushions my Mum gave us ages ago. Kellie said she liked puffy hearts, so I had a look through all my sewing patterns and found this design. It was not supposed to be a puffy applique according to the pattern, but I put some wadding behind the heart anyway and hoped for the best. The fabric wasn't the best to make this design with really. I thought it was just pink curtain lining (upcycled) but in fact it was actually thermal curtain lining. It does not iron well at all, so the slightly puckered look is here to stay. I used some bit of a duvet cover for the side panels and the backs are made from Kellies' old bedroom curtains! You might see quite alot of this pattern on my makes in the future, as I have two curtains and two double sided duvet covers to use up. As initially I made the cushions too wide I folded some of the excess fabric over each side and secured it with machine herringbone stitch. In hind sight I would have used a smaller needle and a different colour cotton than white, but its done now. Kellie loves them anyway, so mission accomplished...another to do job out of the way :o)

Also on Friday, look what arrived...

I'm still waiting for the cutting pads from the US though. I keep expecting a letter from the pot office to say there is a customs charge to pay before they'll deliver....

Lots of sewing and Ouch!!

2011-09-15T20:42:00.000+01:00

Well, I am slowly getting through the huge amount of apples! I have made two apple crumbles so far, cut loads up for the birds and put them on the bird table and put any maggoty or bruised apples on the compost heap. I still have a wicker basket full to use up but I now have the pastry and foil trays ready to make some apple pies for the freezer.

I made Kellie a cushion cover for one of the small cushions she has on her bed. I made the back the same as the one I made last week, with the ribbon tie closure.

For the front I used four patchwork squares that were left over from making her quilt so that they would match. I also appliqued the two hearts to the front as I know she likes hearts <3

This Ipad case was made for somebody who specifically asked for Cath Kidston Wobble Stripe. I think the wobble stripe works really well with the edging in pink and white star. This is another case that reminds me of the circus (not animal circuses I might add, I don't believe in exploiting animals).

A couple more phone cases I've made this week. I don't photograph them all as they all look the same LOL. These are my best seller and I make at least one every day.

Can I just say a word of warning....don't ever hold a brand new sewing needle up in the needle slot with your finger nail whilst you tighten it up! This i what can happen! This isn't the first time I've done this either!!!

Hurray!! Look what arrived today...my new sizzix dies to start cutting my perfectly cut patchwork squares. All I need now is the cutting plates that are on their way from the US and the 'Big Shot' cutting machine, that was ordered a week ago from Wales! No word on that yet. It'll be interesting to see what arrives first...the cutting plates from the US or the machine from Wales. Bearing in mind the machine was ordered first, then the cutting plates and then the dies. I am actually shocked at the size of these dies they are huge. Yeah I knew the size squares they cut and the rectangles, but to see them in the flesh they are massive. Can't wait to give them a try out.

...and lastly I made these patchwork squares today...they are going to be a new cushion cover, four of them in total took me around an hour. I'm not sure if that is good going or not but I totally enjoyed making them, mainly out of scraps too.

Apples & patchwork

2011-09-11T19:52:00.001+01:00

Hello everyone, I'm back with some new pictures to show you.

Last weekend with all the bad wind, the apples kept blowing off our tree and more were being put into the compost heap than in the fruit bowl!

We decided to pick them all a little bit early to save them from being blown off, bruised and no good for anything.

So...we got the ladder out and struggled to reach the high ones, when who should walk through the back gate to give us a hand but 'our country man in the town' Reg!! Remember him? Our neighbour, next door but one. He is used to doing stuff like this and took over the ladder and the picking of the apples, passing them down to us.

There were loads of apples on the tree, we filled these two baskets up a well as about three big carrier bags full. We think they are eating apples but they are jut a little bit too sharp so we are going to do some cooking with them when I remember to buy the pastry! Oh yeah, I buy pastry...sewing is my thing, not cooking LOL.

A few years ago I made some embroidered, crazy patchwork squares on my sewing machine. The idea was to make them into a quilt, but of course it never happened. Every time I open my sewing box I saw these squares...so, last week I had no sewing project on the go and was all up to date with any ebay orders that I made this..

I wanted to make the back attractive to look at too, seeing as so many hours of embroidery went into the front of the cushion cover. I made two buttonholes each side and sewed ribbon to the other piece and threaded it through the holes. I am definately going to use this closing on the cushion cover backs I'm planning on making over the next few weeks.

Here are some close ups of the embroidered squares..

I am really enjoying patchwork at the moment. So much so that I am eager to start on a super king size quilt for our bed. Cutting patchwork squares accurately though is not easy. I have the rotary cutter and the biggest cutting mat you c an imagine but I know I still won't be able to do them acurately so I have brought myself a 'Big Shot' Sizzix cutter. Now I never thought I would buy another die cutter as I already have the original sizzix and the little sidekick. But..sizzix have now brought out applique dies that cut fabric. After alot of reearching last week, I decided that I could justify the £55 the Big Shot costs. So I'm waiting for that to arrive. Then I needed the extra long 25" cutting pads. Could I find them anywhere in the UK? Nope, I have had to buy them from the US instead. It's been a long time since I brought anything from the US and I am so hoping they don't get stopped at customs. I believe the customs limit is £18 before you have to pay duty on it..the pads are £22! Then I just need to buy the die that cuts four 5" squares in a row, layering the fabric so it cuts more than one layer at one time. Can't wait for it all to arrive, its a bit ironic though that I have had to buy all three things from different places. Hope they don't take too long to come.

2011-09-05T21:11:00.000+01:00

Hi, I'm back again. Today was the first day back for my kids at school/college. Thank god they have both come home and said they'd both had a good day. Grant I was particularly concerned about, with his first day at college and not liking school, I was convinced he wasn't going to like it.
What a relief that is. He has to resit his English and Maths after failing them for the third time at school! He HAS to pass this time around otherwise he will have to resit AGAIN and also have to pay for the exams this time around. He also needs to pass his ICT with a merit or distinction, otherwise he won't get onto the next level ICT course next year.

It was quite strange today here at home with the kids back at school/college. I spent the entire day cleaning the house properly after getting a bit slap dsh over the school holidays, knowing it was going to be wrecked again within minutes! It all looks nice and tidy and clean again now. So...that out of the way I could do a bit of sewing :o) Today I made two phone case that I had been asked to make and finished off a kindle case, that I will send out tomorrow. I haven't photographed the phone cases but you can see the 'Katie' Kindle case in the pictures below.

This ipad case I made last week with a matching phone case for somebody on Ebay. Everytime I look at this picture it reminds me of the circus! These are made with Cath Kidston shooting star and lined with CK pink polka.

The Ipad case below was also an Ebay order and is made from Cath Kidston 'Sprig' in red and lined with CK mini strawberry. That's my ipad in there so you can see how they fit in.

The front of the case when closed.

I couldn't resist this cute picture of Millie sitting in the trough of lobelia like it was a nest! Its all gone over now and the tubs are all emptied out. I may replace them with winter pansies, I'm not sure yet..I'm a bit fed up with gardening now LOL

On a totally different note, it was Nans funeral last Thursday. There was a great turn out and the service was lovely. The sun shone and everything was well...perfect I suppose for saying goodbye to her. She would have been proud of the job my parents did for her final encore in this life. The flowers were all stunning and she had an amazing wicker coffin...so much better than wood I thought. I definately want a wicker one when it's my turn.

Now the funeral is out of the way the hard bit for Mum and Dad...getting used to Nan not being around :o( The care home has been part of their life for a few years now and there is now (in Mums' words) a void now Nan has gone.

Now it is September, the weather has changed overnight here. Cold evenings, dark too :o( Wind, rain...welcome to England LOL. Roll on the summer....

RIP Nan 1921-2011

2011-08-21T19:23:00.001+01:00

It is a very sad time in our family.

Yesterday our darling Mum, Nan & Great Nana died.

At last she is out of pain from terminal cancer and the wretched Alzheimers disease.

She was one month away from her 90th birthday. It was expected, but still came as a shock to us all.

I keep going over and over in my mind, remembering all the good times as a child with her, I am still seeing her house in my mind, where she lived all through my childhood...remembering her furniture, ornaments, curtains and most of all Nan. I can hear her voice saying to me 'you're nearly as tall as me now!' I was about eight years old and came to her armpit...she was 4ft 10". I thought I must be big if I'm nearly as tall as my Nan...bless her. I also remember her asking to look at my wobbly front tooth, which she promptly ripped out to my shock and horror LOL.

Her send off is going to be the best, my Mum is going to make sure of that. Nothing is too good for our Mum, Nan and Great Nana.

This photo was taken in May this year, little did I realise at the time how much I would treasure it.

She is now reunited with Grandad and will be buried with him.

A beautiful bride..

Love you forever Nan..out of pain and now at peace...

I am heartbroken.

2011-08-19T18:12:00.001+01:00

As the school holidays plod along, I haven't had as much time as I would have liked, to do more sewing. I'm not complaining though, as it has been quite a good summer holiday so far. The weather hasn't been too bad although my only complaint is, that we don't get any balmy evenings. By the time evening comes it is quite chilly. If we go round our neighbours for a drink they light the burner on the patio which is lovely. We also have a burner of our own but haven't used it very much this summer for some reason.

Next week is exam results week for Grant...fingers crossed. He's got his GCSE results on Thursday and his college enrollment on Friday. Clint has managed to get him three days work next week at his employment place so that's brilliant, although I'm not sure that is the word Grant would use LOL!

I made this phone case as a custom order today. I run out of pink embroidery thread that matched the fabric...panic, panic, then I saw the reel of the varigated pink and thought I'd give it a try. I am so glad I did, the order in which the machine stitches the monogram and frame really sets the cotton off. Well chuffed with this case :o) Its gone to its new owner now.

This kindle case was also a custom made order. The lady I made it for hates velcro with a venegence, which is what I usually use on this style of case. I said I could put a button and buttonhole on it instead if she liked. Yes, she liked the idea, so did I actually. This is the first time I have done this to a kindle case. I like it. She also asked for the pattern of the fabric to be full on the front of the case..phew it worked out perfect. She was thrilled with this case and left me lovely feedback on Ebay :o)

IPAD CASES....at last, I finally got around to making the first three ipad case. I have had a few emails over the past month asking me about when I was going to make ipad cases. Well, these are the first three anyway. The bird case on the right has already been sold and is long gone but, I'm happy to make more if anyone requires one. They are £20 each. These are listed on Ebay too. I will give free p&p to anyone that buys one via Ebay and mentions my blog. When the schools go back and I have more time on my hands I have another Ipad design that I cannot wait to try out. It will be trimmed with fabric flowers and will also be able to be monogrammed with an initial letter too. :o) Another thing is...somebody contacted me and asked if the cases would fit a netbook. Off I go to find our netbook and to my surprise they fit perfectly. I'd better edit the listing on Ebay so people will know they will fit the netbooks too.

I've used self cover buttons to match the cases or, as in the middle ones case,I have matched the buttons with the lining.

New curtains and pelmet in my bedroom. I made these out of a sheet my Mum gave me, which also has two matching pillowcases. I know it is not a very good picture and you can't see the pattern very well, but it is a very pretty pink rosebud design. I haven't lined the curtains because I wanted them to be sheer.

Lastly, but not least, it seems we are now the local swimming pool to Kellie and her friends....

See you all soon. xx

2011-08-07T15:21:00.001+01:00

Here I am again! I did tell you I'd be back later, but of course you would be forgiven for not believing me! How often have I said that and come back days later..rather than hours??

It is a double TA..DA moment. They quilt is finished...yayayyayayayayay!!! Six years later.....whoo hoo. I am having a glass of wine down the garden in celebration of this achievement alone.

Next up...the cushion is truly finished and I have posted pictures below to prove it. I can now start on my next project totally guilt free as I have no work in progress going on at the moment (well, only the birth sampler that has taken 9 years to date lol).

The backing fabric is made from the toilet curtains that the previous owners left behind....washed and ironed of course! :o)

THE QUILT....*scream, shout & run around* I am so proud of myself for finally completingthis huge project. I thought I would never finish it and although I put it down for years at a time it has been quite enjoyable. I am definately making one for our bed...this will be a huge test as our bed is super kingsize *gulp*

Doesn't it look great on Kellies' Ikea daybed. Love it. All the fabrics were brought when she was around two years old, so all have pink, girly and loads and loads of fairies on them. I was fairy mad when she was a toddler. Luckily she still thinks it looks great, although she did comment when I kept taking photos of it on the bed that it was 'only a bit of material!!!' Note to self: No more quilts for Kellie in the future!

Tonight (or lateer this afternoon) we are off next door as we have new neighbourss (whoop!) they are really lovely and have a one year old son. It is so nice to look out of the bedroom window in the morning and see his little slide in the garden...bless him. It makes a change from the rubbish that our previous neighbours liked to hoard in their garden...life is feeling good today. :o)

2011-08-07T09:17:00.000+01:00

We are back from our short break away at my parents house. It was a great weekend, I really enjoyed myself. Especially the visit to Gun Wharf Quays at Portsmouth. Unbelievably, even though I used to live a short car ride from Portsmouth, I have never been to Gun Wharf Quays before. Of course, each time we go 'back home' we can see the Spinnaker Tower from the M27 but had never actually seen it up close.

Monday we went on the train. Mum, Dad, Kellie and myself. The weather was fantastic as you can see from the blue skies in the photos below. First stop was the tower :o) Mum decided not to come up as she has already been up it once before and it is a bit pricey (well, I thought it was). It was roughly £6 per child, £7 for Dad (pensioner rate) and £8 for me. If you are a resident of Portsmouth you get a discount, but only of about a quid! Dad tried to get a discount by saying he was a resident of Hampshire but it didn't wash!! :o) He had to pay the full pensioner rate.

The glass floor! That is Kellie and my feet in the photo! Like you really wanted to see that!! Hahaha. You have to remove your shoes before you stand on the floor, presumably so it doesn't get scratched. It is a square quite large piece of glass in the middle of the tower and you don't have to walk on it, its up to you. If you look in the above picture, you can see the square glass floor under the viewing platform.

The view are amazing.....

They have these amazing floating balls of air that kids can get inside and move around on the water in. As you can imagine, Kellie was practically begging to go in one of these...£4 for around 10 minutes! Expensive....but worth it.

Putting the air in....

and off she goes

I love this picture, with the orange parasols, white tower and blue, blue sky it looks brilliant.

I was blown away by all the outlet shops. I now live in a poor part of the country LOL and we don't have many designer shops down here. I suppose because it is a high unemployment area they assume that no one has any money!! I never even knew outlet shops like this existed! Oh and guess what.....theres a Cath Kidston outlet shop there too :o) I brought some fabric...what?...never!!! Just for a change!! Hahaha.

One of the main reasons for this trip, is that my Nan is now very ill indeed. After a short spell in hospital she is now back at the care home and appears to be deteriorating fast :o( She has absolutely no memory of anyone at all now and names mean nothing to her. My first glimpse of her asleep in a chair in the lounge was with shock. She is so thin and ill looking now. She couldn't even remember Mums' name but thought her face was familiar :o( Damn this illness, its awful. Life can be so cruel to make people linger on like this. She is too weak to hardly move now, her cancer has spread and life is pretty crap for her. It's pretty crap for Mum and Dad too at the moment, as their whole lives revolve around Nan and waiting for that dreaded phone call.....you know, the one that you hope never comes, but of course it will, its inevitable. IF anything does happen to Nan before I get to see her again, I feel I have now said my goodbyes to her, even though she has no idea who the hell I am! Memories of bygone years are getting more and more precious these days.

I have big plans for our conservatory. It is bland and boring I reckon. I want to make lots of new cushions, probably in patchwork as I'm getting quite a likeness to that. Oilcloth on the table in nice sunny colours. I want to paint my bland beech chairs...four baby blue and two baby pink. Cover the lampshades with a co ordinating fabric to match some I use on the cushions and some hand embroideries up on the wall. The oranges and greens that I used to like so much are now out of favour!

Yesterday I finally finished a 'HOME' appliqued cushion cover that has been kicking around for months now. I will photograph it today and post a picture later, I'm quite proud of it actually :o) I have just one last unfinished project to finish...Kellies' quilt. Its all done but....what are the chances of joining the binding together in the mitred way like you're supposed to, then mitring the corners...like you're supposed to...only to find the damn join of the binding falls in the EXACT place where the mitred corner is!! I won't make that mistake again. So, to compensate for that corner, I am going to make a small embroidered triangle label to fit over the corner. That is my last job and it can then go on her bed...it was a long time coming this quilt. I think its been on going now for around six years! I didn't have a clue what I was doing so kept putting it down, but now, after much blog reading over the years on sewing I now know.

Time to go home...waiting for the train at Fareham, daydreaming up the track..

2011-07-28T21:17:00.000+01:00

We're off to my parents tomorrow for a few days. Well, Kellie and I are anyway. Clint and Grant are helping out with the hen rehoming on Saturday. We will probably be coming back home on Monday. It'll be nice to see my parents and have a good catch up on everything.. My Nan is not good at all at the moment and has spent the past week in hospital, although she is now back at the care home she is far from okay. She is 90 this year..the alzheimers is terrible now and the cancer has spread also.

Below is a picturs of Beachy Head that I took a few weeks ago. This was the first time I have been here and it is pretty spectacular. I'm hoping Kellie and I can go there again over the summer holidays. There is an open top bus that goes from Eastbourne Pier to Beachy Head, I'd like to do this trip. It is quite a regular bus trip so there are plenty of buses there and back because it is a tourist thing.

Damson plums off our tree in our garden. They're all gone now! We had three bowls full like thi off our one little tree...lovely they were. I saved loads of jam jar to make jam but we stuffed them all and there wasn't any left for the jam!!!

I took this picture of our pond today whilst sitting reading in the sun.

The first ipad cases I have made. These are only practice ones, although the blue and white one was for one of Clints' work colleagues. She lent us her Ipad so I could make a template of it acurately for the size. I made the case in return for her. It has her name on too. I lined this in gingham as you can see.

Here they are from the front, complete with quilted flap. The one on the right is mine...did I mention, we were so impressed with the Ipad we brought one for ourselves!!!

Fresh Start For Hens Rehoming Day On Saturday

2011-07-26T20:49:00.001+01:00

Just a very quick post tonight. Tomorrow I will have some pictures of my new Ipad cases I have been working on.

On Saturday there is another Hen Rehoming Day. Ususally the lists are closed this close to the day, but more hens have become available unexpectedly. This is fantastic news for the hens if we can find them homes!! It is very short notice so please help spread the word on this one and help to rescue these girls from being slaughtered. Any that we can't find homes for cannot be taken from the farm as we have nowhere for them to go. Please, please, if you know of somebody that already has hens and may be interested in taking some more, let them know about this and contact me asap or go to the website http://www.freshstartforhens.co.uk/ at the first instance to register your interest asap. Or if you know of anybody that would like hens and can offer them a predator safe environment (fox proof) but haven't any other hens, again, contact the website above or email me in the first instance.
Thankyou.

Back tomorrow with the Ipad Case pictures :o)

2011-07-14T21:43:00.001+01:00

I made these new style phone cases at the weekend. I am absolutely loving these. The one with the 'S' is mine. They came out so much better than I was expecting. The one on the left is in Cath Kidston 'Summer Blossom' in white and the one on the right is in 'White Spray'. The linings are also CK 'Pink Polka'. The fabrics work so well together. I'm hoping to make more of these in lots of different fabrics and initials for Ebay. Of course I will also take commissions via my blog. Just contact me. These cases I am going to sell for £15 each because there is alot of time involved doing the embroidery monogram on the front before the actual case is made up. I even used snaps to fasten them! They're not half as hard to put on as I thought. The case are also quilted behind the monogram too.

This is the sad face of Kellie yesterday. I had to go and pick her up from school early as she fell down some steps on the way down for sports day practice. When she falls she always seems to end up with a face like this. I have lost count the amount of times she has bashed her mouth and teeth over the years. How she still has her front teeth is a miracle...but I am very glad she has!

This week has not been a very good week. On Monday I took the scraps down to the hens in the afternoon to find the towel that we wrapped 'Brown Hen' up in before we buried her, up on the vegetable patch. My confusion soon turned to horror when I realised what I was looking at! Brown feathers all over the garden and a gaping hole in the ground :o( The fox had dug her up and stolen her :o( We even put a paving slab on top of her before covering her over to protect her from the fox. I didn't think for one minute that the fox would go in sideways!! It was like loosing her all over again. It certainly ruined my day that's for sure. The Cross that my online friend Raven is carving for me will now just have to be a memorial cross rather than a grave marker.

Last night I saw a rat in the hen coop from the bedroom window. I shouted down to Clint and he ran to get his gun. He actually shot the rat in the head first time and it died instantly. Thank god for that, I wonder if there are any more...probably. He has set up a chair across the pond behind the big plant to sit and watch later tonight in the hope he may be able to eliminate another one.

Tuesday, I knocked my iron off the ironing board and it burnt a huge iron shaped mark in the dining room carpet. Being nylon the carpet just melted and tuck to my iron!! Just as well the carpet is coming up soon anyway, but we do have to live with it for a while longer with a huge iron shaped mark on it!

Tomorrow evening we are off to the sea front for a game of crazy golf with the brownies. My friend Amaya and myself are going for a coffee in a cafe whilst the girls are playing golf. I'm going to make sure I dress up warm though its freezing down by the sea in the evening, even at this time of the year.

2011-07-07T14:22:00.010+01:00

Today has been a bit strange. Kellie was away camping with her class at school last night. It was weird for me not to have to get up early to get her ready for school. The hens were not shut in their house last night, just in their run. Four hens are now happy to sleep back in the house since I got rid of the red mite..but one seems to like to perch outside still on the highest perch. Its great being able to leave the hen house open like this as it means I don't have to get up so early LOL. I think it was short lived though and they have ruined the luxury of being able to come out at the first light, instead of waiting for me to let them out at 5.45am. The reason being.....Clint was awoken this morningat 4am by the hens being very vocal!! I can't have that because we have neighbours, so, it looks like they are back to being shut in tonight...what a shame, I enjoyed my lay ins until 6.30am!

It was bin day today and I suddenly realised I had two black bin bags of sawdust that I swept out of the hen run on Saturday during the red mite eviction! I quickly ran down to get them and carried them up to the front of the house, one at a time as they were quite heavy. Walking back for the second bag I kept itching my cheek...hmmm...no surely not! Back for the second bag and dumping it by the bin at the front of the drive and I now have a very itchy face! OMG it them! They have come back to haunt me again!!!!! I glanced down and saw ALOT of redmite walking up my top! I literally pulled my dress and top off in the utility area in the garage and ran upstairs to the showers in my underwear...sod the neighbours!! LOL. After showeing and changing my clothes I felt much better. I shoved my clothes in the machine and washed them staight away. shall be back down the hen house before bedtime with my sprinkly container of diatom powder to go all over the hens area and aroundthe outside....just in case there are any more lurking. I have put diatom on the bird table too as that is where it comes from..wild birds. Clint has asked me not to put any bird seed on the bird table as this attracts the pigeons and they are the main carriers of red mite. I put some bread crumb and some cooked rice (do birds eat rice??)but there they are, two wood pigeons in the apple tree looking...oh well I can't win them all.

Look at our runner beans! I grew these from seed, yeah okay, I know they are easy to grow but I'm chuffed with how good they've grown. Apparently you are supposed to pick the tops out to stop them keep growing..whoops, we didn't know that LOL.

The sunflowers, also an easy option for me to grow from seed, but looking at them now, i'm so glad I did. I grew them in pots and with the strong wind they keep blowing over so I tied them to the trellis today with different coloured ribbon..pretty.

The pond is looking alot more natural and wildlife looking this year, which is exactly how we want it to look...slightly rough around the edges I suppose is a good description of what we want. The pond pump broke on Saturday...devastation, it cost £200 for a new one...tut. In the short time it broke and before the new one was installed, the scalding sun and heat didn't help matters. The pond started clouding over within hours so it was lucky we went straight out to get the new one.

Grants' prom date and place

Arriving at the prom in an original US jeep that was actually in the Vietnam War. There's Grant at the back on the left. They are just arriving at the hotel where the Prom was held.

The official Prom photo taken by a professional photographer at the venue.

Yesterday morning I brought a pattern for a make up bag. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I really wanted to have a go at making them to sell. Well, here are my first attempts and they've come out perfect :o) They've got zips too...no velcro on these babies! They are all lined inside with a co ordinating fabric to the outside. I have embellished them with ribbon on the back. What does everybody think about the red Cath Kidston ribbon on the case? Is this a good idea or not? I have alot of it and thought that it would look good to trim the 'Birds' fabric with it as it has alot of red in it. I may make a batch of these with no ribbon also. The cases measure
5.3/4" x 4.5" which isn't a bad size at all for a make up bag to go in a hand bag.
I am going to list these on Ebay over the next day or so and hope to make alot more in different fabrics. I'm thinking of £7 with no ribbon trimming and £8 with the ribbon trim like the ones shown below, mainly because the ribbon trim takes alot more time to add, hence the extra £1.
Cath Kidston Prairie Rose

A blue and white patterned fabric that Kellie loves (I have loads of this). When I made this one I knew she would want it. I was right...claimed straight away :o)

Cath Kidston Birds fabric

I love this fabric in this colourway. I have no idea which one this is though. It is a Cath Kidston one but I don't know the name of it...perhaps somebody else can enlighten me?

If anyone is interested in purchasing one of these make up bags in whichever fabric you like (I have alot of different CK ones) please contact me. I will give a £1 discount on the above prices if you mention you saw them on my blog.

Four new kindle cases for Ebay.

Four iphone cases, all ordered the same day and each customer via Ebay wanted the same fabric! How random is that? Two have gone to the US and two are staying in the UK.

Until nezt time.....byeeee x

Catch ups

2011-07-04T21:17:00.005+01:00

The Elton John concert a week ago was abolutely fantastic. The weather was unbelievable too. So hot and sunny, the perfect day for seeing Elton John. The seats weren't quite as good as I was expecting but it was okay because of the big screens. Most of the people there seemed to be of my era and older, although there were 'youngsters' there too, but outnumbered by the oldies LOL. We caught a train there and back. We caught a train from Warrior Square in Hastings to Lewes, changed at Lewes for another train to Hove and got off at Hove and had a wander around the shops. This was good as I have never been shopping in Hove before. It is where Clint works and he knows his way around. We then went for lunch at a Thai restaurant called 'The Hungry Squid'. I had the vegetarian option which turned out to be huge as you can see from the picture. It was a lovely meal but I couldn't eat it all!!

Here are a couple of photos I took of the big screen. They are not very good as no cameras where allowed and we had to use our iphones. I was very disapointed to read on the back of the ticket before we left that no cameras where allowed. I had just packed my camera, complete with zoom lens.

A week ago Thursday just gone my beloved, absolute favourite hen of all times passed away :o( I took the bowl of scraps down to them late afternoon like I always do and there she was. I knew as soon as I saw her that she was dead. She was laid outstretched by the water feeder like she was having a drink and then just went...I think she may have had a heart attack and obviously did not know anything about it. I was distraught and sat with her down the garden in my arms crying for nealy an hour. I wrapped her in a towel and we buried her in the vegetable patch. We don't normally bury our hens when they die as you will already know if you read my blog regularly. We leave them in a neighbours garden for the foxes, but this hen was so special there was no way we could do that. I thought we would outline her grae with big stones and I have ordered a wooden cross, engraved with her name 'Brown Hen' on it, with a little engraved heart on the vertical just above her name. My online friend and fellow facebook pal Raven, is carving it for me. He is a whizz at wood carving and I have brought things he has carved from him before. We will grow our vegetables around Brown Hen.

Here she is..my bestest hen friend ever..

Kellie put a bowl of fresh cream out for the cats the other day but before they could get to it, the gulls were circling around it. This one was brave enough to come and eat it with Millie just the other side of the door looking on in disgust. The gulls around here can be quite a problem as they scavenge all the time. Worst still, down at our local park they actually kill all the little ducklings and moorhen babies to eat :o( There are no babies to be seen there apart from seagulls and their babies. Not good at all.

These are the baskets I did for the hen house. They are probably looking better than any of the others in the garden, they've gone mad! A bit more sad news reagrding the hens is that on Saturday I had the hen on the right hand side of the picture put to sleep :o( She was the hen that has a bad crop problem for the last two years. If you look at her you can see she is all swollen out the front and a funny shape. Well, she hasn't looked very well for some time and I decided enough was enough. It was very sad as she was the very last of my first batch of rescue hens from the March 2009 rescue. I have gone from a total amount of eleven hens at the most, down to five. To make matters worst, I also have an outbreak of red mite!! I spent the day on Saturday cleaning all the eglu out and scraping out the run and sprinkling diatom powder everywhere. I have also left the eglu door open at night as the hens didn't want to hgo in there as thy were getting bitten all the time. I checked the house today and there are no red mite to be seen so thats great news. I now have four hens that will go in there to sleep and one that insists on perching on the high perch to sleep each night. At least I don't have to get up at 5.45am to let them out!

One of the hundreds of baby frogs that have resulted in the huge amounts of tadpoles this year in our pond.

Some random shots of our back garden. Its looking lovely, we spent all weekend out there gardening. I don't enjoy gardening much but its lovely when it all done and looking nice.

Grant in his hired prom suit ready for his school prom. This was on Thursday last week, he really enjoyed it. This is his girlfriend Gracie who came round to straighten his curls out for him LOL. She has another year left at school yet so couldn't go to this prom.

I have had an unbelievable amount of orders off Ebay this weekend. I had just finihed making the kindle case and three iphone cases morning, when I got the alert on my phone to tell me something else had sold on Ebay. Unbeliveably, I sold another three iphone cases this afternoon which I will make tomorrow. Two are going to the US. I'm gettiing around LOL. I can now boast the USA, Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore, with loads of my other makes kicking about all over the UK :o) I'm thinking of make up bags and ipad cases to add to my listings on Ebay.

Out and about in East Sussex

2011-06-19T20:37:00.007+01:00

I am trying to make a very big effort to walk more instead of taking the bus. The reason being, I am finding it so hard to mantain my weight after loosing a stone back in March. Five pounds have crept back on and I am not happy! Every time I get where I want to be, weight wise, I can't mantain it. Of course mantaining it would be easy if I could find the motivation to get on the dust collecting running machine, that has now found a new home in the garage!!

When I go to town now, I tend to walk down which is quite a way, although I hae no idea how far. I like to walk through our award winning park called Alexandra Park in Hastings. It is huge and spreads from quite close to my house, right down to the very start of the town. It is home to hundreds of squirrels, which, I know are not everyones cup of tea but I like them.

Remember that Moda jelly roll rug I was making? I suddenly remembered earlier today that I have never posted the photos of it finished. So here it is, my little woven moda jelly roll rug, in front of the fireplace. It could have been a bit bigger but there you go, we learn by our mistakes LOL.

A day I thought I would never see!! The day when I finally got to quilt Kellies' patchwork quilt. After all, I am pretty sure I started this quilt over four years ago when she was only six!! I have virtually caught up with all my unfinished projects now apart from the birth sampler for Kellie which is still half done LOL.

On Friday I spent a few hours sorting the back of the quilt out and pinning the top layer, wadding and backing fabric together, ready to sew today. I had to move it off the table for dinner and no sooner had I done that Jessie was on it like a shot and spent a happy two hours fast asleep on it...some things never change.

My friend Taz asked me to make a door hanger for her as a new baby gift for one of her friends' new baby. Here it is.

I had an order from Singapore for an iphone case in Cath Kidston pink polka dot fabric. Panic!! I don;t have any! My Mum to the rescue again. She i my personal shopper, did you not know? LOL. Mum went into Cath Kidston in Winchester, brought the fabric for me and got it straight in the post. I received the parcel the very next day. Here is the iphone case that is now on its way to Singapore. I also made my Mum one too but without the name label.

Sunday we are off to see Elton John at Hove cricket ground. I am really looking forward to it. I don't like crowds at all but can put that aside to see Elton John! We have tickets for the second row back from the front. I'm going to take my camera too so hopefully there will be some amazing photos to see next week on my blog. Clint has also booked a table for us at the best UK veggie restaurant in the country. I am also looking forward to eating there as it is going to be brilliant to pick anything off the menu and not having to ask or worry about it having any meat product in it. It is a pricey restaurant and will definitely be a one off. I'm going to choose something different to what I have ever eaten before, can't wait :o)

Today we were up earl to go to the Bexhill bootsale, but when we got there it wasn't on. I have no idea why...maybe the bad weather yesterday who knows. We decided to go in search of aboot sale and made our way out into the countryside to Rye. We never found a bootsale there either, but we did find a pick your own fruit farm. We stopped off here as the weather was lovely and we have always intended to take Kellie strawberry picking. We ended up picking strawberries, raspberries and some gooseberries. We stuffed as many strawberries in our mouths as we could whilst picking them. Oh sorry...that was just me, not the others :o) Got a shock when we paid for them though...you do tend to get a bit carried away when picking your own....£12!! Whoops!

Then it was on to Bodium to the vintage car and craft fair. The cars were pretty impressive...a trip down memory lane to cortinas, escorts, capris, hillman imps, morris minors, mini travellers...on and on, a step back in time.

Last weekend we went to Bodium Castle. We only ilive about 10 miles from it so it doesn't take us long to get there. After viewing the spectacular castle that is more intact than any other castle I've visited, we went on the steam railway just up the road. Now blogger has put my photos all in the wrong order (it wasn't me honest).

Kellie on the train

Clint and myself on the train, taken by Kellie.

The train arriving at the station...told you they were in the wrong order!!

Waiting for the train.
Very old prams on the platform.

In the ticket office.

The spectacular Bodium Castle. We are now National Trust Memebers so the entrance wa free for us. This is our first National Trust visit. We hope to work our way through the book of all our local attractions.

Huge, huge ghost carp in the moat.

A princess and her Dad looking out the tower.

Hope you enjoyed the local attractions, see you soon. x

A letter from The Queen :o)

2011-06-07T19:49:00.005+01:00

I forgot to mention....a few weeks back, Clint encouraged Kellie to write a letter to The Queen about the Royal Wedding. I scoffed and said don't be so stupid, they won't write back! Clint said she would get a letter from The Queen back. Anyway the letter was posted...and on Satiurday, this arrived in the post!!!!

I know it is only a standard letter they sent out but how lovely to think that they do this. Kellie was quite excited, so were we actually LOL. Something to go with all the photos of the Royal Wedding scrapbook I think.

You may notice I have added Diary of a tinyholder's charity raffle button on my blog. Sian is raising funds for a very worthwhile animal rescue charity. Why not buy a ticket or two? They are only £2 a ticket and the prizes are brilliant...go on, have a look, the link to her blog is in my sidebar...the blog name? Diary Of A Tinyholder :o)

Hello again

2011-06-05T18:38:00.012+01:00

Hi everyone, the sun has gone and it is pouring with rain here today. I kept hoping that the weather forecast might be wrong but its not! Yesterday, it was hard to imagine that today was going to be the start of loads of rain for us. The curse of the English weather I suppose.

As usual and as you would expect of me, I have been doing lots of sewing. The cases below were a custom order for somebody that asked me to put the names on for them. The lady I made them for was thrilled with the cases. The Union Jack was for her and the Brenda one was for her friend. At this very moment the Union Jack case has gone on holiday and is going on a wildlife expedition in the Galapagos!

A few years ago, my parents gave me the Cath Kidston book 'SEW' for Christmas. It has unbelievably taken me two years to finally get around to making the bag! I liked it so much that I made a second one for my Mum. I also made her a matching tissue case to go in the bag. She loved it, I hope she will use it. It is only a small bag but ideal for when you don't want to carry everything but the kitchen sink. I have yet to take a photo of my bag (the kit one from the book)but it has come out lovely. I lined both bags and Mum pointed out to me (I never thought of it) that they can be reversed. Becasue of the way I lined them there are no raw seams anywhere. I am toying with the idea to make on for Ebay and see how it does.

The inside lining..

A matching pair..

Mum and Dad came down to stay last weekend and we went out for a meal at the local pub. Here is Grant and his girlfriend Gracie...and yes that is a happy face from Grant!! LOL.

Clint

and Mum and Dad. It was a nice meal, I enjoyed it.

Last week as it was half term, Kellie and I went to Hastings old town. We wandered up the York Stoned cobbles of George Street, looking in the windows of the quirky little shops.

At the end of George Street, there is a giant chess board with some amazing sculptures. Here is Kellie, sat on one and as you can see from her face, she asking if she can get down yet!! LOL.

Round the corner and a short walk up the hill, you come ot this memorial garden.

Its a gorgeous looking little garden and when you read the plaque it makes you feel quite sad.

This church is just across the road from the memorial garden.

We visited Alexandra Park in Hastings on Thursday. It is a beautiful park and has won loads of awards year after year. I only had my phone on me that day but when the nice weather returns I will take lots of pictures of the different areas of the park as it just has to be seen to be believed...its gorgeous.

Here's a bit of a random photo taken a few weeks ago. Clint went to Goodwood Racecourse with his work colleagues. They went to the posh bit and had to wear a suit. They hired this suit for Clint as his wedding suit doesn't fit anymore LOL. He looks pretty smart I reckon. He even had cufflinks!

I love these little elves. They were one of my first Ebay finds many years ago and have been from house to house with us. They look so sweet peeping out of the plants like that, although this partuicular one is in a different pot now as the plants overgrew him and we couldn't see him.

Thats better..

This is the new bit of patio that Clint laid whilst I was at my parents house a few weeks ago. As you can see, we now have a pot burner. It is actually a pizza oven...its brilliant, it gets so hot and its such a pleasure to sit down the garden next to it at dusk, watching the birds feeding and admiring my hens LOL.

I edited this photo and cut my washing line out! I have no idea how it got back in the photo..sorry LOL

A view down the garden showing the huge plant that is looking fantastic this year. It gives the pond shade in that area and the fish love it.

My sunflowers in pots. Excuse the hose, turf was being laid at the time.

The pond view from the house.

At last its time for the turf to be laid. This was taken yesterday and is of Clint and Reg getting rid of the very last of the pebbles from the garden and replacing them with the top soil.

Looking so much better already.

WE HAVE GRASS :O)

We keep looking at it and thinking how much better it looks than the pebbles that were there when we moved in. The pond is begining to look more at home now, being surrounded by grass rather than pebbles.

I've seen quite alot of my friend Amaya this week that lives just up the road. It his her daughter, Francesca that I made the tissue case and bookmark for in my last blog post. They came with us when we went to Alexandra Park and have also been around for coffee since. As Amaya likes to see what I am making and gushes over whatever it is LOL, she has slowly got to recognise what fabric is Cath Kidston and what isn't! A few months ago she had never heard of Cath Kidston...she has now!! Yesterday whilst we were sat outside having lunch she called around with a present for me. It was all wrapped up in paper with a label...bless her. When I opened it, I foundthis Cath Kidston journal and the sticker book, that has lots of address labels and cute little stickers that you keep bags and letters closed with. I was thrilled with it, so pleased. I couldn't believe she went out and brought me that. They're not cheap at all. She said she saw them in Waterstones and knew I would like them. Like them? I love them. In return I am going to make them two appliqued name cushions for their beds. I brought the pattern last week and am itching to try it out.

Clint wants me to not get anymore hens :o( He said he would make our garage/shed area into a sewing room for me. I think he is sick of seeing my sewing machine on the dining room table! Along with all my cotton and fabric and all the other bits that go with a sewing hobby. We are hoping that my clever Dad, the retired chippy :o) will come down in the summer sometime to put a new roof on the garage. My Dad really enjoys doing roofs, he used to work on them alot when I was a kid. Clint would help of course, under Dads guidance. If that area is going to be for sewing I would definately need a bigger window put in and roof windows as it is too dark as it is. It would have heating and I could make it truely my own space, just for me and decorate it exactly as I want, nice an girly :o)There is already a toilet and shower room built in so I could even put my bed in there!!!!

Clint wants my chicken house as his shed, he has always wanted that area for his shed and thought I would tire of hens along time ago. Unfortunately for him I haven't. I love keeping hens and was intending to get some bantams in the near future. Of course my hens I've got aren't going anaywhere, they have a home for life. It's very tempting as I would love my own sewing space so I can just leave things as they are and shut the door. Unlike now, where I have to clear everything away so we can eat at the table. But, when I think of the hen coop, with no hens in it it makes me feel really down. Those little ladies are my little friends and I enjoy looking after them. Alot of thinking to be done on this one I think....

Tomorrow Grant sits his Maths exam again. He really needs to pass this for his college course. The second part of the exam is on Friday. He left school officially just over a week ago and it feels weird to me that he doesn't have to go in any more.

He applied to the college to study ICT level 2 in September. We were stunned to find that he has been offered a place on level 3 instead (the highest course)on the condition he gets either his English or his Maths gcse at a grade 3 or above. If he doesn't make the grade he will go down to the level 2 that he applied for, but we would be thrilled if he could start level 3. He has passed his ICT qualifications so its just the waiting game now for his results in August....dreading them, hope he passes.

Fridays' Ramblings

2011-05-20T21:01:00.004+01:00

Last Sunday Kellie went to a birthday party. I was really stumped on what to get the birthday girl. She was eight years old and has everything!! Honestly, an only child with an amazing amount of toys!

So, I settled on these...a tissue case and a matching corner bookmark both with her name on. Apparently they went down really well. I knew her Mum Amaya, would recognise them as my handy work straight away. She sometimes calls in to my house as she only lives in the next road. I always show her my work in progress and she has brought a door hanger off me in the past for Francesca. When I saw her at the school on Tuesday she thanked me for them and said they were brilliant presents. Which pleased me alot. The tissue case is in Francescas' schoolbag :o) The bookmark is for her library books. Every Saturday they call round for Kellie and go up to our small local library to change their books.

The fox is back and enjoying the sun!! I'm not too happy with him actually because I noticed hes been digging in my garden pots that have bedding plants in them. I know its him as he left his 'scent'!!

On Tuesday my parents went to Portsmouth for the day. Its only a short train ride from where they live so they leave the car at home and jump on the train instead. Mum had already told me they were going and they would be going to the Cath Kidston Outlet shop at Gunwarf Quay.

Once there Mum text me the names of all the fabrics they had in stock whilst she went for a coffee awaiting my reply. I chose the fabrics I wanted and asked her to get me a couple of tea towels too and to look out for ribbon! Apparently they don't actually sell the ribbon but use it for wrapping the goods in if they are for presents or whatever. Mum told her they were presents for me and she wrapped everything up in the red ribbon with white writing and put some extra in too. Along with that she gave Mum two extra gift bags and stickers!!! Now to anyone that just doesn't 'get' Cath Kidston stuff then this is totally lost on you LOL. For those of you in the know you will be envious of my four metres of ribbon! I saw some of this sell two days ago for £5! Yes £5 for something that is 'just' packaging basically. It is very sought after. I want it to make small tags in the seam of my kindle cases I make.

The tea towels are gorgeous fabric and they have the labels on too which will be taken off and re-used on something else I make. There is two metres of picnic tartan and one metre of summer blossom fabrics. My collection is building up nicely. I can now offer quite a selection of Cath Kidston prints.

The best part of all is that Mum and Dad have sent me this little lot as a gift and refused to take the money I offered them for it. My Mum is now my personal Cath Kidston shopper as we don't have a shop for miles...Brighton is the closest and that's a trek. So, thank you Mum and Dad, it really made my day to get that parcel.

The orange thing in the photo is Marks and Spencer capri pants, they fit gorgeously. I love orange.

Free samples!!! She has the gift of the gab my Mum :o)

All the goodies together. I have them next to me now to glace at and occasionally take a feel of the fabric whilst I'm writing this post :o)

I spent this morning potting up some of my bedding plants into tubs around the new patio area down the garden. Tomorrow I have two big planters that are going on the front of the chicken house to plant up. Then that is all the baskets and pots finished.

The garden is slowly coming along and starting to look nice again. You may remember that we had half of it dug up to lay land drains. Well, I am pleased to say that they are all laid now and covered back up. There is a soakaway installed with a pump that kicks in automatically if it reaches over a certain level of water. We are going to use this water to top up the pond and water the garden with once we install some water butts.

Clint has one more layer of paving slabs to add to the little patio area and then that bit is finished. On Tuesday we have four tons of top soil being delivered to put on our vegetable garden, flower border and the part around the pond where we removed all the pebbles. The following week the turf will arrive and it will be laid around the other side of the pond. This will now mean that our pond will be surrounded my grass instead of pebbles and will therefore, hopefully, begin to look more countryfied. I will take some photos of the garden tomorrow so you can see what I'm talking about.

Last weekend our retired electrician cum gardener friend, Reg, connected up all our new lights that we brought for our garden. They are lead light lanterns and we definately made the right choice. When on they cast a warm, homely sort of light. We are very pleased with them. We have a lampost light near the hen house, which cast a light over towards the hens so we can see what we are doing at night when we lock them away. The only trouble is, that Clint thinks its funny to turn the light on when I am down there before I've shut the eglu door! This results in about three or four hens to come trooping out again because they've seen the light!! I then have to coax them back in and quickly shut the door, otherwise I'd be down there all night.

Anyway, its late and I'm off to bed to read on my Kindle. I'm reading a fabulous book at the moment. A true story of a secondary school teacher. Its called 'Its your time you're wasting, not mine!' Sound familiar? It does to me LOL. I can definately recommend this book its hilarious and reminds me of my school days

2011-05-13T21:45:00.006+01:00

I got the local rag this morning like I always do and was chuffed to bits to see this on the front page. It seems the heritage lottery fund has granted the Hastings White Rock Pier Trust £357,400 to help towards rebuilding the pier after the fire last year, (did you know the two males arrested were released without charge, so nobody has been charged with the fire). Fingers crossed now that the lottery fund will grant the rest of the 8.75 million pounds needed to bring the pier back to its former glory.

Somebody asked me to make this as a present for her sister. This was a labour of love and I took my time and enjoyed making it. Incidently I took the label off the case on the front and replaced it with a better one. She desperately wanted a label on the case and I suddenly remembered I had one on my peg bag which has seen better days now and is all faded from the sunlight...I still like it alot though and will carry on using it for some time yet :o) Anyway I took the label off and sewed it on the kindle case as you can see. The photo doesn't actually show it but it looked very wishy washy. So, I sewed the one from my cath kidston bag kit on it which looked tons better. I forgot to take a picture of it with the ne label on it though...whoops. The label isn't that important to me so I'm not worried about not having one on my bag when I finally get to make it. I covered the buttons in the same fabric as the lining. I also put in a small Cath Kidston ribbon as a tag. This ribbon came with a duvet cover I brought. A brilliant way to use it up rather than sitting in my ribbon box.

Not a good photo at all, taken with my phone but thats the name label on a scrap of CK wobbble stripe fabric and sewn onto the back pocket.

All wrapped up and put in the post this morning.

A personalised London Scene case...off to live in Hong Kong :o)

I made myself a kindle case too. Everything I make is for somebody else, so I thought I'd treat myself to a pretty one. I made it the same as the Birthday present one above but with different buttons. Where as I didn't want a CK label on mine, I made a name label instead and sewed that on the front tab. I have a little ribbon tag too on mine :o)

A man's kindle case and some owl keyrings.

Me and my Nan. In half term week I went to stay with my parents and visited Nan whilst I was there...bless her, shes sweet isn't she. She's 89 this year. Suffering very badly with the alzheimers now and doesn't know me although she pretends she does :o(

Car boot sales are back :o)

2011-05-09T21:05:00.007+01:00

After another far too long absence, here I am again. Spring is definately here, look at these two on our neighbours roof LOL.

I have had so many orders via ebay and word of mouth it seems, that I have been sewing every single day. I love it. I'm never happier than when I am on my own sewing in my conservatory, especially when the sun is out and the doors are open :o)

The main things that people want are phone cases and kindle cases. The kindle cases have really taken off and they are selling before I have even made them! I am selling them for £15 each and matching iphone/Blackberry phone cases to match for
£10.
The pictures below are just two of the ones I made last week in the much loved, Cath Kidston 'London Scene' and the discontinued 'Birds'. The first picture shows the detailed edge at the top of the case.

Here's the front of the kindle cases.

Union Jack phone case. This is the back

This is the front.

Union Jack Kindle Case :o)

We went to the big carboot sale in Bexhill a couple of Sundays ago. I wanted to get there really early for a change and see if I could find some good things. It started at 6am (why do they do that??) We managed to arrive at just before 7am. It was a good time to arrive actually because it was still quite empty of buyers, just loads of sellers waiting for the rush.

I found this posy to go with my collection...£2 :o)

Assorted fabric...£3 bargain!!!!

A very cute and immaculate nightlight...£3.50

But this, this is my pride and joy of that car boot sale. The one item that made it worth getting up at 6am on a Sunday morning and dragging the rest of the family out of their beds too! This absolutely beautiful, totally immaculate bowl with the very lifelike frog in it. It was love at first sight. I almost held my breath when I asked the bloke how much he wanted for it. He said thats got to be worth £4!! Blimey, thats mine I thought and quickly paid him before he could change his mind and ask for more money. I think I got a bargain, well, I know I did. The bowl is immaculate with not a single chip anywhere. Love, love this.

A while ago, whilst browsing through freecycle posts, I saw somebody had a deckchair up for grabs. I thought if I had one I could do it up and make it snazzy to put on the decking :o)

Here it is after three coats of Cuprinol Shades in 'Sweetpea' and covered in a length of one of my favourite Cath Kidston fabrics. I'm going to staple it again with some bigger staples though, just to make sure I don;t end up on the decking sat on my bum!!

Tomorrow I have a busy day as I making a personalised Kindle Case for a lady that found me after googling 'Cath Kidston floral kindle case' LOL. She is actually working on a cruise ship and the case is for her sisters birthday in two weeks time. I love doing things to order when people tell me exactly how and what they want. Pictures to follow very soon I hope.

Cath Kidston purse

2011-04-18T22:38:00.004+01:00

Here is the Cath Kidston purse that Sally sent me. This post should be on the bottom of the one below but as blogger is backwards and you start from the bottom, this isn't possible. Sorry about the back to front post! A beautiful purse though, don't you just love that London design...my favourite.

A lovely spring day

2011-04-18T21:13:00.006+01:00

Hi, I'm back! Is everybody enjoying the lovely weather? I know I am. I am not a sunbather or anything like that but I have enjoyed pottering around the garden in it today. Well, I say pottering, but in reality it was hardly that at all!! I have been shovelling pebbles half the day as you can see from the pictureof the garden below.

Saturday was Grants' 16th Birthday!! 16! How did that happen! He got money from everybody which he promptly spent on a new phone. We hardly saw him at all as he was out with his mates and girlfriend Gracie. It was evening by the time we got to light the candles on his birthday cake! He enjoyed his day though. There was no birthday meal this year with the family, he didn't want on....hes growing up!!

Life in the pond is all happening. This year we must have hundreds and hundreds of tadpoles. Everyhwere you look in the pond you see tadpoles. Thats great news as we want to encourage wildlife to the pond. A really funny thing that happened a few weeks back, was that Clint moved a stone in the rockery and noticed a hole underneath it. His first thought was a rat hole, but when he moved the stone it is the home of a resident toad!! LOL. It made hime jump to say the least LOL. We have toad spawn in the pond too...very pleased about that.

The apple tree is in blossom...

The huge pile of stones I cleared today. They are all going to be bagged up and put on Ebay. This time last year we had freecyclers around bagging them up and taking them away, but somebody suggested we sell them, so we are going to see if we can get some cash for them. Pebbles cost a fortune to buy so if we sell them cheap not only will every penny count towards getting the garden as we want it, we also get rid of something that is cluttering the garden up!

The land drains are all laid now and the trenches have been filled in. We now have a soakaway with a submersible pump in it and a manhole lid on the top. Each time the soak away fills up we can attatch a hose pipe to the end of the pump hose and use it for watering the garden, topping up the pond or whatever we need water for. As we are on a water meter this may save us quite a bit of money. Clint is even thinking of using the water to flush the toilet that is in the utility room/garage. It can be pumped up there and maybe stored as we need it, although at this point it is only talk. As the water that floods our garden is from a natural spring it is crystal clear and clean.

The pile of tarpaulin that was underneath just that small are that I cleared of pebbles today! Is it any wonder the garden always flooded in heavy rain!

Last Monday, Sally (butterflyz blog in sidebar)her husband John and Ali, Sallys son came to visit us. It was absolutely amazing to meet them and we have so much in common I could have talked all night. They brought with them. three huge black bin liners of good quality curtains and duvet covers for me to cut up and use the fabric for sewing :o) By the following day the fabric was down to one bin bag with the other two having been emptied, washed, ripped up and ironed, ready to make things with. Sally and I talk via our whatsapp text messenger on our iphones every day or email if we have alot to say!! :o) She is lovely and I sincerely hope we will be friends for along time to come. She is so kind, generous and friendly. Not to mention very pretty. Both my kids mentioned the following day how pretty she is, inside and out. You don't meet friends like this very often.

Sally told me she had posted something to me on Friday and I've been quite excited over the weekend wondering what it is and when it would arrive. Well, it arrived today! The box below..

Cath Kidston!!!

I opened it and was like..OMG its my favourite CK fabric, the London scene one!! Its a purse, a huge purse with loads of spaces for cards and bits as well as money. I absolutely love it and have been picking it up and looking at it, over and over again throughout the day. Now I am nearly at the bottom of writing this post, having loaded all my photos first, I now realise that I left the close up pictures of the purse off!! Never mind, I'll put the photos into another post after this one! Also note the very pretty hot water bottle cover she sent me with the purse...pretty or what? I have been very spoilt today..thank you Sally, as you already know, I am so pleased with the gifts. I just need to track the London fabric down now to make myself that bag I keep dreaming about!

On another note, I have been putting alot of the stuff I make on ebay and have been totally blown away by the fact it is selling! Yay! Everyday I have to post another item...kindle cases and iphone cases seem to be selling like hotcakes, I'm not complaining, at last I feel like I am not wasting my time making all these different things from fabric because people actually want them. Its a lovely feeling that people are using my cases for their kindles or their iphones :O)

A different red and a new hairstyle :o)

2011-04-08T14:52:00.004+01:00

A quick update here about the hair!! That gorgeous red I dyed it two weeks ago...well it was doomed really from the start. The roots were showing through at two weeks!!! OMG I wasn't expecting that. I went into town last week twice looking for the same dye. Nowhere had it and by Friday I was desperate. I brought two dyes which looked virtually the same as the one I had used previously but a little darker. I dyed it on Monday this week and was pretty pleased with the colour it came out. Okay, its definately quite alot darker than the other colour, but much more manageable to keep it looking good. Even the hairdresser said this morning about it being a great colour :o)

Kellie and I had to go to the dentist for a check up this morning. We both passed although the dentist said that I will need a crown on one of my bottom back teeth in the future! Not too chuffed about that as they are expensive business aren't they. Anyway, after dropping Kellie off at school I made myself the much needed hair appointment. This is the new hair style. I probably won't straighten it quite as much as the hairdresser has but I am very pleased with it. Also I didn't get the very predictable cropped bob that I normally get cut.

2011-03-31T14:45:00.007+01:00

Hi everyone, I am still here, just been busy. I am going to set some time aside tonight to catch up on some blogs too. Its been ages since I've done some blog catchup reading.

When Dad gave me this bird table, I never dreamt that a one of our cats would be able to get int it!

Where's the bacon rind??? One half of the gruesome twosome, tortoishell terrors...otherwise known as Jessie.

Hmmm, no bacon rind today, I'm off!

What a gorgeous day it has been here. I have been happily sewing away in my conservatory inbetween doing menial things like washing, ironing, hoovering and cooking! The cats are loving this sun, so are the hens. Wherever the sun is shining the cats and hens are sat there. As it moves so do the hens and cats haha.

Yesterday I took one of my newest hens round to Reg, my neighbour, for him to put to sleep. She has been ill for over a week and has been getting progressively worse each day. I kept hanging on another day in the hope that she would improve but it wasn't to be :o( Her comb went from a bright red to blue. Enough was enough. As usual, like we agreed, Reg left her body out at the bottom of the garden for the fox. Regular readers to my blog will know how much I like the foxes :o) I think this is the right thing to do as it is part of the life cycle.

Well, I was stood at the sink this morning washing up the breakfast things when I saw the fox in our garden on the grass. He hasn't been around since we dug all the trenches to lay the land drains. I suppose it has changed his boundaries so he has stayed away. Well this morning after he had gone and I went to put the washing on in the utility room I saw the feathers!! The cheek of him!! That fox brought MY hen into MY garden to eat!!! Aggghhh, I couldn't believe he would do this to me. Luckily for me there were no body parts, just quite a few feathers. I certainly wasn't expecting that!! He is not in my good books at the moment.

Its the hen rescue this Saturday and to my dismay, Clint has to go to Twickenham so he won't be able to collect the hens. The absolutely great news is...that somebody else is going to bring the hens down to me at my house instead. All the local to me rehomers, will collect their hens from my house as usual. What is not usual though is the amount we have this time around....86!! That is a brilliant figure for this area, it is normally between 20 to 30 hens.

I would like to think that people found out about the hen rescue via my advertising but I'm not sure...I must ask them actually on Saturday, how they heard about it. I advertised the rescue on here, tumblr and gumtree, oh and facebook. :o)

I have been making more kindle cases. I put a couple of buy it now listings on Ebay and have sold three on there this week so I am very pleased.

I also got an order for a personalised tissue case for somebody, which I made today. I am finding it is better lately to sell on ebay but to put a link in my ebay listing to my store envy shop (in my sidebar). That way, I can just put one photo in my ebay listing which makes it cheaper and put the rest in store envy which is free.

I've made quite a few with the Cath Kidston Briar Rose fabric with the blue and red check for the flap. They are all slightly different inside, but you get the idea :o)

A yellow floral case. I love this fabric...I have 5 metres of it LOL.

The work is still going on in the garden with the land drains. All the gullies are now dug as you can see from the pictures below.

The trenches go on....and...on

all the way down to the bottom of the garden..and behind the chicken shed.

I made these as an order for somebody...but they got lost in the post!! So I made them again and thankfully she got them today...phew.

Little ipod touch or iphone cases I made. These are on Ebay at the moment. Lots of watchers but no buyers yet!!

My latest makes :o)

2011-03-28T19:15:00.004+01:00

Here is all the bits and pieces I made Sally (Butterflyzz blog is sidebar). At last I finished it all and sent it out to her on Friday for her to receive it on Saturday. She text me on Saturday after she had opened the parcel to say how much she liked it all so I am very happy about that. It took me a long time to make it all but the kindle case probably took the longest and gave me alot of sleepless nights as I couldn't get it to go how I wanted it to go. As I only had enough fabric to make it once it wa a stressful item to make!! Now I know how to put it together and feel I can make another one with no problems now. The thing that made it complicated was because it has a pocket on the back too and everything is all sewn up together with all the layers being in the right order so that when it is turned in the right way, there is no raw seams anywhere. It is my own design making it like this and has taken me a long time to get my head around how to do it! Logistics is not my thing and maths, even less my thing!! But I got it sussed now and have written it all down :o) The Cath Kidston spray fabric and the blue checked lining fabric which I used inside was what Sally sent me. As you can see, I covered the buttons in the lining fabric too so it all co ordinates. I am also very, very relieved and pleased to report the laptop fits the sleeve....phew!

Sally has designed me my own label and I am going to run it through my embroidery software tonight to see how it will stitch out. I will actually try sewing it in the morning.

We have been busy all weekend in the garden. Clint put another perch in the chicken house for me for the hens. This one is higher than the other two and we are seeing if we can get them to go higher and higher until they are sat on the rafters of the house. This way it makes use of the space better as the roof is high and it seems like a waste of space. Maybe some shelves for them to sit on too, but then maybe not as they might be a bit too hard to clean.

The garden is looking awful. We have half of it dug up with trenches dug for land drains. The drains are being delivered tomorrow and Clint is laying them at the weekend. We have had a workman digging the trenches for us all last week and today. He i also coming back to finish digging the soakaway on Wednesday. Hopefully this will cure our flooding problem in the garden. In April Clint has time off work and the workman is coming back to help Clint dig the pond deeper. This means that the fish we are keeping have to go to a temporary home. Where this is going to be we have no idea at the moment. The goldfish keep spawning and despite giving away about 50 of them last summer, the numbers are up again!! When the pond is dug to the new depth, the only fish that are going back in there are a few of our favourite carp. The pond is going to be more for wildlife than fish, just like we have wanted for ages. Lots of plants, insects and hopefully lots of dragonflies again if the cats will just leave them alone!!

Clint spent a fair few hours yesterday emptying the hot tub and cleaning it out. We brought some special chemical that you put in the old water that kills all the bugs before it is emptied and refilled. The new lid arrived and it is now fitted on the hot tub. It fits perfectly which is a good job as it cost alot of money and it was made to Clints' measurements!! Lol. He always measures things wrong, but not this time. It must of been because it cost him £350!!

xx

Loving the first day of spring

2011-03-21T19:08:00.007Z

Yesterday we had a kind of history lesson. Our neighbour Reg came round to ask if we wanted to go and have a look at 'The Amstadam' wreckage as the tide was out. I read about this ship that sunk in the 1740's ages ago and have been quite intrigued by it ever since. The wreckage is still there stuck in quicksand, but it can only be seen at this time of year for around a week, when the tide is very low and goes out for miles.

It was discovered in the 1960's and before anybody realised what was happening, the locals were down on the beach as the word spread around. Everything that could be seen or dug up was looted. Once the authorities got on top of what was going on they put a stop to it, but not before most of the treasure that could be accessed was taken.

This was our first view of the ship as we approached it across the sands of Bulverhythe, which is inbetween St Leonards On Sea and Bexhill On Sea. The people you can see around the wreckage are surveyors.

Onwards

You will not believe what this is?? It is ancient forests!! When you look closer you can see all the rotted wood that were once trees. This is from dinasour era!!

A view looking to the left towards St Leonards,

More ancient forest! If you didn't know this you would just assume that this is rocks. Luckily for us we have our own history guide that just happens to be a born and bred Hastings man, so knows EVERYTHING about the area.

This bit of wood at the front of the picture is the bow of the ship. If you look beyond that, you can see the shape of the boat. It is surrounded by iron walls that the authorities installed around the boat in the 1960's to help preserve it. The actual inside of the boat is still filled with sand and water and cannot be gotten to. Apparently it is still has a full cargo but the quicksand prevents anyone being able to dig down into it. The ship was on its way from Belgium when it sunk in one of the worse storms the area had ever seen. Ironically, the wreckage was discovered after another storm, very much like the one that sunk it but 200 years later!

The weather has been gorgeous today here and it looks like it has been enjoyed by all...Jessie

Her sister...Millie

and...this young man caught my eye from my kitchen window this morning...

Hmmmm, he knows I'm always spying on him LOL. I am so pleased though that his mange seems to be miraculously clearing up!! In the cold weather he had hardly any fur and was all pink skin...and yes it is the same fox :o) He's a regular and I give him tit bits sometimes.

Do the hens look bothered?? Lol. Too busy enjoying the sunshine and dustbathing. Hens adore the sun and they follow it around their coop every morning.

Looks like he's fed up with looking at the hens now knowing he can't get them, they are in a very fox proof run so I'm not worried.

I spent all morning listening to the radio whilst cleaning the house from top to bottom. Then it was time to sew...yay! My favourite part of the day, housework all done, washing on the line, everything spick and span with the ironing all finished too. So I carried on with making Sally's laptop sleeve and also finished sewing my moda jelly roll rug together. Just need to do the backing for it now. But first I have a kindle case and a matching laptop sleeve to finish. They're looking good, all in Cath Kidston fabric...lovely.

Red, red hair :o)

2011-03-18T17:25:00.002Z

I liked the red hair so much, I re did it again :o) Now this is truly red!!!! Thanks for the nice comments you left me on my new hair....or should I say my red barnet hahahahaha

Whoo Hoo Red hair...love it

2011-03-15T12:24:00.003Z

I've finally gone and done it!! I've wanted my hair this colour for yonks!! Love, love, love it....happy dance, so pleased with it. Going to get it restyled now :o)