Firstly, thank you so much for all your lovely comments, emails and kind wishes you sent about
my shop site (and even purchases!). Also, thank you to Lynsey (who has her own lovely shop
here - best known for her wonderful trademark chicken doorstops, I've spotted that she also makes egg-box sewing kits...which I think is such a fantastic idea) who featured my site on
Cuteable within a couple of hours of my announcing that my shop was open - what better start could I have possibly asked for? Ian was flattered to hear all your positive feedback about his design...and I am so grateful to him that he spent so many hours perfecting all that pink and red girlishness for me....he will be
rebalancing by being generally butch and mannish this week.
Anyway, onto things delightful: last week
Julia had very kindly offered to send me some soap nuts as she knew that I'd wanted to try some (for those of you that haven't investigated them already...they are a strange sort of nut that produces a natural soap making them a perfect environmentally-friendly substitute to washing powders - I will be trying them on my next wash). But goodness, what unexpected goodies arrived with them. I am slightly ashamed to say that despite having always taught my children that it is polite to open a card before a parcel or present, I quite forgot myself (I think it was the sight of the 'let's sew' badge on the outside of the fabric packaging that did it!) and they both crowded round and together we unwrapped the little parcels. Inside we found this collection of buttons (shown at the top). Zebra-girl gasped as I poured them out on to the bed (for she was having a day off due to being poorly), and studied them one by one, unable to believe her eyes at so much sparkly, shiny loveliness. The little stars and a packet of tiny necklace beads made me a little suspicious that I may not be their intended recipient and on opening Julia's card I was able to tell Zebra that all the things that she could see, that she was so breathlessly coveting and wishing to possess, had actually all been sent for her. Words can't quite convey her delight on hearing this, as well as her surprise and happiness that someone whom she has never met chose to hand-pick such treasures.
Julia has somehow surmised from my posts exactly what would appeal to my little Zebra and so there were tactile pieces of softest,
drapiest velvet, as well as satin specially picked for its colour being identical to that of a ballet shoe.
After lunch (attended by Zebra with one of Julia's lovely hair clips in her hair) Zebra-girl was inspired to sew and as Dinosaur-boy was home I felt torn by my wish to always say yes when she makes such a request, but also not wanting to spend hours doing something that would exclude her brother...which is why we ended up making squid. After reading
this excellent book, both children have become completely captivated by the mystery that surrounds the Giant Squid and the dark inky blue of one of the velvets that Julia had sent seemed perfect for such a project. Dinosaur-boy picked out his own fabrics and was emphatic that this old Amy Butler print was what was needed, accented with some turquoise velvet for squiddy tentacles...he even hand-sewed some buttons on for eyes (with a little help), but unfortunately the little Teacakes ran away to have squid battles before I could photograph the finished creatures.
And look, Julia sent something for me too! This beautiful Cloth Store piece of loveliness...it is exactly what I would have been unable to resist buying if I had seen it myself.
We felt utterly spoiled...but the resounding sense that I have been left with is happiness at the idea that someone could have been quite so kind, generous, thoughtful and sweet. Thank you, Julia, we will treasure the things that you sent.
And finally, after having friends over for dinner last night, I woke with the wish to spring clean (a little too much wine can do that to a girl, I find) and every cupboard in the entire house has now been restructured and re-ordered...but what I really wanted to tell you about is my new partner in cleanliness. Our old vacuum cleaner had a habit of overheating, sports a plug held together with sellotape after being suctioned back into its storage port a little too enthusiastically and hitting furniture on its way, and finally Ian threw an essential part of it in the bin on his only venture into bag-emptying, which meant that I was recently given the task of buying a new one. Hours of research (but no PowerPoint presentations...which signifies that I was some way from melt-down) happily left me with only one option. I had no idea that a vacuum cleaner could be such a delight, and had never dreamt that something could gobble up stray threads from a carpet in the way that I have since witnessed...my sewing sessions were normally ended by a lengthy combination session of vacuuming, picking individual threads up and cursing the fact that someone was yet to invent a giant Velcro pad that would more easily grapple the threads from their tangle with the carpet (that sounds alarming like a Giant Squid, I know)...but no more, it appears as though I've just laid a new carpet after vaguely waving the nozzle in the direction of the room for less than two minutes. Amazing!
x
It feels like a long time since I last posted after something of an unintended blogging break...being poorly for what felt like forever and then a holiday have kept me away. We have been staying in the most wonderful cottage with my parents which was perfect in every way (except for a strange abundance of blown light bulbs) near West Wittering in East Sussex. We spent chilly days wrapped up on the beach, collecting seashells, walking, talking, watching a strange sea sport involving a board and a kite. We had lovely food, lots of wine and sat watching utterly addictive DVDs of the BBC drama State of Play around a toasty fire in the evenings. We had a lovely lunch at The Foresters Arms in Graffham, and a happy afternoon wandering around the harbour and church at Bosham. The beach huts above were photographed at West Wittering...I think you might be able to guess which one I would like to store my sandy towels in...and the photograph below of some shells stuck together reminded me a little of my stripy meringues!
But down to business....in the weeks before our holiday I had suddenly realised that we would be in striking distance of one of my favourite shops for internet browsing. I broke this news to Ian in the car on the way to our holiday cottage (I was driving, which prevented any possibility of u-turns or erratic lane changes in response) and negotiated a ten minute pitstop in The Eternal Maker for the following day...but somehow our watches tick to a different time and Ian is adamant that this bite-size piece of fun overran by 17 minutes (but when he saw how pleased I was with my fabrics he did offer to take me back again the next day... somehow I managed to muster the good grace to decline). The shop was even more lovely than I had imagined it might be and had bolt upon bolt of gorgeous fabrics, and I was even asked whether I wanted my fat quarter cuts with or without wonderful colourful selvedges...a small thing, but one that made me wish that I could shop there every day...for they seem to understand the love of fabric in a way that (surprisingly!) so many shops don't.
I was also pleased with this ribbon...I have no idea what I might use it for, but I love the colours.
I came home to two lovely custom orders (one of which is large and requires research into previously unchartered territory regarding strange fabrics and supplies...creating the requested items will involve my first attempt at sewing with stretch fabrics which I have managed to studiously avoid so far, I will post pictures when they are finished - and no, Jo, Lisa & Helen...this has absolutely nothing to do with making knickers). I also finally put some items onto Etsy last night, so I now have my own shop and a slightly less well stocked shop on Etsy too, which can be found here. I was really impressed by how easy it is to upload everything and set it all up...and now I'm wondering why I put off doing it for so long.
The bedrest (of the darkened room variety, rather than the laptop in bed variety) and my holiday means that I have 2,500 posts in my bloglines, which is both lovely and daunting...my head tells me that the sensible thing is to mark all as 'read' and start again, but somehow I can't do this just in case I miss something lovely (and with that many posts I know that I definitely would), but as it is still half-term and I have small ones wanting to do things other than watch their mummy gazing at the computer screen, I think I may have to let that number climb a little higher before I can begin a prolonged reading session. Wishing you all a lovely week in the crisp sunshineyness...perfect half-term weather. x
For Ella's I wanted a design that she might like while she's very small, but that might also be acceptable if it is still in 
So here is the little family of stockings and they are now safely in Canada. I almost felt like I was there as they unwrapped them as Charlotte's lovely parents were visiting and thoughtfully photographed the unwrapping. Charlotte's photos often make me feel a little tearful, but in a good way, just because she is so lovely and I miss her and I'm so proud of how brave she has been in setting up a whole new life in a different country. I enjoyed making these stockings so much that I have now made another three which will soon be appearing in my shop.
The pictures have a strange gloominess to them, so please imagine them with lovely streams of dappled evening sunlight on them and they will look much more appealing. Zebra-girl has the largest room in our house and her bay-window measures four metres long. I believe it is quite possible that I may still be suffering from post-traumatic stress as a result of the battles I had just attempting to move such a volume of fabric from the floor to my sewing machine (18 metres of fabric when combining the print with the lining and 18 metres of velvet to be stitched on), so I am yet to look at them without feeling slightly exhausted. I think that making excessively large curtains may be one of the few things that doesn't carry the same trick as childbirth of instantly 
When we first moved in we put Zebra-girl's bed in the length of the bay window and painted the 
I have yet to tell her that these are the curtains she will have until she leaves home...I do hope they have long-lasting appeal.
These are the toes of Zebra-girl poking out from beneath her birthday quilt. In the months 
But then one day a couple of weeks ago my mother and I were sitting in Zebra-girl's room while she was at school and we were looking at all 
The binding is a mixture of old and new fabrics and this combination is actually the bit that gives me the most pleasure to look at. The quilt is a very simple design: a strip of floral paisley at each end with red polka dots in the centre, and a strip of powdery blue velvet ribbon (again, salvaged from the original curtains) to cover the joins...so on that front it was a simple quilt to construct, but in terms of the actual quilting part, which I had never done before, I felt like I learned a lot (which for other new quilters I thought it may be worth sharing). Firstly, that I had never realised what a physical thing quilting is; the sheer weight of the materials and the effort of holding it taut as it goes through the machine was quite unexpected. I had always 
To bind, I machined the top side and then hand-stitched the underside. I had a friend round for one of the mornings that I was doing the hand-sewing and when she asked why I didn't just machine-stitch the whole thing I realised that as well as thinking it would be neater this way, I also felt that for it to be the quilt I wanted it to be, some of it must be done by hand. I hardly ever 
I bought a book called 
Zebra-girl was delighted with her quilt, pleased to see her old curtains again (albeit in a different form) and has snuggled beneath it often. The canny amongst you may already have guessed that my next post may hold some mention of the making of new curtains, which for a bay window measuring 4 metres wide suddenly made the previous week's adventures with a single quilt's worth of material seem rather paltry by comparison.
