Wednesday, 29 October 2008
Coming home
Monday, 13 October 2008
The one where I follow a pattern!

I'd seen Joanne's tutorial a long time ago and told her how wonderful it looked at the time (do go and peep, it is impressively clear) but I'm sure that she thought I was just being sycophantic as she knows how foolish I become when faced with a pattern. But, reader, I followed it and it was such a lovely feeling to be able to just cut and sew knowing that someone else had done all the tiresome work of measuring crochet hooks, pocket sizes and seam allowances. I made a small variation to Jo's lovely pattern (only because it just felt too downright freaky to be following someone else's every word in such a way!) and turned the pocket, that was used to store the embroidery needles for threading in ends, into a small padded pin cushion instead.
I can't tell you quite how many hours it took me to track down a pair of pink scissors the same shade as the fabric...but putting anything else in there would have felt quite wrong (I know sometimes I even irritate myself with how matchy-matchy I can become!). The birthday girl came and visited us on her the day and Ian had made her a cake depicting a Boggle grid, which is our game of choice whenever we holiday together.
Oh, and shop news...poor weary Ian has now upgraded my website so that it links directly to PayPal for payment (which I'm reliably informed you don't need a Paypal account to use), rather than back to me so that I could raise an invoice...it was simply too long-winded and troublesome that way. Whoooppeeee! It feels like a proper grown-up shop now...although I know that I have just undone its new-found maturity in saying that....
x
Sunday, 12 October 2008
Loveliness
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.
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
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
Not a rocket...

Last weekend I was chatting to Pipany about my site nearly being ready and discussing the 'launching' of it when I realised how very uncomfortable using that term in relation to my website made me - for it suggests something grand and rocket-sized. So instead I shall just say that Made by Florence is open for business and I would love any feedback if you choose to go and look around...or just to hear what you did once you'd recovered should you have gone into shock over the uncharacteristic brevity of this post.
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
Don't mention the horses

I think I'd said in my last post that I would share some photographs of the curtains that I'd made for Zebra-girl. After hacking the old ones down with some shears so that I might use them as quilting material, my mother said that she would love to buy the fabrics for me to make some new ones so that she could give them as a birthday present. We picked this pink flowery loveliness together, discussed the merits of many of the colours on my velvet swatch chart (a prized possession) and then did some stressful shop-based research into which lining should be used (actually a new one that has a fleece thermal layer on one side - it faces inwards so you don't ever see that bit of unsightly furriness - and looks like normal curtain lining on the other side).
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 forgetting the horrors - I haven't forgotten and I don't ever want to do it again...so if we ever move house again I shall have tiny windows on my wish list.
When we first moved in we put Zebra-girl's bed in the length of the bay window and painted the ceiling of the bay in a warm pink to create a cocoon-like feel, in an otherwise cream-coloured room. I loved how cosy this felt...but sadly Zebra-girl has the bug that I too suffered from as a child: she loves to change her room around as often as I will allow it...
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.
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
Zebra's quilt
I was quite sad once the quilt was finished as I had so enjoyed making it (in an aching shoulder sort of way), so it was uncannily wonderful for me that on Zebra-girl's birthday I had a note saying that there was a package waiting for me at the post office. I opened it to find that my dear friend Charlotte (whom I met at primary school, aged 8, when we were the only two girls in our entire school who had no desire to attend recorder club in our lunch hour...a mutual dislike of wind instruments that has proved to be a sound basis for a friendship spanning 23 years) had sent the most lovely and unexpected 'just because' present of a book about quilting, which she'd apparently bought for me several months earlier, but had kept for herself after it had an impromptu meeting with some small baby hands. But now we both have a copy, which makes it even more special. The book has some fantastic projects so I am now thinking about what kind of quilt I might make next (something for Dinosaur-boy I'm thinking...and I'm quite intrigued by the idea of what a hand-tied quilt might be like to make).