My Weblog

Happy Pear

wishes you a happy weekend.

And I do too.

Friday wip

A half apron for Molly to wear over her jeans.

 

Because this is the closest she will ever get to wearing a skirt.

And later I want to try out my yo-yo maker I got at Superbuzzy. Maybe I'll have a go at making something from here (click on the little pdf box to view the instructions).

Various other free patterns here, and it's worth having a little lookie here too.

Have a great weekend !

Mum...Mum...MUUUUUUUMMY !

That's all I've been hearing the last few days. The two smallest are sick. Sick enough to be off school, but not sick enough to quit fighting and arguing and shouting for me, unfortunately. I prefer the sort of sickness where they are laying quietly on the sofa sleeping all day.

I'm one of seven children ( imagine that ), and when I was little my Mother frequently used to lock us out of the house all day, particularly during the long summer holidays, and can you blame her ?  When we wanted a drink/wee/something to eat, we used to have to crouch down and shout through the letter-box to ask if we could come in. This request was normally met with a reply of

' Mum's bum ' or

' Mother's Ass ' or

' You bloody kids give my ass a headache ' ( I never figured that one out until I grew up and had kids of my own, and then it all became crystal clear).

My Mum is 83 now and she still swears like a trouper and behaves very inappropriately. The kids think she's hilarious. One day, when I'm feeling brave, I'll share with you the rude rhymes she's taught them.

Anyway, *amazingly* I have managed to do a little bit of crafting. I spent last night sewing the binding on to Molly's quilt that has taken me over 4 years to make.

This is the first big quilt I've ever started and finished, and quite possibly it'll be the last. Let's just say you are not going to be getting any close up shots. There are so many mistakes I wouldn't know where to start, but it looks just fine from a distance.

Unforunately, I don't have a 'Thomas' - in house colorist extraordinaire, to give me advice like Jane does ( I've tried offering her a swap - two of my children for one of hers but she's having none of it), so I made it up as I went along.  If I try to plan things out I get in a tizzy-wizzy about not repeating patterns, and balance and stuff, my brain just doesn't seem to work that way, so I wing it - with mixed results.

Luckily, I like how this has turned out, I like the way deeper valued squares seem to have gravitated towards each other to make lines and shapes ( even though I seem to remember I was trying to avoid that happening), and I like the random-ness of it. I do like a bit of random in everything, so this quilt suits me just fine.

And the poorly girl seems to like it,

she's been snugged up today with Poorly Martin. I never showed you Poorly Martin's *piece de resistance* for cheering up sick children did I ?

Probably because, back then, I'd only just started my blog and I was trying to fool you all into thinking I was a nice, genteel English girl. Obviously, I didn't manage to keep up that pretence for long anyway, so I'll leave you with Poorly Martin..

the

bottom flasher.

Bad boy Martin !

 

Pants ?

Well, I managed to get one bag done.

See my lovely tidy piles of fabric in the background - I am so happy with me.  : )

I probably have enough scraps to make a trillion bags, which just goes to show that you should never throw anything nice or pretty away.

I regularly throw away things that I don't consider to be nice or pretty, for example - Phil's socks and underwear.

Phil and I have lived together for a long time time now, and he knows that throwing his dirty socks and undies down the stairs (so they land in a heap by our lovely stained glass hallway door), and leaving them there, really REALLY annoys me.

My dear husband doesn't seem to be able to understand the concept of putting dirty laundry in a laundry basket. ?

So, I take my anger out on the smelly socks and unmentionables, by throwing them straight in the garbage/rubbish bin. New or not  *  This makes me happy again.

Anyway, back to the bag...

I really enjoyed doing this - because it's so messy. The stitching is all over the place, but who cares ? If it starts to unravel, just do a bit of hand stitching to put it right, I reckon more stitching will add to the texture anyway.

And going back to not throwing pretty things away... that corsage is made from the cuff of a very well-worn Oilily dress, I just cut the cuff off and gathered it up with a running stitch, and then made a little fabric yo-yo to go on top.

A few people have asked me where to get Oilily fabric, Gawd knows, if anybody does know, I will happily lick you all over. In the meantime, I just cut up old dresses that you used to be able to get on e-bay.

We're away for the weekend, we are going here, a very westerly part of Britain, if you live in America, I will be a little bit closer to you and I will be waving to you on Friday evening. Look carefully and you will see me. As usual, the weather forecast for this country, is crap. Rain, rain and more rain....

I've packed our bags with Scrabble,drawing stuff, playing cards,Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl books, and lots of warm blankets. Wish me luck.

* Phil, in case you were wondering.... that's what happened to your ' lucky mickey mouse pants'.

Ha !

: )

I'm not cutting it

Today's WIP

A little polka dot credit card holder

on top of a Dalek pencil/sketchbook holder prototype.

Look at that fabric, isn't it sweet !

Which leads me to Myra. I was going to leave a comment on this post, agreeing with others and  telling her to cut cut CUT  !

But the words 'pot' 'kettle' and 'black' immediately hit me in the face

I have many things that I really really don't want to cut up, amongst them,are these fabrics from Kitty.  Notice I only cut out two incy patches of that sweet fabric, and that nearly made me hyper-ventilate.

Then there's this Merry Bonbon fabric I got from e-bay, how can I cut into that ?

And Debbie sent me this over a year ago, it's still not been used, but I do like to pick it up and cuddle it from time to time (really, I do). I know my friends and family are sometimes understandably concerned about my odd fabric stashing/stroking behaviour. But you understand me - right ?

You do.

I know you do.

Pretty thrifty Fabrics

From my local charity shop

Make pretty nifty dresses

For small pandas.

Basic panda pattern from this book.

It took me longer to make the dress than it did to make the panda, so I am totally in awe of Christina who can stitch such beautiful tiny clothes as these. Amazing.

My blog is a year old tomorrow, Happy Bloggy Birthday to me !

Juju  mailed me recently, to say that, 'Surely I wasn't still reading the 'Kenneth Williams Diaries' ?'

In other words, I have updated a single thing on my blog since I first started, which is a pretty poor show. Bad me.

New look blog coming soon. ( Once I figure out how to do it all again ).

Grey/Black Wednesday. Scary Saturdays.

My wednesday contribution to Mav and Stephanie's colour week.

Be afraid.

Be very afraid.

Dalek stamp carved from the Speedball Speedy-Stamp stuff, onto fabric.

We are Dr Who crazy in this house.

If you don't live in the U.K, and you haven't seen series two of Dr Who, and you can't possibly imagine that anyone could be as good as Christopher Eccleston - don't worry. We very quickly warmed to David Tennant, and the 2nd episode of a two-parter we watched on Saturday (The Satan Pit), had me rooted to the spot. I swear to God I forgot to breath towards the end.

It was the talk of the playground on Monday morning, I can tell you.

Some of the episodes are quite scary for little ones (and me), but it's 'Good versus Evil' stuff, with 'good' always winning in the end.

Or maybe not.

You'll have to wait and see.

Happy Mother's Day !

To all you SUPERMAMAS that celebrate it on Sunday.

I hope you have a lovely relaxing day, with big boxes of chocolates, and pretty flowers, and breakfast in bed.

And not too much mess to clear up after the latter.

Once upon a time..

I used to be a grown up, and do grown up things (-ish)

 

A few years ago, when my two youngest children were very small. I signed up for an evening art course to stop myself from going completely and utterly insane.

It wasn't this art course .

The art course I'm talking about , was the polar opposite of that art course.

This one was run by Judy Hempstead, who is a very popular local artist. That fact that she is a successful artist, I feel, is one of the reasons this class was so enjoyable, not only did we gain from her vast experience and knowledge, but also she was there because she 'liked' to teach, not 'had' to teach.

This class was a lot of fun. It consisted mainly of mothers with young children who were desperate to get out of the house (we all used to lie to our husbands, and say the class started earlier than it did - just to escape), and a couple of brave blokes who obviously weren't easily scared.

Trips to the local village pub were often involved to continue our intellectual conversations about art (?), and we all passed the exam with flying colours.

I learnt that art and craft are one and the same thing, and never ever to take myself seriously. The niciest thing about Judy, is that if she took a look at the daft little creatures I enjoy making these days, she would approve whole-heartedly.

The above images are from a silk wallhanging I made for part of my coursework, inspired by Paul Klee.

I'd forgotten how much I enjoy silk painting, the colours are so vivid and transulucent, something that doesn't really show up in the photos, because there is still no sign of Spring and the light is CRAP.

I might have to dig those paints out, and have some more fun with them.

Hope you have a happy fun weekend too.

: )

Bracelet

made from scraps of fabric

and odds and sods on my desk

Just a strip of patchworked fabrics (is patchworked a word ?), with things sewn on. I'll post a tutorial next week if anyone wants me to, it's very easy.

In the meantime, HAPPY FRIDAY !

Yippeeeeeee

Yeeee- ha

Woooo-hoo

etcetera.

: )