The Three F's and a T.

A hodge-podge sort of fortnight, full of threads, fabrics, flour and family. 

• A random little patchwork project for no other reason than I fancied doing it. Started as a doodle, and then ended up as a near 12" square. Rather pleased with it too. If your wondering it's a quote from the Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland. A quote I can get behind "It's Always Time for Tea". Here, here!

• More thrifty finds - Went in search of shelving units for the bathroom and instead came back with some cheap reels of Sylko thread for my aunt, a rather lovely plain white linen table cloth for £9 and a thimble rack; no I haven't started collecting I have other plans for it.

• I love, love, love Nigel's Lazy Loaf - Lives up to it's name. Second week I've made it now. I have found I had to play about with the amount of flour as Sainsbury's only sell Buttermilk in 300ml not the required 350ml. And I don't like to buy more than I need. So chopped down the flour to 175g and I think it's worked even better this week. Either way, it's super yummy....and toasts nicely too.

• More adventures into Wonderland - The quote that I featured on the little patchwork piece is back again, and this time I've decided to embroider it. Currently work in progress. 

 

Can never find my white tissue paper, so pale pink was used. I tend to find it easier stitching a rough outline on linen that can't be drawn onto, rather than using the prick, pounce and paint method. It's quicker, well for me, and less messy. If your interested in the other method, my good friend, Jen Goodwin, has an excellent tutorial. 

Of, course my favourite stitch is back, trailing for the win! And there is going to be quite a bit of it. Can't help it.

See, I told you there was going to be more! You can just make out the start of a clock, with multiple hands. 

• Giving child marriage the finger! And you can too. Let children, be children. I have recently supported this campaign, and you can too. If you can't donate, but have a social media account, a blog even. Post a link to it. Spread the word. 

Biscuits, Quilts and Tea

Another week has flown by, I was rather caught up with last minute decorating ahead of my carpet being fitted, more on that later. Feeling a little bit crook but at the same time determined to finish a longstanding project. I feel more energized of late to stitch and well do things. 

Get things done! 

• The sheer relief of finishing a quilting project! Having started it, or at least gathered together all the fabric back in 2013, the quilt for my bedroom was completed last week. Can't say how bloody awesome it is to actually finish such a long project. The hand sewing the binding certainly took a lot of patience, as I was so ready for it to be done. And can I say why did I not get the Clover Wonder Clips sooner! But it is, at long last now adorning my bed. Which means I'll be getting ready soon to getting that room decorated. Speaking of decorating....

I love my little red and clear wonder clips, they are so freakin awesome and totally limit the amount of times I am normally stabbed with pins whilst sewing on bias binding!

Bob, I can see you.

• My hallway is finally finished! Talk about a relief. The carpet was fitted, along with the laminate in the bathroom, yesterday morning. Knowing that one room(ish) is complete, and that I am now keen to crack on with the next project, which will be the bathroom is really great, and I think I have to say the spring sunshine is certainly helping with the motivation to get on. 

• Other decorating based news. My biscuit collection is ever growing, the lovely designing talents of Nikki McWilliams has extended to these lovely range of foil letterpress designs, Jammie Dodger, Custard Cream and recently a copper Bourbon biscuit. Hard to resist. These will eventually be framed and will go on display in the livingroom. Hoping that there will be a party ring on the horizon. 

• Watch the process of handcrafted quilts. Simply stunning.

• Got the idea for my next embroidery project, follows on from a mini quilt/patchwork which I am going to post about during the week, once I've properly completed (nearly there!). Let's just say, tea is featured. 

• Things I am thinking about a lot lately: changing direction, closing Etsy store, getting rid of Facebook (company page) love Instagram more, focusing on making things for me but perhaps looking in more detail about what is I am making, and how I do it. Essentially, figuring out do I want to make to sell or simply just make? Perhaps the sunshine had woken up long dusty brain cells. What are you thinking about at the moment?

Sun = Motivation

It was very much a weekend of doing...

- Learning to Drive continues on a pace. Reversing into a parking bay, think I've got that mastered.

- The hallway woodwork is nearly complete...yeah, slight issue with the paint has meant a slight change of plans, plain white gloss as apposed to grey (actually looks better), though that wasn't quite as simple as I had hoped, issue with the primer has seen me having to yet more sanding and prepping.

- Finally taking photographs of a finished piece of work. The colourful patchwork banner is now hanging up in my study, when the bedroom is done I think it will go in there, to match the patchwork quilt...

- Bedroom Quilt is near ready for binding now! So excited. Ordered two colours, as I couldn't quite settle on either pink or mint. But heck, I might do both. The machine quilting is near complete, a few more bits but by the time the binding turns up next week I  hope to have it all done. Just itching to get the binding on and done! Then...well I can start thinking about the next one, right?

- I've done my February page for 12 Pages for 2015 project. The theme for this month was Boat, Broken with the bonus extra of using Watercolours. Spot of mucking about and I came up with a floating pinkish red watercoloured chipped teacup, floating on rough sea of torn paper. Simple, but fun. Added extra is that you can move the teacup about!

Cake was baked, housework was done, plenty of tea was drunk. Wistful thoughts on what projects to work on next, Mother's Day card made, and motivation to get myself going again. All in all a bloody good weekend. I have to say I think the sun that made it's brief appearances helped with the above.

People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily

Zig Ziglar