A quote for today...

as told to me by my wonderful, larger than life Scottish hairdresser.


You can't make a silk purse out of a pig's ear.

She's fabulous xx

The Solstice

This is where we spent the solstice day.

We awoke to beautiful sunshine.....

 David lit the fire with a little 'help' from Will.

 Rob and I painted while the boys played and then Will wanted to make a boat to float on the canal.....so I rustled up an Origami sampan and he went down to the water to float it with daddy.

 We made a sunshine/mandala with natural materials....

 and then we laughed all the way home at the worker ant in front of us!!!

A beautiful day spent outdoors in the glorious sunshine.

Fabric photo book for a special birthday

I saw this post on a blog a week or so ago and decided that i  just had to make one for Kim's 18th birthday!
 So in true Carolyn style she sets herself a mammoth task with a very tight schedule!
I sourced the material, the interfacing and, or so I thought, the special printer paper to put the photos on to the material. The printer had run out of ink, and the new printer we had stashed from the purchase of our computer last year, was duly unwrapped and installed, only to find that the necessary mirror image function did not seem to be there.
Ok, so new cartridges purchased for the old printer and installed, only to find that the silly man in Hobbycraft (with which i have a massive love/hate relationship (currently in hate mode), sold me printer sheets for dark fabrics which you DO NOT need to reverse the images for!!! He spent ages talking to me about how good it was and the things to watch out for, including reversing the images etc before printing. Aaaaaaaahhhhhh! So, having printed out all the images and writing on the sheets in the entire packet back to front, I then ironed one on to the cream fabric only to discover that it was all wrong!!!! Grrrrr and he was the manager!!!!
At this point I was very grateful for the timely arrival of Han who sat and crocheted some beautiful flowers for embellishing when if i managed to get it put together!
So, back to the blessed printer paper!
Thank goodness for Staples is all I can say!
 Back on track and printing furiously, closely followed by ironing furiously all onto cream backing material.
Then it was out with the sewing machine to sew all the small cream pieces on the main fabric pages, after working out where they should all go, pinning them and putting all the pages in the right order!
Then to sew all the pages together with the interfacing inside, a ribbon to hold it shut and voila!
Then all that was left to do was embellish it with a few of the fabulous flowers, a bit of embroidery and a couple of sequins!
I also included in the book, a butterfly that Will coloured for her. We scanned it, shrunk it and then printed it out. Brilliant!

I intend to do a turorial for making it, without all the ranting in it with pictures showing all the different steps. As soon as I work out how add a side bar icon for it!

Happy Birthday Kim!!!

Buttercups and bread dough.

This weekend we were hiding in a field of buttercups....

making bread dough!!!

 The weather conditions were perfect for the dough to be left to rise in our dutch oven.....

and it cooked quite well too!

It was a little smokey flavoured though!

The boys enjoyed a bit of exploring while Rob painted and I knitted. You can just see them if you look carefully! David spotted a Jackdaws nest high up in a crevice in the rocks, and when the parent birds arrived with food you could hear their squarking echoing inside the rock!!

We arrived back this afternoon to a village adorned with bunting and posters proclaiming an exciting weekend of celebrations......all a little beyond me really but thanks to this blog I may be able to bring a little Jubilee to this weeks activities. The laminator awaits!!

Another bag!!! among other things...



David's duffle bag, designed together but manufactured by me! Denim outer, from an old skirt, and canvas lining.

A small strip of leather stitched around the drawstring, keeps it pulled tight.

The straps are tied to loops that are fixed at the base of the bag, so that they can be adjusted if necessary.

My trousers had a tear in them so I made an autumn leaf  patch....but it isn't as bright as this photograph makes it look! It is two layers of material attached with Fusibond. But do I need to oversew the edges? The material is a polyester mix.

Our little overnight camp at the weekend.

Special visitors on Monday :-)

A Waldorf doll ready for a friends baby that is due in Sept.

And I thought I had already uploaded this little fellow we found the other week in the woods. I love Slow worms!

OMG I think this is my fourth post in three days!!!

Awh, a baby gift bag! Just not sure what you would put in it? Something small obviously!
I made two other bags today from navy blue gingham...large checks. They are just waiting for drawstrings.
I think I may be slightly obsessed!!!
More fabric needed.
Just call me the bag lady!

This is what we woke up to find this morning!

Ok so the photos are a little blurry because I forgot to use my flash and we only had a very small window of time to take the pictures.

But aren't they cute!!!

(They are baby ferrets for those of you who haven't guessed!)