Bring on the summer!

I thought today was never going to get here! The children have finally finished school for the summer. I finish work tomorrow and then we are ready for a great British summer......

.......not like this, of course!



There's been a bit of crafty action happening this week. A chance visit to the sale stand at Hobbycraft resulted in a little haul of wool just perfect for an experiment with felting.



Then, sewing happened.

A Kinder girl called Polly for Minx's friend Holly!



Polly was greeted enthusiastically by Millie but sadly, as she was only just finished in time, there just wasn't time to play.

Minx has already managed to organise me into cutting a little friend out for Millie, though - so there'll be holiday sewing going on too :)

Our little old postman has been kept busy too - with this lovely giveaway prize from Maria!

There were so many gorgeous goodies in here and I can't wait to get stuck into using them! Maria sent me the sockwool as a little extra and I'm going to have to knit some very special socks with it - none of my usual very plain stocking stitch for this yarn!

Then there was an extremely useful gift from Julia.

Over the past week Julia and I have both been battling infestations of red mite in our chicken coops. Very nasty little critters that are potentially lethal for chickens.

Whilst sharing our woes, I happened to mention to Julia that, to add insult to injury, Minx had come home from school with bl***y headlice!

Thanks to Julia's Nitty Gritty, Minx is now bug free and enjoying wearing her pretty new Marmaladekiss scrunchy :)

I'm now looking forward to a long, relaxing summer with plenty of reading and more than a little craftiness .....and no headlice!!

Hope you have a good one too!

xxxx

Monday?

I seem to have blinked and a whole week went by!

I'm pleased to say Monster is much better. He had a very heavy cold but no sinister flu symptoms and was packed off back to school after a couple of days driving me mad.

I then spent the rest of last week catching up on work, as I'd had to cancel several meetings thanks to sneeze-boy. Only eight working days left and the holidays begin - woohoo....I can't wait!

Just a gazillion reports, numerous meetings and lots of cruddy worky I.T. problems to wade through first.....not to mention school disco, sports day and awards ceremonies to attend.

Still, there's six lovely weeks of long and lazy get-ups to look forward to.

The summer reading library is well stocked and thanks to Jo, I now have two extra books and some sustenance to enjoy :)



A brief foray to a local charity shop last week, saw me come home with a very pretty little cakestand - to which we added homemade Rocky Roads.... purely for the sake of providing blog-fodder, you understand ;)



By Friday night I was desperate for a little creativity. A pink cotton curtain from the Scrapstore and a bag of scraps from Cinnamon Kids, teamed with an old crochet doily, were the perfect ingredients for a pretty new cushion for our bed.



Yesterday, I was forced ;) to stay at home with Monster as he just didn't feel like going on a bike ride. So, while Moogsdad and Minx disappeared for the afternoon, Monster and I settled down to a gentle few hours pottering.

I'd developed a sudden overwhelming urge to crochet something circular.......



.....and rainbowy......

......and finished at 11.30 last night.....another bl***y cushion, as Moogsdad calls them.

What is it with men and cushions?

Don't hear him complaining when he rests his weary head on them after a long day's breadwinning!

.......and the reverse of the bl***y cushion

I now have to resist the siren call of my crochet stash and put my mind to teachers' presents and a birthday present for Minx's friend........any suggestions gratefully received!

Have a lovely week :)

xxx

A lovely day

The children are in bed. Moogsdad is snoring on the sofa - after a hard day as a lone parent ;-)

So, now I can blog about a really girlie day out in Winchester.

Trashy, Maria and I met on the Guildhall steps just after 10.30.

Handmade @ Winchester was our first stopping off point. There was a good range of stalls, with some lovely jewellery, handmade soaps, textiles and ceramics. The first stall to catch our eye was full of the most gorgeous hand-dyed yarns from Ni Mu and each of us was unable to resist a little yarny indulgence.

Then I made my way, as quickly as was decent - without appearing to rush past all the other stalls! - to a stall I had been very much looking forward to seeing....

It was great to finally meet Monda (and Mr Monda!) in person. As happens so often with meeting fellow bloggers I immediately felt at ease with Monda. Her stall looked great - just check out those fab big birdies on the board behind the stall - and the softies are even more gorgeous in real life - especially those little monsters :)

After a bit more browsing and a bit more buying, it was time for a long and leisurely lunch, indulging in good food, good conversation and a healthy dose of people watching.

Whilst people watching we'd noticed one or two Cath Kidston carrier bags passing us by. Of course, this warranted further investigation!

I had no idea I had one of these so close to home!

The shop's only been open for four days and we all lost ourselves in here for a nice long time. Soooo pretty :)

Due to getting home and finding a very flustered husband, very stroppy Minx and not very well Monster, I've had no time to photograph woolly purchases or the very pretty summer top I bought for Minx from this maker.

I did manage to sneak a minute to snap Monster's new monster - Boris :)

....and the gorgeous cards made by Monda.

Yup, a truly special day. I feel more relaxed now than I have for ages - thanks to a day full of pretty things, good conversations, a rather nice lunch and lots of laughs.

It's a good job I've had a relaxing day as Monster is full of cold - fingers crossed it is just a cold - and I have a feeling I may have his company tomorrow. Luckily he's got a brand new woolly monster to snuggle up with :)

xxx

Saturday round up

Warning: this is a very mish mashy post!!


In readiness for all that summer reading - of which, more later - I've had a week of finishing off some works in progress.

First , some very bright rainbow socks for an upcoming birthday - knitted in Katia Mississippi cotton - lovely to knit with during the heatwave!




Next, another crochet cushion. I had a yearning to do a Granny flower square with some bargain Cygnet cotton that I picked up for £1.50 a ball at a local discount store.



I'm so happy with how cheerful and summery this cushion is and I like the back almost as much as the front.




Moving on, I had a day off on Friday. It's seemed like ages since I had a day at home all to myself. Although I should have been sewing for my Seaside Swap partner, and getting things made for some very outstanding PIFs, I just had to give in to a real need to make me a skirt.

I had a lovely big denim curtain -one of three curtains and numerous other things I scored in a recent Scrapstore visit - and was dying to make myself something with it.



A 38 pence zip, a little applique with some Fat Quarter swap fabric from Natasha. and some bias binding from the charity shop resulted in a lovely new skirt that cost me less than £1 :-)

Something very special happened last night.

Monster was out at his friend's house and we had Minx all to ourselves.

Without her brother around to argue with, she was at a bit of a loose end. I tentatively suggested she go and find her knitting.

I've tried several times before to teach her but it's always ended in frustration for both of us. Minx is a very capable little girl and just hates not being able to 'get it' first time round.

However, last night I only had to show her the first two stitches of the row and she had it. Yes, it's rather holey and at times a bit tangled but she sat happily for nearly an hour clicking away.

What thrilled me even more, was her sitting in her nightie this morning doing another two rows all on her own :)



She's a chip off the old block. With just a few minutes to go before Moogsdad took them both out, she just had to squeeze in another quick row!



While supervising Minx's knitting, I made this little chap from the wonderful pattern that Julie so kindly sent me yesterday. My very own Little Cotton Rabbits hodger :-)



Onto the garden news.

The harvest has started.



Better not eat it all at once ;-)

Now then, I just have to say a big THANK YOU to all of you for your fantastic book recommendations!

I've spoiled myself a little at Amazon. I would have gone to a real bookshop but I stupidly got myself accidentally signed up to Amazon Prime earlier this year and have to order from them to get my money's worth!

Still, I ordered these on Wednesday night and they got here on Thursday morning, which can't be bad.



Minx and I had a happy half hour at the library last night and I scored some of your reads plus one or two extras. The top one is a Persephone book and I had to take it out just because I was amazed that our little library even had it!!

Whilst taking those photos, I happened to notice Moogsdad's summer reading selection and thought I'd share it with you......

.....any phsychologists out there? Just what would you make of this little lot?

Phew! If you made it to the end - congratulations!!!

I should be back tomorrow, as I'm going somewhere very exciting with fellow bloggers :-)

xxxx