busy,busy, busy.

Gah, and I thought February would be nice and quiet. Stupidly busy at work, which is a good thing.
I've finished painting the downstairs loo:What d'ya think? Actually it looks a bit bland in the photos and I haven't made a blind or curtain yet - although here is the fabric, all bleached, washed and ironed:I have been pedal to the metal on this: doing lots of this: and here's a small part of a little something that's a gift: I've put the sashing on this, but have got no further.
I am fairly pleased with my dying results (using a packet of Dylon machine dye) on my two unloved fabrics, which refused to bleach nicely, although in real life there is no where near as much contrast as the photos would have you believe. On both fabrics I shall use the back, rather than the front, as one has a slight green cast:and the other a more pronounced brown cast: I also dyed two pieces of white linen, they both came out pitch black:Very nice.

Articles by Bill Bryson......

I have long enjoyed reading all the Bill Bryson books and so when I came across these articles online from (American) Traditional Homes magazine, I spent a happy time reading through them. In them he writes about what we are like as a people. I didn't realise non-Brits find us so confusing....

Bleaching fabrics and decorating

I have been having a little sort out of my fabric stash - seems I have some fabrics that I look at now and think, why did I buy that? Mostly because of the colour combinations. So I thought I would try bleaching some fabrics to see what happened.... Well if the best/worst came to it, I would have plain white fabric yardage - which is always useful to me. So I soaked some fabric samples in a strong bleach solution to see what would happen. I went back to check again a couple of hours later - One fabric was a pale blue chambray, which I did like the colour, but it was faded in parts - while in the bleach solution it had bleached pure white - result:-) The other three fabrics? Hmmm, no change. Left the samples for a few more hours and just a slight change to two of them. Left them soaking overnight and wondered if the fabrics would simply disintegrate, but no, it appears not. One fabric refused to bleach at all, how weird. This one lost some of it's colour, all the black background has turned into a peach colour with sand and black:It now looks like a line drawing but, I'm not sure I like it any better, so won't bother to bleach any more of it.
This one I do like very much - Original on the left and bleached version on the right: Interesting how the spotty coral coloured background has changed from positive to negative, yet the three shades of turquoise haven't changed colour at all. I like the white in the fabric as it now seems a 'fresher' design. One of the shades of turquoise is exactly the same shade as I am about to paint our downstairs loo* - so I will bleach some more of the fabric and use it for something to go up at the window...... Doesn't need to be proper curtains, just something to 'finish' the room off.

*Was going to be Farrow and Ball 'Blue Ground', but when I tried out the tester pot, Himself and I both thought it was much too bright for us to live with. So we went back to Homebase and got a Dulux Colour Mixing tin of paint in a much paler version.

Chic cookie monster.........

Someone I know seems to be very fond of choc chip cookies................. Extremely fond of them......Especially when they are fresh out of the oven - even though we have all stuffed ourselves with moules marinières. Someone still had plenty of room in her pudding tummy....
Had I realised, I would have made more.................Then having eaten hers, she would not have had to eye up her Dad's cookie quite so intentlyAnd she wouldn't have nibbled mine (though I did say she could have a bite)
Meanwhile the Whizz Kid was was working on my computer, building my new website. He left his cookie unattended........ But it remained unmolested - Chic Girl showed great restraint.

Hand dyed heaven

I was lucky enough to be given a fabulous set of of hand dyed fat quarters quite a while ago and I've been hording them ever since, almost scared of cutting into them - what if I spoil the fabrics? Ah, what the heck, I decided, if I don't use them, I'll never know - so I put some together to see how they looked...... Mmmmm, quite nice. Then it was back to EQ6 to design some blocks that wouldn't use more than a fat quarter. I wanted something fairly simple that I could do lots of machine quilting on. Practice, practice, practice and all that!
I starched the fabrics and then decided that with the turquoise included it looked a bit 'South Western' (USA), hmm, not the look I wanted at all. So put that colour aside, figuring I could always come back to it if I felt the quilt needed it. I cut and sewed the blocks together and then had another look - crikey, it was getting huge.I then changed direction slightly and found a rather lovely lime green, which preferred to the red, which looked great on EQ6 (truth is, I hadn't chosen the colour of the real fabric exactly), so in real life I didn't like it. The green strips are a quarter of an inch wide and applique on each block by machine. The white sashing between the blocks is to be sewn on next......

Sister Act and Liberty's of London....

Saturday was a fun day - we drove to Ruislip to have lunch with our favourite Rellies - not just lunch it turns out, but sherry and nibbles and then a three course meal with wine - I could have done with an afternoon snooze, which was unfortunate as along with The Rellies oldest Daughter, The Willowy Dr., her partner B and his two delightful offspring A & H, we were off to the underground to catch the tube to Oxford Circus where we had to dash to get to the London Palladium in time to see the matinee performance of Sister Act. Great show it was too, all the actors were fantastic. So good to see Ian Lavender as the priest and Sheila Hancock as the Mother Superior. The stage mechanics were just amazing, with various bits of the stage floor moving around in ever decreasing circles. I took this photo as the show ended. It shows the stained glass windows and the statue of the Viurgin Mary that got bigger and shinier as the show progressed. Here is a shot of the rather intricate ceiling:When the show finished we came out of the theatre and saw Liberty's immediately to our left, but as we only had ten minutes before it closed it was always going to be a struggle to actually do any shopping there. Well, what do you know, 6pm came and went and no one threw us out, so we carried on looking. This is the beautiful entrance, it would have been so easy to have bought up armfuls of flowers I picked up a beautiful silk scarf in the sale and hastily put it down again even though it was reduced to a mere £275! I was so shocked I didn't even register what the full price was. The fabric and habby is on the third floor and it's astonishing how fast one can sprint up stairs when the clock is against one! Hmmm, much reduced in size from last time I was in here, but I had heard as much from others so it didn't come as a total surprise. But there still seemed plenty to look at. I drooled over a few shelves of fabrics, but was not tempted enough to buy, I needed more time to choose. To me, the braids and trims were more interesting at this point. I would like to have spent longer looking but will save it for another day when it's just Himself and me. I did buy some stripey braid that will probably form part of a bag. So hardly a big spender, but if I'd had more time, dear reader...............They still hadn't called time when we left the shop at nearly 6.30, so goodness knows what happened to closing time on that particular day. We briefly glimpsed at Carnaby Street, but that did all seem to be closing, so with reluctance we turned away and headed back to the tube. Where a huge supper awaited our return - we chatted to our Rellies way into the eveing and finally got home at 1.45am on Sunday morning!

Birthday Boy

Ha, how things conspire. Time just slips through my fingers like water.
Well I did finish this cushion:Which I'm rather pleased with, my piping looks pretty good, even though I do say so myself!


It was Lanky Boys Birthday at the weekendWe went to Nando's in Bristol. Where they seem to put chillies in everything.
Himself, Lanky Boy and the Whizz Kid are very keen on the hot chilli sauces, but the Chic Girl and I have more respect for our insides (not really, the sauces are just too hot for us). We had the most miserable serving waitress you could imagine, I would have taken a photo of her constant scowl, but she looked as if she might not like being 'papped' and since I love my camera.......... However we did have a fun time.

I found a free, first issue of a new needlecraft magazine on the web called' Needle' from the hand embroidery network - it makes a very interesting read.

Driving with idiots and then sewing squares

n Back to work today and a very scary, slooooow drive it was too. Oh, the main roads were fine, but getting the car off our sloping drive and down our snowbound road and out of our village - ugh, just horrible. What shocked me was the number of F*%$!wits that insisted on driving not ten* centimetres from my back bumper. Presumably they felt the traffic wasn't going quite fast enough for them because they were driving in their 4x4's. Wasn't just me who noticed this either, as both Himself and my boss said they had had the same experience. My boss even had one bloke who overtook her when it wouldn't have been safe without any snow, let alone in todays conditions. Tch, cretins.

*Ok - I know, I know, you've told me a million times not to exaggerate, so maybe it was only twenty centimetres from my bumper then!

Yesterday I had great fun sorting through my 'Japanese' fabrics, well only one or two are genuinely Japanese (slightly different 'feel' and weave to them,) the rest are American but with a 'Japanese' design. Anyway, I wanted to make a cushion cover and so started cutting lots of one and a half inch strips and then squares. Sewed them all together: backed them with some 80/20 white wadding and quilted the black squares with a squiggle design, using Superior Threads black bobbinfil in the bobbin and Superiors Rainbow 844/Midnight Shadows on top. Hmmm, I promise I have quilted these squares Look, here's the back so you can see:The squiggly slightly messy bottom left bit, is my 'tester' piece, which is cut off later when I square up my rectangle - ha ha ha, that makes perfect sense doesn't it? I shall finish this cushion tomorrow - more pics then.

Brrrrrrrrrrr

No going out work today for either Himself or me, because of the snow that fell all yesterday evening and overnight.
What a difference from yesterday. At 10.55am, I heard a now sadly all too familiar, loud low pitched drone and so dashed inside to find my camera, it was another plane bringing back dead soldiers to RAF Lynham and then the drive through Wootten Bassett, which is very close to us,The streets will be again be lined with people, paying their respects. It's very sad that it has to happen at all, but I'm glad the boys were bought home yesterday rather than today, because of the many hundreds that now attend each repatriation, all the traffic is in chaos for hours afterwards. Adding snow to the equation would have made it ghastly for everyone.

I was really grateful to get a phone call from my boss this morning telling me not to come in today, I did not fancy driving in all this snow. I notice that no one else around here has taken a car out either, but quite a few dog walkers have gone past the house.Love this snow doughnut:
Champagne doesn't think much of the snow either, but refuses the indignity of the litter tray!:This Mahonia bush is fairly protected by our outside boiler:

Himself worked from home and I did some BQL 'management' and then some sewing - Hurrah, I finished a UFO destined for our sofa - supposedly for Christmas: Hmm not bad, it's only three weeks late!
To help me through the cold, I also some ate more of our Christmas chocolates he he:-p Now I have a very sweet tooth, but my word these M&S ones are very sweet, even for me:(Oh don't worry, they'll still all get eaten trust me!) These posh Marc De Champagne are really, really delicious:but so rich I can only eat a maximum of two at a time! Pretty box no? These are rather nice too:but again quite rich.

The last of the decorations came down today - ah, shame. I've just got to pack them all away now, urgghh.

Used up the last of the smoked salmon and Philly cheese for supper - this is a lovely, quick and easy to make dish. Should be ready to eat in about fifteen minutes.
Cook pasta shapes, but please do not add any salt to the water. (these usually take about 12 minutes or so to cook)
Chop half an onion and a clove of garlic, and fry in another saucepan in a tablespoon of olive oil until the onion is opaque. Add a large roughly chopped courgette, some torn up fresh basil leaves and some freshly ground black pepper.
You could also add some frozen peas to make the dish go further if you want.
This all takes about 10 minutes.
Then add approximately half to two thirds of a 200gm tub of Philadelphia cream cheese (although mascarpone or creme fraiche works too) stir into veggies.
Stir in roughly torn up chunks of sliced smoked salmon. (Roughly chopped up Bernard Mathews turkey ham is good too)
Taste mixture and add more black pepper if you want - now do you see why you don't need any extra salt?
Drain off pasta
If your pan is big enough stir the pasta into the sauce, but if not tip the sauce over the pasta.

Gah, now if I'd been clever I would have saved a couple of basil leaves for decoration and called it a 'serving suggestion'...... but I'm not.

Party, party, party

On New Years Day we went over to Bristol because Chic Girl and the Whizz Kid were having a party. It was a Zombie party, but we totally forgot we were supposed to dress up - doh! Never mind, Himself and I were still allowed in. We hoped we could watch David Tennant do his last Dr Who. (Boo hoo.) Chic Girl wanted to watch it too, so we sat down together in one room with the TV, while other people made party preparations in the rest of the house.
Chic girl as the Cheerleader in Heroes: Even zombies have to eat:
The Whizz kid was a pirate zombie, with his brother as a Smurf and his beautiful sister as a spider woman!:
Do you think maybe he should think about switching to de-caff after lunch?
That huge tarantula only wants a Bacardi & coke:

The food was superb, my favourite being a whole salmon cooked over a welcome barbecue. A tall zombie king had made a delicious 'guts' dip which was mainly beetroot - there was also 'brains' which was a garlic-y horseradish dip. Yum.

Chic Girl lost her pom poms to this party girl who clearly had paying close attention to how it was done, she danced in time to the music very well indeed.

Before it got too late in the evening, we all walked over to a local playing fields to set off some fireworks. After a few drinkies this seemed like a 'very good idea' - however, standing in the freezing pitch black with something akin to the 1812 overture going off in front of us - we did discuss what we would do if the police came. Some wag thought we should aim for a 'super ASBO' between us, but a few people pointed out that their jobs might be at risk, so some settled on a fictitious local address's and everyone else decided that scattering in all directions to anywhere except the Whizz Kid and Chic Girls house was the best course of evasion from the law. As each car drove past, we all looked around nervously and tried not to look suspicious, which looking back on it now, considering 95% of us were dressed as zombies was probably rather optimistic. Fortunately the boys in blue did not turn up, so we carefully (it was very icy) made a hasty retreat back to the house. Later on we went into the back garden where the fire was heating up nicely and let off some sky lanternsSomeone suggested that it would be a good idea if the air inside was warmed over the fire and they were far easier to light and float up, unlike the ones we launched on Christmas day.

Busted

Good grief, that Lanky Boy does like a good bit of custard with his apple crumble, doesn't he?

Happy New Year

Wow, I didn't realise that I hadn't posted for a while. The time over Christmas and New Year just kind of disappears doesn't it?.
We drove up to Norwich to visit my Mother in Law:and also to call in my Brother in Law, his lovely wife H and our Niece and Nephew. Much hilarity after supper when the dressing up box came out and various wigs were tried on:

Is this Billie Piper?:
No of course not, it's Ginger Spice:

K with his Brian May look:
118 118 man, it's a bit chilly for the shorts though:
Chic girlseems to be liking this bubbly blond look.......
Himself finding his inner Elvis:
Chic girl posing with a feather boa and another blond wig - hmmmmmmm......

Oh My.....

It's over already? :-(

I hope you all had a great Christmas.
Thank goodness Lanky Boy and Chic Girl aren't small anymore and no longer wake up at 5.30 on Christmas morning eager to see what Father Christmas has put in their stockings. They rise at a far more civilised hour now and it's more likely that I am up before them!While we were all eagerly waiting for my parents to arrive, Himself and Lanky Boy tried heating the milk in the microwave for our coffee only to find it wouldn't work:-( Arrgghhh, don't these things pick their moments? So they had to heat the milk the 'old fashioned' way. After Christmas I did a little online searching and it seems the Magnatron has broken and it will cost about £150 to buy a new one for our Neff model - and that doesn't include fitting. Well good grief, I just know a new microwave will not cost anywhere near that amount. Seems it's far cheaper to buy a new one (but, made in China) than it is to fix the old (UK made) one. What a shame, but since the new one (from Tesco) was £39.99 - it just doesn't make sense to spend four times as much - especially since we only use it for heating milk, making porridge and starting off jacket potatoes.

Christmas Day is my Papa's birthday and this year was a special one, so he had Happy Birthday candles to blow out.

Himself cooks our Christmas dinner - roast goose, roasted vegetables, still crunchy sprouts (yum) and broccolli, two stuffings (which I made) and other bits and bobs. Everything was just cooked to perfection and we stuffed ourselves, much like the rest of the UK does!

Chocolates..... so many chocolates......

Reliving my youth with this triple CDsome excellent songs, but oooh, I didn't half listen to some rubbish too! Scarily enough I knew the words to almost everything.

Himself bought me just the camera I wanted but in a fabulous red colour. I've had great fun with it already.
These pretty fabrics folded to look like a tree came from P. Ack, I'm torn between wanting to open up the fabrics and keeping the tree - ooh the dilemma:
Karol-Ann sent me these lovely gel pens and a useful covered notebook last monthand also very kindly made me a cosmetic bag, which I am using as a swish camera case instead:
the camera, battery and memory cards all fit in it nicely and it's so much prettier than my old camera's case and padded too.
These came from Wah:
One of my gifts from The Chic Girl and The Whizz Kid was this book with exquisite illustrations:

So many gorgeous gifts, thank you to everyone, you are very kind.
When it was getting dark, we all donned boots, coats and gloves and gingerly set off down the icy footpath in front of our house to the field, where the plan was to light a whole load of sky Lanterns, however we decided it must have been a little too windy and probably too cold, as they were reluctant to catch fire properly, so we only lit three of them, before going back indoors: Sorry the picture is so rubbish - didn't put my new camera to the right setting - Oops! But you can just about make out The Whizz Kid in the inky blackness of the freezing countryside, him and Lanky boy having just launched the second lantern. Lanky boy is even further down the field. If you have good eyesight, you might just about see the dot of an orange glow of the first one to the left. It isn't it half dark in the country without any street lamps!

Going to the flicks....

We have just returned from the cinema where we saw 'Avatar' in 3D.
Wow - what a film. Fab-u-lous. It's a real visual feast (OK, am going to commit possible heresy here) It was visually, as good as, if not better than the LOTR films and boy did I love all the intricate detail in those films. Roll on the DVD! If you get a chance to see Avatar, please do try. Oh and I strongly recommend you see it in 3D too, even if it means not going to your normal cinema coz they don't show any 3D films there grrrrr. I thought the story was good and although the film was long - there was so much to look at, I didn't even sneak a look at my watch at any point, I was too enthralled. If you saw Fern Gully (which I only really remember for the lovely flora and fauna) it had a similar feel, but more (ha ha ha) 'realistic' looking.

It was raining when we arrived and continued to rain while we were in the cinema, so when we came out, all the snow had gone, however driving nearer and nearer to our village, it became clear that the rain didn't get over to us - as all the snow was still all around with the roads very glittery, which means they would be getting icy overnight. Not good.

Here is a shot of our tree this year before the presents went underneath (only so I could show off about the tree skirt!) I went for a white colour scheme (again) with a touch of blue/turquoise this time. White decorations have been easy to find this year. Although since I already had a good selection, I didn't need any more, but trying to find a few more pale blue or turquoise ones has been impossible.

I also finished the two little cushions I have been making I am loving the quilting design so it's going to be hard parting with them. Blast, I have accidentally just deleted the photo of the other cushion, so cannot show a picture of that one. I'll take another photo tomorrow and upload it then.
Edit: Whoops - I've wrapped and given the other cushion away without taking a photo.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Well, with all the snow everywhere we woke up to this morning it's more like the Hollywood version than the usual grey damp version that they never sing about. I do realise that our couple of inches looks rather pathetic compared to elswhere in the country, but I still think it looks pretty. One of the downsides of living on top of a hill and on a private and unmade (North facing) road, is that it gets extremly icy and because the houses cause big shadows, the sun however weak doesn't get to melt the ice or snow. So the road is treacherous. Fortunatly I don't need to go out in it at all if I don't want to, so apart from picking up a beast to roast, we have everything here (Ido love, love, love my huge American fridge).

We were due to visit my MIL in Norwich, but that has now been delayed until next week when hopefully things will not look so white outside.Himself volunteered to salt and sweep all our paths and steps on the promise of croissants and coffee afterwards (he's sooo easy to bribe). I think he was a little worried about our lovely postie going A. over T. on our front steps.I put up all the decorations yesterday - phew, I don't know why on earth I think it'll only take an hour or two, when every year it takes virtually all blimmin' day. Of course, Himself suggesting us 'nipping out' to Dobbies for a 'spot of lunch' was always going to hold up proceedings. And another Father Christmas just jumped into our basket and came home with us. Not this one below, he's been around for a while I suggested a pair of flashing Reindeer headbands for each of us to wear to greet our guests on Christmas day, but the from the withering look I got in reply, I guessed the answer was no - he's no fun.

This little Christmas scene serves two purposes - 1) it looks quite pretty and 2) it hides a multitude of sins underneath a linen sheet!I think it looks especially nice when it's all lit up.
Oh dear - this photo is really blurry - the anti wobble setting on my camera seems to have stopped working.

Going to put a note in my diary now to set aside a whole day for decorating next year. Leaving things so late meant I didn't like the look of any of the scrappy looking fresh trees and although Himself suggested getting a new artificial tree (because of course they were all reduced) we couldn't agree on which one we liked best, so came away with no tree! Still, compared to many of the rather sparse looking new artificial trees we saw in both Homebase and B&Q, our (expensive at the time) twenty year old tree from Williams and Griffin department store in Colchester still looks pretty good, so it'll do nicely for another year. I wonder which is the 'greener' option? Keeping a good quality fake tree for two decades plus or buying a new real tree each year, and then having to cart it off to the tree re-cycling depot in January (although you can then also buy sacks of tree* mulch for the garden at the same time). Hmm, I honestly don't know.....

* I wonder if the pine chippings would make our very chalky soil slightly more acidic or at least veering towards 'neutral'.....
I made these Father Christmases a few years ago - they stand up on their own and are weighted with rice

Didn't pick any holly or ivy yesterday, figuring I'd wait until Wednesday or Thursday to keep it fresh in the central heating. Ack, that may have been a bad idea.Wow, LED lights do not photograph well at all on the auto setting......

Himself has come over all hunter gatherer and ventured out, to get his hair cut and get the goose for Friday, then phoned me to find out if there was anything else I wanted while he was out! Tch,was he thinking I'd suddenly come over all domestic goddess and found I need half a dozen things as I was baking while he was out? Pfff, as if! If he's lucky Chic Girl will bake a dozen mince pies for him (now she is a domestic goddess in the kitchen.) I've done some sewing, checked my e-mails and sat reading other peoples blogs with a bag of Kettle Chips - No added salt crisps and a cup of chai - all I need now is to grab a couple of Mr Kiplings - Frosty Fancies and my afternoon will be perfect:-) I feel so sorry for anyone who has to venture out against their will. I'm using up the taking the last of my annual leave, I don't have to go back to work until 6th January, nice.