Thursday 25 February 2010

a lovely surprise

Look what arrived today from a kind friend: How sweet of her to send me some fabric pieces to make flower centres from and such lovely colours too. I'm very partial to the aqua, lilac and mint circles on the white background, mmmm. Wow, and she made an 'ATC' card too (2.5" x 3.5"), cleverly incorporating some colour catcher sheet pieces. I love how they look like suede when they are ironed. I have loads of these in various shades of bleuuch grey that I should do something with.....

Himself left this for me on the conservatory door :so I would see it as I left for work this morning in the rain. Aaaaah, I think he's a keeper;-p

Tuesday 23 February 2010

flowers and fabric

Just to show I have been in my sewing room - I've cut out some flowers: Actually I cut most of them out ages ago, so it was mostly some more leaves I cut and then arranged everything on my display wall. I still need to cut out lots more flowers, but also need to buy more 'Steam A Seam' to put on the back of the fabrics.
I've been buying fabric: A couple of orange colours to add to my tiny orange stash, I got these fabrics for a very good price from here, I shall use this online shop again.

I've also ordered some fabrics from FabricWorm on Etsy, but a fortnight later, they are still not here. I hate waiting for stuff in the post*. I'm collecting a few grey and orange fabrics to put with plain white. Undecided yet what I'm going to do with them.... Updated: the parcel arrived today while I was at work.
*I ordered the Glee CD too last Monday, but that hasn't arrived either:-((

I've also been designing some more bags.....

I consider myself ....

Told off:-(
By Chic Girl:-(
For not updating my blog for a week. Tch, I suppose she has a point.
So I thought I would share a photo with you of Chic Girls new hair do. She had about five inches cut off the bottom and some blond foils put in today. She looks fabulous. She's off to Madrid for her new job on Sunday morning, sob sob, it's a two week trial. Half of me wants her to hate it there, but the proud Mother part of me wants her to be a roaring success and to love it. Ack.

Fortunatly no one took a photo of my hair, which has super big curls at the moment. I can flick them around in a L'Oreal, 'because you're worth it' stylee!

Himself and I have been over to Bristol for the past two weekends to do some more DIY on the Money Pit. The Chic Girl removed their death trap of a carpet on the stairs before we arrived and then she and I set to removing all the nails, screws and staples that for reasons unknown were embedded into the wood (WTF?) before painting them with a black undercoat: Yes every other stair is painted until the first lot dry because there is only one loo in the Money Pit and we need to answer the call of nature!

Himself and the Whizz Kid tackled the wiring in the kitchen as more sockets are needed and Himself is gradually replacing all the strange wiring arrangements into a standard vertical and horizontal form:We are all astonished/appalled at the eccentric wiring in the walls I mean who but an idiot/cheapskate channels wiring diagonally across a kitchen wall? I don't know why it came as such a surprise to us, everything in that house so far has been peculiar. It is a terraced, 'two up, two down', built in the late 1800's on the cheap, probably a labourer or factory workers cottage and it looks like every homeowner since has continued to cut corners and avoid doing anything properly. Shame as it could be a very nice little starter home. But it does need some serious money spent on it.

This weekend The Whizz Kid was drilling a series of holes (as shown just to the right of the socket in this photo): in order to knock out the next socket, when he suddenly shouted at the top of his voice "WATER". (I didn't take a photo of him plugging the hole with his hand like the Dutch boy in the dyke as it would have seemed heartless) Himself ran over, took the still whirring drill from his hand, switched off the power and then turned the water off at the mains. All the while cursing as all his plumbing stuff was left back at home. So a trip to the other side of Bristol was needed to buy new fittings and again we wondered why lead pipe should be running diagonally up the wall from the corner of the room and then presumably over somehow to the taps and boiler in the other corner. Some time later the lead pipe was all bypassed and some new 15mm copper pipes were put in over to the boiler and taps. What a drama and a time waster. Chic Girl and her Dad were shuddering, thinking about other holes that had been made by nails and screws as shelves, pictures etc. had been put up and missed the wiring and pipes by inches, The Whizz Kid said he was just very glad the leak had happened while Himself was in the house. Meanwhile The Chic Girl and I painted two coats of chocolate brown floor paint on the stairs. The idea is that next weekend we will wallpaper the risers. I think it will make the stairs very noisy with no carpets on the treads but we will see what they think after they have been up and down them a few times.

Back to today. The Whizz Kid makes a wonderful chicken fried rice that I've tried to replicate many times, but it never tastes quite the same - sigh. So since he was here today, I asked him to make some for our dinner........
Yum, yum yum.

Tuesday 16 February 2010

LOTR Prequels

Ring image from here

If you are a fan of Lord Of The Rings you may well like these two free films. Made by fans, for fans....

They take a while to download (especially the first one), but are well worth watching - it's just amazing what can be done with three thousand pounds, which is all 'Hunt For Gollum' cost! Lovely to also see they were filmed in various locations in the UK
Born Of Hope
Hunt For Gollum

I hope they make more films and get some recognition for their splendid film making.

Monday 8 February 2010

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.

Tuesday 2 February 2010

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....