Folksy Sale #13

I recently sold one of my hexipuff cushions on Folksy - one that Shannon had put together from a bag full of puffs that I'd given her - she's so much better at colours than I am.

When I put them together, they're a wee bit on the random side!

This is the latest one I'd put together for Mum for one of her garden loungers and there's quite a difference from the subtleties of Shannon's cushion!

However, I'm now in a dilemma - the lady who bought the blues cushion sent me an email - which threw me into a panic anyway as I'm always convinced the buyer is going to say they hate what I've made and demand their money back.  Not a bit of it.  She loves it so much that she's asked me to make another - more green than blue.  And of course now I've got to put it together which is filling me with dread as I know it won't be so beautifully coordinated as Shannon's.

I am delighted though that the buyer loves it enough to buy another!

Valentine Weekend in London

Andy and I were lucky enough to have another weekend in London in February - although Andy wasn't quite so lucky as he had to work on the Saturday!  I got the train down on the Saturday lunchtime and met him at the hotel to check in and we were bemused to find we had bunk beds!

Hilarious!

I was left to my own devices all Saturday afternoon so I caught up with the rugby on TV and did a bit of knitting - obviously!  The knitting comes with me everywhere, just in case ...  I spent a fair bit of time getting ready and tarting myself up, as befits a Valentines night out.

Haha!

And here IS the valentines meal - crikey, it was enormous!  And we probably only managed about a third of it in all.  Very nice - at one of our favourite places to eat, Efes, a Turkish restaurant on the corner of Brick Lane and Whitechapel High Street. 

On Sunday morning, we headed off in the general direction of Spitalfields and Brick Lane and spent quite a bit of time in Rough Trade, drinking coffee and listening to some fantastic African tunes.  In fact, so impressed was I, that Andy bought me the CD for my valentines present.  A lovely reminder whenever I hear any of the tunes. 

We spent the afternoon watching rugby and football on TV in the Good Samaritan.  We met a chap in there who suggested somewhere different for us to eat - Singha Chinese - so we headed towards it, getting slightly waylaid in the White Hart for a beer, where we met a netball team from Norwich - how bizarre!

A really lovely chilled weekend, not as action packed as usual - we did loads of walking, but weren't on quite such a mission as we normally are.   Fab weekend, long may they continue!

Tada! "Mistaken Identity" Scarf

Following on from the fox, badger and deer scarves, I thought I'd have a go at making up my own variety - a dog.  A sort of dalmatian.  And, if not a dalmatian, then at least a spotty dog.

However, it didn't quite work out that way and it looks more like a cow!

I do like it, but I just wish I knew if it was "Patch" or "Daisy"!  (I checked with the recipient - Katherine, my lovely god-daughter - and she thinks it's a cow, so I guess we have to go with that!)

Seeds and Stuff - March 2016

Oh, how I love spring!  Everything bursting into life; pegging the washing out on the line again instead of in the spare bedroom; colour reappearing in the garden; being able to sit outside with a cup of tea.  I love it.  And now the clocks have gone forward, I get that extra hour (or at least whatever's left of it after taking Finn out for his run over the park) to potter about doing a spot of light weeding or just looking.  I do a lot of looking.  Mostly trying to identify what is weed and what looks like it might blossom into something infinitely more beautiful - foxgloves and poppies all look a bit "weedy" when they start to sprout - but I'm enough of a gardener now to know that I can leave things a little bit longer before uprooting them ..... just in case.

Spring, for me, is also about demolition work!  So far this year, I've chopped my neighbour's (at the end of my garden) buddleia right back and I've uprooted a kiwi fruit and a huge yucca to make room for other things that hopefully will be more successful.  (I also have a massive camellia to get out but I'm waiting for that to flower first.  I've also got another plant in the garden - completely unrecogniseable - that is coming out - it's been there for seven years - I know because I planted it!  And while it's OK, I don't love it, so I will put something else in its place instead.  I already know what's going in there but Thompson and Morgan don't deliver them until July, so the unknown plant will have a stay of execution until then.)

I love this photo - despite the scenes of devastation in the garden where I was chopping everything down, Finn still found a little patch of sunshine to lay in.

The front garden is looking beautiful and full of tulips - I planted these back in the autumn in anticipation of putting the house on the market and needing a lovely sight to welcome potential buyers.  However, since realising that I couldn't bear to leave here just yet, the tulips are a welcome sight for me when I come home from work each day.  Gorgeous.

The hyacinths in the front garden are also beautiful and multiplying and smell gorgeous.

And the muscari is popping up everywhere - so sweet.

Mum has taken down the net curtains in the shed so I'm trying to work out what I'm going to do with that space now - I'm thinking of potentially moving all the potting stuff from the outhouse down to the shed so I can work in there.   That's still at the drawing board stage for now, so could change.

This month, I've sown lavender and rocket - as per my schedule.  As for the poppies, I decided not to bother sowing them into seed trays, I just went out and sprinkled the seeds all over the garden so we'll see what comes up from those!   And, because I had the extra tray available where the poppies would have gone, I sowed tomatoes instead. Progress reports to follow .....

Yes, I certainly love spring!

Odds and Sods - March 2016

Well, the year is rushing by and today is 1 April - where is the time going?

At the beginning of March, Mum and I went to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Olympia in London where I got the teeniest bit starstruck.  I met Tilly Walnes, who was in the first series of the Great British Sewing Bee - I was wearing the blouse I'd made to her design and I wanted a little bit of advice about what to do with the neckline and all the excess fabric since losing a bit of weight.  She told me I'd made a "lovely job" of the blouse which was thrilling enough.  However, Matt, the winner of the latest series of the Sewing Bee, happened to be at Tilly's stand at the time and he said that my pin tucks demonstrated "some of the neatest stitching I've ever seen".  Oh Lordy!  I was on cloud nine after that!  I really would have loved to have a photo taken with both Tilly and Matt, but I thought that was a bit too nerdy, even for me.

A couple of days after this, Mo and I had a day fabric shopping - as if I hadn't had my material fill already two days previously! - and I got some more advice about the patchwork quilt I'm making - more to follow in a separate post when it's finished.  I'm nearly there - it's only been 28 years in the making so far!

I've had a few more health issues, although - fingers crossed - I am definitely on the mend now and feeling much more chipper and less run down.  A combination of high strength iron tablets and Guinness is doing the trick.

I've had another weekend down in London with Andy while Mum and Dad had Finn - post to follow.  Finn was not happy and waged all-out war by not cooperating on the day of my departure with bed changing activities.

I took this picture while trying not to laugh at him - when he doesn't want to be moved, he WILL not be moved!

Mum and I had a trip down memory lane to Epsom to see Auntie Joyce in hospital - and had a mooch around Epsom town centre.  Very strange because it must be at least ten years since we visited but nothing much has changed at all.

Easter was early this year and we had a family lunch last weekend at Mum and Dad's - and we had to earn our roast dinner as there were lots of bits of furniture to be moved, not to mention a trailer tent from the garage!  I made some simnel cakes to celebrate the occasion.

In the past, I've made a big simnel cake which tends to be a bit on the heavy side - these individual cup cakes (recipe kindly provided by Mary and Waitrose!) were ideal - just the thing.  I really must invest in a round cookie cutter though - the rims of my mugs were all a bit too big - although I quite like the flower effect.

Today is April, so strictly speaking, I shouldn't be writing about this until April's post, but I'll mention it here and not again.  I said goodbye to my lovely neighbour today - Geoffrey who was 86.  He's really looked after me and Finn for the past seven years that we've lived here and we will really miss him.  Frankie Laine's "Rawhide" was played at the service today and I will forever remember Geoffrey every time I hear it from now on.

What else?  I've made some socks .....

I've bought some tickets to see Jenny Eclair, one of TV's Grumpy Old Women, at the Holt Festival in July - a week before my own milestone birthday when I will officially become a GOW too!

Mostly the month has been about Finn as usual! And now I can get him over the park after work and let him have a proper run off the lead - I love these lighter evenings once the clocks go forward.

Finn borrowed Sid's jumper for a while and I'm surprised he tolerated it for as long as he did!

And, to finish, wild primroses .....