Friday 18 May 2012

Coffee And Chat

Well yesterday I had a lovely morning at my favourite town, Loughborough, with my friend who is also a very keen crafter.

The morning started off, as usual, with coffee and a chat, wonderful idling around.

Thursday, as I've mentioned before, is market day, and it didn't disappoint, even with a spot of rain! All the stalls are usually the same, week in, week out but they are my favourite types of stall, fabric, haberdashery, wool, fruit and veg, plants, flowers and sweets.

I ended up buying some gorgeous purple and white tulips and some spotty fabric to make bags for my Teddies For Tragedies that I'm making.





Also the sought after chartreuse/lime DK wool I wanted for DD's blanket, whatever the name of the colour it is exactly what I was looking for. This is a cheap acrylic yarn but it is oh so soft. I think it was something like £1.80 per 100g ball, bargain!!



The main reason for visiting Loughborough was to scour the charity shops, which the town has a fair amount of. There was plenty to choose from but in the end I opted for a tiny flowered blouse with pin tucks. Now this isn't to wear as it's much too small for me but to cut up and I love the pin tuck detailing.



Also a gorgeous pale blue cashmere cardigan with an eclectic mix of buttons. It does seem a shame to cut this up but, again, it's way too small for me and ideal for what I have in mind. A bargain was the girl's sun dress, I love how these fabrics look together.



I also bought a selection of children's books. I have plans for these and will show you more once I have started the project. I have high hopes for these and really hope they end up how I picture them.





My biggest problem with starting crafting projects is the fear that they won't end up looking how I picture them. So I don't start them and end up with piles of fabric/wool/books/etc that I don't do anything with. Then when I get round to sorting them I've forgotten what I had planned. So that's not going to happen with this. Hopefully I'll get started at the weekend, as no swimming competitions for DD, and I'll share them with you next week.

See you soon xxxxxx

Wednesday 16 May 2012

Sunshine On A Grey Day!

How grey and dreary the days have been for the last few weeks, though the sun is trying it's best to shine at this very moment, very weak but it's there.
So to try to bring some sunshine on a grey day I bought some flowers from one of the local supermarkets and they are GORGEOUS!



I love these and they brighten up my coffee table. I'm looking forward to going to Loughborough Market tomorrow so I can buy some more flowers that are a little cheaper than these.

Want to see a close up:-



The other thing that is brightening my day is a Flower Garden Blanket that I have started for my daughter. Her bedroom is also due to be redecorated and I think one of these would look fantastic on her new bed. The one that really caught my eye was this one from the According to Matt... blog.
How stunning is that!! The photography is fantastic and DD fell in love with it straight away. I hope mine comes out looking as good.

Well I've crocheted 12 squares, who knows how many more to go!!





These are the colours I am using though I'm looking for a lime green to go with them. That orange is BRIGHT!!




Well it's time to go and get ready to go and watch both my peeps take part in the  Schools Area Sports day. DS is long jumping and DD is running the 800m. Good luck both :-)

See you soon xxxxxx


ETA: I forgot to mention that the yarn for DD's blanket is mainly Stylecraft Special DK.

There's:    1084 - Magenta
               1083 - Pomegranate
               1256 - Jaffa
               1114 - Sunshine
               1246 - Lipstick
               1067 - Grape
               1435 - Bright Pink
               1068 - Turquoise

The white is Woolcraft New Fashion DK - 7F76

Friday 4 May 2012

Well It's Been A While.....

And it has been a busy time. Blogging for me hasn't quite become a habit yet which is something I want to work on. I enjoy it and it makes me stop and think about everyday life and what we do with it, everything just seems to fly by at the moment. I want life to slow down so I can enjoy it and my children. Anyway enough of the wallowing!!

I've been following Lucy at Attic24 for a while now and love how she approaches life. One of the things I have taken on board is FlyLady. This is a revelation to me as my home is a mess. Every room you go into has a pile of STUFF!

At the moment I am taking BabySteps but I can see that eventually my home will be somewhere I want to be and at the moment it's not, everywhere I turn I see piles.

So I started with my landing. I have a large area at the front of the house upstairs where items for the loft go or if I don't have a specific place for them. This is now clear though only for a short while. FlyLady suggests that you de-clutter 15 mins at a time and have 3 bags/boxes marked "put away", "give away" and "throw away". My "give away" is a "car boot" one as I have a lot of decent stuff that is just too small or never used. So the landing will become my "car boot" pile BUT I will only take it to 2 car boots, if it's not all gone by then it will be taken to the local charity shop. Charity shops are a bone of contention with me, I frequent them a lot due to a new project I'm undertaking with a friend, more on that another time, but after the last clear out a couple of years ago I filled 10 large black bin bags plus piles of books, I dutifully dropped them off at the charity shop and they complained!! I had donated too much and they couldn't deal with it!! This really annoyed me as they are supposedly crying out for donations due to Ebay and car boots so now I go to several shops and I try to sell items first before donating and I've never been back to that one again.

The idea after clearing a few rooms upstairs is to decorate my son's room. I asked him how he'd like it and the main purpose of the room is to play his Xbox. But he also came up with the idea of having 1 wall with graffiti art, not your under flyovers tags but proper commissioned graffiti that you can see gracing buildings locally. I love this idea so have been trying to find someone to do it, not an easy task but I have found one person but he did state that ventilation while spraying may be a problem, so I'll have to ask around a bit more to see if it's viable. If not anyone know where I can get graffiti wallpaper from.

Sorry this is a word heavy post with no pictures or eye candy but it's more of a getting back on track post.
I'll post about my craft endeavours another time.

So bye for now, until next time xxxx