Summer Holidays - Day 3

Today we had an outing to the cinema!

Little Lady and her Tiniest Friend downed a bag of popcorn whilst watching......

It was great!

Nice little story and only about an hour long...perfect!

We returned Tiniest Friend home and headed into town with Crafty Friend to buy Playhouse Curtain Fabric.....

Little Lady's choice.  We haven't scheduled in when we will do this, but we have fabric for when we do.

Little Lady took herself off for a nap whilst Crafty Friend and I had a chinwag over a cuppa or 3.

We rounded the day off with a Prawn Stir Fry.  I was quite impressed with my saucy efforts which were:

Light Soy Sauce (about 6 tablespoons)

2 large finely chopped cloves of garlic

2 teaspoons of shaved (from a frozen piece) of ginger

2 teaspoons of dark brown sugar and

1 tablespoon of cornflour

1 tablespoon of Chinese Five Spice powder

I marinated the prawns in this before cooking....it makes a sort of Chinese Gravy! Yummy.

So now I've caught up with myself I think it's time for a Green Tea and bed.

Nite, nite

Love

Nora

xxxx

Summer Holidays - Day 2

So today was a home day I was expecting some deliveries for Kids Club.

Little Lady and I had breakfast in bed watching CBeebies and just as we had finished getting dressed my neighbour popped along with Tiniest Friend (who didn't want to go to town....Bless!), so she came to play instead.

Tiny Friend and Little Lady made more of the Shrinking Fairy Charms, here they are.....

Lovely, aren't they?

Next up for them was the garden playhouse with food, prams and lots of imagination.....

It didn't last long as it was so cold and windy!

So back in for dressing up.....

After lunch there was a bit of creativity in the form of.......

Bling rings......!

Plenty of snail petting, house building and fun throughout the day......

The inevitable 'selfie' with snail pal........

All rounded off with 3...yes THREE pieces of Cheese & Onion Quiche, salad and new potatoes with a frozen yoghurt lolly to seep into the cracks!

I think we can safely say it was another successful day!

What will tomorrow bring?

Until then, toodle-pip!

Love

Nora

xxxx

Summer Holidays - Day 1

Yep, that time of year again and ...yep...I know the holidays actually started last week BUT, with Kids Club to get up and running, I worked last Thursday and Friday whilst Little Lady went into Kids Club!

So, for us, holidays really only started today, and I will still be working for the next 2 Thursdays and Fridays too.

But as a little record (more for myself than anything), I thought I'd photograph (or at least try to remember to photograph!) our DO-ings for each day.  Can't promise I shall be successful!  But here is Day One......

Girls trip to the hairdressers, Little Lady is done and enjoying a hot chocolate and a biscuit whilst she waits for Teenage Daughter to finish.

After this we were due to picnic at the local play park...but it rained!

So we decided to picnic indoors instead!

After lunch we had company..... 

....for dressing up and snail home building!

This gave me a little time for a cuppa and a biscuit and.....

A little time with THE blanket working the Join-As-You-Go-Grannys.

The tiniest visitor got a bit left behind with the big girl play (which is unusual as she is sooooo switched on!), so she found one of Little Lady's craft kits.......

...and we made these Shrinking Fairy Charms by Galt (available at Argos, and I highly recommend them as a gift or Summer Project).  I have a proper heat gun from my paper-crafting days and Tiny Friend was mesmerised by the curling and distortion of her fairy until it came good again!

I got them treasure hunting.....

..for broad beans and peas.  A great conversation ensued about which bits are edible and which bits you wouldn't want to eat (the furry bit of the broad bean case!)  and the pea skins were munched and a few taken for the snail house!

We ate these this evening with our Mac Cheese and Garlic Bread, Little Lady had 3 portions of Mac Cheese and then downed a Jubbly and 4 pieces of watermelon!  Obviously worked up an appetite!

At the moment she's happily playing (or that should be thrashing!) Daddy on the Wii....great fun!

We have a home day tomorrow as we are awaiting some deliveries, so who knows what we might get up to!

Have you got small people to entertain?  What have you got planned?

Until tomorrow, byeee,

Love

Nora

xxxx

Blanket Update

How do!  It's been a while....and have I been busy.

I have a stack load of stuff to catch you up on and some fab piccies of events, makes and general pretti-ness!

So on to today's NOT ta-dah!

W-a-a-a-a-y back here and here and here I told you about a blanket inspiration, yarn purchase and progress.............

I've been scouring Pinterest deciding on a joining method.....I hadn't realised there were so many.

I thought I was settled on a flat braid.......

.....there's a great tutorial here for it.

But sometimes when you start things just don't hang together as you want, so, sadly, I tried it and it just didn't look right.

I took another look at the initial inspiration for my blanket over at Hopscotch Lane.  Becky had chosen Granny join as you go......

Gorgeous isn't it?

She also made this beautiful Spring Day Blanket......

Same Granny join as you go method.

So...I decided to join with Granny clusters.

Now for the best 'path' to take with a 12 x 10 blanket.

After much more searching I have settled on the Join As You Go - Continuous Method from Heather at Patchwork Heart.....

It is exactly the same pathway for more squares and is easily remembered.  It is also easy to remember the order of your squares as you work row by row.

I am excited to announce that (at L-A-s-T!) all 120 squares for my blanket are finished!

I want to say 'ta-dah' as this has been a mammoth crochet task, but having the squares complete, whilst being a milestone for me, is only half the story.

Now to arrange them in some pleasing way and photograph (so I don't forget!).

Here they all are, every single one different!

So, on with the joining!  In White.

See you soon with more 'stuff', until then...

Cheerio,

Love

Nora

xxxx

Sunset

Just had to share this lovely sunset..............

When I took the photos, I wasn't sure if you'd get the shafts of light, but you can make them out.

They reminded me of Clarice Cliff.

Over a few minutes, it gradually faded to this and then more yello, so I feel I caught it at it's best.

Gorgeous, isn't it?

I've had Tooth Fairy duties, Teenage Daughters Prom and a lot of making going on....so I will be back with some updates soon.

'Til then, byeee

Love

Nora

xxxx

Naughty Bargain!

Oooops!  I couldn't help it.....well, OK I could...BUT!!!!

I've been on and off eBay, Amazon, Gumtree and brand sites looking at dress forms (also know as tailors dummies, mannequins, dressmaking dummies), boy are they expensive!

Even the ones on eBay might start with no reserve but regularly go for excess of £75.  There is certainly LOTS of interest in these at the moment.

Well, I was wandering with my Crafty Friend and happened to see a torso in the window of a charity shop. I popped in to find that it was £35!  Yes, £35!

Having just had a conversation with my husband about how much money is leaking out of our account and needing to cut down and all that jazz....I felt too guilty to buy it BUT, I did say that if it was still there on my return a couple of hours later that I would succumb......and succumb I did!

So here is a sneaky shot (sadly it has no stand but I'm working on that!)............

How chuffed am I?

Does The Hubs know yet?!

I'm off to source some instructions as I can't find a YouTube video to tell me how to adjust it.....that could be the next post!

Until then.....toodle-oo

Love

Nora

xxxx

SAILOR PANTS!

Yes! *punches the air in a most un-lady-like manner*

Do I feel great right now?  Yes.

Am I proud of myself? Yes.

Am I proud of my Little Lady's photography skills?  YES!

Grab a cuppa, make yourself comfy....we're up for a TA-DAH!

This journey started last June whilst on holiday when I stumbled across the blog of lovely Jane at Handmade Jane..wow...is she inspiring!  And so willing to share her knowledge and be of enormous help to allow those sewing-ly challenged amongst us to get a leg up in the dressmaking stakes.

I love her style and also her colour choices (I love a bit of red myself!).

She lead me on to many other wonderful blogs and sites like Gertie's Blog for Better Sewing, The Little Tailoress, But it Can't Be From Dolly Clackett, The Vintage Pattern Files, Jennifer Lauren Vintage, Burdastyle.....*breath*..... and so I could go on...and on, and on!

What came out of this holiday rummage was that I REALLY wanted to sew something for myself.

I like unique things, and I'm happy to buy from charity shops so that I'm less likely to wear something someone else is sporting and there are some unusual finds too.

Problem?

Fit!

Solution?

Make it yourself for a better fit!

OK.  Here we go.  By the end of the holiday I had bought Colette's Jasmin Blouse, Jennifer Lauren's Bronte Top and Burdastyles Sailor Pants.

Weirdly, I later looked for the Vintage Simplicity 4238 and made that first....told you about that here.

I've also made an apron based on a pattern I found on Pinterest (more about that here...)

And some PJs which I told you about here, (but haven't yet updated you on another 2 pairs!!)

So, FINally I get around to those sailor pants!  Tentatively!

I can't tell you much about the fabric other than I got it from Fabricland for around £5 per metre, it is navy blue and it is trouser-y stuff...what exactly I have no idea!

You'll have to PLEAse excuse the state of the trousers as I had worn them all day at Little Lady's party when we went bowling and picnic-ing in the park....well worn and crumpled!

So...ready....here we go.................

Little Lady didn't quite get the shot right, so let's try again.......

Not bad at all and for a front detail shot.......

....and a side shot to show the fit......

I L-O-V-E them...what's not to love?

I'm putting them up as my May Make on #mmaw2015.

I am sooooo inspired!  I have the Retro Butterick 5605 out at this moment, instructions being absorbed, bodice cut and I'm also contemplating cutting a shorts version of these Sailor Pants in a lovely floral fabric I found in the remnant stack at my local fabric store.

I'll keep you posted on progress......finally, sorry for the radio silence and finally, finally...thank you Jane xx

Love

Nora

xxxx