Checking back in

Wow nearly 2 months. No crafting has happened, no art has happened. It hasn't been a bad time lots of nice has happened. I just ran myself down. Too much staying in and being on my own with the little fella. Far too much illness, nothing serious just colds, tonsillitis, infected blocked sinuses but worst of all no energy. Easter helped a lot, rejuggling my tutoring should help further. The next 2 months ar hard. Lots of tutoring and exam marking get some pennies in storage. My little fella starts school in September, possibly in Coventry who knows husband still searching for the next position. Need a holiday but there are no spare pennies. So here is how it will be, no room for air working wise until the jun 20th ish, there will be a family visit to Scotland and 2 birthdays to celebrate. Then some time, T still in nursey and therefore Mondays and Thursday's free. Gardening must happen or food will not grow. The world will be re-entered into. While I may not post I do promise to come and visit which I have also been bad at............... Hope you are all well and busy :)

Rocking Your World Friday

Friday again - anyone else finding this year is slipping away real quick? Time to reflect on all the good and happy moments from the last week to remind ourselves that no matter what there is always something right somewhere :) Started by Virginia over at Celtic House and championed by a faithful team of Rockettes / Rockers.

Let's see people wise first up are my Mum and Dad. Who lovingly put up with myself and toddler for 2 nights to give me a break while dh was swanning around Boston and yes 3 days might have been work, but 2 were jollies (and your still not forgiven for going there when there is the rest of the planet to choose from). Said toddler always loves the excuse of a train ride that visiting my parentals invokes and was happy running trolleys around the fabric warehouse my mum and I visited and charming all the people there.  I am grateful for his personality, ability to entertain himself without causing havoc when needed, his unconditional love and the joy he gives me every day.  

For the friends who come round to visit when dh is awol and give me some grown up time especially Dott who I haven't spent one to one time with in a long while. As a person I survive the day to day by talking through things but that does need a person on the other end.

For the mouthy stitches swap which just worked so darn well.  All credit to the mama's that headed it up. The idea was that we were assigned a partner, stalked them then put together a plan. We then posted up hints and ideas about our plan on our flickr group and then waited for people to comment and hoped that the intended recipient made a comment so you could make sure you were on the right track. I am sure it worked to varying degrees depending on how well partners commented but I did just splendidly both ways. On Monday I arrived back from my hour and a half adventure to deposit child at nursery (my fault never learnt to drive and no desire to  - Toddler enjoys bus rides and of course has to do lots of exploring on the way - dh arrived back 8:25 very jet lagged and deposited himself in bed for a few hours and then on the couch). So anyway I arrived back home and there was a most definitely zippy pouched shaped parcel all the way from Australia :D  and only 8 days in the travelling (amazing). Now when I was looking and commenting (yes I'll show you in a minute stick with me) there was a lot of work that I admired, people from the quilting world. But there was one pouch which I fell in love with and it was the one that arrived on my doorstep :) my partner was Dolores who blogs at labouroflove, I nicked this photo montage from her site because it was so much better than anything I took.........

Turns out that W was for Wendy (and womble and woolly mammoths (furry elephants (and cows for that matter) are brilliant)). Not only is that pouch and all my scraps fantastic but it comes on the back of the fact that Dolores's favourite colour (and 80% of her stash) is the colour I hate most in the world (pink). Which links me nicely into the recipient of the pouch I made whose favourite colour was also pink and therefore provided me with a challenge. Cindy's response was everything a girl could hope for from a swap partner and blogged here. I am very grateful to Cindy for introducing me to Kate Spain's Terrain range of fabrics many of which I adore although they are quite difficult to get hold of here in the UK.

I am grateful to the couple of new bloggy followers/friends I have made through the swap and hope there will be more. I love the chance to chat to people.

I am grateful to Boots decongestant tablets and nurofen express that allowed me to get through a ten and a half hour tutoring session yesterday. The joys of being self employed, no work no pay. Once this is published I plan to do as little as possible today (having woken up at 3 this morning, gave up and got up at 5, all the chores are out the way so it is just the feeding that is essential left to do and hope toddler can mostly entertain himself.

Hope you have all had a splendid week to :)

WOYWW

Right at this minute (due to be removed for 11:30 so my tutoring can start) Chusby station (elf is looking a bit bedraggled at the moment as we are fighting a crusty scalp so he has been oiled!)

The reason we have made Chusby station is so that the train below on its tracks can pick up the passengers (which will be our family next time we get the paints out)

Also recently I finished the mini quilt that I have entered without much hope into the modern mini challenge (button over there somewhere). I say finished but I plan yet to do some more silver cloud quilting in the sky and quilt the curves that form the grass. A girl needs something to do of her evenings see..........

Oh and last but no means least the happy 17th birthday card mum that I was commissioned to make and was very well received (does it help if I tell you that the mum in question was born on the 29th Feb?

I am sure by now you are all familiar with Julia at the Stamping Ground (see WOYWW linky on the right if not) and fly visit desks, lots of desks and find everything from paper to fabric and in between.

Modern Mini Challenge

Right, it has been a year of firsts so far for me. I apologise for my quietness in some areas of my blogging life I will be back soon. The reason for my quietness is that at the beginning of the year I decided to join 2 challenges the first was the mouthy stitches zippy pouch swap and my pouch is winging its way across the oceans and I wait somewhat patiently to see what that person thinks and for my pouch in return. Hot on the trail of the Mouthy Stitches I found out about the Modern Mini Challenge over at Jennifer's blog.  I so enjoyed making my pouch that I checked I could make a 'circle' and I could, so I set about my plan, It is finally done and is definitely a tad quirky but I am happy.  

The quilt is 18" in diameter. My photography skills are needing some improvement so here are a couple of close ups to show the hedgehog with his rainbow crosses between his spines and body :)

And a close up of the birdies (plus the cloud complete with a silver lining ;) 

Thanks to Jennifer for giving me my next sewing challenge and Mouthy Stitches for providing the original boost! I am off to see the other entries (some which I already know are amazing) and to dream up more creations for my rainbow hedgehog :)

Rocking Your World Friday

Getting back on the wagon, seems I am an all or nothing girl at the moment.So having WOYWW on Wednesday and postcarded this morning the final thing left to do this week is to celebrate the positives of the last few weeks since I last joined in with Virginia and the the Friday Rockettes:

There has been bronchitis type stuff and busy type stuff but there have been smiles through it all.

My little man continues to make me smile, I am so grateful for having a healthy and happy boy. One who communicates better and better each passing day so it makes it easier to sort out issues as they come up. This week I drew Puffer Pete the train so he could paint him and his response was 'Thank you mummy, it's wonderful. There also followed 3 carriages and some paint and some stamps. I got to paint my daffodl postcard for Darcy's challenge :)

My MIL came down for a few days from Scotland. We didn't manage to get her down here last year with one thing and another other than for a flying visit around T birthday (which made the little fella happy). I have a good relationship with my MIL so I always look forward to her visits and she helps get me back on the straight and narrow I guess because I just feel that I have had a few days of support with the mundane in life.

I finished my pouch for the zippy mouth swap. Posting commences tomorrow. Excited to see what I am getting, nothing has obviously called out as being mine and all mine but there are a fair number that I would happily give a home to.

I got more tutoring, yay, so more pennies which will hopefully mean I have more chance of getting my mitts on the electronic goodies I want to get my mitts on now that the flat is no longer sucking us dry! Hopefully a girl can start to build a reputation (as the last 2 are based in schools) and I may get requested in the future. Also got invited back to do exam marking between May and June, gets a but crazy but worth it for the pennies boost.

I got commissioned to make my first card - hurrah and they approved of the sketch I put together. I finished the card a couple of hours a go but will wait until next week to post as they won't have it in their mitts until tomorrow.

Hope you are all well I shall be over at the weekend to catch up :)

Postcard challenge weeks 6,7 and8.............

Well it took writing a list - in all fairness Belgium was done it just needed assembly and writing. I managed to catch up on postcards on Wednesday while T painted and stamped on big drawings of a train and some carriages I drew for him.........

So I give you in very particular order, Belgium, Wales and Cuba and I'll see you at some point across the next few days........

Woyww

Hello, lovely people how are you all. I decided not to post the last couple of weeks as I had no hopes of getting round anyone - sickness then folks visiting. I probably won't do much better this week but I do miss the whole crazy Wednesday thing - what crazy Wednesday thing why all the desks that come via the head honcho Ms Julia Dunnit (woyww link on the right). So this week as I type this is exactly what is on my table of determinate crafting purpose (at the moment) now: 

A quilt I am doing for a thing, an online thingy - I really should get the button that might help. Then I have been asked to make a card (my first commission :D) so this is an initial sketch idea........(very initial).

Last but not least here is the zippy pouch I was working on last time I was about - all finished and awaiting posting!

Keeping it brief, that's all from me, have a good one!

Rocking My World Friday

Hello Friday rockers (no need to run this time Sandee - *wave*) courtesy of the very splendid Virginia over at the Celtic House we love to gather together on a Friday and look at the good things that have happened in our week, because there is always something good, no matter how small.

Firstly a BIG thank you to you all for your lovely words. The writing the experience down and having a little weep has left me feeling a LOT better this week. I think that at some point if I can get myself to journal some of the harder experiences that will be positive too :) So my first positive was offloading and getting some relief!

The weekend was rare family time. It was my sisters birthday and we all piled over to my parents house on Saturday afternoon and to spend the night.  I had a cunning plan. Our boys (it is my dad's fault he wanted boys and go 2 girls so now Susan and I have 3 boy's between us........) are at that age when anyone's presents are up for grabs. Now I don't know about you ladies but I am still very much in the category of I love having presents to open especially surprises!  So in a cunning moved I scoured the house and found 3 animal badges that needed making, some thread, beads with letters and shapes to string on (enough letters for each of the boy's names) and a finger puppet. I wrapped them in tissue paper and just as there eye's popped out of their little heads at sister's presents. I presented them with their little gifts (these were promptly ripped open and then they sat quietly on the floor in a different room making badges and name thingies - result.  My sister opened her presents in peace! I love it when a plan works.

My second positive of the weekend was very inadvertent. When my sister came to visit with her boy's the other weekend (this is an unusually large number of visits we can go weeks without connecting and I am looking after them tonight over night to........) Anyway's my sister had asked if I had any good books and I gave her my copy of Moon Called by Patricia Briggs which I had really enjoyed. So this last week S's youngest fella had been off school with the high temperature bug that is doing the rounds and with a loss of what to do she promptly ordered off Amazon (2nd hand) the remaining books in the series, read them and then presented them to me as a bulk offering.  I have to return all but the last book (which she got a copy of for me) because she wants to read them all again - but how good is that! :D

Sunday I got home from parental's via a friends new house (this friend is someone who I grew up with from 10 - 18 then we lost touch and found each other through friends reunited, both pregnant with 2 weeks to go and our boy's were born 5 days apart. We got together 8 weeks later and have kept in contact since!). To find the lovely Sarah (hello lovely Sarah) had squirrelled a bag of fabric scraps by my front door when she had been up watching hockey at the Skydome. When she said a few scraps I hadn't expected a bag full. People are so lovely you know :)

Needless to say I have been on a happy boat all week. I took myself in hand made a list of things I needed to get done and jolly well did them. This meant I finally had sometime to craft this week and make sure that I got my postcards for Darcy's challenge caught up and completed for this week :) 

I have also started walking once a week. The new student I am tutoring lives in a part of Coventry with the most rubbish bus route ever. Generally Coventry is pretty good for buses and being able to get around. On Thursday's I am averaging an hour to an hour and a half of walking - this will not being doing me any harm.  I am hoping if dh work situation can resolve itself that I can get myself to aqua aerobics again. I have always enjoyed doing that and unfortunately the local classes are in a nearby hotel which will be expensive (in comparison to the local  sports centres which tend to be £20 a month but there isn't one in a sensible place to here........

Lastly for now is the Mouthy Stitches swap that I am taking part in on flikr. It is so much fun seeing everyone's work, although I am more of a sneaky peaks showing person. But the positive comments are so lovely (and when 2 people pinned the finished owl as a favourite that made me fair beam!). My sense of humour tends to come out in my commenting and I have already gained some new friends from it - hello *waves8 to mammafairy and Diane. It is lovely having new friends :)

Right lots of look forward to this weekend too, more about that next week! Hope you are all having a splendid time and I shall be round to see what is happening in your worlds.

Darcy's Postcard Challenge weeks 4 and 5....

Ok playing catch up so keeping it brief. China then France.......

Right not sure when, probably Saturday evening, I'll be playing catch up on postcards too......

WOYWW - back to the sofa

Good Morning (ish) lovely Wednesday people. If you are wandering by my blog and are a new follower - run, run now. Only joking you have found yourself in the middle of a pathway to inspiration, everything from papercrafters, to fabric people and the odd jewellery crafter and everything in between. What will you see, who knows but it starts with a desk, a single desk of Julia Dunnit and flies outwards (WOYWW link on the right).

This week the table of indeterminate purpose is being a determined dinner table. I have transferred with some stitching to the living room (which has retained its new formation since the Christmas change around (and the sofa has a new cover.....). So any-ways I am working on my pouch for my Mouthy Stitches swap:

I had never heard of Kate Spain and her terrain fabric but I like what I have of it so far. The pink is way out of my comfort zone but I am pleased with how it is going, Just keeping my fingers crossed that the sewing machine will go through all the layers once I put the whole thing together.......... Once the owl is finished and stitched on to the branch I have some sequin flowers to sparingly sprinkle around.

Hope you are all having a good - preferably lurgy free (whichever of the horrible nasty things that are going around at the moment). week :)