A foggy old day

Today was a foggy dank dark dismal day - the sort of day that turns cobwebs into crystal necklaces strung amongst the bushes as if by magic. The sort of day that once you've walked the children to school and back makes you wonder why you bothered to wash and blow dry your hair - especially if it's prone to crinkling like mine. The fog didn't lift at all today and it was quite chilly, becoming even more so this evening as you can see from the ice that's accumulated on the car aerial on the short round trip to the supermarket for the heavy non-perishable Christmas foodstuffs - the fruit and veg will mean another visit at the weekend :o(

Today was also the last day of term for both the kids and I which this year feels a little close to the wire although I do believe some counties aren't breaking for Christmas until Friday - now that is leaving things a bit late.

The cold dampness today also came as quite a shock for a lot of the garden plants - I have an early spring clematis in full bloom - it's about to get a rude awakening I think

This morning before I went to work at 10.30 the stitching bug still had a serious hold on me and having virtually finished all the Christmas sewing I decided that, having been in the house over 15 months, it was time I made some cushion covers for my lounge to match the aqua, sand and cream decor rather than the scruffy ancient red and dark green ones that matched the old house.

I've never been a great fan of piecing, always preferring applique but I've really enjoyed the flying geese I've made in certain Christmas presents so set to and stitched my first cushion front. And that was all before heading off to work.

When we returned this evening I decided I'd quite like some texture so merrily sandwiched it and stitched away thoughout the evening between more boring tasks like fixing tea and a romantic trip for two without the kids with DH to, of all places, the supermarket!!!

I've never tried a feather design before or for that matter any micro-stippling but I just decided to leave the coloured sections unquilted and puffy and to stitch away on the cream areas. The feather was totally freehand and isn't totally even but I'm delighted with the result and with a quick back and some fasteners it will be able to replace the first of those tatty red and green numbers.

Christmas is creeping in

Yesterday was my day off but also the Secret Santa lunch at work so it was a very nice feeling to drag myself away from the stitching and the housework and go into work without having to actually do any work for the buffet lunch and pressie exchange

This little chap was my secret santa present - he's a little wooden carved santa sitting on a painted tin box - and best of all when you take off the lid he's filled with Green and Black's organic chocolate - Heaven!!!

The stitching took the form of using up some orphan flying geese from my brother's table runner. My dearest friend from Taunton has just inherited her mum's dining table and sideboard and I thought a short runner would look just great on the sideboard.

As it is only 4 blocks long I decided to quilt it in the pattern rather than allover holly leaves and so I've left it with the green star points and the red border standing up puffy - I will get it bound tonight and give it to her at end of school tomorrow when all the children break up for Christmas

"It'll be ready by Christmas.................."

he said...................

"I'm just not saying which Christmas!!!"

Well two more false starts for completing the conservatory this week.

The guys turned up on Tuesday with the end roof window panes

For technical reasons that I won't even begin to bore you with the glass panel has to have a join in it, however the pieces they brought with them had the join in the middle of the length rather than to one end to match the adjoining panes. Oooops!

So we refused to accept this - not to surveyors initial drawings. The fact that the plasterer was hot on their heels ready to start finishing the internal walls was a bit of a sickener.

After much discussion we agreed with the firm that the fitters could complete as much as possible and the plasterer could crack on with the walls on the understanding that, when the roof panels were finally replaced with the correct ones, if the plastering got wet the company would pay for its replacement.

Ok - all fine and dandy - the plasterer worked like a demon for Tuesday and right up to 8.15pm on the Wednesday and completed the walls.

Saturday morning, a beautiful thankfully DRY sunny morning, was then scheduled for the fitters to come and replace the glass and fit skirtings etc for the final fix

Simple! ............. wouldn't you think???

Nope, sadly on this job nothing has been that straightforward!

New glass fitted - join still doesn't line up with it's neighbouring pieces of glass - unhappy customer - totally cheesed off fitters - no answer from the company - it's Saturday of course!!!!!

So here we are again still waiting for the roof glass to be completed, it will probably be in the New Year now - hence the comment about which Christmas.

However, in a bid to try and advance the job in another direction, Nigel decided after they'd left that he would put some paint on the plaster to seal it and the first coat is complete. Another coat of paint needed, the electric sockets and light switches to be connected up and two radiators fitted will complete the interior

I was toying with the idea of painting it the same pale aqua as the adjoining dining room but as he's painted it white first of all to cover the plaster I actually quite like it white - it blends in with all that uPVC - it'll probably stay white I think - after all once we've put the allocated furniture in there you won't see much of the walls anyway.

We've had a whistlestop weekend including a 500 mile round trip to Yorkshire to play Santa

Nick had football on Saturday morning and then a friend's birthday party in the afternoon. So, as Sarah's county match for the Sunday had been postponed, we took advantage of a relatively free weekend and set off for my parents at about 5.40pm

Luckily we had a speedy uneventful journey which took three and a half hours with one loo stop.

Initially we dropped into my parents' house for a drink and to collect my brother's spare house key as they were in Sheffield at a concert so we were to let ourselves in.

Late night for all of us once we'd caught up on the news with them too.

Next morning saw a beautiful sunny crisp start to the day, so we made the effort to walk down to the village pond and feed the ducks - sadly I didn't have the camera to hand. Tickhill (the village my brother and his pregnant wife live in) is one of loveliest and most desirable in the area and it was a pleasant interlude in an otherwise 90 miles an hour trip.

Then quickly back to my parents to hand over their presents and have a snack before heading back off down the road at about 12.45 pm in a bid to avoid the usual late Sunday afternoon/evening exodus that plagues English motorways.

I think we must have timed it just right as with three loo stops this time we made it back in almost exactly 4 hours with the only aggravation being the low winter sun in our eyes.

We have now said though that it's a trip we won't be repeating except in an emergency - just too far and too tiring for such a short stopover even with two drivers to share the load.

However it was great to see two thirds of my close family and reassure myself that my dad is well on the way to recovery - he was doing lots of his usual grumbling so he must be getting better :o)

After that trip last night and an easy tea of chicken casserole (previously taken from the freezer and left to defrost in the fridge) jacket potatoes and frozen veg all I wanted to do was something a bit brainless.

Stitching, in one form or another, always fits the bill and here is the result

I spotted a similar design a few years ago for an advent calendar with numbered squares all round the outside so adapted the idea for a Christmas wallhanging to try and capture the real meaning of Christmas.

It's been sitting on the back burner for easily three or four years and I only unearthed it a few weeks ago from a box of ufo's hiding in the loft.

So once the hand applique of the buildings and the star was complete I decided to do some 'Tonya' style hand quilting for the lettering which says 'Oh little town of Bethlehem how still we see thee lie' taking the first verse from that lovely Christmas carol. Then I added a couple of little music notes at the start and finish and machine quilted the rest very simply completing the picture with a cream and gold starry binding.

Done and in time for this Christmas .......... unlike the blessed conservatory!!!

Christmas Stitching done in the nick of time

All done and dusted - well the ones to be transported up country that is anyway.

I put the last stitches in at about 9.15 this evening and then got them all wrapped up.

Here are the two quillows both opened out and in cushion format - hope they like them :o)

Louise said as I was converting the purple one into the cushion 'Mmmm I like that, can i have one?'

My retort was 'Yes, but not this side of Christmas!!!'

Tim's Quillow Top ready for sandwiching

A bit more progress on the Christmas gift front.

I bound the table runner this morning at our final quilt meeting before the Christmas break and then we all had a lovely ham salad lunch together where we meet. Not particularly Christmassy fare but actually rather refreshing for all that. One of the ladies lives near a wonderful old fashioned butcher who does fabulous cooked meats - that's where the ham came from and it was the nicest ham I've ever tasted without exception, simply melted in your mouth - yummeeeee!!!

Once I returned this afternoon, in between ferrying kids to and fro I've got the borders onto the quilt part of my nephew Tim's quillow. You can see the fabric design a little more clearly in the close up photo. The sailors are possibly a little bit young for him but I like the overall effect of the crisp navy and white design - very masculine.

Now to sandwich and quilt but that will have to wait for tomorrow as I'm out tonight on a get-together of the secretaries of most of the local primary schools. A nice meal out in a renowned pub south of Taunton. I have volunteered to drive as I seldom drink. Any suggestion for a collective name for a group of school secretaries?

Tomorrow I have a day off in lieu of a previous governor's meeting - Nigel will also be home as (I'm saying this with everything crossed and holding my breath) the conservatory fitters are due back to put in the correct roof panels and then the plasterer should be able to finish off the walls. On recent performance I'll believe it when I see it :o)

How to 'Holly' for Fiona and anyone else who might be curious

Fiona asked about the free motion holly leaves on the table runner in my last post.

I vaguely remember from my own school days in the dim and distant past (Jacob Marley speaking here folks) a teacher showing me how to draw lifelike holly leaves.

You start off with a curved line for the spine of the leaf and then draw a series of curves along each of the two sides to make the points. Don't worry about having the same number of points on each side, apparently holly leaves are seldom symmetrical and of course having the initial 'spine line' curved gives the leaf much more fluidity.

Well the holly leaf free motion stitching is exactly the same principle - if you look at the diagram you start at the bottom in the red and stitch a curved line in the rough area you wish to fill with your leaf - then once you've reached the far end of the leaf change direction (the line turns to blue) and stitch a series of curves back to the start of your leaf. Once you've joined up with your spine at the start of your leaf change direction again (this time into green on the diagram) and work the corresponding set of curves to join up at the end of the leaf (matching up with where the red turned to blue).

That's your leaf completed - now all you need to do is continue with another curved line for the next spine and repeat the process. The leaves all continue along from each other in a little garland really, so just keep stitching and filling those spaces with leaves as large or small as you like til your area is full.

So go on then - deck the halls with boughs of holly girls!!!

Oh Pooh!!! Eeyore for the high jump :o(

Well I've definitely been a busy little bunny - stitching my fingers to the bone.

My niece's quilt is bordered, sandwiched and quilted. However as is often the case with best laid plans the microfibre cloth for the backing was less than successful. Too stretchy and way too heavy. Had it been light weight and stretchy I could have coped but the weight of all that fabric just pulled every which way but loose and so I gave up very rapidly having to spend part of Friday evening unpicking - yeeuuuuchhhh!!!

Saturday was pretty busy with shopping and football so most of the work had to be done today.

Never mind I reverted to the good old wadding and backing fabric and ploughed on with the quilting today in a very large meander.

Whilst on the quilting run I sandwiched and then quilted my brother and sister-in-law's table runner in 'bottom line' thread all over with holly leaves. Had I had more time I might have done something that fitted more with the actual piecing but I don't think they'll mind and the leaves are seasonal.

So then onto the quilt for my nephew - something blue my sister said - I have half the world's supply of blue fabric in my stash - how difficult could that be I asked myself - but no, virtually everything I touched had flowers on it - definitely not right for a 16 yr old boy.

So I settled for some crisp navy and white fabrics which have little sailors and anchors - a bit young but definitely better than flowers.

You can see the blues in the right hand star block.

I'm afraid there was one casualty today - the reality of how quickly I have to get these things finished finally hit me this afternoon and Eeyore was the casualty - even as quickly as I can hand applique there's no way on this little earth that I could get him done and everything finished for Friday. So I took the chicken's way out and plumped for a star to match her brothers in Eeyoreish colours like the quilt.

Never mind maybe I'll get round to doing a proper Eeyore cushion (minus the quillow bit) for her for next Christmas.

A good start on Eeyore

Yesterday evening I cut, stitched, pressed, cut, stitched and pressed again. Merrily working away in short bursts between sorting out feeding my brood and going to Sarah's school for an open evening about arranging her two weeks work experience next summer.

And voila! Eeyore's quilt top centre is done....... sort of scrappy but to the main colour scheme.

I intend to put a simple 2" border all round in the darkest of the greys and bind it in the purple with the little red spots on (sorry you'll have to look a bit closer for that)

Our local cheapie supermarket Lidl often sells obscure non-food items. I went in last weekend to search for stocking fillers and came across some lovely microfibre cloth throws in a variety of colours. The fabric is that beautifully soft sort of very fine velour which feels so gorgeous - a bit like 'minky' fabric which costs an arm and a leg in fabric shops over here - often in excess of £20/metre.

These throws measure 150cm x 200cm so that's the equivalent of over 2 yards of 45" fabric at the princely sum of £7.99 for the item or about $16 to you in US money - by my reckoning that comes out at £4 per metre which is cheap in anyone's book.

Never one to turn down a bargain I bought six of them - deep grey, light pink, bright turquoise, navy blue, honey brown and duster yellow - a strange assortment of shades but just the ones that were left.

I shall use some of the grey for this eeyore quilt and some of the navy for my nephews. The others will come in handy for something I'm sure.

Now I have to work on the Eeyore applique for the cushion front.

Nigel announced last night that he has to go up country next Friday - a week today - for work and could try and arrange to meet my brother somewhere mutually convenient if he's free for a handover of Christmas presents. My parents live quite close to my brother and my sister will be calling on them sometime before Christmas so could collect her pile. We're the only one's who live miles away and just can't see any other way of getting the santa sack to them.

So that puts the pressure on to stitch a bit more speedily - still Sarah's rugby match this Sunday has been postponed to an unknown future date so I can spend all Sunday locked onto the sewing machine to make more progress.

Wish me luck!

And things drag on

Well I had rather hoped that after a bit of a delay with the conservatory roof I'd be able to show you an almost completed addition to our home by now. Sadly due to the incompetence of the order department at the conservatory firm I'm unable to do that.

Our fitters, who I hasten to add have been terrific and are as displeased with their employers as we are, arrived on Tuesday with most of the roof glass - the two end triangle panes had been overlooked (again). In addition two of the main roof panes that butt up to the roof vents were 45mm too short and the panes for inside the roof vents were 45mm too long. Plus the replacement for a small window pane they'd broken last week had been delivered but amazingly disappeared into thin air before the poor fitters could get their sticky little mitts on it.

So after much deliberation, discussion and some very heated telephone calls to a less than helpful main office it was decided that they'd come back the following day (yesterday) with temporary panels and then return next week with their proper replacements. Only, and we mean only, once all the correct sized glass is safely in it's correct place will we give the go-ahead for the plasterer to complete the internals. The floor is down but they've covered it with a heavy duty plastic sheet just in case it's raining when they return next week to redo the roof.

With all this it looks like there's no way it'll be even remotely usable for Christmas as Nigel has to do all the electrical finishing off and our plumber friend has to put in the radiators too - I can see that spreading into the time between Christmas and New Year, although I am tempted to put the tree out there as we always have a large real one which seems to take over the lounge - we'll see.

Last night - the first weather-tight test - was yet another horrendous night with high winds and heavy rain which woke me more than once. Amazingly this morning the place seems dry so that's got to be a good sign - roll on next week, although I have to say we'll be in no hurry to pay any more of the installments - they can jolly well wait on that score - and we feel that we should retain some of the total payment as reimbursement for the aggravation factor.

So as I speak we have a dehumidifier merrily humming away out there (hired by us and using our very expensive electric) trying to get rid of most of the damp the walls have incurred this past week or two with all the rain we've had.

On a different note Sarah had a County rugby match on Sunday in similar horrific weather conditions. The pitch was so muddy and soggy that by the time the first 5 minutes of the game had elapsed you couldn't actually tell which number shirt she was wearing she was so muddy. Nigel had to literally scrape the mud off her shorts before he dared put them anywhere near the washing machine. Sadly they lost the game against her old County side of Gloucestershire 27 - 5 but she was instrumental in setting up their only try. You can see from the picture that the match wasn' t the only casualty as she's sporting a cracking but very sore black eye - what a thug she looks! That's what comes of high speed contact with someone else's scrum cap - to be honest I think she's lucky it didn't actually spilt the skin - she will insist on playing this rough game.

She's heavily weighed down with coursework for school at the moment and is feeling more than a little pressured so we get the occasional 'fly off the handle' moment - no-one ever warns you about that at ante-natal classes either. It's tough trying to juggle the committments of school work and the pleasanter things in life like hobbies and a boyfriend - who'd be a teenager again - not me!

However for her Food Technology (whatever's wrong with the term Cookery, I ask you?) work this week she had to make a Chocolate Orange Cheesecake - and here is the result. Her teacher never gives higher than 9.5 out of 10 but she earned the full 10 with this sumptuous creation - and absolutely delicious it was too :o) She's more than welcome to make another for over Christmas if the urge takes her.

I've been busy on the stitching front - finishing off lots of cushions and my Joy wallhangings.

Now I'm merrily stitching simple rail fence blocks of three 2" x 6" finished strips in grey, pink and purple to go together for an 'Eeyore' Quillow for my niece who even at 19 still loves Eeyore to bits. I've found a simple picture of the afore-named donkey and hope to try and hand applique him onto the front of the cushion part over this weekend.

Then I have a similar one to make for her 16yr old brother but that will be a simpler affair in shades of blue - just right for a teenage boy. Thankfully he's not into any particular cartoon character so I can use a pieced block for his cushion front.

The Christmas countdown clock is ticking ever faster and I haven't even started to write a card yet or even to compose my Christmas family news letter to go in them so if I want to be able to post them all out at the less expensive second class rate I'd better get my skates on ........PANIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let the countdown begin

There is a great air of excitement in our house this morning.

The 1st of December means the start of the Christmas countdown.

When Sarah was tiny I had a friend with twins 18months older than my daughter. We would get together as part of a small coffee morning group each week at each others houses. In the run up to Sarah's first Christmas I was round there for coffee and spied the gorgeous perpetual advent calendar her mum had made for the girls. 24 little pockets each with a little decoration to hang on a stitched tree.

I decided to copy her idea the following year and the red wall hanging you see here was the result. Looking at it now there are lots of things I'd do differently - I knew little about patchwork and quilting and even less about applique then. But it comes out in our house every 1st December to start the countdown for Christmas.

Subsequently I purchased a couple of beautiful books which opened up to reveal 24 little books to hang on your Christmas tree and they gradually tell their story day by day. One tells the Christmas Nativity, the other the Nutcracker ballet.

Reading the blogs of some of you girls in the States I notice you start to put up your Christmas decorations straight after Thanksgiving. So you could hang up your little books on your tree - however, in our house, the Christmas decorations and tree don't see the light of day until at most a week or ten days before the 25th so I had nowhere for these little books to hang.

So I put together another wallhanging to take them all - the snow fabric is leftover from my sister's wedding dress and the sequins on it are from the leftovers from my wedding dress. The navy night sky is from the bridesmaids dress I made for my friend's wedding.

In addition to this we also have an ever increasing collection of Christmas books that we've gathered over the years - I do try and add at least one each year - some are very babyish from when they were tiny, others more grown up. The book box also emerges from the loft with the advent calendars and they all go away with the decorations when we strip the house in the New Year. The kids (that's both big and small) love to look through and revisit old favourites. I guess this has become a tradition in our house and I hope it will continue down through the generations with their children eventually.

It always feels like a real voyage of discovery all over again when these things all come out again each year

I have to say it's the only time our kids are allowed to stand on the sofa!!!

Oh what a beautiful morning

The back of our house faces west as did the back of our two previous houses - we often get beautiful sunsets and it's one of the things I'm most looking forward to - being able to sit in my conservatory (with roof, she says hopefully) and watch the sky change through all those beautiful colours in an evening.

The photo shows something a little rarer. A fabulous sun rise - not sure I'm so keen, as the old wive's tale says 'Red sky in the morning, Shepherd's warning' so maybe we're in for an unpleasant day weather wise. However it looked so pretty I just had to get the camera out.

Yesterday when I arrived at work we had the news that, as a school, we'd all been dreading - we are to be ofsteded next Monday and Tuesday. We are overdue but it's a bit mean to spring it on us just before Christmas.

For those of you unfamiliar with the UK education system each school is visited from time to time by government inspectors to check that we are doing all we should. The process has probably been going on since schools first began in some format, but, over the past decade or two, our 'nanny state political set up' (of all persuasions I might add) decided that teachers had no idea how to teach or run a school and so would have their premises, work and practices gone through with a fine tooth comb every five or six years at the very least.

When the process was first introduced it turned out to be a dreadful thing to undergo with hoards of people sitting in on endless lessons and delving into all manner of things like where you bought your loo rolls from and at what price etc etc ad nauseum.

Failing schools obviously benefitted from such close scrutiny but good schools endured endless stress, aggravation and often trauma just to put statistics on the league table obsessed government's figures.

Obviously, with such a labour intensive and expensive process, reality has finally had to kick in and current inspections have become more humane as the powers that be have realised that the whole system was just unsustainable.

So while an Ofsted inspection isn't the blood chilling spectre that once sat on the horizon it's still not a pleasant process and of course yesterday the headteacher was doing a fair impersonation of a headless chicken.

I have to say that maybe ignorance is bliss and, having never been in post in a school office when such an inspection is happening, I'm not losing any sleep - if they ask me difficult questions I shall have to refer them to our area finance officer and plead ignorance due to my novice status.

Roll on next Wednesday!!!

Stitching wise I've been chipping away at my Christmas list.

Parent's In Law's cushion fronts completed and one of the 'Joy' wallhangings bound. Loads more to do - so must keep stitching!

And the rain came pouring down!

Phew! What a busy few days.......

Louise ended up having Friday off school as well as Thursday - great for getting some Christmas stitching done - not so good for keeping on top of my paid job - never mind back again this morning to face the fray!

Saturday saw a morning of cooking while Nigel watched Nick play football - a home game against a neighbouring village who they thrashed 18 - nil! Even Nick scored a goal and he's usually in defence or goal.

Then the afternoon saw us helping a dear friend of ours move into a house about 400 yards up the road from us - she's moved from Banbury in Oxfordshire and we helped her with the offloading.

Then it was nine of us for tea as we fed her and her helpful other friends with the cooking I'd been doing in the morning - Chicken Tarragon Casserole, Jacket Potatoes, Veggies and Apple and Raspberry Crumble with cream and ice cream for afters.

Sunday was an odd day - Sarah had a rugby tournament in the afternoon playing a pool arrangement for the first round of the National Cup. Sadly they lost both games but they were no pushover and one of the teams actually presented them with a box of chocolates because Sarah's team had given them the hardest match so far this season.

Because it was Nick's birthday party in the afternoon neither of us went to watch her play which felt very strange.

Nick had a 'Climbing Wall' party at our local leisure centre - a wonderful way to occupy twelve 11yr old boisterous boys and girls - one and a half hour's climbing with a qualified instructor and then half an hour to wolf down a picnic box type tea - brilliant!!! They all had enormous fun - even the adults!

Then Monday dawned bright and showery with the Conservatory fitters here to add the top half to our conservatory.

All okay until they confessed that the company had forgotten to order the roof panels ................. grrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!

So we now have a very fine conservatory al fresco!

And of course we've had record rainfall over the past few weeks - last night being no exception - so now we're putting a call out for any local Noah's to come and bail it out.

Fortunately we have one of those wet and dry vacuum cleaners which sucks water up so Nigel has been valiantly sucking out the 'lake' over the past couple of weeks and will obviously have to continue to do so until they return with the roof panels next Tuesday.

A slight delay but at least the top matches the bottom in size and eventually all will come right - sadly because of the delay we won't be in there for Christmas but never mind these things are sent to try us - and try us they jolly well do. Just glad we weren't having it built before a big family occasion like a wedding or something.

The stitching has been coming along great guns - here are the fronts for the two cushions for my brother and SIL - lots more to do but making good progress

Right I'd better head off and get ready for work............

Celtic Knots for Christmas

Well I did get quite a bit of stitching done today - MIL and FIL's Christmas cushions are well underway - okay the centres are done. I mentioned before about using the striped fabric for the bias tubing. I'm quite pleased with how it's turned out. It does make it a little more difficult to see the unders and overs but you can tell if you look closely. I shall put a 1/4" strip in the infill green round these and then a two inch border in the yellow space dyed fabric.

The furnishings in their conservatory are in a pale buttery yellow so they should go quite well.

I'm going to do a couple of cushions for my brother and SIL next in natural neutrals. Same format, same celtic knotwork but possibly piecing the background as I have a whole bunch of FQ's in the same shade of stone with a different cream pattern on each. The pattern is a bit too pronounced on the front but will work well using the reverse side of the fabric - I often prefer the reverse of fabrics and use them often - in fact the green infills on the photos here use the back of some Sprayway I had which wasn't subtle enough for this project.

Wonder if little girlie will be well enough to go back to school tomorrow - who knows I might get some more bonus stitching time - really need to go to work and clear the pile on my desk - but we'll see what the morning brings.

Tidings of Fairies and Joy!

Well as you can see I've been a busy little bee - no shirking here.

All blocks completed and stitched together on the Christmas Fairy Table Runner. Plus the appliqued holly leaves and berries done on the centre block and the ends. I'm pretty pleased with how it's come out - mind you I'll bet it will look a whole lot better against a newly pressed snow white cloth than my tatty old waterproof table cloth we use for everyday to stop the kids wrecking the table surface, even if the colour matches with the runner.

Now I have to do my least favourite bit - sandwiching - hate it even on manageable sized pieces of work but hey-ho I'll just have to grit my teeth and get on with it because I certainly can't wrap up the runner as it is :o) I think I will probably just machine quilt all over with a large holly leaf design and then bind it in the dark green of the geese backgrounds. I also intend to make them a couple of cushion covers similar to the burgundy and cream ones I did for my sister's birthday but this time on a subtle beige/mushroom shade with cream bias celtic knotwork to go with the mucky light brown colour scheme (my mother's less than complimentary description not mine) in their lounge. I would have been a little more descriptive using words like driftwood, mocha, cafe au lait etc etc :o) On a different note my sister was so delighted with her birthday cushions she dropped a great big hint on the phone the other night for a couple more to accompany them - they won't get done for Christmas but she might have a surprise new year present in the post.


I also had a bit of a play with the first of the three 'Joy' hangings - didn't quite judge the positioning of the appliqued bells so had to continue the sides of the hanging down into the red fabric - but never mind the recipient won't have any idea that I didn't intend it that way in the beginning. Another thing to sandwich. I sure wish those Christmas fairies would wave their magic wands and miraculously have everything in the house that needs it sandwiched - after all I have several bigger tops in the house they could do while they're at it!

In addition to these items I've also made a start on MIL and FIL's cushion covers which are in a space dyed yellow to match the furnishings in their conservatory but with the celtic knotwork in a candy striped fabric which cut on the bias is giving a lovely effect as it twists over and under itself - I'll show more of that as it progresses into something a little more photogenic.

I have some unexpected stitching time come my way today - some of you may be thinking why is she blogging when she should be at work.

I headed into the office early this morning, as I was expecting a visit from my area finance officer to hand-hold me through some month end reconciliation stuff, only to receive a call from the children's school asking me to collect Louise - tummy pain again.

Amazingly I managed to get a short notice doctor's appointment and whipped her in there straight from school.

Doc reckons she has inflammation of the the lymph glands in her abdomen - I never even realised you had them there - not a major worry - liquid paracetamol, warm quilt on the sofa and a bit of TLC til they go down - possibly a few days. So mum will be watching over her whilst stitching.

Heaven only knows when I'll get the paid work done though!

A little more Christmas progress

Having Louise at home yesterday gave me the perfect excuse to stitch away to my heart's content. She's better this morning which means that sadly I'll have to go in to work at 10.30 :o(

My SIL (brother's wife) loves fairies - she's never a problem to buy for as this is her main love plus she makes handmade cards so I can always get her supplies for that too.

I picked up some Christmas Flower Fairies fabric earlier in the year specifically with her in mind.

Here you can see it forming the centre of these stars. The corner squares are a different fabric than the geese as I only had a FQ of the geese fabric but I think it looks ok.

Once I've got 8 of them completed they'll go together in a long line to make a long Christmas table runner - the type that goes the full length of the table and hangs down over each end. The burgundy fabric they're sitting on will form the sashing. I shall probably put an applique block in the middle with holly leaves and berries on a cream background and maybe even similar applique triangles at each end to make it finish in a 'V' shape.

Talking to my sister last night and gleaning the fact that my niece loves Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh gave me the idea of making her a quillow with an Eeyore on the front of the cushion. I've never made a quillow before but have some printed off instructions somewhere so I guess I'd better dig them out and give them a good read.

I know I'm a quick worker but I shall have my work cut out completing all the things I want to finish before Christmas - no pressure then!

Birthday Boy!

Well the other man in my life has reached the ripe old age of 11 today. He was delighted to find, among his presents,- the Liverpool Champions League away strip - he's modelling the shirt in the photo - over the top of his clothes - what a wally! Bless!

It's difficult to believe that it's eleven years ago as I write this that I was laid on the operating table in theatre undergoing an elective caesarian.

I had a difficult and prolongued labour with Sarah three and a half years earlier which resulted in an emergency C section under epidural. This time I was hoping to go for a trial of labour. The obstetrician had said he would permit me to go to a certain date and if babe didn't arrive by that time I must have another caesar.

Friday 17th November 1995 came and with it a visit to the ante-natal clinic at Gloucester Royal Hospital to do all the prep work, bloods etc for my caesar on the Monday morning - no sign of baby arriving under his own steam.

However what none of us bargained for was the fact that the little imp had been creating his own veritable swimming pool in there and hence he was actually a transverse lie. No wonder in the few weeks leading up to then nobody could be quite sure which way he was laid - he'd been whizzing around for weeks with all that room and liquid to play in. More to the point no wonder my ribs were so incredibly sore at each side - at times he'd been laid across me stretching out for all he was worth. Even today, all this time on, my ribs are still tender if I press strongly where he was pushing.

By this time we'd passed the 39 week mark and the hospital, fearful of spontaneous labour decided I must stay in over the weekend up to his scheduled arrival on the Monday morning just in case he arrived under his own steam and trapped the cord killing himself and quite possibly me.

Serious stuff and more than a bit disappointing as it was DH's birthday on the 19th and I wasn't allowed out even for a quick meal down the local pub :o(

However Monday morning dawned bright and sunny and DH, my local midwife and I had a gentle stroll down to the labour ward for them to prep me up for his arrival.

Epidural in place and there he was a bouncing baby boy weighing in at 8lb 12ozs with a shock of red hair and a face covered in vernix - he certainly wasn't quite cooked enough to come out under his own direction.

When Sarah was born, Nigel secretly hoped all along for a boy - of course, once she was safely here especially after such a long labour, he was delighted that she was with us alive and well with all the right number of fingers, toes etc.

As I was awake for each delivery Nigel was able to watch their arrival and the moment he heard the surgeon announce that baby number 2 was a little boy his delight was absolutely electric - it was like one of those children's helium filled balloons bouncing to the ceiling.

My reaction was grateful tears and the thought 'Thank goodness he's got his boy I never have to go throught this again'

It took me precisely one week - yes just one week - before I thought 'Mmm another one might be nice'

And of course Louise came along fourteen and a half months later :o) to complete the family. All three of them out of the sunroof - I never got that natural delivery I hoped for.

Looking at the three of them now it's really hard to remember they were ever that young and that small.

Sarah, at fourteen and a half, has just started going out with her very first boyfriend - you can see them in a huddle over the computer - where has my first baby gone.

I suppose this is nothing in comparison to what my mother-in-law must have felt yesterday on realising her first baby had reached his 46th birthday.

The third photo shows the bag I made earlier now complete with handles all ready for wrapping and posting off to its secret santa recipient - hope she likes it.

Other than that I've done virtually no stitching this weekend - birthday shopping, rugby and a general feeling of total malaise have meant I've had little time and even less enthusiasm to pick up any fabric over the past few days. Coupled with the fact that my sewing table is piled about a foot high with fabric preventing me from getting anywhere near the machine means that I've only just returned to it this morning to put those handles on.

Monday is usually my day off and I get to play out with the girls at my quilting group - lovely but it does eat up most of my day before the kids return from school and the peace is shattered once more. However today Louise is complaining of feeling sick and stomach cramps so has stayed home with me. Hence no playing out but more time to put away all that fabric and crack on with more Christmas gifts.

A little bit of festive spirit

Yesterday was sadly a fabric free day - the old fabric itch was no way going to get scratched - work and, in a very long way second place, the kids took up all my time. As you can imagine I'm suffering severe withdrawal symptoms today - seldom go a single day without some kind of fabric contact.

I started the day walking the kids to school and received a phone call on my mobile half way to school from my colleague in the office. Could I go into work early as we already knew she wouldn't be in the office for most of the day but both her and the head had forgotten that neither of them would be there before 11.30.

So I walked home from school, got changed into work clothes and headed straight for work - bang went my plan to sandwich the 'stars' baby quilt. Best laid plans eh?

My usual hours are 10.30 to 2.30 four days a week but as I was clerking my first governors meeting in post last night I was still at school finishing off the paperwork at 2.55 and dashed off just in time to collect the kids.

A very swift tea and help with times tables etc etc and then I returned to work at 6.15 until almost 10pm.

As you can imagine with concentrating so hard to make sure I noted all the relevant details in the minutes my mind had turned to midway between scrambled egg and mashed potato by the time I got home just after 10 o'clock.

A quick 15 minute update on the day with DH and I was ready for the journey up those stairs to my snuggly warm bed and off to the land of nod. I hadn't actually seen Nigel previously that day as he'd been in Essex the night before and hadn't even arrived home before I left for the governors meeting - a bit like ships that pass in the night but with frantic telephone calls en route to make sure he would be home in time to take DD1 to her rugby training. Mercifully the gods and the traffic were with him and he returned home in one piece on time - just!

So I thought I'd show you what I was working on at our quilting group earlier in the week.

Browsing round blogland a little while ago I came across a lovely Christmas wallhanging on Norma's blog. A lovely simple yet effective design that appealed to me particularly.

Oddly in our family my sister, my elder daughter and most unusually my father share the same middle name - JOY - what a cross to bear for my dad for all those years, especially as his first name is Basil which might not be a person's first choice either.

Apparently the reason for him being given such an unusual handle is when he was born in 1930 he was almost a 10 month gestation, his mother had a terrible labour with a brutal forceps delivery from which he still sports various dents in his forehead 76 years later and they both nearly died. In gratitude he was named after the midwife who brought him safely into the world and her surname just happened to be Joy.

My parents then named my younger sister Lorna Joy - my middle name is Patricia after my paternal aunt, Anne Joy would've sounded just too silly! - and Nigel and I then went on to give Sarah the same middle name - almost a family tradition in infancy here.

So when I spotted Norma's 'JOY' wallhanging I thought I'd make three of them - one for each Joy in our family. I particularly like the heart shaped 'O'

I decided I'd quite like the banners to have a 'V' shaped bottom so will add a red triangle to the base once the squares are in place and the bells will be the focal point of that.

Another few items on my home-made christmas present list underway :o)

The stars have it!

Well the first star is our builder Neil. Yesterday he completed the bottom half of our conservatory and with a little bit of imagination you can start to picture what it will be like with its top half on (Please ignore the light blue dust sheets draped artfully over the airer through the dining room patio doors). We now have two weeks to wait for the second half of the proceedings when the men with the uPVC framework and glass will arrive on Monday 27th November. They should take the first three days of that week to complete the outer shell and then the balance of two days will involve the internals, plastering, floor etc. Nigel has booked that entire week off work to be around for supervision purposes and of course to put in the electrics and, with our neighbour's help, the heating radiators. God willing and with a following wind things should be near completion for the beginning of December :o)

It is wonderfully exciting and hopefully the second phase will go as smoothly as the first - fingers crossed.

The baby quilt is now to 'finished top' stage - I loved ForestJane's ideas of appliqueing little cars and trucks but had already made a start on the stars so stuck with them. As you can imagine, as I'm heading for bed shortly, it won't be completed for the kids to take in for their teacher's return to school tomorrow. However as he doesn't even know he will be on the receiving end of it, on behalf of his new son, it won't matter if it waits a couple of days because tomorrow will be virtually totally unproductive for me on the stitching front. This is because I have to clerk a Governors meeting at the school where I work. Clerk to Governors is my other role along with Finance Officer. In real terms I will work tomorrow between 10.30 and 2.30, come home to feed and sort out the kids and then return to work from 6.00 til probably around 10.00 pm for this meeting - no rest for the wicked eh?

Nigel (the lucky dog!) has pencilled in a work trip to Madrid for the last three days of next week - I am very jealous! - the farthest I shall go is work, the supermarket and playing taxi driver for the kids - there's no justice in this world! :o)

The border's on

Well after going to quilting group this morning, where I sat and hand stitched a little bit of a Christmas project I'll maybe show you in a day or two once I've done a bit more on it, and popping into the bank whilst in town with some school paying-in (in my own time I might add!) I came home to stitch and cook.

Cooking will be for tea tonight - Chicken and White Bean Casserole.

This comprises of browned chopped chicken breast cooked in a 'gravy/sauce' of chicken stock, chicken gravy thickening combined with three tins of various soups lurking in the back of the cupboard - ie pea, lentil and mixed vegetable. Then to all this I added tinned cannellini and flageolet beans, chick peas and green lentils. The final top secret ingredient is white turnip and butternut squash boiled up in chicken stock and mashed to obscurity prior to adding it to the casserole complete with cooking water in the vain hope that my almost totally veggie-phobic son won't twig that it's in there. At least this way he'll get some of the vitamins from them because the ONLY veg I can get past his lips is garden peas - pain in the rear little chap he can be!

Then onto stitching and as you can see from the photo the border's on the baby quilt - I'm not sure - I think it looks a little bland and might just hand applique some light and dark blue largish stars in two opposite corners to lift that boring border up out of the doldrums. Then to sandwich, large meander quilt and bind with the duller light blue - just like that!