"Dorothy's" Birthday - sorry loads of photos!

On the day before we came home from Italy our wonderful eldest daughter had her 10th birthday. I can't believe that cute little scrap of baby is now such a lovely, clever "grown-up" 10 year old.



We had a lovely day on her birthday although the Italian weather let us down a bit - torrential rain and storms with only one patch of sunshine all day - so unfortunately no swimming!
I always put up fabric bunting at home the night before a birthday and an applique birthday banner but as we were on holiday I had to improvise! I bought some wrapping paper and made bunting out of that and we all (even Granny and Grandpa) painted a birthday banner - although obviously Dorothy had to be in another room - she spent the whole time giggling as she could hear everything we were saying!

This is the lovely card that Fred made for her.

This is the present that I made for her - a messenger bag like her cousin's but made up of strips of my favourite fabric collection sewn together randomly (I had to order myself some more of this fabric while I was making it as I love it so much!) I was in such a rush to finish it before we went away - which was difficult as the children were always around - that I sewed the pockets on sideways in the lining! Fortunately they still work as one was a pencil holder and the other has a button to close it. I had already made her a little matching case to protect the camera given to her as an early birthday present by Granny and Grandpa Biscuit, Aunty Mo and Uncle David (she obviously didn't know it matched anything until her birthday but it made me happy every time she said she liked the camera case as I knew what was coming! )


When we got home she opened her cards that had arrived in the post and had a second birthday with the majority of her presents from us (as I didn't fancy carrying 13 books on holiday!) This wonderful card was made by my lovely friend Susan who I have known since I was pregnant with Dorothy - she has made these cards for all three children this year and they love them. Thank you for taking such time and care Susan x

ITALY

My wonderful parents took us all on holiday to Italy with them and we had a fabulous fortnight enjoying their company: Playing games like "Beetle" and "Uno", reading with the children, messing about in the pool, having treasure hunts, cooking and eating delicious food and drinking lots of lovely wine (although the children stuck with orange juice!)

The view from the villa in Umbria - good eh?

The villa itself with Daddy and Dorothy playing marbles!

sweeping the patio
(goggles for the dust - their idea not ours!)

Daddy and the smalls

which little boy looks cutest - the real one or the one on the plate?

Finally a shot from the beach near home before we went on holiday
by it's grim up north! (or is it?)

I'm Baaaaack!!! Did you miss me?

Hi everyone! We got back from a lovely fortnight in Italy on Friday evening- but then I had to go to work the next morning until lunchtime, do a supermarket shop in the afternoon, go to a party in the evening, visit the allotment this morning and go school shoe shopping this afternoon - so things have been a bit busy!

I don't know where to start blogging again. Everyone has been so busy while I've been away - I had so many posts to read - so I'm sorry I haven't left messages yet! I want to show you photos of Italy, but I've also been nominated for two blog awards so I want to talk about them too, then it was "Dorothy's" 10th birthday while we were away so I want to post about that too and show you what I made for her (because I'm really proud of it!!). What do you want to see first? I will await instruction! (and that gives me a bit more time to pretend to be the same mummy who had time for the children on holiday and didn't spend all her time with her back to the room tapping away on the computer!)

Wonderful Parcels

Just a very quick post to show off the two wonderful parcels that arrived this week.

When I saw that Leanne of The Stitching Room was part of the Pay it Forward plan I quickly signed up as I love her work so much - look what arrived:
A gorgeous messenger bird with a crocheted fabric nest and a wonderful little thread bin for all the scraps of thread that normally accumulate on the floor! (LSH will be pleased!) I am absolutely thrilled with these - Leanne's work is so neat and perfect and it is lovely to have a little bit of Australia in my house. But then it got even better........
sorry about the poor quality photo - but look at this! Leanne got Leanne Beasley to sign a block for my 365 Challenge quilt when she was at a course with her! I'm so pleased!

My other parcel was my part of the Yarn in a Teacup swap - a wonderful package from Danielle:
A lovely cup and saucer, some tea, two balls of beautiful wool and a Yankee candle - oh and a very funny card! I'm not really a knitter - although I have knitted in the past - but I really want to learn to crochet flowers and things and I loved the idea of sending a teacup and wool across the world! My parcel came from America and the one I have sent has gone to Canada.

Thank you again Leanne and Danielle - and for those of you who are signed up to my PIF - I hope you are not expecting anything as lovely as I got!!! I'm really feeling under pressure now!

Hope everyone is having a lovely holiday. Lucy

A new achievement

I'm feeling quite proud of myself today as I have just (pretty much) managed to follow an Amy Butler pattern (that I bought from U-handbag) to make our niece a messenger bag for her birthday at the end of the month. The family are down from Scotland staying at Granny and Grandpa Biscuit's house but go back on Sunday (they only arrived last night) so I had to get my act together and make it today. Daisy was even asking me to help her tidy her bedroom (WOW!) but I had to get my priorities right - and suggested that Daddy might help her tomorrow!!!


The actual pattern has a lot more pockets and zips and cleverness but as this was my first attempt I stripped it down to the basic bag shape and added two pockets of my own, the one below and a turquoise/brown mobile phone pocket with a button down flap. The photos are dreadful as I am still using Mum and Dad's old camera - it took about 10 shots to get 3 photos soI gave up trying to take an "artistic" shot! . (The colour is better on this photo.)

I have also tried to photograph some of the lovely things I have received from distant parts of blogland. I was really lucky and won two draws:
A gorgeous pincushion from Joni at Yummers


and these amazing embroidered buttons from Esther at My cuppa charms

unfortunately this is a dreadful picture
to see these beautiful buttons better please follow this link
(sorry Esther I will try to post a better picture soon - I took this one 5 times)

Esther also sent these fab buttons from her collection.

In an earlier post I mentioned that my swap partner Debbie from the Melly and Me scrappy cabin swap had sent me a second parcel and I found this picture when I downloaded the photos from the memory card when my camera went off for repair.
The magazine is amazing and even has an article on Janet Bolton!

I have also won the wonderful Mrs Perkins pattern from Melly and Me that I am eagerly awaiting (if our postal strike doesn't get in the way!) Fred loves giraffes so I plan to make a boy version of this for him when we get back from our holiday!

More photos

I thought I should show you the finished pond but I'm afraid this is the best photo I could get. I had taken more but the camera has eaten them.

I also have some of the photos of my recent projects from my friend's camera, unfortunately Fred's cushion picture has been lost in the ether so I will have to ask his teacher next term if she will take a photo for me. We had a lovely letter from her yesterday to thank us for the things we had made.

This is our reception teacher's picture

I'm sure she thought all the children were "little angels" too!
The photo isn't great as I have had to crop it
as I had stitched a message to the teacher around the edges of the picture

This was Daisy's present for her teacher!

One of the part-finished squares for the patchwork baby's blanket a friend has commissioned

An un-ironed stitchery that a friend ordered months ago for her sister-in-laws birthday
she is used to things being late!

And a picture I made for my friend's son Ben from Anni Down's Family Gathering book. The blue inner border fabric is actually made up of strips of material from 3 of Ben's shirts - Lucy Locket recycling pockets again! And you can see my love of denim comes in here again although this isn't recycled.

Finally a picture of pretty Daisy at the seaside on Monday evening.