Maybe some pictures???

Hi, I'm still here but my camera is not so lucky! It's had to be sent away for repair and might not be back for 8 weeks! Before I knew about blogland this would have been okay-ish but now it is a disaster. I managed to copy the photos on my card onto CD so I have a couple there and I have borrowed mum and dad's old camera but it is a bit unpredictable so the photos may not be great!

I'm not really sure what to blog about though! I think I will show you the pond we have been digging at the allotment as long as you won't complain about photos of black plastic pond liner!

(lots of people digging quite a small hole!)

Black plastic pond liner as promised

Ok, yes, that's me with my little monsters, trying to hide behind my hair and wearing my very unattractive "allotment coat" - well it's very cozy and it was raining by then!

Finally an introduction to the new members of our family:

"Mia the Funky Chick" and "TimTom"
(hopefully I will get a better picture next time!)

The children were looking over my shoulder as I visited MondaLoves fab blog and asked if we could make some monsters too. I got them to draw how they wanted their monsters to look and then helped them put them together. I did the machining but the children did all the handsewing. Dorothy's isn't finished yet because she was busy cooking garlic bread, soup and cakes in the kitchen with LSH while we were sewing (YUM!). Likewise, I was too busy helping Fred and Daisy to finish mine and LSH designed a very strange "Mr Turnip Head" monster that I am hesitant about sewing - it's freaky! (More about them in another post!)

Will you still talk to me without pictures???

My camera is still broken : o (
and I have a million things (ok - slight exaggeration) that I want to post pictures of!

We have been really busy this week with the end of term "stuff" that goes on and I nearly broke my arm this morning carrying a basket full of bottles of wine and boxes of chocolates for all the teachers, teaching assistants and lollipop man. Because the same teacher taught all three children in Reception I wanted to make something special for her to show how much I appreciated her kindness to the children and her patience with me! (I think mummies are meant to remember to send forms in on time (filled in too!), return reading books, label clothes etc - but I seem to be missing that important mummy-skill and their teacher has maintained her calm patience through 3 years of forgetfulness!) I was lucky that the children all had the same nursery teacher too and I made her a special present last year when they left - fortunately I already have a photo of it on my computer
I adapted it from a primitive stitchery pattern that said "Welcome" and their teacher was really delighted with it and the realisation of how much we appreciated her brought tears to her eyes.

This year I have adapted an Anni Downs picture from her Angel's Story - using an angel from one design and the flying children from another. Hopefully I will be able to post a picture later as a friend is going to take a photo of it for me. Fred and Daisy have also made cushions for their teachers so watch this space!

I am really looking forward to the holidays and the 6 week break from all the last-minute-need-to-get-everything-ready-can't-find-my- shoes /coat/bag/ brain(me!)-we're-going-to- be-late-stress of a school morning. Problem is I have been so busy crafting this week (also making a patchwork fleece blanket for an order and a birthday present for Dorothy as we will be in Italy for her birthday) that the house is a bomb-site and there is so much to do before the children and I can have fun. I can see a rota being created to get the balance of work/play sorted out. I have tried to explain to the children over the years that we need a relatively tidy house for them to be able to do the things they want - for example, you can't have a morning of painting etc if you can't find the table because of all the junk, or you can't play with your castle and playmobil if they are scattered across every room in the house and mostly buried under 4ft of clean clothes (that were in the drawer yesterday!) and so on. Does explaining work? Not so far but I live in hope!

I will, hopefully, add some more photos later. But please still talk to me anyway, Lucy

Oh what have I done???

Can someone out there please explain the logic of my actions to me because I am far from understanding them myself:

There I was at the beginning of the week complaining about "too much to do" with a list of all the things I needed/wanted to create - soon! On top of that there are still more end of year things happening with the children, the allotment is zooming out of control and the house looks more like a squat than a home, and as for the garden - is that what you'd call it??? (looks more like the council dump to me!) So what would a sane person do? (I've no real idea as I've never been one) What they most probably wouldn't do is sign up to a Pay it Forward scheme to send 3 handmade gifts around the world! I already have a yarn in a teacup swap to shop for! My only excuse for this sheer madness is that it did say I could take up to 365 days to send these gifts out and knowing me I will be staying up all night on day 364 trying to make them!

I've no idea what I'm going to make and even less of a clue of when I will find time to do it but it did seem like a really nice idea and I get to have something handmade by Leanne of the Stitching Room - she's good!

Another awful thing happened to me this morning - my camera broke! How could I blog without a camera? How could I live without my blog? (in a much tidier house probably!!) Fortunately it has revived and is working once again so now I need to decide what photo to post.

Well, first of all I'll show you the second swap parcel I got from my Scrappy Cabin swap organised by Melly and Me. Debbie had already sent one parcel out and then followed it with this! Gorgeous yummy things and an article on Janet Bolton in the magazine!

Hang on - camera still not working - I'll add the pictures later! (hopefully)

Pass it Forward

I saw this on Leanne of The Stitching Room's blog and decided to join in too:

"I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don't know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week... LOL... but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog."

So I look forward to hearing from you!


Here are some nice photos of the quilts I loved at the Quilt Show at Allington House in Durham on Saturday - what patience it must take to make them! They are called postage stamp quilts and apparently the lady that made them used to cut out the squares and take them on long plane flights! I wish I could do work like this.

Too Much To Do

It is getting really busy around here at the moment. "Dorothy" was in some brilliant performances last week. For two nights she was dancing the overture to Cats at a local theatre in a schools dance festival and for three nights she was singing in the choir of a musical at the local senior school. I'm really proud of her. We have also had 2 sports days and one special assembly for "Fred" with another this week for "Daisy". I have been wondering whether I should be referring to the children as DD1, DD2 and DS as many bloggers seem to, rather than using their nicknames, but I have decided not to as they identify with their alter-egos!! I think, though, that I will refer to my long suffering husband as exactly that: LSH.

I have so many sewing projects on the go at the moment that I don't know which way to turn! I need to make a special present for Fred's reception teacher as she has taught all three children and I really value how lovely she has been with them. I am planning to make Annie Down's "Flying School" Angel from her Angel's Story book, Fred is also stitching her a cat picture. Daisy wants to make something for her teacher as well - probably "Charlotte the Shopper" from the same book which will need some help from me. I already have my star/house quilt to finish as the extra fabrics have arrived from America and I am meant to be progressing with my 365 challenge quilt but that has been on a back burner for a while so I need to catch up before it becomes too big and scary to contemplate. I have also received an order for one of my fleece blankets in pinks for a baby girl who is due in August.

In the meantime I have set myself the challenge of making 3 other quilts: Some of you may already know that my lovely father-in-law had a devastating stroke in March. He has been left really incapacitated and it is terrible for the whole family. My mother-in-law is finding it very difficult to cope and we are all feeling very frustrated as there is little we can do to help. So I am making my mother-in-law a "comfort blanket" in quilt form - just so that I can do something for her that shows her how much I love her. My in-laws are committed Christians and I am stitching special quotes from the Bible on the quilt so she can have the comfort from them too. I am sort of trying to design the quilt myself although "design" is probably too grand a word for my "put together" efforts - maybe "create" is a better word. I'm going to make my father-in-law a strippy quilt as well, using some 3 Sisters "Chocolate" charm squares. I think doing this is really as a comfort to me - so that I can feel I am doing something.

I am also making one for my Mum's birthday in August using these fabrics from 2 Blackbird Designs' Chelsea Boutique Charm Packs. It will be a strippy quilt too, like the Wuthering Heights one.

On a happier note, I thought I would finish with some allotment photos of the children. Dorothy wants to do drama classes
so she decided that she would sell peas at the allotment for 1p each! She roped her little sister and brother into helping her pod them and thought she was onto a good scheme until I told her that she couldn't sell the peas as I wanted them for lunch! Well it was a good try anyway! (and look at the size of those peas!!!)

I'm still here - just busy!

Hi - a very quick post to say that I will leave a proper post soon - too many end of term things going on with the children! Talk to you soon. Lucy

All about allotments

(This is what it looks like after strimming)

This post is really for Thimbleanna in reply to the questions she asked after my last one:
"Your allotment looks like fun. I've seen allotments, but don't know, really how they work as we don't have them here. Do you purchase the land or rent it? And how do you eat there -- set up a campfire or something to cook the meal? Does the little building contain "kitchen" types of things so that you can cook? Is it common to eat the food at the allotment or do most people just take it home? Hope I'm not being too nosy -- just love learning what goes on in other parts of the world! ;-) "

So No.1 - Do you purchase the land or rent it?
Well, we rent it from the local council for £25 plus £11 for water per year (Some allotments charge even less). The allotment seems huge to us as it is about 28' x 90' (although that is not a precise figure - I can't quite remember what it is!).

The one we rent is about 2 miles from our house - there is one nearer but it has a long waiting list and you are not allowed any sheds or greenhouses on it which would make it much less fun for the children. I decided on impulse last June to go to this allotment and ask if they had any spare plots. They looked at me and said no - the only ones left were in such a bad state I wouldn't even want to consider them and they didn't want to walk me all the way over to them (there are over 300 on the site) as they knew I would say no when I saw it. So, being me, I asked if I could look anyway so I fetched the family from the car and we followed their directions into the middle of the site. We wandered up and down the paths looking at various derelict plots until we found one we quite liked and to their amazement signed for it there and then. This is what it looked like at the beginning

It was the two youngest children's birthday party that afternoon (I think we were actually on our way to it when I stopped at the allotments!) and I told my friend Alison what we had done so she decided to sign up for the one next to me. After that another 4 people directly and indirectly connected with us signed up for the plots on our block. So having told me I wouldn't want to bother with an allotment the committee were amazed to have 6 derelict plots taken over in a very short space of time (followed by many more over the last year)

No. 2 - How do you eat there?
We have a little camping stove that we cook and boil the kettle for tea on. We also take up picnics and sometimes portable barbecues and we have been known to toast marshmallows over raging bonfires and Alison has even wrapped potatoes in foil and placed them in the bonfire at the beginning so that we can rake them out once it has burnt down - yum.

No.3 - Does the little building have "kitchen" types of things
I'm really using this question as an excuse to show off : the little building Anna is referring to is actually the children's shed and was found by our very kind allotment neighbours Anne and Pete and built for us as a surprise when we were first starting out.

Earlier this year, with the help of Anne and Pete again and the lovely Ron, I managed to restore the other "shed" type building on our plot.
To the left is what it looked like last year and to the right is how it looks now. You can see the difference in the weather as well as both shots were taken at the same time of year! I am really proud of this shedalthough I wouldn't have managed it at all without all the help from the others - DIY is not a strong point of mine. I love my shed and I particularly love playing at tidying it- not at all like real housework!

Finally, "Is it common to eat the food at the allotment or do most people just take it home?"
Well, my big sister Ally's response to this question was to say "Of course it's not normal! Only my mad little sister would do something that silly!" But here is my chance to tell her she is WRONG! Ha Ha!!! (only joking Al) Yes, the majority of crops are taken home (and then often distributed amongst friends and family as you always grow more than you need), but quite a few of the allotmenteers that I know love to be able to dig their potatoes and wash and cook them straight away - and as for freshly podded peas, delicious peppery salad leaves and just picked raspberries and strawberries - why would you want to wait to eat them?