Advent Calendars and Christening Presents

We now have 7 advent calendars in this house!

Slightly excessive maybe but lots of fun!

This is the first homemade one that we have had for about 4 or 5 years. I'll show you another photo of it later in the month when more of the pictures are on.

It is from this book by Nancy Halvorsen and the children love to pick the different nativity pictues out of the little bag to hang up and trade for a chocolate!
Then I made this one from a Nancy Halvorsen panel (I think). Much quicker but not quite as lovely.This one took two Christmases to make - it wasn't hard but the stitching on the pockets just took too much time when I was already very busy! Again this one has chocolates and I hide a little "forfeit" in each pocket like "Sing Jingle Bells". The children take it in turns to do one of the three handmade calendars each day.
This is my calendar from last year (from Phoenix Trading)


I really love the whole image of the dresser and the pictures behind the doors are so lovely.


Then this is my mini one for this Christmas (again from Phoenix Trading) - the only problem is the doors are really tricky to open! I share these two with LSH!
Then we have the Playmobil one that a friend gave us . This is only it's second outing but the bit where you hang the boxes on is too fiddly so we have just got them in a basket to pick out.
Finally (!!!) this is the one the children and I made today (okay, so it's a bit late)
We used 24 matchboxes and covered them with plain green paper then decoupaged some Victorian Christmas pictures on. We have stuck the same type of pictures in each drawer and I have added some Christmas "promises" after seeing the idea on various different blogs. The plan is that we will aim to do a "Christmassy-type-thingy" each day - I hope I can keep it going!!!


We went to the Christening today so now I can show you the things I made.

This is the doll that my friend/former colleague ordered as a present

(she doesn't really have red hair it's just sopping wet blonde! I didn't have time to dry it before my friend left work yesterday so she took her home and sat her on the radiator!)

This is the detail from the bottom of her dress
The same friend had also ordered one for another friend's baby.

And this is the photo album/scrapbook that we gave
The little girl being christened was the one that I made the clothes-quilt for so I was able to use some of the gingham from her curtain as the background fabric. I hope they like it.

I have made the very brave decision to change my profile photo from the one of me aged about 8 to one taken today. Let's see how long that lasts!!! (It's much easier to hide behind a cute childhood pic than let you see the real me but I do always try to keep my blog as "real" as possible so this is just one step further - hope it doesn't put you all off!!)

It's sunny!

The weather here for the last couple of days has been really sunny and a little bit cold - just how I like it! Unfortuately we spent most of the weekend tidying the little monsters' bedroom. Fred and Daisy share the largest room but 99% of the time the floor is completely covered by at least a foot deep of clutter, clothes, books, toys, discarded drawings etc. It drives us completely demented and every couple of months we spend a whole weekend (at least) tidying it. We have resorted to having proper locks on the toy cupboards so they have to ask to get things out - which of course than can, on the proviso they have put away whatever else they had been playing with. Unfortunately they have been known to find the keys...........(this is a photo from halfway through the last major tidy-up! I wasn't exaggerating was I?)

A sensible, grown up mummy would be able to keep on top of the mess and never let it get to horror status but that's not me! Much as I would love to be organised and tidy and super-mummy-like it just doesn't seem to happen. I think I get distracted by all the boring things like sewing and gardening, seeing friends and blogging - and the fun stuff like housework just gets missed! What should I do?
You'd never think these little darlings could make such a mess!

So, having spent the weekend tidying upstairs, downstairs is now completely horrendous. I managed to stall tackling it by about an hour by calling in to see my lovely friend Helen for a cup of tea (and some toast!) but the chaos was still here waiting for me!

Now, a sensible, grown up mummy would probably tackle it in little bits until it was done. Have I done this? No. I have decided to completely rearrange the sitting room and dining room (all one large area) - except for my lovely sewing end which just needs tidying a little bit. So the furniture is pretty much all in the middle of the room. The floor is covered with the clean laundry that needs to be put away, the odd socks that need sorting, the children's toys that they have left lying around and the books that fell from the huge bookcase that I moved backwards and forwards between the two "rooms" before deciding where to put it - without removing any of the books first!

Well, never mind, only three hours to go before I have to pick up the children - but then again I have to the kitchen to tackle, the supper to prepare and a chocolate courgette cake and blackberry and apple crumble to make - and that is before I start on my craft orders.

Before I go, I was tagged by Leanne to do this meme:

7 honest things about myself

1. I'm really very untidy! (Had you guessed?)
2. I have a super tidy person inside me dying to get out - I can be really ultra organised (sometimes)
3. I'm the youngest of 5 children
4. I studied for a PhD in Roman politics, part-time for 5 years, but unfortunately did not manage to complete it before life, money, family etc took over - it is all still there 3/4s finished in my wardrobe upstairs :(
5. I only had 6 months of sewing lessons at school and was never taught to type but these are the skills that I now use to make money
6. My lovely husband is an archaeologist and as Agatha Christie apparently said "the good thing about being married to an archaeologist is, the older you get, the more interested in you they become!"
7. I was a newspaper-delivery-girl for two weeks when I was pregnant with Daisy and used to push the heavy weekend papers around in Dorothy's buggy!

I now have to tag 7 people so here they are
Monkee Maker - Kerry,
Lesley - Moogsmum,
Hannah - gently tiptoe,
Julia - weirdbunny,
Sarah - a stitch in time,
Jo - Frenchknots
and Anna - Thimbleanna


So I'm sorry there are no lovely fabricy-crafty-pretty photos on here - I hate it when blogs are all words and now eye-candy! When I find a clear surface I will try to do something creative and post a photo of it soon! Lucy x

I feel a bit of a fraud.....

.........everyone is being so lovely about my job - but I really was only a Saturday girl every other week - I just wanted it to be more. It had great potential - lovely people, interesting houses, loads of people-contact and I got to do clever computer stuff - I had set up some spreadsheets with graphs and pie-charts to analysis customer feedback and towards the end had got to play on the computerised floorplan drawing thingy! I love learning new things especially clever technology! Realistically though, I have three small children, can only work until 3pm and have no childcare to cover the school holidays, so I'm not very employable really!

Anyway - on to my craft empire instead then! A friend has just phoned (whilst I was typing this) and has ordered two wallets without even having seen them!

Monkee Maker did a meme type thing the other day and sent out a general invitation to people to take it up. I complained to her that I couldn't do it without a proper invitation, so she wrote back to say I was formally invited to take part so here goes:
Four jobs I've had ......
Part-time florist (well inexperienced flower girl really!)
Tutor in Roman History with the Open University
Secretary/Administrator
Mummy
Four places I've lived ......
In a little village near Andover in Hampshire until I was 17
Durham
Newcastle (University days)
Near Sunderland
(so, very South England, and then all North-East England!)
Four places I've been on holiday .......
Italy
A tiny island on the West Coast of Scotland (honeymoon)
The Cotswolds
The Lake District
Four favourite foods .......
Mum and Dad's fabulous roasts
Takeaway curry!
Allotment picnics
Courgette soup (because I have to like the stuff - there's loads of it!)
Four places I would rather be right now .......
Well, as I am blog-addicted, I quite like it here......
At my sewing machine
Watching a film with long-suffering-husband and doing some hand sewing
At the allotment with the whole family and our friends (not now though - it's freezing!)

So feel free to take up the baton and post about yourselves. I think we are all nosy enough to want to know more about each others lives!

Thanks for all your kind comments about the job-stuff. I'll be fine and it's not like I've had a huge drop in income to cope with. My work friends are still all just round the corner and my boss did check I would still "come in and be a pain in the proverbial!"

Wednesday was a funny old day. .

........because:
I gave a Moo card to one of the mums in the schoolyard because she had asked me what kind of things I did.
Then I went to call on one of my sewing friends on the way home and we arranged to go fabric shopping in the afternoon.
Then I called into the local estate agents where I work part-time (literally just around the corner from my house) to see my friends there.
While I was chatting to them my mobile rang - it was Clare, the mum I had given the moo card too. She had gone straight back and looked at my blog and loved everything on it and wanted me to make something for her baby daughter!
As I was still at the shops I went straight round to her house for a cuppa (she lives opposite our old house!)
We were chatting about the sort of things I could do and she mentioned that she had a bag of newborn baby clothes and would love something made out of them - now I didn't call myself Lucy Locket Recycled Her Pocket for no reason, what I would love to do as part of my craft "business"(!) is make things for people out of their children's clothes. I even approached a publisher with a book proposal based on this theme earlier in the year - they didn't want it :-(
So we both very excitedly went through the bag of clothes picking out some gorgeous items to make into a patchwork quilt. It is going to be challenging but great fun so I left her house on a high.

Then I called back into work to speak to my boss. As I said a couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to work semi-full-time for a week and a half and I loved it. I have worked there for 3 years in a part-time capacity but my hours had gone down to every other Saturday morning. After working the proper hours I didn't feel I could go back to this very part time role much as I loved the job and as the housing market is pretty bad at the moment with interest rates etc, Linda and I decided that it was better if we called it a day. It was my idea but I still burst into tears! I love the girls I work with and my boss and her husband. It is a real family firm. But I think I will always hope there will be more work when there isn't going to be. So now I need to move on. I don't really like change though!!!

But then, I got 3 commissions for craft things before I even left the office! Linda wants two wallets and Joanne wants me to make a little rag doll with her friend's baby's name and "first christmas" embroidered on the hem of the dress.

And then I got to go shopping with Kerry and bought loads of new fabric for bags and wallets and a new dress and cardigan!

So it was a day of great "ups" and huge "downs"!

Yesterday was more stable! It was freezing cold and pretty wet but Alison and I went up to the allotments and picked bags full of beans, courgettes, pumpkins and marrows and then had a cooking marathon in my kitchen as Alison's hob has died and she is waiting until her new kitchen is fitted before replacing it. We took it in turns to make vast quantities of courgette soup then treated ourselves (and our children) to some homemade chocolate crispy cakes!

As for today, well I already felt fairly flat as I was walking back from school (it is cold, drizzly and windy) so I called in to see my friends at (ex)work, saw some files in my in-tray and burst into tears! What a complete and utter wally I am!

So I thought I would come home and spill it all out onto my blog (sorry everyone) then I am going to have a quick tidy up and get on with some fun creativity! I think I am going to need to make myself a wall-chart to keep up with all the different orders that are coming in. (I also have 3 cushions to make, some blanket orders in the pipeline, a different sized wallet to work out (thanks Trashalou - I'll be in touch soon) and a baby sampler to design).

Sorry for the long post - now I need to choose some nice photos to make it less gloomy!

Got the zips!!!!

So what do I spend my time doing?

Tidying!

Well, if I'm honest and want to be precise, I haven't been doing grown up tidying, more like playing really - rearranging my sewing area to make it even prettier! It is still overcrowded and rather messy really but it's mine and I love it!

(sorry about the dark picture - flash doesn't seem to be working)

The curtains are a particular example of Lucyism:

1. They are made out of tea-towels (except for the spotty fabric)
2. They are not even half-made yet! One curtain is wider than the other and neither are wide enough. They have no lining. No hem. No edge. And the top bit is just roughly folded over with the rings clipped on. But they are my mess and I love them. (have you heard that before somewhere?) Anyway, there is so much clobber (clutter) on the table that I couldn't close them even if I wanted to!
   

But, back to business, the zips are here (in quantity!) so I must get to work! These are the wallets I have made so far (I did manage to make two yesterday by cutting down extra long zips) Some have worked well and so will be going on my Etsy shop soon while others are less accurate so I'm not sure what I will be doing with them yet.



























I also ventured into the world of "pretty handbag" making with this attempt inspired by my Bend the Rules Sewing book but adapted on the way. It's not right yet, it needs to be deeper and I will have to change how I do the top and handle because I broke lots of needles trying to stitch through the layers! I do think the colours are pretty though.

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)

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!!!)

Lucy's Allsorts

This is a post about lots of things - well quite a few anyway!
The first thing is that I have been tagged by Thimbleanna to list my 5 favourite places to eat and I'd better warn you that I am going to cheat for at least three of them! With three young(ish) children we don't get to eat out very often but here are my 5 top places.

1. Zulu's at The Black Horse - the most yummy and interesting food - my favourite is seared scallops in a potato salad with chorizo and black pudding (although I have to pretend that I'm not really eating black pudding - it does taste nice though!) and skinny chips served in a terracota plant pot.

2. Mum and Dad's house - my first cheat! But they really do the best roasts in the world. Dad's father was a butcher and a farmer and so they know all the right meat to buy and how to cook it so it melts in the mouth. Yesterday we had new season roast lamb, roast potatoes, fabulous vegetables,onion sauce, mint sauce and gravy - YUMMY. Followed by homemade summer pudding (but I forgot to take a photo of that!) All served with some delicious wine.

3. Mum and Dad's treehouse (cheat 2). They have had an amazing treehouse built against an lime (not oak - thanks big sis!) tree in the field opposite the house and this is where we had another birthday tea for Fred. The children loved hoisting the baskets of food up with the rope.
4. The Allotment (cheat 3). We spend a lot of time at the allotment and so eat lots of meals there - picnics, mini barbecues, toasted marshmallows etc, but on Friday I had the best meal so far. I had popped up in the afternoon with a shop-bought sandwich for lunch but then found that my friends Alison, Emma and Tricia had been gathering food from their allotments for lunch. We had freshly dug new potatoes, carrots (from my allotment) and salad made with a variety of leaves tossed with some freshly cooked bacon and dressed with olive oil and a little salt. The sun came out and it was the most delicious feast.

5. Now where shall I say for no.5? I don't really have any cheats left up my sleeve so I ought to think of a real restaurant but it seems so long since we went to one. Well this may not still be there but when we were going out my better half and I used to go to Heartbreak Soup on Newcastle's Quayside. We went there to celebrate our engagement and in order to get the table we really liked we had to sit there for the main course and then move for pudding - it amused us at the time.

(See the ring! Sorry - very old photo re-photographed!)

The second thing is to say THANK YOU so much to Nadine for sending me these wonderful fabrics for my star/house quilt. They are actually by the designers of the quilt - Blackbird designs and have been used in the original so it is wonderful to be able to include them in my quilt.

And then I thought I would show some photos of the quilts I have semi-designed myself:

First Dorothy's quilt - inspired by Caroline Zoob and her book Childhood Treasures and made using an IKEA pillowcase (that matches her bedroom) and some old tablecloths, napkins and doilies belonging to her Great-Grandma. We call it her Reading Quilt and it has sayings and phrases relevant to her stitched onto the hearts.


This is "Daisy's" - the central stitchery is a By My Hand pattern (I think) and the quilt just grew around it - you can see I like doing random strip piecing!

In the outer yellow border I have stitched her favourite things- bunnies, Barbies, sweeties etc!

This is "Fred's" quilt with a central stitchery adapted from an Anni Downs' pattern - hers had a little girl on so I made her a bit taller and thinner and turned her into a boy!
Finally this is the little quilt I made to go on the back of mum's chair in the kitchen. I took some Bronwyn Hayes patterns from some magazines and re-arranged them and then used all my blue florally fabrics. Mum and Dad have always had lots of chickens and although Dorothy christened them "Granny and Grandpa Dog" when she was tiny, her older cousins used to call mum "Granny Chickens" (and I think she preferred that!!)

Sorry for such a long post - but there will probably be different things to say tomorrow!