making decisions

As much as I am loving being even more creatively inspired than usual, I find myself struggling to make the necessary creative decisions of my own.

Exactly which of my fabrics should I put together?

What colours of yarn should I use and in which order?

I have been seeing so many gorgeous combinations on blogs and on pinterest but this inspiration has almost crippled my own imagination through the fear of not getting it quite right.

I only seem to be able to cope with different fabrics of the same or similar colours.

I think this is why my rainbow hexies were so appealing, and why I was pleased with my diamond mini quilt. And when I made my first project from Patchwork Please I followed Ayumi's design and went for a single colour scheme - and it does make me happy, but it's not very brave, is it.

I almost find myself unable to imagine how MY fabrics will go together when they are not the exact same ones that I am seeing being used elsewhere. I know I can't go out and buy an entirely new stash (although it is tempting!!) just to match something I have seen online so I need to find some way of making the best use of what I have. But what if I get it wrong and end up making a mess?

I had to abandon a pair of fairisle wrist warmers for my boss because I kept repeatedly getting the colour choices wrong and having to rip it out endlessly - until I was thoroughly sick of the sight of them when I have previously loved the pattern. In the end I had to compromise and knit her a nice safe pair of Susie's Reading Mitts in one solitary, safe colour.

I find myself craving some simple sock knitting for it's basic decision-free round-and-roundness - when this would have seemed too boring a week ago.

Does anyone else have this problem? Where brilliant inspiration leads to a complete loss of creative confidence? If so, how have you overcome it?

Answers on the back of a postcard please!

Playing

This week has been when I only have to work two days  (every other week I work 3), so I have had lots of fun playing with sewing on my days off.

I can't remember what I achieved on Monday, but yesterday I spent the day making these fabulously quick pouches for the little Lockets using this tutorial. I love the dense quilting on them.  Bizarrely my special walking foot makes straight line quilting bunch up instantly whereas my standard foot lets me quilt beautifully - does anyone else have this problem?

I am giving them to the children tomorrow for Valentine's Day and have filled them with Jelly Babies and chocolate so I know they will be pleased!  I bought Mr Locket a pair of beautiful cards from Celia and I can't decide which one to give him - maybe he will get both :)

I also made this pouch for my mummy so I hope she doesn't read this post before I get it sent to her.

I like the bottom the best - even if it does look strangely misshapen.

Today I wanted to play with half square triangles so I made a batch of 2.5" and laid them out in a couple of different ways.

I decided I liked the diamond best so I pieced this panel

and then quilted the life out of it - and I have to say I absolutely love it.

I love how the colours and fabrics work together and I love the quilting.

I had been going to make it into another pouch but it was such a shame to fold the diamond in half and lose the effect of it so now I have another mini quilt to bind.

Daisy has said she would like a quilt for her birthday in May and I'm thinking this combination of blues and diamonds would be perfect for her - but she is keen to play with other layouts too which will be fun, especially as she isn't normally all that interested in my sewing shenanigans :)

I really don't have time to go to work tomorrow!  I just have too much sewing to play with!

This weekend in the Locket household

It has been a busy weekend chez Locket but first I thought I'd show you a sweet photo of Daisy and Fred happily reading their new books......................

and then once we'd started playing Bob Marley to them!!!!

Methinks they don't appreciate Reggae!

On Saturday Dot's school choir were performing at music festival type thingy at another school. We were told to go to North Shields which is about half an hour away by car through the Tyne Tunnel. Oh good, I thought, I can go to Ring-a-Rosie to get some more sock wool while we're there. We duly arrived at the school as directed and were mildly perplexed that it was locked and ours was the only choir there - but I think most of us just assumed that we were the most concientious.

Not so. Unfortunately we were at the correctly named school but in TOTALLY THE WRONG LOCATION!! Dot's school had made a mistake and told us to go to St Jo Bloggs School, North Shields, when we really needed to be at St Jo Bloggs, BLAYDON - a further 30-40 minutes away! So Dot and I gathered two of her friends whose parents had dropped them off and gone and drove off to the new location.

So no sock wool shopping for me then :o(

But fortunately the second school was right next to IKEA so on the way home we popped in to refuel the girls with hotdogs and I spotted this fabulous green canvas in the fabric section.

Aha! I thought. That will go nicely on my little wooden sofa with my Amy Butler cushions. (And it does)

It also goes very well with my lovely bird fabric so here are the three cushions I've made this afternoon for the blue sofa.

(they actually look better in real life - less of a stark contrast between the pattern and the plain)

I also finished sock No.4 and very nearly understood Kitchener Stitch!!!!! It isn't perfect but it's better than any other toe I've done.

Meanwhile in Locketland, while Dot and I were being musical, Daisy and Fred were earning pocket money by cleaning out my greenhouse ready for the new season of seed sowing. And they did a really fantastic job with all my pots neatly stacked and all the rubbish and accumulated grot of a winter of neglect cleared away.


Fred even decorated the birdbath - apparently they hope that as Magpies like shiny things they will come to visit.

Then after doing their exercises this morning

they decided to earn some more pocket money by cleaning the car

and got busy with the soap and cloths

or so we thought...........................

ok, so Fred scrubbed the car with his coat sleeve and Daisy used a Bob the Builder flannel!

I hope you've all had a lovely weekend too!

Lucy x

P.S. Dot was also busy cooking double chocolate muffins and flapjack and helping cook roast chicken for supper this evening - she's a star!

Return of the Little Locket and More Minis

So, yes, she came back - and Mr Locket and I were very very pleased to see her!

So were the other little Lockets

(don't worry, I'm not going to go all "perfect family" on you - it wasn't long before they were all arguing!)

and her bedroom looked fantastic by the time I had finished with it - such a shame about the rest of the house though!

Dorothy has the smallest room in the house and it really is tiny but it is my favourite of all our rooms and I keep telling her that I am having it for a sewing room when she goes to University! I mean, who wouldn't love a room that has built in bookshelves like this..............

Dorothy is an incredible reader and has probably read more of the classic childrens' literature - Little Women, Heidi, Black Beauty, The Secret Garden, What Katy Did Next etc by the age of 10 than I have ever read - and the modern literature she reads is really impressive too. I just love lying on her bed looking up at her books and reading all the titles.

In mini-quilt swap news I can now show you the 9 of mine that have safely arrived at their new homes

Top Row: Annie, Lesley, Michaela
2nd Row: Katy, Lina, Est
3rd Row: Lissa, Jodie, Val

I now have 4 more in progress including this one for Kate

and this one for Trashy


which only leaves another 10 to start from scratch!

I spent a while this afternoon writing scarily complicated tables of all the things I need to make - commisions, mini-quilts, PIF gifts, presents and my Russian Doll Swap - I am now feeling rather panicked! I'm not quite sure how I am going to get it all done! And then there's the chaos and mess masquerading as our house and our jungle-like front and back gardens - not to mention the allotment - and at some point I really need to get a job - anyone got any good ideas?????

Rainy Tuesday

It always amazes me how much the weather can affect my mood. When it is sunny or bright I naturally feel optimistic, when it is grey and rainy I feel grey and dispirited too. I know that is pretty obvious and a fairly universal reaction to the weather but I wish there was an easy way to change it!

So today it is raining. The children are all at school and the house is very quiet but still messy and I feel flat.

But you don't really want to know that so I have decided to do a positive blog and see if it lifts my mood - you never know, I might even put some music on and make a cup of tea too!

As always I have a gazillionty projects on the go at the moment. It is my little baby Fred's 6th birthday on Saturday (I can't believe he is going to be so grown up!) so I have my usual collection of birthday presents to make for him - sorry no pictures just in case he spots them. I also have some orders for bunnies and dolls to be getting on with (and I really should get on with them!) and loads of little bits of stitching and crochet that I am playing with.

The latest quilt swap news is that Est of My Cuppa Charms over in Malaysia has been the first to receive one of my mini-quilts so I can show you what I made her


this little quilt is made up of 2 inch squares with tiny hearts appliqued on - I just love these 30s colours but don't look too closely because I'm sure my seams don't match up properly!

Hopefully Jodie, Lissa and Lina will receive theirs in the next couple of days as I sent them at the same time as Est's.

I have another 5 nearly finished for posting this week so dotted around this post are some sneaky peeks for Katy, Lesley, Annie, Michaela and Val - I hope you like them but I'm not saying whose is whose yet!


And in the last couple of days I have started two more. One for Rachel and finally one for my official swap partner Leanne (sorry for the delay!!)


This should hopefully mean that I am nearly half way through my mammoth challenge to make 22 mini quilts (I must be insane!)


I really must be insane as I have also signed up to Katy's Russian Doll Swap - can't wait to see who my partner is!


Oh and don't forget about the 11 PIF gifts I need to make and send.......................!


But I will leave you today with something I am very very proud of


Beautifully stitched by my beautiful Dorothy - this is the very first time she has tried blanket stitch, chain stitch and fly stitch - hasn't she done brilliantly?

PIF gifts and TLC

I was the very lucky winner of Anglesey Allsorts' recent PIF draw and a lovely parcel arrived in the post yesterday.

These were the lovely goodies she sent me, complete with the most fantastic label

and she really sweetly included a package for the Little Lockets

full of lovely crafty goodies - sorry the photo isn't very good - but there are transfers, bags of glitter and the most fantastic finger puppets to decorate - I can't wait the children can't wait to decorate them!

Thank you so much Vicky - we are all very, very grateful!

The other topic of interest for today's post is........................

TLC is a little club that we have set up in the Locket Household as Dorothy has left Brownies but can't get into Guides, Daisy has left Rainbows but can't get into Brownies and Fred is still too young for Cubs.

We came up with the idea a few months ago and made club badges and a sash each to wear them on and then I bought the supplies to make them all club t-shirts too but we forgot. So the first job on starting the club again today was to make the t-shirts

while the children made the sign and decorated their Ladybird Club Notebooks


Here is part of Daisy's design

We decided not to use the sashes anymore as they went across the ladybirds on their t-shirts so I very quickly (and very roughly) made them some little bags from the legs of old jeans to put their badges on instead.

One of the things we want to do in our "club" is earn badges like you used to do in Brownies (sadly this didn't seem to happen in Dorothy's Brownie group) using this book as inspiration

a copy of the Brownie Handbook I had as a child (Dorothy reads this cover-to-cover on a regular basis!)

and their ideas for Badges to do our own.

Today the children earned their "Sewing badges"

for all the stitching they have been doing recently and because we finished their cushions today.

here they are busily stuffing them - and the finished products are pretty cute too

When you actually read the rules of the badges we used to do you can see how much more was expected of us back then (crumbs that makes me sound so old!!!) For example, to get the knitting badge you needed to be able to
1.Choose your own pattern and, following the printed directions, knit a garment introducing two types of stitches.
2. Knit a pair of socks or gloves, or mittens with thumbs, using two or four needles.
I don't think many modern under-10s would be able to do this level of knitting do you? The needlework one is pretty hard too - they expect loads of different stitches - but I think the Little Lockets have definitely earned theirs!

We are planning to move onto the Cookery badge


and the Gardening one too (I need some incentive to get my seeds sown or we are going to have a very empty allotment!)

I'll let you know how we get on but I will leave you today with this gorgeous photo of the Ladybird Club Members modelling their new t-shirts


I absolutely LOVE this photo - it's amazing how animated they look when you get them to say "KNICKERS" instead of "Cheese"!!!!!