A very long post about WONDERFUL POST!!!

Today has been a VERY good day!

It had a frustrating start when my gazillion phone calls to the local Royal Mail sorting office went unanswered and my visit to the local post office resulted in me discovering that first class mail can now take from 4 - 9 days and they wouldn't consider an item missing until 15 days had elapsed!

But finally, around 12.30, the postie arrived - with a parcel!!!!!

Not one of the three UK ones though!

This one had come all the way from Leanne in Australia (who is my official swap partner!) - and was posted a day later than the 3 local ones!!!!

Look what was inside

The most gorgeous quilt in these gorgeous colours - and I love the saying!

And the back is almost as beautiful - I wish I could display both sides at once

She also included these lovely goodies

the card is one of Leanne's own photographs - I can never get over the fact that these are the normal garden birds in Australia!

There was a lovely message and saying inside the card too


Thank you so much Leanne - I absolutely love my quilt - your stitching is so incredibly neat and the colours are so happy! I must get your quilt started - I know what I want to do but actually achieving it is the scary part!

The fact that this parcel had come all the way from Australia in less time than my three UK ones prompted me to go down the whole Customer Services line with Royal Mail even though all their recorded messages told me I had to fill in a form and they wouldn't consider an item lost until it had been missing for 15 days! I persisted until I finally got through to a real live person, explained the problem, explained that I had a friend in the village who was also waiting for a large number of parcels posted last week, and was immediately put through to the local sorting office (who I had been trying to phone all morning!) and the really helpful man there found my parcels one of my friend's and said they would be with me within 2 hours!

Persistence clearly pays off!

Because 2 hours later look what arrived

All three of my missing parcels!

The first one was from Barbara at Ring a Rosie and contained the lovely wool that I had won in her "Name the Ted" competition


Isn't it gorgeous? I don't know which one to play with first!

Thank you so much Barbara - it is a really kind gift, especially as you had two winners!!

The second parcel contained my wonderful mini quilt from Anne

I knew what style of quilt it was going to be because Anne had already told me it would be one of her heart quilts but I wasn't expecting it to be this gorgeous - I just love all the colours and those beautiful little buttons and the different white on white prints in the background!

It is so neatly stitched and the different fabrics on the hearts are really lovely! Thank you so much Anne - I love it!

The final parcel was from my lovely Lesley-friend

beautifully wrapped in this gorgeous green tweed and some very pretty GING-GUM tissue paper!

And my quilt isn't purple with orange Yaks on like Lesley threatened - in fact it is absolutely gorgeous!
It has my allotment in the middle complete with one of Lesley's chickens-to-be and is made up with some of Lesley's very favourite new fabrics! Thank you so much for using your special things in my quilt.
and I love the recycled pocket on the back - that made me laugh!

Lesley was also very naughty because she included all these wonderful goodies

fabrics and felted blanket pieces, ribbons, a very silly card and the very very wonderful tortoise that she needle felted recently!

Look at his gorgeous little face
Lesley you are an absolute star! Thank you so very, very much!

And here are my new quilts up on the wall


Doesn't it look fantastic?

This is what it looks like as I come down the stairs


I am so pleased I came up with this idea!

Thank you again to all my wonderful bloggy friends!

Lucy x

P.S you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see my owls as there is no way I could match up to the wonderful creations that have arrived today!

Boo-DOUBLE-Hiss to the Postie

Still no parcels today - so tomorrow I will be hounding the local sorting office until they tell me where they are!

Happier news is that I had a fantastic day at Clare's house looking at all her crafty creations, fabrics, books, etc and being shown how to crochet "amigurumi style" - fortunately Clare was/is incredibly patient and I eventually worked out how to do it right after giving up part way through and sewing the binding on Lina's mini-quilt instead!

Hopefully by tomorrow morning I will have finished a little owly for Dorothy to take to school with her for her Year 6 SATs.

I really didn't want to leave Clare's house but hopefully we can do it again soon - we both agreed that we have so much more to talk about - but the crocheting was much easier on the metro train back home when I wasn't talking at all!

Clare gave me some goodies for the children
their very own ladybird mascots - which they loved! (I've never explained before why our club is called the Ladybirds - it's because Fred loves them so much!)

Clare also lent me a book on learning to knit for children and gave Fred and Daisy a pair of knitting needles each and Dorothy a selection of patterns for new projects.





Dorothy has started making a chick egg cosy and I have been valiantly trying to teach Daisy and Fred to knit (both at the same time = very, very tricky - need some nice red wine to recover!)

So I will leave you now and hopefully be back tomorrow with loads of parcel goodies to show you!

Lucy x

P.S. We had cakes at Clare's house too! You'll have to hope she puts a photo of them on her blog because I had already started eating mine before I thought to photograph them! Sorry!

Pesky postal service!!!!

My three lovely parcels didn't arrive today either which is a bit unfair because I know that Barbara posted me some scrummy wool first class on Wednesday and Lesley and Anne both sent me a mini-quilt first class on Thursday!

Boo Hiss to the postie! (well not him personally cos he's nice but to the person/s behind the disappearance of my goodies!)

Perhaps Monday will be a luckier day - but I hope one of my neighbours is in because I am off to Clare's house to be taught how to crochet little critters! I can't wait!

The other good news is that Fred's "nest" worked its magic and two woodpigeons came along to investigate, much to his delight


and one of them gave it a very thorough inspection


On the crafty front I am pleased to say that I have finished another birthday present this time for one of Fred's friends


and a bag for someone else to give the birthday boy


kindly modelled by the gorgeous Fred


And finally the following creations have been added to the shelves of my little shop - how I wish I could have a real-life shop to play in!!!


Hope the rest of the weekend goes well for you all.

Lucy x



P.S. And this is
VERY IMPORTANT!!!

Can you please all go HERE and tell this young lady that she has NO RIGHT to a bloggy break - she provides a highly valuable PUBLIC SERVICE and should remain committed to her job!

It's a hard knock life ........................... for them!

I'm all in favour of child labour - when it is my little monsters doing the labouring!

tidying the garden and washing the "patio" - 20p

Dusting - 10p

Hoovering cobwebs - 10p

Cleaning out the fire - 20p

Taking all their mess out of the sitting room and leaving it looking like this?
Priceless!!!
- okay then, 50p!

So what prompted this industry and money making fervour?

Crazy Bones - 95p for a pack of 3 - the latest "craze" and muggins-mummy has agreed to let the children collect them - but they have to earn them and they worked really hard.

Here they are enjoying playing with the fruits of their labours

and with a nice tidy sitting room again, Mr Locket and I were able to sit back and relax too.

Child Labour? Brilliant! So it's a real shame that all the local shops have sold out of Crazy Bones and don't know when they will be getting them in again - I could have got them tidying upstairs this weekend if only I had more bribes!

Staying on the Little Locket/Locket Household theme I thought I would share this with you


Goldfinches in our garden! I'm so excited - I think they are nesting next door and coming to us for seed and the fibres from the hanging basket liners for their nest.

One evening this week I needed to distract Fred because he was upset about something so I got him to look out for the birds in the back garden with Dorothy's bird book so he could look up the birds he saw.
He really enjoyed watching for them and showed off his reading skills too and he has carried on bird watching after school each evening.

When I was getting ready for a craft stall last night he came and asked me for something for his "nest" but I was rushing around and didn't really pay attention (I know! Bad mummy!!!) But I was really touched this morning when I went outside and found this on the lawn

a special bird's nest to encourage them to come so Fred could watch them - complete with bird seed round the edges!

And I'll leave you today with a photo of the young man himself doing his sewing - so cute!

Hope you all have a great weekend - I spent the morning staking out the postie as I am expecting 3 parcels but all he brought was one for next door - meany! - but that means there should be some yummy post tomorrow!!!

Lucy xxx


P.S. I had a quite successful evening last night at the craft fair but have some new stock that will be appearing in my Etsy shop over the weekend so watch this space!

Whose idea was this quilt swap?????

Mine?


Are you sure?



Well I must be a genius then because it is absolutely, fantabulously, incredibly BRILLIANT!!!!

Another mini-quilt landed through my door this morning and rescued me from sewing-stress-induced-fatigue-and-depression (my work list is getting to me - can you tell?) and instantly turned me into a madly, ecstatic, bouncy person!

This time it was from the wonderful Michaela of the Stash Basket and came wrapped in the softest and cutest flannel fabric with a happy spotty ribbon - and a button notecard too!

(but I haven't seen your scissors Michaela, sorry)

I almost don't want to show you the quilt because it is so fantastic that I don't think I can do it justice in a photo on my blog - does that make sense? And I don't know how to "fanfare" it properly - but anyway, here goes

my very own, allotment quilt!

(I wanted to photograph it up at the allotment but I ran out of time as I am preparing for a craft night tomorrow and I was superglued to the bl lovely sewing machine all day - so I attached it to an apple tree in the garden instead!

It is so beautiful that you need to see it in close detail
so you can see the tadpoles and bees, the naughtly little caterpillars munching through a leaf, my much needed cup of tea, the corn on the cob complete with the stringy fibres, and all the other fruit, flowers, veg and beasties to be found in my garden! Even the fabric on the back and the binding has vegetables on it!

My photographs don't do it justice at all.

Michaela also included some lovely goodies

that I can't wait to play with

and then there was an extra envelope addressed to

So I had to wait for them to get back from home (which is very difficult for an impatient girl like me!)

Inside was this gorgeous card
with this inside
So the ladybirds and I will be planting these seeds this evening after supper!

Thank you so much Michaela - I can't put into words how much my quilt means to me and all the little extras are lovely! Here it is on display on my very exciting quilt wall - I wonder whose will be next?

And in honour of my "allotment" quilt I will finish off today with another allotment photo of the first bamboo cane "structure" of 2008!


P.S. (because I never know when to shut up!) I'm feeling very guilty about receiving all these wonderful quilts as I haven't sent any of mine out yet - but don't worry, I am working on them and currently have 9 under construction so hopefully I will be posting some out very soon!)

Another doll, more digging and mad cows

I finished another doll yesterday in time for a Christening tomorrow - using the Rosalie Quinlan pattern My Dolly and the baby's own clothes for the dress. The outfit I was given was only newborn size so I just managed to squeeze enough fabric out of it and amazingly, the sleeves on the dress were taken directly from the original garment without being reduced in diameter which goes to show how small it was.

The sense of relief when it was finished was amazing - I have so many deadlines and commitments at the moment that I am feeling quite stressed, but yesterday I decided to play truant and run away to the allotment with one of my friends - it was so much fun to be there when I knew I should be doing so many other things!

It was the first day this year that I have connected up the hose for watering and I really enjoyed standing in the sunshine watching the water spray catch the light (I really did enjoy myself yesterday! Simple things please simple minds)

I'm sorry I keep showing you very boring photos of the allotment but this is the time when I am using my blog as a diary/record - these uneventful shots are a really good way for me to see what progress (if any) I am making on what can seem like a never-ending task.

Take this picture for instance.

See that long bed on the right of the photo? The one chocka-block full of weeds? Well that was yesterday......................

and this is today
(the long bed towards the top of the photo)

And for real excitement, look at my new "decking area"!!!!

How posh am I???

But I will leave you today with a charming picture of a very mad cow..............

on a place-mat illustrated by a local artist called Sue Moffit

It is a lovely picture, but I don't know if she is trying to be funny or something.........................

I mean, look at the name (bottom, left-hand side.............)

Made larger (and turned round) for the lazier more visually challenged among you



What is she trying to say??????????


Ok, don't answer that one!

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend.

Lucy xxx

Mahoosive Success and Quilt Wall update

I'm very pleased to say that Mahoosive Dolly was a big success when she was finally finished and dressed in her clothes (wish I could take credit for them but they were good old Marks and Spencer's best and only needed a tiny tuck on each shoulder to make them fit)


Now I am rushing to finish a medium sized rag doll for a Christening this Sunday - again using the baby's clothes to make an outfit for the doll - but this time the clothes are teeny-tiny and it has been quite difficult to make the dress pattern fit - I've nearly finished and it seems to be going well so far.

I also managed to make another sock monkey for another birthday party and a Paddington Bear wallet for the birthday-girl's parents to give her.

And this

is part of my friend Aunty-Ann's birthday present for tonight when we will celebrate her birthday at our "sewing night". The other part of her present is going to be a Janet Bolton inspired goose picture to go with her little girl feeding the chickens one I made her a few years ago. The good thing is that Aunty-Ann knows how busy I am at the moment and said she doesn't mind when she gets it so I can enjoy doing it rather than rushing.

Far more exciting news is that I got a parcel today!


All the way from Down Under!


My Mini-Quilt from Lissa - and it is gorgeous!

because I know Lissa has an amazing stash of 30s fabric I asked her if she could use some in my quilt (and I'm doing hers in similar colours too) I'm so thrilled with it - and it has a gorgeous label on the back

and because she is such a treasure she sent me a copy of my favourite crafty magazine (which I can sadly no longer afford to buy)


and this really funny card


Thank you so much Lissa - I love my quilt and am really looking forward to drooling over my magazine.

So I now have a Quilt Wall update for you all to show you both Clare's and Lissa's quilt on display with Katy's (oh, and if you haven't done so already go and look in Katy's Etsy shop because she has made some more mini-quilts and they are gorgeous - I'd buy every single one if I could!)


don't they look fantastic - I'm so pleased I came up with this idea - and I am actually really enjoying making everyone's quilts too (good job as there are so many of them!) and I should have some in the post sometime next week.

I forgot to show you the beautiful card that Clare made me to go with my mini-quilt


and I will leave you today with a photo that shows the state of affairs lately


I literally am attached to my sewing machine - thanks to Dot for the photograph!