At last...

 

 

 

 

 

After days of anticipation the snow finally arrived.  We had a little visitor at 4am who came through to let us know.  Much to our relief, said visitor amazingly went back to sleep.

 

The view from my sewing room was as beautiful as ever.  I didn't see many birds today apart from a few pigeons trying to take cover in the hedgerow.   I for one was quite happy and content sewing in the warm, drinking lots and lots of tea!

Remember this.....

This was the field behind our house back in April, thankfully the yellow rape has long gone and thankfully with it our Hay fever!

This is how it looks this morning, lush and green and sprinkled with Red Poppies, what a delight!

On the home front, hopefully (everything is crossed and I hope that I am not tempting fate!!!) Andy should be home Sunday evening, so that means we have 2 more go to beds to go, hooray

LKH has been as busy as ever and my little hands have been sewing lots of pretty hand appliques for Custom Orders and my Sewing Machine has been sewing at full speed putting them all together. I did however spend a couple of hours to tidy LKH Headquarters (and yes it really did take that long) I am not quite sure how it happened but it had got into a dreadful muddle. I like my fabrics to be in a certain order and they were all over the place, buttons were in the wrong place and I had lots of lovely new fabrics to put away so enough was enough.

Here's a little peek of where the action happens

Just one of the run of shelves I have stacked full of lovely fabric and my Felt Rainbow

To the right of this I have, just some of my bias binding rolls. In the top Ikea storage box and the one directly below are my ribbons and trims, sorted by colour and type. The retro sewing basket has patchwork squares and hexie's waiting patiently to be sewn together ( one day! ) The other Wooden Box has just some of my embroidery threads. My main stock of those are stored in the chest of drawers below

in plastic boxes, in colour order. I won't show you exactly how many I have, but believe me it's a lot!

On the other side of the room ( which is not big! ) I have yet more fabric and in the White Chest of drawers and the Printers Block Chest which you can see more of here , I store pre cut Bunting Triangles

Call me sad, but sometimes I just sit and look at my fabric


and this is my trusty sewing machine, which has sewn many a mile. It sits on a table top, that Andy built for me in a bay window, so I have lots of light. It's where I cut out, take my photo's, wrap and pack and I should do my accounts (eeekk, must get up caught up on those)

and as for what Bunting do I have, well I must confess to have a changeover every now and then, but currently it is gorgeous Mini Bunting in Liberty Blues.

I hope you like the little tour :)

Update on the GIVEAWAY

1 more sale in my Etsy Shop and 3 more Facebook fans to go

I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

The paint is dry......

After what feels like 6 days of camping with all my plates and essentials on our table in the conservatory, this morning, I decided that the paint on the kitchen cupboards MUST be dry. So having had an extremely early wake up call from the children (5am..... yes I did say 5am!) after making breakfast, checked my shops, showering and dressing (and yes..... it was still only 7am) I set to putting the kitchen back together again.

I keep alot of my essentials (pasta, rice flour, sugar etc) and everyday china on open shelves, great for easy access and because our kitchen is not the largest, I can cook and unload the dishwasher within 3 paces. The downside is that everything gets a tad dusty, so before I could put everything away a big clean up was required. Not my favourite past time, however it did make me realise what lovely things I have, here are some of my favourites


from top left

Gorgeous Pink Ramekins (great for after school snacks), EXTRA Large Tea Bag Canisters (can there be anything else!), Pressed Glass Cake Stand (one of many), Carlton ware Apple Sauce Pot (just gorgeous), Indies China (love it had it for over 20 years), Heart Ramekin (just because), Kitchen Aid (LOVE LOVE LOVE!), Yellow Polka Dot Toast Rack (a car boot find), Pressed Glass Cake Stand (another one of many), Hand Painted Hand Print Plates (I would grab these in a fire), Cornish ware Egg Cups (drool worthy), My new wallpaper (CK Boats)

Now all I need to do is make new curtains, blinds, cushions......

update 26th May - thank you for leaving comments, I've tried to add one but blogger won't let me, uumm not sure why???? but Oh Jenny you are SO right, I felt very pleased when it was done. Catherine they arrived today and they are as gorgeous as ever. Thank you for your lovely comments! Sarah xo

Busy busy busy

We woke up this morning to a lovely sunny day, a perfect washing day! As I waved good bye to the children as they left for school, (Andy was on school run) I realised that the front garden is about to burst into glorious colour. The front garden is my garden and unlike the back garden that is now full of fruit and veg ( more of that later this week) slides and footballs is full of of my favourite flowers and plants

Ladies Mantle, zesty lime, and the leaves catch rain drops and make them sparkle like diamonds

Allium Christophii, in a couple of days this will be a stunning sphere of star like petals

Rosa Fairy, teeny tiny roses, but masses and masses of them, stunning!

Lavender, oh the scent, what more can you say

Hardy Geraniums, so tolerant and hard working, yet so beautiful

I would like to say there was a planting plan, but I'm afraid other than there being a vague blue, pink and white colour scheme, it is just full of pretty flowers, which are left to self seed as you can see in the photo above. The Lavenders in the wall of the house are all self sewn and there are loads of tiny seedling in the cracks on the paving which I can not bring myself to pull up.

Now to a WIP, totally Andy by coincident had this week booked as leave to decorate our kitchen/family room, which as you all know is not Andy's favourite activity. It has although been lovely to be at home together before he leaves.

So to give you a sneeky peek, the walls are painted, I've hung new wallpaper and we've painted the kitchen cupboards

In between, I've been finishing bunting, answering emails and yes for you eagled eyed readers, reading the fabulous new magazine Mollie Makes, which dropped through my post box this morning. It's a fab read and has the most gorgeous crochet apple jackets tutorial , oh I SO want to learn to crochet, a great feature on Dottie Angel, who's blog I follow and ..........

a feature on bobble trims and just look who's photo is included.

I hope you're having a lovely day!

'till next time

Sea of yellow

This is the view today from the back of house

We are so lucky to live with open countryside right behind us. The field is just full of rape, which whilst gorgeous to look at, I must confess is making both myself and the children sneeze like mad. I would not however change where we live for all the tea in china and hope so much that the land is never sold to developers for houses to built on.

I've been busy sewing over the Bank Holiday in between outings with the family and making the most of the sunny warm weather. Anyway the children are back to school / preschool tomorrow for all of 3 days before the bank holiday next weekend.

We're off to a friends house to celebrate the Royal Wedding. I am planning on watching all the coverage from a prime position on the sofa with a glass of Pimms in hand and ooing and aaghhing over the dress, hats and outfits. (well that's the plan, we'll see!) I can't wait to see William in his RAF Uniform, good call, but then I am biased, what with Andy being in RAF.

Anyway off to cook tea and looking forward to sewing tomorrow, with the radio for company and a very quiet house.

'till next time

A Family Favourite

Tonight for supper the children had one of their favourites, Pumpkin Soup and yes for the eagle eyed, that's a butternut squash. It's one of those throw it together soups, with what ever veg is lurking in the fridge, sometimes peppers, in this case a sad carrot, but always onion and garlic

I also like to include some fresh herbs, parsley or coriander

and some spices, cumin, coriander, fennel, ginger are all nice

oh and the sad carrot, Poppy said it tasted lovely.... note the teeth marks!

Soften the chopped onions, garlic and carrot, add in the chopped pumpkin, for a few moments. Then stir in the spices so they toast a little. Cover with stock or boiling water and bring to the boil. Cook until all the veg are soft and tender, add the fresh herbs, then blitz until smooth. Taste and add seasoning.

Eat with crusty bread and grated chedder cheese on top, yum! 'till next time

Transformed at last!

Now why is it, as a Mum who can sew, you never get round to making things for your own? Our family clubbed together nearly 3 summers ago to purchase our rather cute playhouse. We painted the outside, we chose blue, so that it would appeal to both Jamie and Poppy, but that's all we did, just how bad is that!! It subsequently became a mini garden shed, full of spiders and invaded by ivy......

......until this week that is! In an effort to redeem ourselves, all 6'3" of Andy spent a couple of mornings inside painting it white. ( I think he was quite glad to go back to work today after all the painting he's done over the last couple of weeks!) which left Nan and I free to pretty it up

There's bunting both inside and out, aprons, bags full of toy food and pots and pans. A little table and chairs, and for storage, one of my all time faves, an old Lloyd Loom chest, given a lick of paint and a new ticking cover

Nan made the gorgeous red gingham curtains, from ever so slightly bigger red gingham curtains that she found at booty

The bedside cupboard bought from a furniture turnaround shop for a couple of pounds, received a rather swift paint over and is now a very sturdy cooker, perfect for baking cakes for a tea party I do believe!

and finally a little heart over the door is a gentle reminder of the love that went into making a happy home for two happy children

'till next time

A little project

We've lived in our home for nearly 7 years, having moved here when Jamie was 6 weeks old. We actually set the date for completion, for when he was 2 weeks old, (naively as new parents I might add) but he decided to surprise us all and arrive early, then spending his first 2 weeks in SCBU, but that's another story.

Anyway there are several rooms in our house that have not been decorated for ummmm some time, including our hall, stairs and landing. The need for this has somewhat been bought to the forefront as we had a minor plumbing leak last year.

So Andy has leave booked and decorating now in progress. We've decided upon white, white and a bit more white. It's either a brilliant idea, easy to live with, bright, airy or total madness with two young children, no doubt I'll soon find out.

Now for my part, a new front door blind...

A few weeks ago I bought this gorgeous Charm pack from Quilt Taffy, now I know the last thing I need is more fabric, but hey, I just couldn't resist. My initial plan was to use it in Poppy's bedroom, but sorry Pop's I'll find you something else!

Yesterday I placed out the squares ensuring that I got a nice balance of colour and pattern. I then machine pierced the squares into rows, and then joined the rows, to form the blind front

I added some sashing on the side edges, polka dots always a favourite

Decisions decisions, Hot Pink or Bright Aqua Pom Poms, and drum roll .......

Aqua won the day!

Can I just say that I deliberately spaced the dowels so that the bottom edge sat lower than normal, this way I get to enjoy the fabulous fabrics

I am sure even, on the dullest day this will bring a smile to my face!