not quite colourfast

While i waited for the plumber yesterday (who still hasn't seen fit to show up; day six without our central heating and counting...), I was in no fit mood to do much and in the end sat down to play with some embroidery.
My 12 yo son is still finding the days at high school to be quite long and the days I work i drive them home instead of them taking the bus. During the half hour drive he usually puts down the armrest in the middle of the back seat and tries to nap.  So I made a little cushion to make it a little softer for his head.

And while he is too old for Pooh Bear, I certainly am not; so Pooh Bear I did (it is going in my car so is cute and girly!).  I think he turned out so very cute, but take a look at the thread; so much for colourfast!!

  this bleeding happened when I washed it in cold water to remove the blue marker pen.  Oooops!  I have given it another rinse, to no avail, so it will stay as is.  Now i will have to wash my skein to get out the excess dye. it is such a prtty thread; i have been buying Threadworks threads over the last few months; I only have a few, but I love the way they change colours so much more often than DMC or Anchor. 
I managed to cut out way too many pieces for the prairie points, so I am thinking of another little cushion. And yes, Pooh bear may make another appearance.

Knitting, and op shopping

It feels like ages since I have been here.  Time really has been slipping away lately.
Today is a good day for blogging as I am stuck at home waiting for a repair man to come and fix our heater which stopped working on Friday (can you hear my frustration???). As it is not summer I would appreciate it if he actually did come today as he was a no-show yesterday.

On to other things; besides work, this is what i have been playing with in my spare time.  It took longer than I thought, although in saying that I am not the fastest knitter on the planet, and I have done it in spurts, not every day.  But it is done now.  It was really to have a play with some wool that i had and I liked the pattern. So it is not for anything in particular; just to see.  i am happy with the final product. I think it is about a 2year old size.

My other show and tell is this: a wonderful find in an op shop last week. i love seeing what my friends find at charity stores but I never make the time to go and look myself (one friend gave me a free Australian smocking and embroidery magazine last week that an op shop was giving away; free!!!). So last week off I went with a friend to see what we could see. And this is what i came home with (plus a couple of novels; Steven King among others).

The lace at the top left looks a bit shiny so I thought maybe it was polyester but it burns like cotton so am not sure.  Whatever it is, it will be well used!!  I was really thrilled with my effort.  For the minute though, it will all go away until I have time to plan for it a bit more.  The buttons on the jumper above are from the op shop as well. 
Brrr, it is too chilly to be sitting here in pyjamas so off i go to see how many layers I can get on. We do have some heating; we have a wood fire. Sadly though, it was wonderful when we had a small house but after almost doubling the size of our house two years ago it really just takes the chill off.  We are pretty much out of wood for it so I really really need this guy to turn up today. I do not hold out hope; we have had too many tradesmen over the years stand us up.  Think warm thoughts for me???  LOL!!

finally, some smocking

here's a quick peek at what i have been doing this week. I cut it out on Thursday and am happy to have it done in under a week.  This is made with material from the shop and is now hanging in the window looking very pretty.  I think I will take some time on the weekend to make a petticoat for it to keep the skirt fluffed out nicely.
I m very happy with it. At least all the pieces are the right way up; I pleated the bottom of the skirt panel instead of the top and had to redo it. Luckily I realised before i smocked it and not after!LOL!!!

Now my plan is to do some more on the embroidered quilt before I start the First communion dress.  The dress has been chosen, now to get the material and start it.

More new books

I am still struggling with the work/home life balance at the minute. I am thoroughly enjoying my new job in a craft store and still have to pinch myself, but at the same time, three days a week sees me having to reorganise how i do other things on my days off, ie, housework, groceries, catching up with friends, keeping in touch with my email friends.  I am hoping that next week when the kids go back to school I will have a better ability to begin to restructure how and when i do things.

In the meantime, I have been sewing and knitting madly away this last week. Nothing finished yet to show though so you will have to wait another day or two.  I am almost finished sewing a smocked dress that will hopefully go in the window of the shop where I work. I made it out of material from the shop so it should be a good advertisement.  Not much left to do on it so I hope to have it done tonight so i can take it in tomorrow.  Then i want to make a petticaot to go under it but that wont be done today; too much running around with other things today to fit both finishes in.
I have also been knitting a little cardigan with some variegated wool i got from the shop before I started work there.  I saw the pattern in the hsop last week and it is so cute so I thought it would be a good chance to try out this wool. It is not bad, I m not sure about the colour of the wool now it is knitted up; it looks darker to me. But I will let you all decide when it is done.
now for show and tell:
I bought this book from the shop the other day. It has so many great ideas for embroidery on borders, I just had to have it. Especially as I am madly dreaming of embroidering the sashing on my quilt that I am half way through. I am not sure why as i really wanted to get it finished but I think with the embroidered blocks already on it, embroidering the sashing would really set it off.  Oh the things we do!!!
Anyway, here is the book, I have already picked which border i will use (with some changes to it).

It has so many borders for so mnay occasions. Very sweet.
This is the other thing I brought home with me on Monday. It was given to me by my boss who got it out of a magazine.  How cute is this!!!!!

To be perfectly honest, it will go into the pile of things I really really want to do, but I wont start it until I have some other things out of the way.  They are just too too cute I think. I mean, check out this guy:

What a great little knight he is!!  And the bishop looks like this:  (It is okay, I wont bore you with the whole lot!!)

My eldest son and I play chess on occasion (should i say he regularly beats me, and i very rarely scrape up a surprise win).  I dont know if I would use these to actually play, although that is what they  are for.

As I sit here typing this I have found out that a little girl in our family has been rushed to hospital over night with severe diabetes (this is a new thing for her). My thoughts will be with her today, I hope she recovers and they can get her onto a plan to get it under control.
Have a good day everyone. I am off to plan a first communion dress with a friend's daughter so that should be good.

embroidery progress

I have the five little stitcheries from Jenny of Elefantz finally finished.  A friend lent me a pattern for four others that were the right size that i could add to it, as i was searching for quilt ideas.  So they are almost done. I bought some pretty material yesterday so have made a start at putting some blockes togther.  Here are most of the little stitcheries for you to see, and my first two blocks.  it will be a simple idea; just nine log cabin squares, sashed with something that I am yet to decide on and then hung on the wall.

I wasn't sure last night about my choice of fabric but this morning it seems to have come together (with some help from a friend; thanks!!!). Do you ever just want someone else to look at something with fresh eyes and give it an opinion?  I asked DH to look last night but his opinion was that none of the fabrics actually matched anyway!!
I think it should come together really nicely. Mind you, the first block was pulled out twice; once because i decided my strips were way too wide.  Now they should go together quickly.

Please excuse the photo quality; it is very dark and dreary here today so getting nice photos is difficult.

new purchases

I thought I would take advantage of Lincraft's 30% off sale this morning; as I had some vouchers from my birthday to spend. 
I would dearly have liked to buy a daylight floor lamp but they were a bit out of my price range today.  Luckily I had a list of other things I would like so this is what I bought:

Just bits and pieces but some I needed (the washout pens) and some I wanted (the rulers).I do have two quilting rulers but these are different sizes to what i have. I will point out though, and i am not sure if anyone else has come across these before (I hadn't) - the little square ruler has a diamond coated edge to help keep the rotary cutter sharp.  I had never seen these before and have no idea of how well they work so i only bought one from this range. They are more expensive, but hopefully it does what it claims.  I will let you know how it goes.

My other purchase yesterday was some wool from my new job.  I already had the variegated wool; I bought that a couple of months ago from there. but she only has a few balls left and has discounted them, so what a good excuse to buy some more, in a matching colour.  What will I do with it; who knows!  But at least now that I have it, I have options that open up before me LOL!!!

Isn't it pretty?  And it is so soft. 
I will have to be careful though; i have something that keeps getting inflammed in my hand and knitting is one of the worst things I can do to upset it. I will have to take it easy. So it will wait for a little while before i do anything with it.

My christening gown is coming along nicely; not much to do now.  I have ordered more lace from the States.  I should get on and finish it; especially as a good friend asked yesterday if I would make her daughter's first communion dress.  i am very happy to sew for her; i love sewing for her children.  Looks like the school holidays will be spent sorting out patterns and material.  But it would be nice to get this dress finished before I begin another project.

By the way, i have been binding two quilts for the shop; one is finished, that got done tonight. The other one will take a little longer; hopefully i can have it done during the week. A little bit done here and there should make it go quite fast.

last, and biggest, birthday present

My last present arrived on Wednesday. I have to tell you it was well worth the wait. so here it is... (and no it does not have a name)

Brand new; driven only by me (and the guy drove it off the truck). I am soooooo excited and just love it.  It is nice to have a car that is reliable as mine was not reliable at all and we were worried about what would go wrong next. As i do a lot of country driving, where there is no phone reception; breaking down was not a good option.
this is a bottom of the range model; so not too many bells and whistles; but i just want to be able to get from A to B.  The paint colour is just lovely; so pretty in the sunlight.


I think i may want to turn 40 every other year; wouldn't that be fun!!!!