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.