August...ing

Making - fleecy PJ's for my girl even though it is August.

Selling - our house! Only showed round one person with it on the market for five weeks. We will be moving to our smallholding very soon.

De cluttering - every cupboard and drawer in the house. The dross, honestly. This is the contents of the pine kitchen dresser drawers.

Building - our carpets are now fitted at the new house. I laid all the underlay and gripper rods myself. The guy said I put a lot of carpet fitters to shame!

Admiring - this local garden. I walk past it every day with the dog and get to peep over the wall. It gets better and better: phlox, hollyhocks, verbascum, mallows and yarrow.

Watering - two neighbours gardens while they are away with permission to pick what we can eat.

Making - beetroot chutney with the above: beetroot, apples and onions.

Eating - down the freezers so we can move them whilst still continuously filling them with courgette soup!

Revamping - my grans Victorian cabinet with Orla Keily gift wrap and PVA glue.

Knitting - the boring grey bit of my alpaca sweater but it is so soft to handle. I probably manage about two rows a night of mindless but comforting knitting. There are always socks when the mood takes me.

Saving - a beautiful quality M&S T-shirt with a vintage doily I bought in France 4 years ago. I got a huge grease stain right in the middle of my top but I've covered it with this little beauty.

Celebrating - having a teenager in the house with this awesome red velvet cake made by her sister. It was a faff but totally worth it even with the ermine icing. She coloured it with beetroot powder and added freeze dried raspberries as a topping with rose petals and fresh raspberries in the layers. Just divine!

  

Feeling - a little bit overwhelmed.

Thanks for dropping by. Enjoy the sunshine. Jo xxx

Easing in

Another little sewing project to ease me back into sewing. I don't have many sewing minutes of late but I still feel the need to sew a little during the light evenings. I have a head full of ideas for the summer holidays but very little time.

As previously mentioned, I had a surprise fabric parcel which arrived on my back doorstep. This beautiful piece of viscose was in the bag and I knew it was enough for a vest style top as soon as I held it up and admired it. 

 

It took me while to find the right pattern. I looked at the free sorbetto top but didn't have enough ink to print it out; a free tunic pattern I had since lost from the GBSB first book and then I found this one in my pattern box: Newlook 6035. I thought I would give it a try.

Just in time for a warm weekend. 

Thank you once again Lady Melchett. I have saved a little piece for one more thing that is on my mind which I will show you soon.

Hope you having a lovely weekend. Jo xxx

Saw it, Stole it, Made it.

The fabric shelf in my cupboard is looking a bit full of scraps, I don't mind this per se but I like to keep small pieces of fabric moving rather than festering. There are some nice larger pieces in there but they are being creatively obscured by the choppy bits. 

In order to get to the bigger stuff I decided to make a top I had been inspired to make by SoZo. I have not used up quite so many pieces as her version but it put me in mind of two fabrics that I knew would go together really well from my own cupboard.

The navy needle cord was from my friend in what I shall now refer to as the 'lockdown bag'! It wasn't quite enough for a skirt but it had a little stretch in it so it was suitable for a top.

My all time favourite pattern is the Scout Tee by Grainline Studio. If you do not have this pattern, I highly recommend you invest in it. It is not cheap but it pays you back over and over especially if you are a jeans-wearing-kind-of-woman. It is easy to make, uses very little fabric and can be customised in so many different ways. 

(It makes a rather comfortable PJ top too)

The final piece in the puzzle was a bit of viscose which I really like. I made this sleeveless top from it which I wear a lot with a red cardigan so I thought I would make the most of the last piece.

This is one comfortable top which had to go straight on my back the moment I finished it. A very happy sewer indeed. 

Do you have this pattern? Jo xxxx

ps. Thanks for the cord Lady Melchett x

Pretending to be on Holiday

I haven't posted in a while eh? We were supposed to be on holiday in Switzerland this last week but it was cancelled like many people's holidays. Instead we had a pretend holiday at the farm. Highlights include:

Some sock knitting by the fire. These are simply to use up some Drops Fabel so they are a little off the wall but still an enjoyable knit.

The children actually packed a suitcase to travel 8 miles in a bid to pretend we were really going on holiday! They slept in a tent in the field to add to the excitement.

They made sandcastles in some building sand.

We went on a much needed two hour walk one evening in the warm weather.

There was some light shopping in Church Stretton to buy cakes and books from a quaint book shop.

They played in a nearby stream which they absolutely loved.

Andy and I really knocked a hole in our snagging list on the house build. Some of the carpets were laid along with adding curtains, lampshades and some furniture. Hot water is so close I can smell it.

Meg asks on a weekly basis when we will put her new bed together so now that her carpet is down we all got stuck in.

I gave the house a really good clean up now that the dusty carpentry work is finished then in the end no one wanted to go back to our actual home! 

So we had a holiday of sorts. A break from work, the normal things that bug us and a proper change of view.

I just about managed to crawl over the end of term finish line last week where I have been working full time for a while during lockdown. It has made me realise why I don't do it anymore. I love teaching children but not all the other dross that seems to go with it. I am happy to work part time and enjoy family and friends as part of a balanced life.

Time for some sewing I think. I haven't been near the machine for over four weeks so I am getting tetchy.

I'm off to catch up on all of your news now. 

Thanks for dropping in. Jo xx

July...ing

Knitting - A new sweater in aplpaca with colours and stitches to follow at the same time.

Starting - another pair of simple socks for when the sweater gets too difficult or 'sweary'. It will be a stash pair using up some Drops Fabel.

Sewing - up a quick pair of shorts for my little girl. 

Ordering - take out cream tea from a local cafe and eating it in the park. We chose lemon curd because we love it.

Preparing - a salad box to take to the park picnic. My girls have taken to me cutting up a range of stuff on the chopping board and building their own salad.

Laughing - at their cooling down technique after a long dog walk.

Finishing - a lockdown cardigan but I wasn't keen in the end so I have gifted it to my mum who likes it.

Collecting - all of my green fat quarters and fabric scraps in preparation for cutting another quilt.

Repairing - some more holes in my jeans. They will one day become a piece of artwork!

Gardening - This is a momentous occasion: Day 1 of our new house garden.

Admiring - some summer flowering beauties in our current garden. These campanula are regarded by many as weeds, but I like them.

Dodging - the showers outside in the new house field.

Getting - to visit grandparents at their house. The girls made these sticky pictures in their garden. It is a good way to learn some gardening knowledge.

Eating - a full range of tray bake dinners while I am at work full time. This one was particularly good. A Coq au Vin tray bake with red wine.

Building - Young one and I fitted all of the gripper rods and underlay to the upstairs.

Learning - Meg had some great area and perimeter home learning that day.

Missing - our holiday to Switzerland :( We had to make a decision over a month ago and we decided to take the refund we were offered.

Feeling - ready to stop home learning and just enjoy ourselves. The girls have not missed a day since March. Big Sis received a gold award with a prize for sending her work in daily and young one is so self motivated to do her work properly on every task... but we are all ready for it to stop for a while.

One week of work to go until the six week break.....

How is your July so far? Jo xxxx

All done #30 Hand Dyed Cotton

My all done posts showcase how I try to use every last scrap of yarn, fabric or craft material. This is my 30th post! I love the satisfaction of using something up to the very end. Today, I have finished 12 skeins of Araucania hand dyed aran cotton by making a cushion cover for our new house.

The chevron pattern is actually a blanket pattern I have in a book, but I simply made one long rectangle and folded it over a cushion pad. The shell buttons fit perfectly through the chain spacer stitches on the chevron pattern.

Previous makes from this yarn are a wonderful scarf I gifted to a friend for her birthday using a pattern that is sadly no longer available. :(

I also made a jumper called the Skiddaw which I loved for the first 6 months and then it got bigger and bigger and bigger until I gifted it to another friend. 

The yarn was from the Black Sheep Wool company which was at a big craft show years ago. I saw this yarn all bagged up reduced from £99 £49 £29 to £10. I snapped it up; it has been very kind to me. 

Time to rummage around in the yarn basket to find some more lovely yarn to work with through to the very end. 

Two more weeks of school left to go.

Thanks for dropping by. Love from Jo xx