Eye Spy... Shoes

Did you know Bug and Pop does eye spy and this week it is shoes? I thought I would join in with this one and show and tell you my two favourite pairs. I'm a little late (it starts on Sunday), but better late than never.

First off, the pair I bought to get married in... I obviously LOVE them and they are also surprisingly comfy. From Celine. You can't see from this picture, but they have a very lovely square toe.



And, my most worn pair... my Raw Terrain boots from here. This is my second pair of these. I wear them all winter.... 98% of the time. I walk in them, I hang out in them, they are cosy, they are waterproof, you can drive in them, they only cost £35... and last year, before we had carpets, I even wore them like slippers in the house.

I have just washed all the mud off them from Wales.

Ahh.... Shoes.

And... I did some sewing! I miracle! Very boring but functional sewing. Here we have an inadequate box for a spare airbed and pump...


And here we have an ample and lovely bag for bed and pump, and even a small pocket for the puncture repair kit!! I was very very excited about doing this yesterday... small pleasures!

Good wholesome October times

Looking back over the past couple of weeks at the photos I have taken has made me realise that although it feels like a bit of an uphill struggle at the moment, there have been some really wonderful moments and all of it so, so autumnal.



We were lucky enough to be invited to stay in a beautiful house with friends in mid Wales, we paddled in streams, walked up mountains and got looked at by sheep.

We've been walking back in our very own Mendips too, finding bear caves, woody streams and rich brown bracken topped moorland.

I'm also being charmed all over again by our pretty little City. How many people have to walk past a moat in order to get to the swings?

And who cannot get excited about carving up a spotty pumpkin... the gnarliest we could find, and the instructions were to make a happy pumpkin... no scary pumpkins in our house this year.

I've even being doing a (very little) bit of crafting. I'm knitting a vest, and love love loving the autumnal colours in my yarn.

So, uphill it may be at the moment, but we sure are having some nice times too.

Is there anything else to do with sloes?

Take one small small boy, and a big bowl of sloes...


...have small boy wash sloes...


...then have him prick a few...



...get bored, and do some drawing while you do the rest...



...then have small boy plop pricked sloes into bottle of gin (trying to avoid alcoholic inhalation where possible)...



...add sugar, and put in a place where you will remember to shake them daily for a while...


Now, wait a while!

Recipe from here.

Stitches...

It's all one big WHOOOSH at the moment. I am busy at work, and busy at home (but aren't we all?) and I've been busy with a little sewing related business plan up my sleeve. And so the blog has slipped again.

As I write this I realise that I've missed it. I like to blog, I do it for me. I like to see the things I have been making and thinking about posted all nice and tidy. It's very satisfying, in the same way that crossing things off a list is. I feel a sense of achievement. And as I collect together some pictures for this post I feel that same happiness.

And what have I been up to? I have clearly been teaching myself a bit of embroidery. I had not done any until recently and I am finding it very pleasing. First a little bit of study from a book (this old faithful).

And then a bit of fun to embellish the bag that I made to contain the HUNDREDS of biscuit cutters that we had in a horrid plastic tub. As you can see the bag is already mucky from kitchen fun.

Then some initials on a bag for my sisters birthday (now holding pencils for school, I've been told). And the current project can be seen in the top picture... lavender bags. I was the lucky recipient of a friends harvest and after a couple of nights of hand threshing (!) in front of the telly I have a nice lot of lavender to make some smelly Christmas gifts.

I could get used to this stitching lark.

Nanna

I went to my local wool shop for something completely different yesterday. I am in there quite a lot as there is no sewing/ haberdashers in my little city, and the wool shop is your best bet.


Whilst I was having a rummage, for it is the sort of shop that warrants a rummage, I found an embroidery thread box. Now, I have been hankering after one of these for a while and at £3.95 I was sold.

I have started doing a little embroidery, so this was very timely. My post, however, is not about this learning curve, but about my Nanna.

My Nanna was a very special lady. She died a few days before Mil was born, two and a half years ago. A few weeks after this, her descendants gathered at her Yorkshire home with the sad but necessary task of re homing what we could. One of the things I took away with me was a small sewing chest with all sorts in it.

And, in that chest was a book of embroidery threads. An old guide called 'Canada Today' published in 1954 by the Bank of Montreal. The pages had been used to keep her threads organised. All the colours ordered with 'palest', 'middle' and 'deep' tones marked out on separate pages with the colour codes recorded.


I took this book apart today and put all those lovingly ordered and referenced threads onto my brand spanking new spools, and felt like I was losing a small piece of social and family history. But I think my Nanna would have been impressed with how it all came together.

I won't forget, so there is no reason to hold on. Only reason to move forward. Yes?

Excited about needlepoint

I have been a bit absent of late up here. I have actually been doing a fair bit of crafting, but not got around to posting any of it. I will do, but I need to get this post out of my hair first.



A couple of weeks ago now (gosh time flies!) Attic 24 wrote a post that rang some little bells far away in the depths of my brain. This post was about the possibility of getting excited about needlepoint. And the cushion that she has to demonstrate the excitement is right up my street.

Before I started getting excited about sewing and knitting, I got excited for a while about needlepoint. Mainly due to one book found in a charity shop, and then another. I was living in London at the time and the repeats reminded me of the deliciousness of British Rail and London Underground upholstery fabric... surely I am not the only one?

To go off on a slight tangent here, I just did a search online to see if I could find any lovely examples of the deliciousness of London Underground Upholstery fabric, and drew a blank, but I did find a competition on at the moment to design a fabric of your very own for this purpose. You can apply through this link at Transport for London. Entries close 14/09/09. What an odd coincidence. Perhaps we have a challenge?!

Anyway, back to point. Here are the nice books, they are both currently available through Abe books:

The New World of Needlepoint by Lisbeth Perrone, ISBN 0 00 411824 3

And Trianglepoint by Sherlee Lantz, ISBN 0 670 73030 0

Such yummy patterns.

Marmalade Kiss Sews Curvy

Just a quick one to let you know about a new online shop.

Do you all know the lovely Julia at Marmalade Kiss? Well, a week ago she started up Sew Curvy Corsetry where you can purchase fab corset kits and benefit from all her corset talent, knowledge and enthusiasm.

Go go gadget corset! How cool is that!