News just in: Sausage approves new bag!

William keeps eye on intruder on new bench!

I couldn't resist posting these pics of our cats - silly boys!!!! :)

I thought I was getting close to the 200 post mark and had to check to make sure. This is post 190 (as you can see!) and as a result of that my birthday giveaway is now going to be a bumper birthday/almost 200th post bonanza! I will give away one reasonably sized prize (not too big and not to small!) and 3 small prizes - come back Sunday to find out what they will be!

Today we went on an adventure - just a mini adventure. We did a trail run to Bloxham as J will be starting his new job on Monday and we wanted to work out the route that avoided Banbury town centre. We got there in plenty of time (we left at the time he'd have to leave to get there) and carried on to Bicester Village to buy me some Cath Kidston cut-price birthday gifts! I got a lovely new apron, big weekend/craft bag and a spotty flannel! Not long after we got back I heard our nosey postie trying to stuff what sounded like all the post in the world through the letter box. I ran to see what delights postie delivered and was pleased to see my shiny new fabric and a custom made keyring made by picciolo in one of my favourite colour combinations (the other is yellow and green). Here are some pics.

Keyring front, back and apron (don't i look silly in my big slippers!!!).

Fabric selection and bag.

I've also managed to squeeze in a little bit of sewing time and finished off a batch of ipod nano cases! Phew! I'm ready for a cuppa and a piece of cake now! Happy weekend everyone!!!!! :)

I really have a toadstool obsession - can it be healthy? Here is today's toadstool fix! Sewn cards!!!!

That's all the sewing I've done today and will be in my etsy shop by the time you read this! - we've had lovely weather so I've spent the afternoon out in the front garden planting the runner bean plants and sewing more carrot and beet seeds. Hopefully out of this sewing we'll get more than one carrot! It doesn't look very tidy in this photograph - the polythene sheet has been there a little while warming the ground up ready for lettuce...next on my list of things to sew!!! and the chard is now going to seed so is incredibly HUGE (last years planting). You can just see the lavenders next to the public path are starting to bush out quite nicely too :)

Since signing up for the Toadstool Swap I really have become obsessed with making all things toadstool! With the recent sales of my felt ipod nano cases as well, I've made a toadstool one and popped it into my shop! More Toadstool goodness to come later in the week! I've almost finished my toadstool for the swap - and wish Sarah, my swap partner, to get well soon as she has flu :(

Hello blog readers! I've not been up to a lot of crafting this week, so far(!). My parents came to visit yesterday and we had a visit to the National Motorcycle Museum to keep my Dad out of trouble! ;) and went for a nice pub tea to celebrate my impending birthday (thanks mum!) and a couple of games of scrabble when we got back! Today we sat and watched last nights apprentice while I sorted out my bag of felt scraps into colours....the weather here is rubbish so I need things to keep me out of trouble! HEHE!

These are prize WIPs ready for my birthday giveaway! Come back Sunday (1st June) for a chance to win something silly made by me! I'll pick a winner on the 7th (my birthday!).

AND! Our very nosey postman (he said 'I've never delivered knitting needles before!') knocked on the door today with a parcel....My lovely new 12mm wooden needles! Bought on Esty from Snokistfarmgirl, and some 2.5mm DP needles so now I have NO EXCUSES not to try knitting socks. I prefer using wooden needles as they are much smoother and don't make a squeaky metal sound. I couldn't find and reasonably priced 12mm ones in the shops or on eBay, Etsy was my saviour! YAY! Just look at the beautiful stamps on the tube as well- aren't they just gorgeous? I'm going to try and steam them off to keep. I used to collect stamps when I was a kid - but shhhhh....don't tell anyone :)

Yesterday was going to be a good day. I got up bright and early and got ready to leave the house as close to 9am as I could (9:10 once I'd flapped around checking doors and windows!) to drive down to Somerset to pick J up from his parents and spend the day there.....6 miles and 10 minutes later I was on the M42 stuck in traffic....There had been an accident and there was nothing for us all to do but sit in our cars in the pouring rain and wait....and wait...and wait.....This as how I spent 3 hours...

I'm now 2/3 of the way through this nice big chunky scarf! Today the rain has stopped but the wind is blowing the trees around like crazy! It's not really gardening weather! ;)

After yesterdays 4 hour trauma and trying to get back home without the map book that was on the dining room table(!), I thought I would treat myself to some pre-birthday goodies. Some fabric and lovely picciolo is making me a nice soft keyring in my favourite colours! YAY!

RANDOM UPDATE: As well as spending a lot of time sewing and knitting this weekend I've also spent a considerable amount of time on Etsy and Flickr discovering new shops to buy from and new crafty people and their blogs. Just now I've come across Feeling stitchy and found my bacteria brooch quite randomly! How wierd is that? It's a strange world out there......

Morning all! I couldn't resist posting a picture of this pincushion I made while watching euro-vision last night. This is a custom order for one of the girls I work with - she saw the other two wrist pincushions I've made and asked if I could make her a ladybird one....How's this?! :)

J has gone to his parents for a few days and I'm home alone looking after the cats! While I've been billy-no-mates I've been cracking on with the 21 items on my 'to-make' list (I also have a things to do around the house/garden list like usual in the school hols!). Today the cats got me up early, so rather than ignore them I got up, made a cuppa and got cracking on a few things before I popped into town.

6 wrist bands (in a very over exposed photograph!) for a batch of wrist pincushions for my Etsy shop and a taggie-a-like fleecy thing for baby Alice. We bought her an official squeaky taggie when she was born and she likes grabbing the ribbon tags so thought I'd have a go at making her one of the big ones as they are so expensive and I have loads of fleece and ribbon scraps lying around. This won't be a new line in the shop! It's a one off present as Franny and Peter (Alice's parents) are coming over for my birthday in 2 weeks.

I finished the first two of my weather felt art thingies. This one is going to get posted as a present for another friends baby (everyone I know seems to be either pregnant or just had a baby at the mo!). I embroidered a small piece on the back of each with my name, date made, title and edition number. Sunshine #1 is now available in the shop! Still lots more to do so I had better get on. Picking J up from his parents tomorrow so no craft time then. Oh, oh, oh!!! I also phoned up the lovely tax man and finally registered self employed (with one month to go!). The man was very nice and sorted it all out for me although there was a little confusion over my name....they still had my maiden name on record and my parents address even though we've been married almost 9 years and moved about a million times! LOL!

OMG! Since finding out Sarah is my swap partner in the toadstool swap I can't think of anything else other than making mushroom related items, and the worst thing is none of them are the swap toadstool! BUGGER! I was thinking of having a mushroom themed give-away for my birthday at the start of next month so I will try my best to keep it a surprise! In the mean time I've added a few more simple flower brooches to my Etsy shop and as I'm rubbish at secrets/surprises (ha! I managed to last a whole 5 seconds!) here is a mini glimpse of what I'm thinking of for part of my birthday give-away prize....(rubbish photo....sorry)

Franny: if you didn't read the reply to your comment....I'm on the case! BFN!

We had a lovely weekend of not doing very much! Saturday the weather was miserable so we took a trip into Solihull so I could mooch around the John Lewis haberdashery section for a while. I bought an organiser box and some plastic bobbiny things to organise my embroidery threads. I was VERY tempted by the lovely wool but have tonnes of at home for various projects I thought I might make one day(!). J bought us lunch in La Tasca and then we pottered around the house for the rest of the day. Sunday was gorgeous sunshine so we went on our mission to buy a bench for the garden and found a nice teak one, so snapped it up along with some purple slate to top up the garden path at the front. When I got home from work today I mowed the lawn so we could put the bench outside! It's lovely! And so was the view up through the ash tree.

Before the sky turned grey I managed to sit and have a cuppa and get a little bit of sewing done.

More Frances the Frog brooches and my embroidered 'signatures' for the back of my weather art - they will all make it into my etsy shop before the end of the month! OH! I got news of my toadstool swap partner today.....It's Sarah of paper-and-string fame! I'm a little nervous about making her something as I love all her happy trees and, well, pretty much everything she makes! AND I buy my felt from her! I had better get my thinking cap on!