'Tis been a while

My summer has been hectic!

We have been building our extension, which is coming along nicely.

There is still loads to do. I am personally not looking forward to sorting out the garden, as you can see it's, - well like a building site.

I have been trying to get myself organised in preparation for my PGCE year! I have been thrifty with my wardrobe...

  

These two shirts became one...

I also was busy crocheting some fingerless gloves and an infinity scarf which I will show you later as I haven't got any photos yet. I did find some bargains in the sales and in charity shops. Just need some shoes now.

We redecorated the boy's room. He wanted black and my heart groaned but it's not that bad...

I also made a purse from felt, an art journal from an idea by JenniBellie, (look her up on youtube), a jewellery holder and I finished my fire surround! 

  

I have also read a whole bunch of children's books, sorted out my folders and stationery and got the house in order by cooking and filling the freezer, throwing away the junk and donating all our unwanted goods via freecycle or the charity shops. So now I feel like I am ready for the new academic year: the university, the schools and the teachers and students! Bring it on!

Things around here may change a little as my creative pursuits will undoubtedly take a back seat while my mind will be filled with everything teaching orientated. I still hope to have some creative output but more often than not, it will be in a classroom. I hope that I will have the time, energy and desire to share what I learn, the mistakes I make and the trials and tribulations that I will endure with you, if not i will see you in nine months time! This week I start Uni and next week I am in a school placement which I have already sampled and am really looking forward to.

If it goes well, I shall report back smiling.

See you soon! Wish me luck!

My summer fashion challenge!

I desperately need a new wardrobe for my new challenge beginning in September!

However, I don't have a lot of money to throw at a shopping spree, so I have challenged myself to take a hard look at what I do have, and what I can add to. I have decided to challenge myself to spend only £30 on clothes and I really hope to have a brand new wardrobe that is truly unique and wholly mine! 

I have a week set aside in these holidays for sewing and making, so I need to get scouring for some cheap charity finds and some bargain fabric to perhaps make some clothes! I am excited but also scared as I do really need to look smart ish and professional. Wish me luck on my endeavour and I hope to share all my highs and lows of this challenge. I really hope I can pull it off!

My Eeeek- cited post of all things imaginary!

       

I have been super busy putting together a few things for the children in my school. At the end of this term I will be finishing, and as sad as I am to go, I am also excited because I will be embarking on my loooong awaited position to train as a primary school teacher! This school is one that I started at as a volunteer and slowly I managed to secure a temporary position then a full time position as a teaching assistant and lunch time supervisor, whilst I was studying for my degree.  The children are such a delight, each and everyone of them! Sure, there are a few that you pull your hair out over, but on the whole they are real super stars! I wanted to leave a little something for all of them, maybe so they wouldn't forget me, but mostly because I wanted them to have some real creative fun at play times and lunch times. So I put my thinking cap on, talked with some of the other lunch time supervisors and decided on two avenues. The first one was to supply some chalk boards so that some children could quietly engage with some creative drawing, rather than charging around the play ground knocking each other over. The other one was to put together a dressing up box to really kick start their imaginations. Some do play with skipping ropes, pretending they are horses and such like but now they can adorn a cloak and be Little Red Riding Hood, or become a super hero with a cape and mask. 

I have trawled through charity shops, bought netting for the tutu's and raided my own children's  wardrobes for inspiration. I have spent hours pinning, I know, I know it is such a drag, but I had to do it:) to find patterns and thrifty ideas. I also spent hours literally pinning which was a drag! Please feel free to have a look at some of my boards to see where some of my ideas came from...  http://pinterest.com/frostmidnight/

 

In the end we made three double sided A frame boards, which for some reason I didn't think to 

photograph before I delivered them to school. Hopefully tomorrow, I will deliver the range of dressing up 

goodies, ready for play time!

Till the next time, 

A day in Hay...

What a day we had in Hay,yesterday! I can now scratch off one of my lifetime goals. I had the pleasure of meeting one of my favourite authors, Patrick Ness! He was as charming and delightful as I was expecting him to be! His talk was very entertaining and engaging, it was so lovely to see so many young people asking him such thoughtful questions about his work. He also read a snippet of his upcoming book and oh my, he is a master of hooking the reader on the first page! I personally can't wait for September.

I grabbed the opportunity to meet him and have him sign my two first edition books. Here are the photos my daughter took. I can only apologise for the facial expression! What a lovely day we had in Hay! Thank-you, Mr Ness!

Books, books update!

Well, April was spent in the fascinating world of Bryson's 'Home'. He really did have me captivated on the first page with his little anecdotes of strange facts. I love the Victorian era and a lot of this book tells you about the style of living during this time, which I really did find fascinating, some of which overlapped my literature knowledge of this time, too!

May brought me the delicious opportunity to delve into the extraordinary book, 'The Crane Wife', by Patrick Ness. I am nearly, nearly finished and as usual with Ness, I am trying not to rush it but to savour the escapist experience whilst all the while steeling myself for the emotional impact he is going to throw at me! I am very excited as I have persuaded my family to take a trip to Hay again this year, where a certain Mr Ness will also be! I can't wait......

Here is a little peek what is on my bedside table, oh what to read next?

May update!

Well it has been a while, doesn't time fly by, not necessarily when we are just having fun either. We have busy on lots of fronts but mostly getting started on our house renovations! We now have the long awaited for, 'go-ahead' on our planning permission. So we have been putting some plans in place. We have a rather ugly oil tank in our garden which we are keen to get rid of, but of course this year, summer is late and we can't risk running down all the oil without any source of heating. Who would have thought we need heating in nearly June? So, we have installed a wood burner to get us through the summer(?)

We picked up a tatty surround from a local reclamation yard, which I am in the process of stripping, and is very time consuming. Hopefully by the end of the half term week it should be finished! I am not entirely decided what to do with it, but at the moment I have an idea involving wall paper.

I have a few days set aside for sewing, which I will elaborate on at a later date....

Another sewing project

Despite the busy weekend: a house full of excitable young teenage boys pumped up to see Iron man 3 and overdosed on sugar, you get my drift!
I did manage to assemble my prototype from another fellow blogger, a very talented seamstress, Ayumi's tutorial which is here, http://ayumills.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/tutorial-lunch-bag.html
As always I made some mistakes and misread the instructions but my scrap bag didn't turn out too bad. In fact I will be using this one which I call my scrap bag because I made it out do some off cuts from the baby quilt, until I make the real one. I would like to use some oilcloth for the lining in case of spills. I tried to insert some panels with a zip rather than the drawstring bag in the pattern, but this will need some tinkering with! Overall, I am a happy lady!
Thanks to Ayumi's for a fabulous tutorial!

Finished! A baby quilt!

My little baby quilt project has been a real delight to work on! I have practised so many quilting skills and I finally feel a little more confident with my quilting. It is far from perfect but to be honest how boring to have everything even, neat and mistake free! Nah, I really wish I could be mistake free but like I keep telling my children, "Practise makes perfect!" So I will keep on practising, as my binding definitely needs it!

I really enjoyed the free motion quilting and want to do some more intricate patterns but I will have to practise like mad before I would feel happy to share! Overall, I am happy with the finished article, and I hope my friend likes it too! Maybe I will get back to the real world as the washing won't wash itself and the kitchen doesn't cook food all by itself either!

Till the next time and the next project...

Progress made today

I did feel a little bereft that my big project came to an end and by being completely inspired by the fabulous BBC Program, The Great British Sewing Bee, I decided to try my hand at free motion quilting. I have a work colleague that is currently on maternity leave and I wanted to make her a little something for her baby. So, whilst out galavanting buying books etc, I also bought a tiny charm pack which I was delighted to discover was by a very inspirational blogger I have been following for a couple of years now. Aneela from Comfortstitching is a very talented lady and I thought her posy charm pack would go delightfully with some of my stash fabric. I have spent very little time planning, instead I just dived in and started stitching the squares together before adding in some of my fabric. I initially wanted to have the whole quilt with little squares but soon discovered that the Posy squares wouldn't stretch as far as I wanted. So the design became a Nine patch style, which I really like. So tomorrow I am planning to sew the borders and am thinking about putting in a little bit of piping but who knows what I will decide tomorrow.... I am also hoping to successfully manage to free motion quilt the whole thing, ah fingers crossed for me please. Till the next time,

VOILA! Time to reveal my new sofa!

Not that it will be much of a surprise but hey ho! Here it is in all it's finished glory! I am pleased as it turned out much better that I expected, but more over budget than I wanted! I think all in all this big project cost me about £60, but that includes quite a bit of fabric that I have left over to make other things perhaps! Not bad when we were looking at a grand plus for a new one!

So, now I have my sofa, off I go to get my book, no distractions thank-you very much!

See you again, I hope!

Book shopping and a big project update!

Eeeeeeeee, I am quite excited today as I have bought a new book and a used one for my collection!
I try to curb my book collecting addiction but when it comes to my favourite author, a Mr Patrick Ness, I just can't resist! I read the first chapter of his new adult book a couple of weeks ago and have watched his various TV interviews and decided on a whim, to purchase it.

The Crane Wife looks like an intriguing read and I can't wait to dive into the story written for adults. I also picked up a copy of Bill Bryson's 'Shakespeare' in a charity shop (less guilt there!) as I have been really enjoying his book, Home!

Unfortunately, I wish I had the time to lounge on the sofa, (mmmmm,) to read! I have two more cushion covers to make before I can do that! They are coming along, albeit slowly. I can't wait for it to be finished, but I do have another little quilting project in the pipeline. Today was a good day, even if it was a bit of an unexpected spend day!

Off to do some sewing,

Half way there!

I have finally finished the three back cushion covers! Only three more to do! I am getting the hang of it I think! I am particularly pleased with my pipping and zips which I haven't really done before! I can't wait to have it all finished now! I may pull in some extra help this weekend! I have the hard job of cutting foam to fit the cushions.

WIP Wednesday

Finally the spring sunshine has arrived in my little patch of the world! I really hope we don't slip back into winter again! I have had enough of grey days with icy winds and sub zero temperatures, thank-you very much!

I have re-started a blanket for our bed but I am not 100% sure about it! The pattern is a lovely bobble blanket and it works up so well. But I am having some trouble keeping it straight, not sure if it will still be in a rainbow shape when I am finished! And, I am not sure if I have enough yarn to finish it as long as I want it! I am still on the look out for an alternative, just in case!

I have also re-started my Big Project! I have cut out my second back cushion and hopefully today I will finish it!

Till the next time

Catching up on a Sunday.

My Sealed Pot This week I have managed to squirrel away about £30 in my sealed pot - oooh I so hope we get enough money for our Iceland trip. Since making my sealed pot I have a few other pots which are not sealed for putting in our coppers and some small silver for parking fees in the summer which always seem to quadruple when the sun shines. (I know that is wishful thinking: Summer) My Book Last night I finished the journey that has had me in its grip for a few weeks now. It was such an enjoyable read and I wished I had read it sooner rather than leaving it for so many years. I know that I am a bit behind the hype and criticism of this book, so bear with me if you have been there and done it already! What really struck me about this book was the cleverness of the way in which it was written and presented to the reader. I haven't read a book with such a cyclical structure before and I felt that it worked spectacularly well. It contains in essence six stories all connected by the books overall theme but are also linked in some very imaginative ways which begins in the early 19th century and move on to various eras and follow different characters including the two set in our future. All the stories are abandoned in order to hop into the future and follow a different story until we reach the sixth story which is the furtherest in the future and then we move back through the ages in chronological order and revisit all the stories to see the conclusions until we end with the first story we visited at the beginning. For me, this book really did make me stop and think about how we live our lives and the impact our decisions will make to our Earth in the future. I really don't like giving any type of spoilers away when reviewing a book, because I don't want to ruin anyone's enjoyment of reading what will become their story. All I can say is if you like books that don't conform to what some may perceive as storytelling rules, then dive in and enjoy this book. It is so different from anything I have ever read before and I can't wait to see the film, just to compare visual images really and whether the big message I got from this is conveyed in the film too. Because we need a wake up call! I am now in that lonely place of not having an escape at hand, so I am looking for my next book to get lost in.... I have a few projects to finish, namely the sofa and a few others I'd like to re-start, namely the big chunky blanket for my bed. I'd better get on with it... Till the next time xxx

Some time away, but I have returned!

I just had to take a breather as things got a little hectic for a while there but I am back and refreshed!

We had a wonderful time at our big wedding. My brother finally got his act together! My little darlings looked absolutely gorgeous. They both did me very proud on that day as they both fulfilled their duties wonderfully!

I am currently half way through a fabulous book that has been on my To Read Pile, for years! It is a very clever and absorbing book that has many stories weaved together! I can not wait to see the movie of this one! Normally I am not one to watch a story, I much prefer to read but for once this one intrigues me enough to want to see someone else's interpretation! I will wait until I have finished it to give a full review, perhaps with a cinematic critique too!

Till next time!

Thankyou!

Just a very quick post to say thank- you to all the lovely people out there who visited me and left a comment! I have had a rather busy weekend which I will elaborate on at a later date, but came home to a rather wonderful surprise as SFT had featured me on her sealed pot Sunday post! Thanks SFT, I felt honoured!
I will update very soon but for now I am trying to catch up on all those rather tedious jobs I normally get through on the weekend.....

See you soon.

March goals

In a near desperate attempt to keep focused and stay on track with some of our bigger goals for this year, I have decided to share them here on this blog. My thinking is that as I am blogging more regularly I can't get too distracted and forget about them if they are listed and progress is charted here. Well, that's the plan anyway, we will see whether that works!

I find that I have a regular pattern of making a list of things I would like to achieve, normally in January or September, ( to coincide with the school year) but six months later, I have more often than not forgotten about them and get quite frustrated when the next six months roll around because I haven't achieved any of them! So if I cut down on the number of goals and just focus on the most pressing and important ones, hopefully I can break the cycle of discontent!

Right, on to the important business. This year as we have an expensive building project taking place which we will have to borrow more money to do. I'd really like to make a big dent in a £8000 loan we currently have outstanding so I would like to reduce our loan by £2000. We are also trying to save as much money as possible to make up for the loss of my income for next year. But I don't want us to go without any luxuries either, I would like us to pursue the Lakes and Iceland this year as well as a few camping trips in the summer. I think we are going to need some relaxation time too, with all the work going on! That's the financial stuff, more of the other stuff next time!

Till then,

Sweet sixteen!

Today, whilst out walking, I heard the delightful sounds of spring, saw the colours of the daffodils bursting through and felt that tremor of excitement that finally winter is subsiding and warmer climes are on the horizon!
Today, sixteen fun filled years ago, I married the boy from down the road! Who would have believed that those years would pass so quickly? Certainly not me, and I imagine that the next sixteen will pass in much the same fashion! How scary? I asked myself what have we achieved in those years apart from the children? Do you know it was a scary thought! Of course I had big plans for our family but when I thought about how many of them we achieved it was minimal! So, I figured something needs to change: we need to focus more on what we want out of our life, we need GOALS and we need to feel that they are achievable, none of that pie in the sky stuff, that I initially intended with no action to back it up!

So, a chat is in order!

That Friday feeling!

Which is not like the Crunchie advert: I'm so excited, instead it's more like I am so tired! It's been a long week, I am feeling like I want to hibernate! It is freezing with the wind chill, and all I keep thinking of is my warm bed and my book! But no! Children need ferrying here there everywhere and most demanding of all, they need feeding!

I am planning on a Chilli con Carne with tacos and rice for tonight which will warm me up just nicely! Then I can think of bed....