blackberries and cookies

http://www.flickr.com/photos/markhillary/

We went picking blackberries today, yum... A friend of mine, Kate, recently bought a new house, on a bit of land, which happens to be covered in brambles! They've made jam already, and today, when Emm and I dropped in to bring cookies and borrow some maternity clothes, we decided to pick some more! Her two boys, and my little one, of course picked all the berries straight into their mouths, thoroughly destroying their clothes and covering their faces! Such a pity I didn't have my camera with me, it all looked so idyllic, Emm hasn't had the freedom to just roam around such a big area since we were at my parents'! The sun was on our backs and when we had enough berries, we picked a few cooking and eating apples to go with them. Kat's youngest started to get tired and cranky, so we headed back to the house to put him to bed, and I cooked the rest of us some sausage sandwiches.

When we got home Emm happily went to sleep, and I checked my mobile to discover to my embarassement that I'd totally forgotten about the window cleaner, for whom I was going to be home hours ago! He did my windows anyways, accidentally setting off the alarm, which called my mobile (unanswered in my handbag in the car), then P's mobile, who thankfully managed to switch it off remotely and then sent a neighbour around to check... How embarassing! I spent the rest of Emm's nap making phonecalls apologising to people, and the rest of the cookies went to support that cause...

Tomorrow will most likely be spent making something with the blackberries, maybe blackberry and apple jam? and something else with the last of the plums from our tree, i'm thinking german pflaumenkuchen! And I'll have to get the rooms ready for my mum and my aunt, there's some more tidying and bedmaking to do. And I'll have to try and spot and fix all the little things that i generally don't notice, like spiderwebs in the corners, the ironing basket, and dust behind the TV!

home alone!

P took Emm with him to his parents in the Midlands and I am home alone! For the first time since she was born, which is over nineteen months! I was worried sick about the two of them on the road for 2 hours, even though P is a very careful driver. But they arrived safe and sound and I'm a lot calmer now. I was craving a weekend of doing nothing, but i couldn't help but sweep and mop, and tidy away the laundry and put on some more, and to mow and fertilise the lawn.

Then I cycled to the veg shop, yes, cycled, just got on my bike and went, no buggy, no wrestling with car seats and keys, and mainly, no toddler to lift and carry! So easy!

So far I'm really enjoying my little holiday, it's strange to have the house to myself, to do what I want, with no demands on me. I even had crisps with my ham sandwich for lunch, I never do that when Emm's around as it would be setting a bad example for her.

I'd say it'll be very lonely tonight, but for now I'm happy as a piggy in sh*t, especially as the house isn't a pig sty! Usually the first thing Emm does in the morning, is to get at least half of all her toys out and spread them out all over the house. Later she'll insist on eating her snack at her own little table and as soon as I look away she'll be sneaking out and I'll find banana squashed into the sofa, and she'll carry in compost and grass from the garden... but today I'll only have to clean up after myself!

Some of the things I might do over my quiet weekend is to...

  go for a swim, the tide should be in soon
  start the next sookie stackhouse  novel
  eat lots of fresh strawberries with greek yoghurt
  sleep in for as long as I like
  shower for as long as I like
  paint my toenails
  surf the web uninterrupted
  have a mid day nap

But by this time tomorrow I think I'll be waiting at the door for my husband and daughter to arrive back!

busy busy

we've been keeping busy here, no crafting to speak of, but visitors from germany, childminding, visits to P's parents and lots of cooking and baking.

today we've got a trip to ikea planned, to look at the bjursta table and the tobias chair, and to get an antilop (for little visitors, and to bring down with us when we visit p's parents (we usually go on a sunday when the house is quite full, and there's always a short supply of chairs, so bringing the handysitt is not an option))

oh, i just saw the new chair by handysitt! http://www.minui.com/Products---UK-190.aspx?ProductID=PROD16&VariantID= together with the seat (that we already have) it makes a high chair, or it can be used on its own! http://www.minui.com/Products---UK-190.aspx?ProductID=PROD14&VariantID=

if we go for the ikea chairs, it'll be quite a shift towards the modern from our relatively traditional current dining furniture. the table isn't ideal, i much prefer solid wood to veneer, and i prefer slightly tapered legs, but we're looking for a smaller table that we can extend, only when needed, as the dining area is so small and emm loves to drive her little car and hopefully soon she'll be walking and running, too! we don't want to spend too much money, as in a few years we hopefully will be able to extend out the back and make a dining room there.

before and after pictures (the attic conversion)

hall


guest room

attic

armchair cover

here we are, the armchair cover, finally finished! it's not great though... i made lots of mistakes, and i'm not that happy with the fabric, maybe the print is a little too big, really... it's a nice splash of colour though!

a new room!!!

wo-hoo! the builders are gone and we are left with this new room, and lots of storage, and a lot of walls and ceilings and woodwork to paint! (and still a lot of dust, i've started to get rid of it, but it's literally on every surface and with a teething baby clinging to me it's not an easy job!) am thrilled, hoping we'll get two desks in there, one for p's computer, one for my sewing machine, and a sofa bed, eventually, or a futon that can be made into a seat. or maybe just an armchair, and keep space for a blow up bed? we'll see. as we'll be pretty broke once we've paid the builder it might be a while before we get it all kitted out...

dust dust dust...

my whole house is covered in dust! but on the upside, the attic is nearly finished! there's plastered walls and ceilings, there's stairs, and doors and cubby holes! there are still a lot of bits to be done, the devil's in the detail, but it's great to see it progressing. i'm truly sick of tasting plaster dust. or saw dust. or glass wool when i'm stepping into the hall! can't wait for it all to be finished...

then i can move all the boxes out of the living room, and start thinking about moving books, and the sewing machine and the computer! i'll have a less cluttered downstairs (hopefully it'll last for a little while!) and i might be able to host one of the mother and baby coffee mornings (so far i haven't dared, as there's too much too break, and too many dangerous things stuffed into bags and boxes in the corners and behind the couch).

i used to not mind having a small house (1000sqft or 93sqm, i think), but since Emm came along it seems to have shrunk! the study was made into her room, so all the things happening and being stored in there have been moved downstairs. then there's all of M's toys, the buggy, the play pen, the bobby car... we'll be banning our grown up stuff to the attic, computer games and sewing sessions will take place there, and a whole lot of stuff can go up. oh, and ideally there will still be space for a guest bed!! because little Emm is nearly a year old and there will be guests for her birthday party!

a weekend of activity

this weekend we cleaned up the garden and the shed, and then proceeded to clear our attic (a lot of it is now in the shed, which of course you can't see in the photo! i cleverly took that before we started moving in junk from the attic). together with our neighbours we hired a skip, and it's fairly packed now! we came across loads of giant spiders, oil for a motorbike (we've never owned one!), broken garden tools, a shed door, pieces of carpet from 4 years ago... the things you hold onto... the attic especially was scary, it's where things get thrown and then forgotten... out of sight out of mind. i labeled almost every box and crate that went back into the shed, hoping we'll have more of an idea of what's there.

now i've got to clear the guest room, so we can begin the next adventure: the attic conversion! i'm so excited. we'd gotten quotes for it a few years ago, but prices then were mad, and we had nowhere near enough saved up. but we contacted lots of builders again this summer, and prices have come down! it's going to be an inconvenient 3-4 weeks, emm and i will be out of the house as much as we can, but i'm hoping it'll be worth it. i went to see some attics in the same type house as ours, we'll lose some space from the guest room, but we'll gain a decent extra room, and storage. since emm's arrival we've had no study, and we have to keep the guest room for our parents and relatives, so the computer, the sewing machine and lots of other things are cluttering up our downstairs space, making it difficult, and maybe also unsafe, for emm to crawl around. she seems to be able to reach new heights every day! i feel like i'm constantly moving things out of her reach! eventually the guest room will be in the attic, well, if we brave the adventure of trying for a second baby!

i've got plans

involving this:


and this:


and this fabric (the second one!)

P sanded this chair down, years ago, and I unpicked the cushions and was going to try my hand at upholstery, but the cost of proper upholstery fabric and the chance that it mightn't work out has kept me from it so far. But now, that ikea is here, i got some fabric at 6€ per meter, so even if it doesn't work out, it won't be a tragedy. We sold one of our big chunky brown leather armchairs today, and this fireside chair will replace it, and give us a bit more room in the guest room. We have another one to match it, but it's not sanded yet.

The living room was just getting too crowded, with a 3 seater couch, and two big armchairs. We also have a buffet and hutch, a tv cabinet, a couch table, two little book shelves (to be replaced with one big book shelve and a tiny desk or bureau, at some time in the future), a play pen and a play mat, plus assorted baskets (for magazines, firewood etc). Oh and the ironing board is hidden behind the buffet and hutch. That'll have to change when M starts to crawl!

It feels good to have gotten rid of that armchair, we never really used it anyways! The space and light we gained is worth it. I'm trying to evaluate my possessions at the moment, what do I really like, what do I hang on to for the wrong reasons... Hanging on to an armchair just because it's part of a set and because we might use it some time in the future - wrong reasons!

When I got the call after putting it up on gumtree and emailing with a buyer, I was at first a little worried, I'd thought it was a girl looking to buy it, but it was a guy! I called my neighbour and asked her to come over with her little girls, so I wasn't alone in the house. Better safe than sorry! Of course the guys turned out to be lovely, and one of them brought his little daughter along, who went out with my neighbour's daughter to look at our ducks in the garden. They were, I think, spanish, and one of them was very dishy indeed, as my neighbour appreciated greatly, a bit of eye candy for her, after a hard day involving potty training, a 70 mile drive and tantrums from both her two little ones! In true diet coke style he was wearing jeans and a nicely fitting pristine white T shirt, tanned skin, dark eyes, shiny black hair... OK OK, I did appreciate it, too!!

orange anglepoise

we bought a vintage lamp for the bedroom, it had some scratches so we got it cheaper, i don't mind the 'shabby look'! it's bright orange, to go with the orange flecks in the throw. i never would have thought i'd pick green orange and purple for my bedroom!!

spray paint might work?

i 'found' this lamp in a photo from germany, it might be the right kind of green to go with the new throw? with a bit of spray paint to cover up the chrome bits i think it would be quite a cool lamp!

Plans for the bedroom

After buying something purple for the first time in years I've chickened out of the plan for a soft purple feature wall, I am too scared of purple!! Instead I will go for a (maybe even scarier) purple and green combination! The cushions might lighten up a little if i wash them a few times and should nearly match the curtains then. The material for the throw has flecks for purple in it, and I love the fact that it will be handwoven in Ireland. It's a bit of an investment piece but I think it's timeless, and such good quality, for the same price as most synthetic bedspreads! Unfortunately the weaver can only do 140cm width on his loom, but he will make it 220cm long, so it'll cover the width of our king size (153cm) bed nicely. It'll be a few weeks before it's going to be finished, so I have time to look for a nice watercolour or painting of lupins or other purple flowers, which should pull the colours together nicely.

I don't know what it is with me and purple but there are VERY FEW shades of purple that I like in the first place, (it has to be warm and muted, not too pale, not too pink, not too blue...) and I got quite excited when i got the curtains. But I've had the tester tin of paint for the feature wall sitting on my chest of drawers for ages and I just couldn't bring myself to paint the test patch! i think any more than one shade of purple wuld be too much for me!

painting the fireplace

before (yesterday morning)

some of our break times:
raspberry mascarpone cupcakes
smoked salmon and cream cheese on brown bread

roasted red pepper and carrot soup

the finished product, this afternoon!
weiss, passend zu den fussleisten und Tuer, und irgendwann gibt's dann auch mal ein buecherregal! i really like it, it brightens up the room and is lovely agains the light grey wall

christmas surprise

we're back from germany today, pretty tired with a grumpy nearly 9 week old, but happy!!

we surprised my parents for christmas with a visit, which was great fun! we didn't think we'd make it home with getting a passport for our little one and everything, and told my parents so for weeks, but we did get everything sorted in time! we let my sister know and she picked us up from the airport on christmas eve, and put us up at her house for the afternoon, then in the evening she and her boyfriend went in to my parents, as they had planned, and told them to stay in the living room for a minute as they wanted to set up their present in the hall, then they went to the back door, let us in and told my parents they could come out now. the look on their faces was priceless! it was such a happy evening! they had been disappointed but understanding that we wouldn't be coming to germany this year... a lovely laid back week was spent, with the cousins getting to know each other (my 2 year old nephew was besotted with her, he licked her face!)

as i like to blog with photos, and have nothing much to show myself (except for a gorgeous daughter, but i'm not sure yet how i feel about posting lots of pictures of her on the blog... or how my husband feels about it... i probably won't, apart from the 1st day picture i already posted), here a picture of my mum's christmas pyramid ornament (these are traditionally pyramids of angels, and you use small candles to power the propeller that makes it go round, but mama puts hers onto the swedish stove that heats their living room (so hot... we were close to melting point!).



i love discovering little things i made years ago, that my mum still keeps, like this candle (old candle stumps sorted by colour, and poured into jam jars and similarly cheap containers, that can be broken off when the wax is hardened). this must be at least 20 years old, because i seem to still have considered stick on gold stars an essential!


or this salt dough sheep (i hadn't realised salt dough could keep so long! maybe i varnished it??)

the wool is made with a garlic press... mama displays it with her collection of christmas angels

tired!!!

still so tired! still waiting for that 2nd trimester energy! had today off after two 12 hour days, and i had so many plans; work in the garden, bake a cake, tidy up, iron, cook dinner, some knitting or sewing... i did none of them...
instead i slept in, had rice pudding and rhubarb (just boiled with sugar) for my breakfast (i figured it's not much different to porridge with fruit and therefore healthy), caught up with some blog reading, had a little lunch (which i nearly threw up, but i just about kept it down, i think i had let myself get too hungry beforehand) and a nap, went for a cycle to buy fruit at the local fruit'n'veg shop, met my neighbour for tea... the only productive thing i did was laundry and dishes... not very impressive. hopefully this downtime will have restored my energy levels to survive another two days in the office.
i read up on growing potatoes in a tyre stack, amongst other sites here
would love to try it, though it might be a little late for that, plus i would want a prettier stacking solution, our garden is too small for stacks of tyres not to make a bad impression... our veggie garden is not taking off so well yet, it's been so cold! and we've neglected the fruit bushes and trees completely. the truth is, i don't really know how to prune and feed them. i pruned the damson tree and it's taken it badly... no blossoms whatsoever. we did nothing to the cherry tree, no blossoms either! i think the gooseberries and redcurrant could have done with some loosening of the soil and some kind of plant food...
i also read some rollercoaster posts, but whenever i read about birth and labour i get very panicky and fearful, it all seems to be so totally out of my control once i get into hospital! 'actively managed labour' seems to still be the norm in ireland, from all i've heard from germany and other european contries it's different there...
i have a funny taste in my mouth from dinner, my brother in law cooked lasagne for us, accompanied by oven chips (i don't get this, chips with lasagne! there's already pasta in it, i wouldn't have spaghetti with spuds either, can anybody explain this to me? is it an irish thing? a canteen thing?) the lasagne was from a 'kit' with 2 jars of sauce and the lasagne sheets. you just add mince. i didn't realise that i haven't eaten food like that in ages, it just didn't taste right, the tomato sauce was as sweet as ketchup, the white sauce strangely salty, plus this strange 'artificial taste', is it msg? it's nice of him to cook every now and then, but it really makes us realise how well we usually eat! (another dinner he cooked once was spuds and carrots and steak, cooked entirely without salt or pepper or any flavourings, with the potatoes and steaks overcooked to take the last bit of goodness and natural flavour out of them. it's the kind of food that really depresses me, i know that's ever so healthy. but i really love my food seasoned!)
Gee, bitchy me, i should be grateful for any night that i'm not cooking (i haven't cooked much at all lately due to ridiculous tiredness) and i am, but i'm really looking forward to not being so crushed tired and cooking a healthy and flavourful meal again... P cooked a lovely chili con carne yesterday by the way, so i'm not all complaints.

the finished cropped cardi! - and some more photos

i even did the leaves. Bring on the summer and the strappy dresses!


and another wraparound apron for p's granny, she was wearing the other one i made every day, so now she can have one for weekdays and one for the weekend...

our nativity scene! these figurines were in my dad's house when my mum moved in, so they were probably bought by my grandmother. We only have the family and one angel, poor baby jesus' head broke off when i was a child, we liked to take him out of his manger to play... the two chocolate reindeer are standing in for the ox and donkey that there usually would be. i think i will keep a lookout on ebay to try and find more kind of matching figures over the years! they are made from some kind of plaster or bakelite. Joseph is about 17.5 cm, the angel, which i thought was bought later as it is a little different, is 11.5 cm. Mary's face reminds me of my granny, it's the cheeks i think, and the look in prayer, my granny was quite holy, too, and named Maria!


this is the baby blanket my mum made for me when i was little, it's crochet, and yes, i was born in the seventies... does anybody have an idea how it's made? my mum can't remember, except for: it's two rows of purple and one row of orange. the stitches are worked into the row beneath creating a quite dense fabric. it'd love to find out the name of the pattern, i can see this working with a plain dark wool for the purple and a variegated brighter one for the orange. the other crochet stitch i want to try is the catherine wheel, i think that's the pattern moonstitches' scarf is made from.

some sewing...

preparations for another 'grab ball', one segment done, 11 to go... i made the template using a small plate to get the curve right, of course a compass would work too. this site has a good tutorial on how to make one of these: http://sewing.about.com/od/babyshowergiftsewing/ss/babyball.htm


the finished product... this one's for my next door neighbour's daughter. i used 6 different fabrics, mostly in shades of red, white and chocolate brown. i think the amount of colours and patterns is a bit too much, but i believe babies like contrasts and different patterns. i know my nephew was mad for patterns for a while! i handsewed this in the evenings. it's only lightly stuffed as it is for tiny hands. i made one before which i mostly machine sewed, it looks a bit more even but it was quite annoying work sewing all the tiny pieces by machine, very fiddly, especially at the corners!

and here the first of 6 chair seat coverings. the old ones are really manky, we only bought the chairs and table because they were on special offer, and slender enough to look right in our small dining area. i always meant to replace or cover the impractical, not removable beige check seats (i now, horrid, you can just about see one in the 2nd photo) but were in the house 2 years and i am only getting to it now... i am not going to take pictures of the stained original cushions!



i traced around the existing seat cushion to make a pattern, then cut 3" wide strips, one to go around the sides and front, the other to go at the back, leaving gaps for the back support 'beams'(whats the word for them??), around which the overhanging ends of the strips tie. i 'hemmed' all along the bottom edge and around the ties, then i folded the ties in half lengthwise (at an angle) to make the them a little thinner, and also so i wouldnt need to line them.
i seem to have a little bit too much material at the back. i might add little bits of elastic at the corners, depending on how well the covers stay on. or maybe some kind of draw string?
the fabric is heather bailey fresh cut. i love how the greens make the light wood seem so much more alive! i definitely want to get rid of the awful yellow walls, itll either be white, or magnolia or some kind of green (or a combination thereof for the kitchen/dining area!
and yes, i really should learn how to take proper photographs, but i'm just too impatient and wanted to show this as soon as i can!
I made the first on sunday night, and i got the other 5 cut and ready to sew tonight, i might do one every night, we'll see.
I've had the idea for these in my head for ages, i wanted something that would completely cover the original upholstery, something that wouldn't just lie on top but surround the cushion, and something that i could easily take off and throw in the wash. i have some fabric left over and might make a table runner or do plain curtains with an edge in the green fabric. hm or that great apron from lotta jansdotters book

presents for my nephew and easy projects

my nephew will be one on thursday, i hope i'll get the trousers and t-shirt to him on time in the post... they are supposed to be combat type trousers but i think i might have placed the pocket a little too low, i didn't think of the hem.
the pattern is burda 9716 it's got a nifty fake fly and the instructions of pulling one leg into the other before sewing the seat and front seam were very handy, i don't think i've done that before but it's been at least 10 years since i sewed anything as complicated as trousers. i'm going to make a simpler pattern, with just one pattern piece for quick to make trousers, i might put a 'fake fly' into that, too.
the t-shirt is appliqueed with matching fabric, using bondaweb and a satin stitch

and here some photos of my new matching sewing machine cover, pin cushion and ironing board... making the ironing board cover was a simple matter of piecing the plain and printed fabric, putting it on the ironing board and going around it at about 10cm distance. then i went around it twice with the sewing machine, creating a casing for the tie that i took out of the old cover.
the sewing machine cover is made from two rectangles (one pieced) and one strip, i measured off the plasticky cover that came with the machine, and i'm actually using both, the plasticky one for sturdyness and the fabric one 'cos it's pretty...
and the pin cusion as you can see is just two squares of fabric sewn together.

not very impressive projects, but quick and fun and instant gratification! and they'll stay in my house, unlike all the presents i made lately. pity it's so much harder to make grown up clothes...