My Monthly Make for February

Just made it, lucky it was a leap year & I got an extra day, lol. I seem to be running a race at the moment & just can’t see the finish line.

Well I had all sorts of ideas milling around in my head for this month’s make & I did actually start one, I cut a lot of fabric but that’s where it stopped.

Monday I decided I just had to choose a project & get on with it. A bag, cool, nah, then I checked out our host Annie’s blog (The Felt Fairy) & found that her Monthly Make was making rather a lot of very yummy cakes. So it didn’t actually need to be crafty, hmmmm.

Back to the drawing board, dragged out some books, oh what a chore having to trawl through craft books & mags, haha. Then I decided to make the gorgeous pincushion in the ‘Some Kind of Wonderful’ book I’m making a quilt from. Ok that’s doable, got everything ready, started sewing……..but the seed was sewn, it doesn’t need to be crafty, so…

What I’d really like to work on at the moment is making the little sitting area I use, cute & cosy. Well that is making something, & it beats ‘making the bed,’ which I considered using or ‘making a mess,’ a forte of mine.

So here are the results. I love it, I have more ideas but I’ve made a good start & it certainly is cute & comfy.

Before – bland & boring!

After – cute & comfy!!

Lego, well a small amount of it, I swear that stuff breeds!!

I bought the gorgeous floral linen at a vintage shop recently, it was hemmed on four sides & I had no idea what I’d use it for. It is a touch small but I don’t mind. I sewed some cotton tape along the top edge to form a pocket to hang it.

The lace ‘curtain’ is actually an old tablecloth I’ve had since the year dot & remembered when I was lying in bed last night. What was truly amazing was that I found it!!!! It has holes along the top edge which I repaired as best I could then just threaded ribbon through to tie over the curtain rod.

I picked up the old birdcage while vintage shopping. I’ve noticed a few around, & they are so cute, & this one is that yummy ‘old’ green. I really don’t like caged birds, they seem so sad, but I do like the cages. I plan to make a couple of felt birds for my cage.

Having a kettle upstairs is a bit of a luxury, saves trekking downstairs for a late night cuppa. I have a nice little collection of teas to choose from.

So that’s my Monthly Make & I’m very pleased with it.

As you can see Molly is quite taken with it too, she has claimed the back of the lounge behind me. When I got up this morning she’d thrown the cushion off the lounge & was curled up there. Of course it will mean a lot of quilt straitening, but that’s what have animals means. :-)

This is a close up of the painting on the wall. It’s really beautiful, ds Rowan spotted it at the vintage shop we were visiting last weekend & thought it would look nice in this area. In fact, that’s probably what prompted me to give it a makeover. Anyway it’s a lovely painting & it’s real, not a print.

Finally December is done!!!!

I really thought when I decided to start in January I’d be able to catch up quickly. Boy did I get that wrong!!!! As you all already know, there’s a lot of work in this quilt. :-)

Anyway, I have put in a lot of work & I’m really enjoying it, so it’s all good.
I’ve had a lot of stress in my life lately, with no relief in sight, so this project has almost kept me sane!!!!

Being OCD I love to have all my fabrics organised. I cut a bunch of squares so I had a stash. I’m hand piecing all the little sections that go between the blocks as I love to hand piece. I did machine on the long strips just so I could something finished!!!! I have already started on the January & February blocks, so hopefully I might catch up by the end of next month!!!

My fabric is from the Ruby range with a few Bliss & some other bits & bobs from my stash. I’ve had the most trouble finding the neutrals, luckily I had some, as they are a bit thin underfoot in the shops.

Sorry I haven’t been blogging lately but life has been shite!!!!! & if Istarted sharing what’s been happening I’d spoil my blog. I like to look at it to motivate me rather than remind me of the crap in my life. It won’t stop me having a whinge every so often but I’d rather not think about this stuff if I can help it. Hopefully normal service will be resumed soon!!!!

January Books

I started the new year with The Distant Hours, which I blogged about earlier. I gave up on it but when I finished a book, & couldn’t be arsed going to look for another one late one night, I went back to it. After all it had to get better right? Wrong, lol. So it’s finished, yay, it was total rubbish. I think the authors motto was, why use 1 word when you can use 20! Then when I finally uncovered all the secrets, I wanted to cover them all back up again.  Just a group of stupid, weak, selfish, nasty characters. I’ve had more than enough of those sort of people with my in-laws, who now thankfully are  out of my life permanently.

My next choice was Death Comes to Pemberley. I’d read mixed reviews, no it’s not Jane Austen, but it’s a fun read & I enjoyed it. I don’t go into a book expecting or looking for brilliance, just pleasure & escapism, & it delivered.

I hadn’t read a Fay Weldon before but I knew her work from her books that have been adapted for tv. The Spa Decameron was certainly different, a group of women who choose to spend Xmas & New Year in a Spa & then tell their stories. Interesting, some nice woman & some nasty woman, just like real life, lol.

I can’t resist a Ruth Rendell Wexford & this one didn’t disappoint. I like Wexford & his wife, I like his sidekick Mike Burden, they are good solid 3 dimensional characters. It was a good murder mystery & kept me guessing.

I’ve been very quiet with my blogging lately, I have been busy sewing & will blog about my latest project soon, which is, ‘Some Kind of Wonderful.’ I’m part of the Stitch a Long blog group & I’m madly trying to catch up. We were supposed to start in December but I was just too busy & didn’t get going till late January.