Glastonbury

Ok, I wasn't there, but I watched a load of it, over the weekend, and it looked like a brilliant year to have gone. For once, sunshine! And more importantly AMAZING bands. I have been to quite a few festivals, and the worst aspect, for me, is the porta loos and basic hygiene.

I would have loved to have seen Blur, one of my favourite bands, ever since they launched There's No Other Way back in 1991! It was a complete nostalgia trip for me, back to my teenage years, doc martins, and indie music that reigned supreme!

Plus, what I love, is seeing new, upcoming bands. Loads of girls, including Florence and the Machine, La Roux, VV Brown and the ever fabulous Ting Tings. And on a nostalgia trip (depending your age and taste, Madness, The Specials, Neil Young, Crosby, Stills and Young, Status Quo, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Jones) Can't say all of those were for me!

Just heard this band on Steve Lamacq's R1 show. Sounded pretty good.

If you are outside the UK, you may not be able to view the video. Apols for that.

shoes your way

I saw these shoes over at Katie Did, and thought that was pretty cool.

Well, you can get the same thing , over here in the UK.

So if you are arty and talented and know how to use Illustrator/ Photoshop then you could design a cool pair of shoes for yourself, or someone you know. The only thing, is the price from £50-60 for canvas shoes in the UK or $75 on the US site (plus they are doing free shipping at the moment). Typical, that it's cheaper overseas, but you may get hit with tax! It's nice to know you can do this, if you wanted to!

don't eat me, mummy!

"don't eat me, mummy"

Having children can be the craziest ride at times. But the way they see the world, their use of language often leads to a lot of laughs. I've decided to start documenting their sentences that crack us up, as it's these simple things that often mean the most.

So my youngest, age 2 1/2 last week, said to me, while I was kissing him, "don't eat me, mummy" . He was quite serious!

I'm quite tempted to do what Angry Chicken has done, as they would make fun family cards! I'll keep you posted on the weird and the wonderful that comes from my offspring's mouths.

We're off to London tomorrow, so have a lovely weekend, and I'm sure I'll have some piccies of dinosaurs and so on after the weekend!

New Blog

I have gone a bit anal, and have started a new blog called Sew Hip Info. It is purely an information only blog, just listing the patterns and articles in each issue, which will certainly help me when i want to look for something and maybe it will help you too!

http://sewhipinfo.blogspot.com/

Tell me what you think. It's a WIP at the moment, but I should soon be up to date!

Poppy Fields and other delights

Poppy Field
Originally uploaded by furious_george_ii

This is where I spent part of the day, a beautiful poppy field, on the road between Falmer and Woodingdean, Brighton. The poppies were taller than my youngest son But my husband was taking lots of photos, and it was nice enough to wonder through, admiring nature, and wondering why there weren't more bees to be seen.

Then we went off to the beach, when roughly 10 minutes later the storm from the east headed our way! So back home we went.

what a sky!

This morning we all went to a localish swimming pool, with currents, slides, water canons, and lots of fun! Too much fun, as the eldest just wanted to play and not swim!

Being a backwards post, yesterday we went to a lovely park, so the children could have a good play. The plan was to sit on our rug and not get up until it was time to go. But of course, we couldn't, so no rest for me or my husband either!

Yet another lovely weekend (which also included homemade scones, clotted cornish cream and fresh strawberries! Summer is here!)

Made By Me

Made by Me by Jane Bull, is a book aimed at school age children (6/7+) as a first textile/ yarn craft guide.


It has very clear step by step instructions and photographs of the following crafts:

Crossstitch
Tapestry
Embroidery
French Dolly Knitting
Hand Knitting
Knitting
Sewing

With some sweet projects for making, including:

a fabric doll and matching clothes
an embroidered sampler
a drawstring bag
a purse
felt brooches

I would have loved a book like this when I was younger. I actually bought 2, as they were £2.99 each at the book people, so I am giving one to my niece as a birthday present, and I will make her up a craft kit to go with it, so she can do many of the projects in the book. Her birthday is not until January, so I have plenty of time to buy and accumulate what I need for each project.

My one criticism is that it is aimed at girls. My eldest son wants to make an Adipose (alien from Dr Who) so as long as I don't print my pattern on the net, I hopefully won't be sued by the BBC! He can learn the basic sewing stitches to make it.


We decided that we would make an alien doll, using the basic doll pattern and then customising it, the way he wants to (maybe 3 eyes, green hair, a vertical mouth; who knows?)

So we will be using the techniques in the book, a bit of applique, embroidery and sewing. Sounds good to me!

Wonderful Weekend

Due to the weather, we all had a wonderful weekend.

I was so happy that I didn't have to wear a coat, jacket or even a cardigan, just a top and skirt or a dress. My legs and feet like having the air against them!

On Saturday morning, we went into Brighton, I needed a teeny bit of fabric, and to pick up my library books, and my husband went to a hardware shop for some bolts!

Then we met up and all had a drink at carluccios, outside, on the pavement, in the sunshine! Fantastic!

In the afternoon we went to a friend's house for a BBQ. They live in the countryside, and we hadn't been there before, but it was quite wonderful. Their garden was huge, and divided into sections. They had a vegetable garden, everything looking good in there. Then their main garden, with a lawn, loads of shrubs and trees, and a summerhouse. Great to hang out in, then round the corner, more trees, a swing, some chickens, a bee hive and a pond with a deck and seat! And then more land, which they are digging over and doing at present! It was like being on holiday going there! It was so lovely. Very different from our flat and 2 balconies in the city!

The BBQ was great, and at the end of it all we all had tea and coffee in their conservatory, which had beautiful plants growing up the walls, with flowers in boom, there was a maple, a passionflower and another gorgous pink climber (not sure of the name).

We left with some eggs from their chickens, and smiles on our faces!

Then yesterday, I took my 2 sons off to the beach. We went to the children's paddling pool first, we got there for 10am and it was already pretty busy. after 1.5 hours there, we went on the beach. The boys collected large rocks to build a fortress with! It got too hot for me at that point, so we headed off to get some lunch and then off home for some painting and crafts!

The sun certainly wore us out. But it was a great weekend, I'm hoping every weekend will be like this until September/ October, but I doubt it!

I hope you had a good one too! (Camera ill, so no photos)

PS I did start on 3 different skirts! I've washed the red linen mix fabric for my Colette Patterns skirt, I started to make the yard sale wrap skirt from Weekend Sewing (I needed to line it as I've used an embroidery anglaise fabric and it's too see through!), and I have cut out my trellick pattern skirt from Clothkits. I aim to do the Clothkits skirt today, the yardsale skirt in the week and the Colette Patterns skirt next weekend or so!