Retail Happiness

Firstly, sorry for being away so long. Been so so busy. Had my in-laws stay for 9 days. Now, about 9 or so days later, I've recovered!

Had 2 traumas on the sewing front, 1 may be recoverable, 1 i don't think so. I made the Tate Skirt from sew hip, and it was a disaster, their fault, with wrongly sized pattern pieces and so on. So I could rip it apart for the 4th time, or just leave it in the not quite right pile (which seems to be growing with my Heather Ross stuff I made!!!) From now on I'm either going to buy a pattern from the major pattern makers or just shop in a normal shop!!! Having said that Boden have SOLD OUT of the lovely spot skirt I wanted!!!! Curses. Sold out in EVERY size.

The other skirt, that may be salvageable, is my attempt at making my own pattern, based on a skirt in the toast catalogue! My husband's grandma is giving me all her old craft books, and one of them is a great pattern manual, from the 1970s, but is so comprehensive, it's fabulous!!! So using that and the Reader's Digest book of Sewing, I constructed my pattern. (I use IKEA kid's paper, that comes on a roll. Really handy for drafting patterns on!) It's nearly there, I've just got to get the side zip in, that will go in on a curve, between my waist and hip, and hopefully look smooth! I'm using an invisible zip for a neater finish.

Went to Gap today as they are running a 30% off week. I needed new jeans, but I guess I was having a fat day, as all the styles that I tried on, did nothing for me. So I left it! Skirts just seem more flattering, right now.

But what has been a success was my trip to Bert's Homestore, in Brighton. Just me, no children. So I could actually look at EVERYTHING they sell. It is such a great shop for kitchen and homeware. Really nice makes (actually they sell my friend's tinwear, Elite Boxes, which is nice as well).

As my husband always moans that my salad is not dry enough, I have bought a salad spinner. In, a lovely red colour, plus it's also a measuring jug, so therefore excellent value for money. Obviously I'm either 6 months too late or 6 months early with this, as we ate salad non stop throughout the summer months, and we eat it a bit less through winter!

I also bough a jelly mould, as they have to look special. So jelly will be made this week, for sure! My local veggie shop sells vegetarian jelly mixes. Also, I do need a larger mixing bowl. They had a pink plastic one, that looked cool, or some of those traditional ceramic ones (brown and cream ones). I will be going back in a few months to pick one up!

I have also been looking for some bits and bobs for our hallway table, letter holder, place for keys etc. And I happened to go into the Futon Company. See what you can do WITHOUT children with you, amazing! And bizarrely they had just the thing. I bought a nice bamboo letter holder, and also this little lidless box, with a slim drawer underneath it, to store your pens. Just the thing to pop a notepad in by the phone, and a place to leave my keys when I come home! I have to say these new purchases for my table, now make my table look like it needs an upgrade (which it does, it was bought years ago, for our old maisonette, where we had virtually no hallway, so we needed the smallest table for it! Now we have a large hallway, and a tiny table which needs replacing asap!)
So all in all, I had a good day, where I bought some improvements to my home. Small steps, sure, but happy ones all the same.