Buttons!

I am having a massive sort out of my craft room.  I did reorganise it a while ago, but I am not very good at putting things back in the right place!!  And with Easter coming up, I have to make room in the dining room to actually eat!!

My button drawer was in a terrible mess!  I have an old tin full of ‘vintage’ buttons.  Not sure where they came from, I think someone gave them to my Mum, who gave them to me.  So while tidying up I decided to go through them a bit more closely.  Here are some of my favourites:

And in colour order:

I love these old moulded buttons.  I must find out more about them.  Wonder how old they are?  1930s perhasp?

And then there are old cards of buttons:

I love vintage sewing notions!  When I get a proper sewing room, I am going to have a little display of them.

This photo is for the challenge  ‘Something old’ my second week for 52 photos on 3Djean’s blog.  

Top 5 photos in March

More fog!  We don’t get fog very much here, so I am always ready with my camera when it descends.  Love this atmospheric foggy alleyway or ‘twitten’, and the misty silhouettes of the trees.  I used to walk Merlin along this alleyway and still miss him when I look at this photo.

A scrapbook page of Lucy at 4.  I loved the purple party dress she wore then.  This page was for a weekly challenge on UKScrappers.  Notice the crotcheted blanket on the sofa behind her?  I crotcheted that about 30 years ago!

A photo out of the car as we were driving along the tree-lined lanes around Goodwood, Sussex on a lovely sunny day.  The trees are still bare, no sign of spring in this photo.

Every year I try to get the definitive photo of my daffodils.  Here’s the best I took this year.  I usually show you my photos as they come straight out of the camera with very little adjustment.  This one has been cropped, and contrast and brightness tweaked.  Photoshopping and all that doesn’t really interest me, it’s the taking of the photos that I love!

52 weeks of photos–week 2

I started this project back in January but fell at the first hurdle!  I only took the first photo (a self portrait, here)

Now the weather and light have got better, I am more determined to have a go at this project, so here’s my week 2 – Something Green

This is the stunning view from my back door!  Every time I step out there (or come down the stairs, as the landing window looks over this view too) I am grateful for my neighbours!  See the fence?  That’s my garden boundary and most of these stunning trees are not in my garden, but boy do they give a great backdrop.

Month in Numbers–2 Birthdays

There were 2 special birthdays this month.  Mine (always special) on the 25th and my Mum’s friend Barbara was 80 on 27th.

I celebrated my birthday on the day with Lucy.  She took me to a lovely spa day at the Marriott Hotel at Lingfield race course (no races that day!)  We had 2 treatments each; I chose a ‘taster’ facial and nail file and paint, Lucy chose the facial and a back massage.  We had lunch in the bar (in our robes) and then spent the afternoon in and out of the sauna, hot tub, steam room and swimming pool.  We felt all nice and clean aftewards.  There were 6 people to my birthday dinner, a chinese takeaway.  All in all a really lovely day!

I was invited to accompany Mum to her friend’s birthday celebration.  Mum and Barbara have been friends for over 50 years!  We were intrigued with the invitation as it said that we were invited to celebrate Barbara’s birthday from 2-6pm and then afterwards for supper at her daughter’s house.  It was a surprise for everyone, including Barbara! 

We arrived to find a a large coach waiting for us all to board.  I’m guessing there would be about 50 of us all together.  We drove to pick up the ‘birthday girl’, then north for about 8 miles to Wiston House for afternoon tea.  It was lovely!

Here’s Barbara with her 2 children, and a picture of me with my Mum.

Wiston House has a really interesting history.  It is part of the Wilton Park conference organisation and has held important conferences.  Have a look at this history if you are interested.

Not so many numbers this month, but I am linking up with Julie Kirk for Month in Numbers.

Scrappy Quilt

Last year at the craft cabin, me Tash and Burnice pooled all our fabric scraps together and shared them out, with the intention of making a scrappy quilt each. We decided to use this book by the ‘queen’ of scrappy quilts, Amanda Jane Nyberg.  She blogs at Crazy Mom Quilts.  I do recommend you go over and have a peek at what she makes with scraps!  No scrap is too small!

I have been sewing mine bit by bit as and when I feel like it, making a few 5” blocks every now and then.  I have had a bit of a blitz lately and sewn a whole load more.  Here’s what my table looks like:

 

And here’s the blocks I have made so far, including 5 large 9.5” blocks laid out on the hall floor.  I guess it is about lap size at the moment, but I will keep going to make it quite large. 

Which colours should I concentrate on next?

February Top 5 Photos - Weather

 

My best pictures this month are all weather related.

First some stormy sky.  This was taken from my front door at about 4pm one afternoon, the sun was shining on the trees with a really black sky behind.  Luckily the rain blew over us!

Next a picture from the back door, taken from inside the conservatory, where I am snug and dry!

A stormy sea with the sun shining on the pier.  The wind was really blowing when I took this.  I was driving along the seafront and decided to stop for a quick picture.  I could hardly stand up, the wind was so strong!

Finally, these last 2 were taken on one of the nicer days!  Hard to believe when I look back now, but we did have some nicer days of calm and sunshine!  I am fascinated by cranes and these 2 are helping to build new apartment blocks and hotel on our seafront.

Another view looking towards the pier.  I love how the line of beach huts draws your eye into the picture and is echoed by the line of seaweed on top of the beach.  The beach has really changed shape with the pounding from the sea!  See how it gently shelves now? 

My Month in Numbers

February, despite being the shortest month of 28 days, has been a long dark, wet and windy month here on the South Coast of the UK.  It has made me want to hunker down and stay indoors!  So my numbers are mostly to do with indoor activities:

I am still trying to lose weight after the excesses of Christmas, and have rejoined Weightwatchers.  I only made it to 2 meetings this month and only lost 1lb over the whole month!  Not good enough!!  This last week, I bought myself 1 pedometer to encourage me to walk more and on Friday 28th February I walked 12,487 steps.

I have really enjoyed dressmaking this month and have made 3 garments:

1 pair of pyjama bottoms which were going to be for DD Lucy, but turned out way too big and fit me! (I have to make her another pair now)

1 dress, (Tiramisu from Cake Patterns – my 2nd pattern from this company)which is really a practise with cheap fabric at £3.99 per metre.  I intend to make it with some more expensive fabric.

2 tops, Plantain from Deer and Doe already blogged, and Renfrew from Sewaholic.  More about this new top in another post.

Remember my crotcheting?  I have finished 17 squares from the book.

Tash came for a sewing day and I used 35 x 2 inch squares to make this cushion from www.crazymomquilts.blogspot.com.  Tash made hers slightly differently and used 25 squares.

 

Another indoor activity is scrapbooking.  I am currently scrapbooking a holiday to Canada we took 10 years ago.  I have made 27 project life style pages, and 10 12 x 12 pages.

This page is for a challenge on www.ukscrappers.co.uk and earned me 30 points for my team! 

We are remodelling our kitchen this year and have visited 3 kitchen shops.  We have 1 design which we love, and had 2 quotes which were pretty much what we had budgeted for.  We have ordered 1 new kitchen, including 22 units and 5 appliances, and have to wait 6 –8 weeks for installation.

One outdoor activity we did do was visit the motorbike show in London with our 2 friends.

 

We drove 78.5 miles to get there.  There were over 150 stands, and I sat on 3 motorbikes.  (Maurice and our friend Stewart sat on many more!)  We had 2 drinks each there, and 1 breakfast roll.  But the best news is that we booked ONE great big holiday!!!  We visited the Paradise Motorcycle Tour company stand and booked a motorcycle tour of New Zealand for March 2015.  That is 13 months to wait!  Did you know that Auckland NZ, where we join the tour is 11,410 miles from here and will take about 24 hours flying time to get there!

That concludes my rather lengthy Month In Numbers post.  It has taken me more than 60 minutes to write this!  I am linking up with Julie Kirk at http://notesonpaper.blogspot.co.uk/.