ooooooooooooooooh warmth!
Well, it’s been an absolute bear of a project, but finally the kitchen door curtain is finished.The hand-made pole is nothing short of wonderful.
I’m so thrilled with it. Pete at Siddington Smithy is a craftsman and I found him a delight to do business with. Amazingly, the pole cost less than a mass-produced one would have done. It really shows that we should support independent craftsmen when we can.
So, the kitchen is all but done. We need pictures and to do something with the dining table (paint or replace…not sure which), but neither of those are urgent.
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Our next project is to clear some space in the loft. I’m planning to cull books and fabric and yarn. Anything I can’immediately assign to a project, or which has sat there for years, is going to be either sold or gifted. I don’t have the room and time has moved on, as have my requirements and taste. It’s time the be ruthless.
The reason for this determined approach is that Mr Stitch is moving up into the loft to share my space with his home office space. Hmmmmm!!! Not sure how that will work, but if he’s naughty I have lots of sharp implements to poke him with!!
And the reason Mr Stitch is invading my space moving up to the loft, is so we can revert what is now his office back into a bedroom.
More painting, blinds and curtains, then!
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And finally a knitting update. Miss Maddy is almost done. I’m on the last sleeve. I haven’t knitted a stitch on the Lucy cardigan at all this year, despite the lovely new needles. Just focusing on getting projects finished one at a time. Hopefully Miss Maddy will be done soon.
Have a great weekend. I’ll be the one hidden under a pile of rubbish yarn/fabric/books/packing boxes.
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PS…as of this morning the weight tracker is accurate again. My post Christmas/snow fever/jeepers-I-hate-this-wretched-door-curtain-so-I’m-off-to-eat-chocolate extra pounds have gone.
It’s oh so quiet…shhhhh! shhhhh!
It’s quiet here.
Too damned quiet if you ask me.
The dog is asleep in front of the fire.
The cat is asleep behind the filing cabinet.
The baby is asleep with her arms around her favourite toy puppy.
Mr S is in a hotel room in Wimbledon, working.
I hate it when he’s away. I’m not frightened in the house without him. I’ve lived on my own for too many years to be frightened in a house on my own. And I have a big soft dog who does a great impression of Kujo and a very grumpy cat.
No. It’s just the quiet. A little too much of it.
No rubbish TV programmes. No kisses on my cheek as I cook dinner. No stupid jokes. No conversation. No hugs.
No snoring.
Ah…I knew there had to be an upside!
That, and finally getting up into the workroom and finishing the last seam on the face fabric of the kitchen door curtain!
I do miss him, but I do get stuff done! Tomorrow night it’s hems until he gets home. And he’s away 3 nights next week. So you never know. I might actually finish this sooner rather than later.
Now. Where’s that glass of wine I promised myself……..
Tomorrow is another day
Today I had a long list of things to do. Most of them fairly easy to box off. All of them pretty mundane:
1. Now the roads are clear (ish) again, get my lardy arse to the gym and start doing something about it. Check…not a huge workout but definitely better than nothing.
2. Do my roots…4 weeks since the last colour and I look like Mrs Badger. Check…Badger tendencies at bay for another couple of weeks.
3. Organise Button’s birthday get together for the weekend. Check…messages sent to all concerned to let them know it’s going ahead.
4. Laundry. Check…this is easy enough to work around other stuff. Although I’ve still two loads to do. Which begs the question…just how much laundry can three people create?
5. Ironing. Are you serious!!!!!
6. Fix my embroidery frame to stop it whizzing round and releasing the tension on the fabric. Check…Turned out to be a 1 minute ‘remove washer’ fix. Hurrah!!!
7. Study.
8. Finish sewing the face fabric panels together for the kitchen curtain.
Hmmmmm!!! 7 and 8 are where the problem arose. In the form of a tiny, blond time thief who flatly refused to have a nap and screamed the house down if you tried.
So I managed all of about 20cms of hand sewing on the curtains. They are starting to feel never ending. I’ve only managed to get two of the three seams sewn on the face fabric. The lining is still a crumpled pile of fabric. And the pole arrives tomorrow.
So…we did what any sensible girls would have done at this point:
We twirled!!!!
We played with Timmy and Yabba and Dolly.
We read books about a cake baking Bunny.
We ate birthday cake.
We tickled.
We ran up and down the hall shrieking like a banshee (obviously I passed on that particular one).
What the heck…tomorrow is another day.
Happy Birthday, Baby
Today is 8 months since I first held my baby girl in my arms.
Yesterday was her second birthday.
Whereas most Mums look back to the day their baby was born, I look back to the day I walked into the sitting room at the foster carer’s home and she looked up at me and stole my heart with one smile.
The little girl who proudly confirmed that yesterday was indeed her “birfday” and that she was most emphatically “two”, with accompanying fingers just in case you were in any doubt, is a world away from the timid baby I first met.
I thought I loved that baby more than it was humanly possible to love anyone. Today I know I was wrong. Each day, as my little girl leaves babyhood behind, she steals another piece of my heart. It’s a piece I’m happy to give.
Each day I love her more.
I know her daddy feels the same.
Happy birthday Button.
Miss Matty
The news is dominated by the freak weather conditions here in the UK. Our street is packed ice and snow…even the little local bus doesn’t brave it but sticks to the main roads which are clearer thanks to gritters and use.
We don’t have to venture out of the house, so we haven’t since Sunday. Except for Mr S who made an expedition to the supermarket for supplies.
Whilst keeping Button entertained and her decibel levels below that of Concorde has been priority (although most of Mr S’s work colleagues have commented on the capacity of her lungs at some time or other this week), I’ve still managed a little knitting and sewing on the side.
The dpns have arrived for the sleeves for the Lucy cardigan, and over the weekend I’ll pick that up again, I think. However I’ve been mostly working on my Miss Matty jacket:It’s the New Lanark Jacket from Woolfish, available as a free pattern here. The yarn is their New Lanark Yarn, which I purchased at Harrogate in November.
However, having watched Cranford at Christmas I can’t help but think of it as Miss Matty, as Judi Dench wore a garter stitch shawl in an almost identical colour throughout the show:I started it sometime over the Christmas holiday. When exactly is lost in a mist of good red wine and chocolate. Suffice to say I’ve finished the back and am halfway up the first front. After the Snowflake Jacket this is mind-soothingly simple to knit with minimal shaping to give it swing. I can curl up in the evenings and watch a movie and knit another section. During the day I can knit a half row or so before being required to kiss dolly or put her hat on. It’s easily left and picked back up and forgives being pulled off the needles on a regular basis by little fingers.
As the routine of afternoon naps starts to be reinstated after the excitement of Christmas, I’ve also cut out the fabric for the kitchen door curtain and have pattern-matched and seamed the first two widths together. Two more to go…that’s another 5 meters of seaming before I get to the linings. However I know the pole is ready at the smithy. As soon as the delivery van can get through the snow it will be here.
Best get sewing!
Happy Feet
More Snowflakes
We had the most magical Christmas. Strangely every photo I took was of a certain wee small girl looking festive and happy:But I was also pleased to have a warm and cozy Mr Stitches in his finally finished Snowflake Jacket:I’ve adjusted the buttons to ensure that the pattern actually matches at the centre front!But I’ve discovered on more problem with this pattern….getting Mr S to stop wearing it!!!!!!!!!
Joy to the world!
I can hear the cheers now.
“Hurrah!!! Hurrah!!!! We don’t have to listen to her banging on about those dratted curtains any more!”
But rest assured, no one is as thrilled as I am that these are finally, finally, sewn and at the window.These pics were taken seconds after the curtains were hung. To get a really crisp finish to the way they hang I have to inflict a little bit of Jacob Marley bondage bandage to them:When the ties come off in a few days the pleats will be crisp all the way to the hem and will hold their shape and look lovely.
All this room needs now is the radiator cover (which is just awaiting a visit to the builders merchants for grille) and a skirt valance for the divan base, which I’m hoping to do before the New Year (subject to enthusiasm and a willingness to sew rather than sitting watching movies and eating chocolates).
The most wonderful time of the year
Thankfully we are all hale and hearty again Chez Stitches. Thanks to all for your kind messages. That was a miserable couple of weeks.
All was rectified at the weekend with an impromptu visit from my niece and great-niece. (Apologies for grainy pictures…the light here this weekend has been pretty grey)
It was the first time Button and Princess Rosebud had met, but they were as thick as thieves within about 30 seconds of meeting and were pretty much inseparable for the whole weekend, howling as Princess Rosebud was bundled screaming and kicking into the car to go home. They even went to bed together and were heard plotting over the baby monitor… “I don’t think we can get out!”
Whilst they worked out how to scale the cot walls for all of three minutes before falling fast asleep, we were joined by my nephew for supper. Normally there are more of us squooshed around the table, but this weekend we managed to keep them to ourselves. It was wonderful.My brave and beautiful niece is inspirational. She is an amazing mother, wife and daughter as well as a wonderful woman in her own right. She is developing her talent as an artist and is about to embark on a degree programme. She does this on limited financial resources but doesn’t complain that she doesn’t have lots of stuff, just counts her blessings that she has her family around her. I wish I’d been that grounded at 21!My nephew has donned the mantle of family comic. We didn’t stop laughing from the minute he walked through the door and gave us all bear hugs. Normally he is quite reserved but over the last few months he has grown in confidence and he was the life and soul of the party. Despite all his challenges (and he has had many) he is doing well at college, making plans for his future and looking like a cool dude whilst he does it!Sunday we had a lovely sunny day, so it was off to the park for breakfast for us and breakfast for the ducks.For me this marks the beginning of the Christmas season. I find it truly sad that there are people who can’t or won’t surround themselves with their family at this time of year, but I’m not one of them. I’m glad I was able to kick off the festive season in this way.
I still have the smile on my face.
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