house and garden Archives - Page 2 of 4

Home sweet home

August 9, 2016

After a years of searching, 2 failed house purchases, and over 4 months of wrangling on this purchase, we are, finally, in our new home.

We have a lot to do, and I’m going to have fun making this place into a wonderful home for our family.

For now…I’ve a million boxes to unpack and an awful lot of cleaning to do! Not cool, but worth it.

Thanks to everyone for your kind wishes over the past few weeks, and to the grandparents for wrangling two very excited small peeps over the removal weekend.

This quick and blurry snap was taken on Sunday evening whilst we walked the short path from our front door to our favourite park. If a picture tells a thousand words, this is why we moved.

Oh….and a separate sewing room 😉

Antiquing v. Gardening

May 20, 2015

Renovations have come to a grinding halt Chez Stitches.

My poor cousin/builder has had a grim time of it recently. Firstly the tenants in his house absolutely destroyed it before they were, finally, evicted. Understandably his number one priority is cleaning up a godawful mess and repairing the damage.

Then he managed to drop his motorbike at speed. Thankfully he was thrown clear before the bike wrapped itself around a tree. Small mercies and all that.

He’s fine but obviously otherwise engaged for a little while.

So on Saturday, as it was sunny, I figured it was time we started to tackle the weeds in the front garden. They were threatening some sort of military coup on the actual plants. The Little Shop of Horrors wanted Audrey Jr back.

The husband had other ideas. He wanted to go antiquing for tables for the sitting room.

Hmmmmmm….tough call! 😉

Grubbing around in the dirt…..or lunch and antiques.

You know which one won. This is what we scored.

First up, a vintage mixing bowl. My old one of these had developed a nasty crack so needed to be replaced. If you buy these in the fancy vintage shops they can cost you upwards of £45, but GB Antiques in Lancaster has a kitchenalia stall that always has a great selection at reasonable prices. This is a big one and only cost £14. Result!

Next a little telephone table that will sit on one side of the big sofa.

This is great little piece that needs just a little TLC – hello chalk paint – to really bring it to life.

And last but by no means least is the piece that set my heart beating just a little faster and which Hubby wouldn’t let me leave behind. Love that man!

This beautiful table just begged to be brought home. She now sits on the other side of the sofa from the wee table above, and is just the perfect piece for the sitting room. She makes me very happy indeed.

We are so close to having this room done. I’m ordering the bookcases this week, need to remake the roman blind (the interlining has shrunk and pulled it all out of shape), paint the mirror to tone down the garish gold, and hang some picture.

It’s going to be lovely!

Apologies for the slightly blurry photos. Mr was insisting I hurry so he could get the furniture in place before we had to dash out to collect the kids! Not an unreasonable request, I suppose. 😉

Continuous zip…the unsung hero of home sewn soft furnishing

April 23, 2015

For quite a while now I’ve been longing for some enormous cushions for our sofas. The kind you can all snuggle into on movie night. Which can be thrown on the floor for small peeps to lie on. Which make a comfy place for you to rest your head for a quiet nap. Our 20″ cushions really weren’t cutting it, so when I saw the 26″ Inner cushion pad at Ikea, I snapped up 4 of them without hesitation.

I’d also been struggling to find some fabric which would co-ordinate with the existing curtains, was tough enough to stand up to family life, but which wasn’t so expensive that I’d have hissy fits every time a child went within 500 yards of it. Ikea came to the rescue with their Lenda fabric @ £4 a metre.

So far so good. At this point I’d only spent £28 on the cushion pads and 3 metres of fabric. I just needed thread and zips. But 26 ” zips retail at about £2.70 more or less. That’s £10.80 for the 4 zips…about 40% of the cost of the pads and fabric. I’m sorry…I’m not falling for that.

Enter the old soft-furnishers favourite secret….continuous zip.

You buy it off the roll in metres. It’s about a £1.00 a metre.

The little packs of sliders are about £1.30. They are really easy to attach…this video shows it very clearly.

So thanks to our good friend the continuous zip, I kept the cost down to about £8.50 per cushion and now we can squish on the sofas to our hearts content.

Result! Now I really must do something about the covers on those smaller cushions. 😉

Retro Kitty and Brit Boy

February 7, 2013

I mentioned in January that I want to return our home from its current shabby state back to a cosy, hopefully stylish, family home. This means new windows, some plastering, new flooring throughout and lots of decorating. All of which is quite an expense…and therefore is going to take some time! 😉

This is a good thing. It works nicely with my new ethos of slow, but also allows me to really ponder the style choices I’m going to make in each room. Work has already commenced with two ceilings being plastered last week. Some essential bathroom repairs are coming soon, and a new bathroom floor.

So far, so dreary! Basic stuff…not remotely exciting.

But! Once the bathroom is done, the next room on the list is The Boy’s, and then Button’s. And whilst we are gathering the resources to buy all the materials and furnishings we need, it seems sensible to make a start on the quilts.

This is much more fun.

First up…The Boy! He’s Union Flag mad! Every time we see one in a shop he dashes straight to it! So, the Union Flag is to be the leitmotif for his new Brit Boy room. And what better quilt to make for him than Busy Bee Quilt Design’s ‘Victory Garden’.

Obviously the colourway shown on the original isn’t going to work for my little chap, he’s camp, but not girly. However, Makower’s ‘London’ is just the ticket.

This is a project that Ma is going to make. I’m not that fond of machine piecing and quilting, but she loves it. Who am I to spoil her fun? 😉

For Button, who is a huge Hello Kitty fan (I haven’t met a 5-year-old girl who isn’t), we are taking our inspiration from this spectacular quilt I spied on Pinterest.

image from http://qisforquilter.com/2009/02/hello-kitty-redwork-quilt-top/

Isn’t this just so stunning?????? It’s an original design by Q is for Quilter and I just couldn’t resist it. Button has to have this quilt.

There is no pattern, so I’m ~~shamelessly plagiarizing~~ reverse engineering and putting my own spin on it. To start, I’ve sourced a pile of Hello Kitty images from Google and printed them out. There are tons of them out there…just Google “Hello Kitty Colouring Pages”. I’ve then reduced them by 50% to get them to a good size to make a quilt block. Each block will be 6″ square when completed.

These are then going to be traced onto fabric and embroidered. The images have been delivered to Ma this morning…she’s been champing at the bit to start the tracing. I’ll be doing the embroidery. This is going to be a wonderful joint project with Ma, she’ll be doing the pieced squares, which are going to be cream/pink/duck-egg blue…which is pretty much the colour scheme for the room.

These quilts are going to be the centrepieces of some pretty cute new bedrooms for the kids. When I’ve told them about what we’ve got in store for them, there has been a huge amount of excitement, which makes these projects even more enjoyable for me (if that’s possible!). And at the end of it, they’ll have rooms that reflect their individual personalities and are a joy for them to spend time in.

Whether they’ll keep them tidy is another matter! 😉

Mooching on a Monday

June 25, 2012

The past few weeks have been hustle and bustle. It’s all good but I’m craving a slightly slower pace. Today was the first opportunity for a little simple domesticity.

Whilst the children were at nursery I made bias binding and did the machine sewing to attach it to my dress.

Tonight I can curl up on the sofa with The Husband and hand stitch whilst we watch a movie. This dress is so nearly finished.

After nursery the children and I went to the park for a couple of hours to make the most of a dry day. We met grandparents and friends from nursery, purely accidentally. We played stick ball and football and had lunch in the cafe.

Then whilst they scootered up and down the street with the neighbours children I attacked (and beat into submission)the 3 foot high weeds in the garden, and cut the peony flowers that had been battered by the winds and rain over the weekend.

I need to plant more peonies!

And some of the lovely new peony roses from David Austin.

David Austin’s beautiful Royal Jubilee rose
Image courtesy of www.davidaustinroses.com

Doing all this gentle, domestic mooching, I remembered what life was like before I started to finish my degree.

And what it will be like in just over 3 months when I am done.

And I’m excited for a future full of simple pleasures at home and with my family.

A pretty great start to the week, no?

I hope your Monday has been as wonderful.

An Angels Story – Made by Ma

August 30, 2010

Before I start I have to say that the pictures don’t do this justice, simply because it’s so big! It’s nearly 70 inches wide and about 80 inches long. Huge!This is An Angels Story Quilt, designed by Anni Downs and made for Button by Ma Stitches.

It is spectacular.

It almost fills the whole wall of her bedroom, which is where it’s staying until she is big enough for it to go on her bed.

It changes the whole look and feel of the room.

And, most importantly, Button absolutely adores it. She pronounced that she was “very excited” about it whilst Daddy was hanging the café rod. She declared it “beautiful” once it was on the wall. My girl has excellent taste!As you can see the appliquéd stitcheries are just lovely. But perhaps the most impressive aspect of this quilt is that it’s the first quilt that Ma has ever made.

I kid ye not.

Impressive, no?

Extreme toddler sport – sofa sliding

August 19, 2010

You climb upthen you slide (or more appropriately, shuffle, but who cares) downI’m ridiculously proud of their ingenuity in coming up with new and vaguely dangerous ways to play. God help me when they discover trees!

All hands on deck

August 15, 2010

Finally the sun is shining in Lancashire.

Which means the timber for the deck is dry enough for Mr S to be able to get outside and start filling the big black hole in the garden with a lovely new deckLike any sensible woman faced with the man of the house doing DIY, I took the only option available to me, packed the kids up and went to the park.

We are blessed with a lovely park just a couple of miles away.

: C’mon Mummy, the ducks are this way!

: Whaddya mean you didn’t bring bread?

: Milk please, Grandma. Ooh and a cookie too? Yummmmm!

: Ruuuuuuuunnnnnnnn!

: Can we play too?

: Ha! This walking lark is a breeze!

: I don’t think we should jump, Puppy, do you?

If the weather is even remotely dry next weekend, the deck will be finished. But for now, we have two tired babies fast asleep in bed, chicken dinner about to be served and Mr S nursing a well deserved stiff drink.

Geronimo!!!

July 29, 2010

As I came out of the shower this morning I heard an ominous thud from the playroom.

This is what I found.At least she had the good sense to install a crash mat!

Me and Miss Jones

April 30, 2010

Well, the broadband is down Chez Stitches so this is a quick post from the iPhone.

Today Button’s adoption was approved. Although she’s been ours in our hearts since the first day we met (which is a year ago next Thursday), today the courts agreed with us.

We are overjoyed.

One down, one to go!!!

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