Half a year… Half a lifetime…

Wow.

I know it’s clichéd to mourn the passing of time with a young baby…

I know I’m still struggling to come to terms with the upheaval (understatement of an aeon) that the Monster has brought with her…

I know I’ll never experience this part of her life again.

 

That brings me great great great relief…

And not a little bit of regret.

Hopefully her place in our lives, my head in her heart and our new position in the world will make more sense over the next six months.

And then December will come and go and I’ll blink and she’ll be an adult and I’ll wonder what I was doing all the time.

I promise I’ll try to worry less and cuddle more in future, Tils. 

Papering the Walls in Sunshine…

If only the Boy would let me…

If only the Landlord would allow us…

If only I had a mansion and ENDLESS ROOMS to wallpaper in the fabulous patterns to offer on the indominatable Not On the High Street…

If only I had endless funds with which to do so…

Beautiful, original, witty and endlessly interesting prints as below…

Ostrich

Ibis

Tennis Racquet

Eyes

Letter Blocks

Housewife

True Blue Pinstripe

And sigh…

I Love Lucy

I have long been a drooler of all things Attic24 and have enjoyed Lucy’s terrifyingly upbeat posts for the last year or so.

The moment when she revealed she was pregnant with her third little person, and all the trepidation and excitement that went with it, touched me deeply and confirmed that she was a blogger to be devoured as daily as the posts allow.

Gratuitous picture of recently finished crocheted heart garland from this tutorial…

The fact that she manages to maintain such a creative output (not to mention the gorgeously meandering posts on their outdoorsy and indoorsy activities) is something I can only aspire to. Like many others, though, her tutorials and beautiful eye for colour have dragged me back to my crochet hook after a period of rest and I have joined the masses of Attic24 copycatters/flatterers…

The Granny Stripes project was too addictive to avoid, not least of all as I had PayPal credit and the cost of the rainbow of *cough* acrylic yarn was going to be beyond negligible.

So, here goes…

My progress so far…

 

Addictive… yes…

Speedy… yes…

Expected time to complete the double-bed sized throw…?

Oh… December 2041…

But, my, will it be satisfying to do…

A Craft (un) Fair

What happens when a good chum invites you to share a table of crafty goodness at a new fair in the local area?

Handstamped baby bibs in vintage cottons 

What happens when you stitch like a b***h in anticipation of said table, so as not to let the side down?

Our table full of crafty goodness! 

What happens when the fair is extraordinarily poorly attended?

Antique Linen lavender bags and Reel Necklaces 

You sell one item, that’s what.

Crochet hearts garland

The good thing about going with a friend, though, is that you have time for chatter, stitching, sitting and laughing.

Handpainted yarn soon to be sold online here. 

For the record, the fact that Reuss is moving away to another county is spectacularly unimpressive in my books. So it’s good that we got to craft together one last time. For now, anyway.

Beautiful fuzzy iPhone pics courtesy of Reuss – forgot to take the posh camera in amongst all the tablecloths/baskets/floats etc.

Need it, want it, can’t live without it…

DROOL

DRIBBLE

PANT

moan quietly in the corner…

 

I can’t think of a single pressing project that would involve these spools, but holy hell.

If I had all the money and time in China, I would hem all my frocks (and Tilly’s of course) with these so that you would see a little flash of FABULOUS whenever you sauntered through meadows. Of course, that would be a wonderfully frivolous use of them but still…

NEED THEM. WANT THEM. CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT THEM.

Liberty Print bias tape - £5 for mixed bobbins set - Clothkits

Ask Tilly: Your Parenting questions answered…

Question:

It’s only 11am and your use of a dummy has already been ‘commented’ upon by a shop assistant in the form of: ‘Oh, what a beautiful girl you are… But what is that horrid plastic thing that Mummy has put in your mouth?? You don’t need that, do you sweetheart…?’

Frazzled and knackered, you stagger to the library and head straight for the ‘How to get your child to sleep through the night’ section and as the buggy grinds to a halt, the bawling starts.

Loudly.

What do you do??

Answer:

Rusk. Rusk. and Rusk.

It’s a toy, a snack, a teething soother and a rattle all in one.

If it gets ALL OVER the baby, the buggy, the buggy book, the floor, your shoes and the library… then so be it.

  

I say it again.

Rusk.  

A Scottish Wedding Design

Friends of ours are engaged to be married and we couldn’t be happier for them! They have two glorious children (5 year old girl and 2 year old boy) and Dad hails from Glasgow. They hope to marry in August before a relation is posted abroad with the Army, and so are leaping from nought to sixty on the wedding planning front …

It got me thinking about tartan weddings and how you could incorporate an important heritage into your day without it feeling like Edinburgh at Festival time.

The tartan in question is (thankfully) one of the gloriously lovely ones – Campbell, which is the mid-blue-green check below. Not too dark, not too bright… not too garish…

The bride wants to incorporate the tartan into her attire without drowning in the gothic and theme weddings. I personally love the frocks of By Storm – look through the website of this Glasgow-based boutique for some elegant styles that incorporate glimpses without feeling that you’re an extra in Braveheart.

The little flower girls have suggested wood fairy/sprite outfits and I love this pattern in dark chiffons to channel this kind of look below (left).

And to prevent the death by taffeta risk – this citrus frock would be great for a bridesmaid or best friend to nod to the scheme…

Flowers can go down the thistle route without being nauseating with these Buttonholes from John Henry…

Can’t wait to see what route she goes down, but the brief happily set my mind racing around the web. What else do you think could work here?

British

From great madness…

Comes great beauty

Barbeques in the rain…

Warm Potato salad and chargrilled chicken…

Wonderful…

Domesticity with a capital DUH

The rugs have finally been beaten…And here it is: it’s a much more effective remover of dust and generic crafty threads, yarns and BITS than any other method. Dyson, eat your heart out. One broom handle and a good bit of ‘welly’ and we were golden.

Though sneezing rather heavily…

The coffee has been supped from the recently-received-back-from-paint-it-yourself-pottery-shop-mug and I’m mightily pleased with the final result.

We have planted mint (received in the post from fabulously innovative mother-in-law!!) and clematis (acquired in a more pedestrian fashion at the local garden centre)…

And I’ve been cooking scrumptious dinners on account of my brother staying with us and inspiring me to try some new recipes…

Nothing like another mouth to feed to gang up on the Boy that won’t eat **** and make him try fish, seaweed, tomatoes and bulgar wheat for the first time since childhood… This in particular was scrumptious and easy peasy (I’m delighted to say, as it’s demonstrated by a 2 year old…)

However, we have had one utter FAIL…

Having spent all my days proclaiming this to be the easiest and tastiest Rhubarb jam recipe in the WORLD, I took my eye off the boil so to speak and this is the result…

I’m claiming it as ‘Caramelised Rhubarb’ but noone is buying it…

Any ideas for uses to salvage the char are welcome…