Decorated Letters

I was slightly stumped for a gift for our 11 year old niece. She's had her room redecorated and her mum suggested something to go in it, so I saw these letters and decided to have a go at decorating them using some nice paper and PVA glue.

Christmas Chutney

I made this for the first time last year and it was very popular, so I made it again this year. Its a lovely slightly spicy chutney with tomatoes, peppers, aubergine, onions, paprika and cayenne pepper.

I started making it at about 8pm and didn't finish putting it in jars until almost 1am! The part that takes the longest, and puts me off doing it again any time soon, is peeling the skins off the tomatoes, I prick them, then put them in boiling water and then into cold water, but it still takes an age to get all the skin off! Any tips?

The pan I use is a family heirloom, which I borrow from my Mum, I would love to have one of my own but old ones like this one are really expensive and hard to come by, but I always keep an eye out!

Christmas Party & Felt Trees

There was a christmas party at one of the playgroups we go to today and father christmas gave Wesley a present! I have admit that I actually felt a little emotional when Father Christmas came in, okay Wesley didn't even really notice him at first, but some of the older children were so excited and I saw a glimpse of what we have to come! Father Christmas didn't stay long (I hear this is a busy time of year for him) but it was lovely to see him.

I've not been feeling well the last couple of days, but I've dosed myself up on lemsip this evening (and most of today!) as I really wanted to have a go at making some christmas decorations. I've seen some nice felt decorations about and wanted to have a go at making my own, I started with a few pieces of felt, some ribbon, thread and sequins and here is what I made. I think they are quite sweet.

This was very cheap felt, but I have my eye on some gorgeous thick 100% wool felt, but not sure where to buy it in the UK currently. Will have to do some research, would be nice to get some to do some appliqués with.

Right off to bed now to hopefully shift this bug before Christmas!!

Funky Trousers

My first project on the new machine, and I am so thrilled with them! I really took my time over keeping the seams as neat as possible, using a special stitch on the machine to hem the raw edges, which I didn't do on my first pair. I am much happier with the turn ups this time, but I still haven't worked out quite the best way of doing them, I want to be able to have a choice between between having them turned up or turned down as Wesley grows. But at present you can only have them turned up as there is still an unsightly seam on the inside of the turn up. I'm going to have to do more research into how to do this properly!

I took Wesley out in the new trousers today to meet a new friend and her little girl who is the same age as Wesley. She was very impressed when I said I had made them, I did think he looked very cute crawling around the library in them!

New Sewing Machine!

I went to pick up the old broken machine and asked the shy little old man to demonstrate the cheapest of his Elna sewing machines. His demonstration was so good I learned more about sewing in those 20 mins than I have my lifetime! I was so grateful to him that I decided to go for it, and call it my (slightly overpriced) christmas present! Little old man, who was actually just a workshop technician covering for the owner whilst he was out, practically fell off his chair when I said I wanted to buy it, which made me feel very pleased to be supporting a local business. Yes it cost me £20 more than I could have got it online, but I would have paid that for the service I received. He made sure I knew I could come back anytime if I had any problems, and I will feel very happy to do so if the need arises.

So my new machine is the Elna 2100, I think it is their most basic model, but the only benefit I could see of having the next model up is about 8 more fancy stitches that I doubt I'd ever use anyway. Best of all I actually KNOW how to use it! Properly!! Looking back I now realise I hadn't much of a clue how to use my old machine. I really only knew how to do straight stitch and zig zag. Now I know all sorts, including doing reinforced stitches, stretch stitches, blind hems and button holes! Okay so I haven't put many of them into practice yet, but I intend to put them to full use – no more bodged sewing jobs from me, I intend to finish each project to the highest of my ability!

Of course Wesley was very impressed with the box, and has also been caught eating lumps of polystyrene that packaged the sewing machine – oops! I hope it doesn't cause any serious side effects, although I have been wondering if he may be extra buoyant in the swimming pool!

Disaster Strikes - and festivites

The man from the repair shop called this morning to say that my 30+ year old Pfaff sewing machine is irreparable. I'm so sad. It was my mums which she bought when she lived in Germany all those years ago, and its the only sewing machine I've ever really used, I was so familiar with it. Now I am faced with the dilemma of whether to spend money on a new one (that would come fully working with a demo from the sewing machine shop, with a warranty but at a price), to look for a second hand one on e-bay, or to accept the very kind offer of an old machine belonging to my friends late grandmother. I am off to collect the remains of my old Pfaff from the shop tomorrow and may at least let the kind old man show me what is in my price range. I'm told an Elna is a good one to go for.

Perhaps a new sewing machine would be the boost I need to get me well an truly back into being creative with my time. Or maybe it would be an expensive toy sitting in the cupboard collecting dust and playing guiltily on my mind next time money is tight!

To give myself a boost this afternoon I put all my creative energy into decorating the lovely little tree I bought this afternoon. Wesley really enjoyed playing with the decorations and was slightly baffled by the arrival of this large bush to our living room.

I've always been rather precious about our christmas tree, it must always be a real tree, and it must always be dressed with the most beautiful and traditional decorations – no tinsel in this house!! I wonder if this is yet another thing that will slowly change as Wesley grows up! I did let him play with one of the miniature wooden nutcracker soldiers, but only the one I like the least! Some of my decorations, which I have been collecting over the last 6 years, are so special to me that I may become a boring and mean mummy who doesn't allow her child anywhere near the tree! But that doesn't seem in the spirit of it at all! I have a few home made decorations, and I hope that our 'grown up tree; will slowly become a 'family tree' as the years go by, with Wesley adding hand made decorations made out of dried pasta and pine cones, or whatever kids use these days!

I hope to make a few new decorations over the next couple of weeks, so watch this space!

Tasty Knickers

A quick little project from this evening, a thrifty Christmas gift for my best girlfriends, Knicker cupcakes. I think they look really cute! :)

Vintage Boden Baggies

All excited and inspired I set off into town on Sunday to buy materials to make some trousers for Wesley. Of course most of the decent fabric shops in Brighton were closed on Sundays, so I ended up trawling the depressing selection of material in C&H fabrics, designed purely for OAP's, parents making children's fancy dress costumes and maybe the odd middle aged woman making a hideous evening gown. I bought a few bits which I will hopefully turn into something interesting soon, however I had a lot more success in one of the North Laine vintage clothes shops in the form of an old checked shirt that I bought for £5 and turned into a pair of imitation mini Boden baggies.



Okay so at first glance they look pretty fab if I do say so myself! However a horrible horrible headache, a sewing machine on the blink and a very vague set of instructions the outcome isn't quite as I had planned. To start with my sewing machine only sews in zig zag mode which is more than a little problematic, I then made a very stupid mistake; the trousers are supposed to have turn-ups, so in order to do this nicely I had sewn a lining into the bottoms that would be visible when turned up (just in the same fabric), however when I turned them up I realised I had seriously messed up the seam which was obviously now visible. I still haven't worked out how to do the turn-ups properly, but luckily I had also made an error in the length, meaning they fit perfectly without a turn up! But I must work out how to do this before I make the next pair as I have bought fancy brightly coloured fabric for the lining.

On a plus side, I have dropped my sewing machine off at a repair place, and will hopefully have a quote to get it fixed soon, hopefully its not so old that they no longer stock the parts!

Oh and Wesley did an explosive poo all over the inside of the trousers, just to show his appreciation for my hard work.

Lightening bolt called Eric.

I'm going to launch straight into this blog, no big introductions, you'll get to know me as we go along, and chances are if your reading this then you already do know me!

So in short; I''m Meg, my husband is Jon, our baby is Wesley and he is currently 9 months old. Also under our roof full time we have Jordan, my 16 year old step son and Gypsy our 5 year old Lurcher, and part time we have Step Daughters Jessica and Emily (14 & 13). We live in Brighton.

Its been quite some time since I last did a craft project, moving house and having a baby kind of took over, and its taken 9 months to finally find the inspiration to try and rediscover my creative side. My Sister who lives in Germany has a little girl the same age as Wesley and has been churning out the most brilliant hand made toys and clothes for her, much to my envy! She has been slowly tempting me back into doing some projects of my own by sending me links and photographs of inspiring and beautiful things, and after months of her onslaught and me thinking glumly “oh that's so nice, I wish I could do things like that...” I was finally hit by a lightning bolt a few nights ago – and it came in the form of a pair of grubby old smelly socks. So please let me introduce Eric – the shabbiest sock monkey ever created.