teacher gifts.

Yep, it's that time of year again! Now, teacher gifts weren't something that were done when I was at school but it seems to be a pretty standard procedure these days. And when the Chook asked nicely what we were giving her first teacher for Christmas three years ago? What could I do but oblige the wee darling and rustle something up. Now, I don't always make the gift but the Chook has loved her teacher(s) this year. She's a probationer (that means she's doing her first years carefully supervised proper teaching out of college - not that she's a criminal!!) and so one and a half days there's another teacher fills in and I think she is even more adored than the main Miss. So I made them wee "chillaxing bags" (Chook's phrase!) to go to school tomorrow. You'll find the pattern here and they are super easy, quick and so cute!!

This is what we filled them with. Instant latte and chocolate raisins in the mug, cosy socks and a smelly candle jar. I'd quite like to get one myself!

Even the notelets match with a sleepy turquoise bear friend. Heh heh.

I did get happy mail today. It's the backing and border for Chook's bed quilt.

That flannel is scrummy and soft! And it will photograph on the blue side (I looked all over the web and it totally looks turquoise plus the light is really bad here today with all the rain!!) but is actually a pretty soft green. Chook fell in love with the cherries - they equate the epitome of cool in our house, we both have cherry hoodies!!

an evening at the races

We were up at Cowdenbeath at the Racewall again last night. Gotta love the stockcar racing! It's a real evocative childhood thing for me - my Dad was into racing (although he rallied) and used to take me. Anyhoo, as well as stockcars (non contact my foot!)... ...we saw saloons (which are based around Ford Sierra type cars - they ARE contact!)...

...and mini-stocks. Aren't they the cutest! There were bangers, too, but I appear to not have a photo of them. Ooops.

I liked this bloke's job. Spreading concrete dust on oil spills of all varieties.

Chook enjoyed a burger (and wore her groovy ear-defenders. Yes, it is that loud!) That's ma spouse's chest and chin and his pal laughing over something in the background!

And I had a chuckle over this wee guy chatting to an official after some car trouble. No, he's not a teeny tiny wee bloke. See the mini-stocks up there? They are for 8 to 16 year olds! I think this chap is nearer to 8 than 16, dontcha think? Scarey to think that next month Chookie could drive one of those!!

These chaps are the semi final winners. Definitely kids!

And then came the event we had all been waiting for. The caravan destruction derby!

Only 3 entries but this was the first tipper. It didn't manage a lap!

This is it becoming matchsticks as someone drove right through the middle!

And then there was this really bad crash. That's a car upside down with a caravan on top. The driver wiggled out, waved to the crowd and bowed to great applause.

They called in the heavy lifters. Bye bye Mister Caravan!

And the stewards righted the car. And would you believe it...

...the car started, ran about causing some more CARnage (bad pun, sorry!)...

...and was the last car running. And therefore the winner!! Heee!!!

We had such a laugh. It's been 8 months since we visited (8 months!! How did that happen?!?!) and it was a glorious evening. The caravan race was finishing up at quarter to 10, you can see how light it is and it was warm. Great fun.

a charming pile

I was playing today with all my charm squares I received from the ORB Pork Chop Swap. You know, dividing into colour piles, taking out doublers (only 2!) and doing the maths (ack!) to see just how many I need for my plan. This isn't a layout or anything, it's just them all lined up looking pretty. And is only about two thirds of what I received!

The row that's slightly apart down the bottom? They're my favourites for the centres of my plain blocks. And, unusually, I have ALL my fabric before I start! Backing and everything!!

Charms, Kona Colorworks stripes (LOVE these - want more!!), Claire Blocks from Jennifer Paganelli's Bell Bottoms line and the wonderful "pond" Kona cotton. Like Amy Pond, the Doctor's assistant. Hee! A very beautiful green/blue - my favourite Kona, I think!

Anyway, I may start cutting solids and sewing 9 patches over the weekend. I took my machine to get serviced today so hopefully it'll be business as usual in about 10 days. More piecing in the meantime!

such a child.

Me, that is! I was quietly checking out new lunch bags for the Chook when I found this adorable woodland one. What really sold me was the incredibly fabulous wee snack boxes. Tres jolie, non? And THEN I found the skull ones.
How ME are they?!!? And the bags are insulated so my yoghurt and cherries were still cool at lunchtime today. Result!! And slightly subversive - me likee very much!

the end of an era

Chookie had her last Beaver's meeting last night. So sad! And what a quick 2 years. I knew the hall would be rubbish for photo taking so I snapped this before we left. The cat on the lead is Fudge. He came free with a magazine about 6 months ago and has been a constant Beaver's companion since. He even has his own uniform.
This is her receiving her bronze award. Not all of the 6 kids leaving had managed to complete theirs so we were very proud.

We were even prouder when she received this special cup for being the longest serving Beaver leaving the colony (and I suspect to commemorate being the only girl for 2 years!)

We will really miss Jan, Jackie and Boomer and David and Ian the scout helpers. Onwards to the Cubs after the summer - what an act to have to follow!!

stay gold, Ponygirl.

She just can't get enough of this riding lark. And Miss Molly (the pony) is becoming more manageable as Chook becomes more confident. We had to try and explain what a firm voice is - it's harder to do than it sounds!

P.S. 3 literary points for the book I've paraphrased the title from. Heh.

the Black Sands.

We were at the beach today! It was sunny but really cold this morning up at the stables (blowing a gale, too!) so we packed fleeces along with our sunhats, factor 30 and cheese pieces (that's a sammich if you're not a Brit!). By 2 pm we were moving into the shade, it was scorchio!

The Black Sands at Aberdour are one of our favourite seaside destinations. Spouse and I first visited by accident years ago when we had not long started going out - we were looking for the far more popular Silver Sands which are about a mile further up the coast. It's very pretty, I think.
That top photo is the left hand view from camp Graham and this one below is to the right. Do you see how cloudy it is at noon?

That's Edinburgh on the far shore! The mound on the far right is THE mound with the castle on top!

Chook was happy building sandcastles for about an hour.

Spouse and Chook did some rockpooling for crabs and things. All safely put back, natch.

Me! Helping to fly the smallest kite in Scotland! There was NO wind about - after the mini tornadoes this morning it was very weird. I was needing my jeans at this point, too. We really couldn't believe the change in weather in about 2 hours when the clouds burned away and we started to broil!

And Chook was brave and was calf deep in the water at one point. It should be noted this is the North Sea and it is always freezing!!

I love this shot. What more could a girl want? Beachcombing with her beloved Daddy while riding her very special Zohan (don't ask!) hobby horse. He goes everywhere with us just now! I mean the horse, not Daddy...

And after all that fresh air we had a fabulous barbie at my Mum and Dad's (quite by accident) so we didn't even have to cook tea. Result!

P.S. Thanks for the tension tips last post! I've been tinkering and it is definitely better. Woo-hoo!!

coz, y'know, I haven't enough on my sewing plate.

I currently have 2 quilts on the go. The hexagons and the Godzilla shoo-fly. One was waiting for finishing instructioins (which I now have) and one still waits for more thread to arrive but there's another hitch, too. My sewing machine has packed in! It's been struggling for a few months now - it sometimes only has 2 speeds. Not at all and Warp 9! I can't figure out if it's the pedal or the motor, turning the wee wheel makes it go fine. Until you stop again. Bear in mind it's nearly 20 years old and has never been serviced. In fact, for the first 19 of those years it didn't have a drop of oil, either! So, it's packed up to go to my sewing machine specialists who, luckily, are only a few miles away.

In the meantime, I've borrowed Wee Granny's machine. It's new and sews fine but I'm a bit wary of finishing piecing the hexagons on a different machine (Granny's puckers a bit and I can't figure out how to get it to stop!!) and there's NO WAY I'm finishing the stippling on Godzilla on it. AND my quarter inch foot doesn't fit. No, it does fit, it just doesn't like it and the thread keeps getting in a fankle. *huffs* So, I have my Doll Quilt round 9 mini to make (which is fine - I've 2 months to do it, more on that another day) but wanted something else to be getting on with. And the Chook had been sleeping under the Wonky Cherries throw and asking for her own bed quilt. So the hunt began for pink and green fabric that was bright but not radioactive and not babyish. Couldn't find anything we liked and then I remembered this stuff!!
I bought a fat quarter bundle of Sandi Henderson's "Ginger Blossom" in February coz it was on sale and I loved it. And I had the "jelly filled" pattern from ThimbleBlossoms coz it was originally for the L'Amour jellyroll that has become the love hexagons. So I'm diddling away on ANOTHER top trying not to really want to do the ORB asterisks quilt (even though I really want to and probably will eventually) and not getting anything finished. I'm getting a bit frustrated, TBH, I do not like too many things on the go at once. That's how you get UFO piles!

recycling kings.

We recycle a LOT in our house. Even cars! (remember Spouse's pet project is restoring an early 70's Ford Escort!) So the story goes, my Mum bought new kitchen furniture a few weeks ago and asked if I wanted her Welsh dresser. I said no thanks, I thought it was too big. Spouse thought differently, we measured, it fitted the space our wrought iron baker's rack was living in and we picked it up Friday night. Good job it splits in two and that the Spouse drives a hearse! (Not really, it's really just a very large black estate.)

I forgot to take a photo before I started the renovations so I've started dismantling and sanding in this pic. And, yes, that would be ME doing the work. He wanted it, I've had to put the graft in - what went wrong there? Doofus.
Here's the top.

And 3 coats of paint later! Looks good, eh? You wouldn't believe the stuff that has gone in those bottom cupboards. The kitchen is half empty and I have loads of free bunker space and empty shelves. Happy day! It still needs its cuphooks on that middle shelf but that's a spouse job. And if you needed proof that I have bipolar tastes, if you enlarge the photo you can just about make out that playing on my iPod (bottom right black thing) on the country dresser with jugs of flowers is the new Slash album. Loud. Heh.

My favourite bits are the mint humbug handles I bought from eBay (bought Sunday at midnight, posted Monday morning, arrived and fitted on Tuesday - beat that!)

and my new teatowels from Next. (ordered Monday lunchtime, delivered before 12 noon on Tuesday - I did beat it!!)

I totally love the look and the storage it creates and that I have somewhere to display all my prety junk. Imagine what it'll be like at Christmas!! Oooh, holly bunting!!! But if I don't see a paintbrush for the rest of the year? It will be too soon.

horses and sheep and cows, oh my!

Today was the local yearly agricultural show in Stirling and we attend most years it isn't raining! Now, we live in a small town (19,000 souls) but I think of myself as suburban and not country. I do tend to forget that all our towns and villages are surrounded by farms. This sort of event always brings my local lifestyle into sharp focus!

We, of course, usually go to ooh and aah over the horses. This was the first year we had a clue about anything vaguely equestrian since the Chookie's been having her riding lessons since the spring. It was, as ever, very exciting. (that's my Ochil Hills in the background again!) Pop bought the Chook some new jodhpurs and half chaps and 2 pairs of gloves since she's been getting sore hands from the reins. Thanks, Daddy!!
And, as usual, there's always plenty to see and do. Dog trials, Highland dancing, tug-o-war contests, stalls with local produce and tractor salesmen (not that we need one of those!) The pipe bands are always very good (these are mostly school kids!)

And lots of livestock to see. I totally missed the poultry tent (dunno what happened there!) but did check out the sheep...

...and the cattle. Look, Highland Cows! Heh heh. Ooh, and see the tower on the hill in the background? That's the Wallace Monument. As in William Wallace. As in Mel Gibson and "Freedom!!" an' all that.

Isn't this bull giving me the evil eye? Prolly out to protect...

...this wee chap! Isn't he just adorable!! And just a tiny babe. Aaaaw.

Head far enough down the field and invariably there's some shows. And the Chook does love a giant inflatable chute!

There she goes!

There's always stuff going on in the main ring, too. We paused to watch Chookie's friend Teagz winning the fancy dress pony parade and as we were deciding where to go next the announcer started introducing the equestrian vaulters. Well my ears pricked up as I had recently read an article in the local rag about a local girl who was by all accounts pretty darn good. She was European champion and was trying to raise money to get her horse to Kentucky for some big competition. And here she was with her team (the youngest was just eleven!!) to put on a display for us. Well, what a show!!

They started by showing their required moves - and we oohed over standing. On a horse. Whilst it's moving. Wow. But then...

The real gymnastics started!! This horse is trotting!!

This is the girl who's the chamion. She made it look just effortless and we oohed some more and then she......

....leapt right outta shot!! Do you see the height! On a moving horse!!!!

Seriously, we were stunned. And that grass is a sheep field, it ain't smooth!! Impressive or what?!

So, needless to say there's been no sewing been going on today. And none for the next few days at least - I've got another project on the go. Involving paint. And recycling. Busy busy!!