little art and big, huge, cool art.

Little art first, right? Remember Sarah sent the Herma glue last week? Well I did my first layout in nearly a year! I'm a bit (a lot!) rusty.

It's photos of my spouse (who if you remember, has no hair!) dressed as his alter-ego "Big Dave" to go to see Iron Maiden in concert in 2008. This is at about 5/6am and he's wating for friends to pick him up to go to the airport. Heh heh. I thought the Lidl's bag (a discount food store) as his luggage was a nice touch. Enough of that. On to the amazingly cool art.

It's an art-deco Amy Pond!! For those of you who aren't cool like me (and Beth who I think I hear squeeing over there in Ohio!) she is the current Doctor's assistant. Well, one of them. If I hadn't spent fifty quid last night on a fat quarter bundle of Denyse Schmidt's line for JoAnn's I would have bought a print already! The artist is Bill Mudron and I got the heads up from Epbot today. There's always amazing cool stuff getting showcased over there but even the steampunk jewellery hasn't had me so desperate for a spend. Oooh, must resiiiist!

the girlie tomboy

She pretends she's all about the pink, y'know, that Chook of mine. But when it comes down to it? She can be as much of a tomboy as I am.

This is her all prettied up to go to Cool Girl's birthday party on Saturday (the cassette messenger bag was a huge success, thanks all for commenting and swelling my ego!). The dress is her Christmas dress, it was worn then with sparkly black tights and black sequin ballet pumps. I cut the sleeves short and suggested the rolled-up-skinny-jeans-and-gutties look (one of my personal favourite wardrobe choices). Which necessitated the purchase of new shooz and, of course, that flower in her hair. This is her "give me some attitude, Chookie!" pose.

Now, the party was Monster High themed (you remember those dolls, right?) and Frankie Stein wears a tartan dress with a tie. And Chook thought her dress looked like Frankie's - so maybe she could wear her school tie? (which is black and white). I, natch, thought we could do better than that.

Heh heh. This is velcroed round the back so it always sits nicely and the skull on the bottom is the Monster High logo. Just like Frankie's. She was very happy and off she sashayed. Well.

 These are her socks three hours later.

I can't show you her shoes (the new sequined ones!) coz they were put in an emergency bath to try and soak out some of the who-knows-what that they were covered in. Y'see, the party was held at Cool Girl's Uncle's farm. And it was raining. When I arrived? My oh-so-genteel girlie girl (shyeah, right!) was climbing a giant pile of shale stuff laughing her head off and generally having a ball. And that's when I see her like me.

and the winner is...

For those of you who can't wait the 25 seconds to find out or with reaaaally slow dial up (that means you, Dee!) or who can't understand my accent, the winner is








Leanne at She Can Quilt!! Heh heh.

Well done, chickie, I need your home address and you can commence your nurturing of the cushion!

Easter Eggs 2011

Mobile phone photos on account of my camera being full of someones film making endeavours again (there's a story for another day!) and it was 8am so sorry for the crappiness! Easter egg hunting at stupid o'clock this morning (good job the Easter Bunny was on the ball and hid the eggs at 6.45am!) much to the Chook's delight.

 Clever Easter Bunny had even got some Monster High pets! He so smart. *grins*

If you look closely her wee nightie is covered in ponies. It's part of her Easter from my Mum and is an incredibly cute (and incredibly expensive!) Cath Kidston.

We're off in half an hour to my Mum's for some roast pork and family company. Although kid brother and wife have a prior engagement and can't make it (but we've just had a visit so I'm quite happy) and the poor spouse got called out at 10am this morning to work. Pah!

I hope you're all having an awesome Easter Sunday! (giveaway draw happening later!)

stuff in and stuff out.

Busy day here today! Chookie has a birthday party tomorrow (her friend's not her own!) and Chook and friend, Cool Girl, are both mad keen Monster High fans. Here is Chook's doll collection. They are all based on monsters so there's a werewolf, Frankensteinian monster, vampire, mummy and creature from the black lagoon here. My favourite is Frankie Stein in her tartan frock although Lagoona Blue on the far right has the best pet. It's a pink pirhana inside her handbag/bowl!

She's missing a few for the full set and one of them is the more rare Ghoulia Yelps. Here's Ghoulia in all her....er.......ghoulish glory.

Cool Girl is hoping for a Ghoulia and other Monster High related things for her birthday from her folks and we were left in a bit of a spot. We wanted to get her something relating to her obsession but didn't want to risk her receiving doublers. So custom made seemed the logical choice. Do you notice Ghoulia's handbag?

This is the closest approximation we (and when I say we? I obviously mean I!) managed. It's based on this pattern that I've used before and I just jimmied the measurements so it's about 7in square.

I added the tag coz I loved the green skull fabric and didn't have enough for lining.

The lining matches the cassette fabric really well and I had to use that teeny bit of green skulls for the internal pocket. Chook, of course, now wants one. I see a use for some of that Heather Ross pony fabric!!

And my incoming stuff? I received a fabulous surprise package from Sarah at Chic Quilt Geek yesterday. Sarah own the papercraft shop Sarah's Cards and I had commented on her quilty blog that I had found scrapping stuff during my big clean out a fortnight ago but couldn't scrap coz I had run out of my favourite Herma glue. So she sent me TWO rolls!

Wasn't that amazing of her? I was thrilled to bits and plan to put it to use this weekend!! I hope you're all having a nice long weekend and the weather is as lovely as it's been here today.

a busy long weekend, part 2

So, Saturday morning (after having done all the sneaking about so as not to wake my hard nightshift working spouse and dropping Chookie off at her stables) I headed out to Linlithgow to meet with Jo and Julie at Jo's magnificent small holding. Her husband Jonathan took some time out from planting an extraordinary amount of trees (2 thousand or something mad!) to take this great photo of us. See that chocolate cake? It was made by Julie and was fan-bloody-tastic. True.

We ooh-ed and drooled over Jos awesome quilts (she has been quilting a looong time) and her crochet (on my to-do list!) before having a lovely spot of lunch and then getting down to business.

Jo was giving us a lesson in hand quilting. It was fun! Yeah, I was surprised at how calming it was and it is definitely going to be a new minor obsesson for me. I could have happily sat in her living room all day with Jo's fabulous view, some handwork and the two girls' relaxing company. But do you my want to see my real lightbulb moment and definite obsession?

This is Simon.

He is one of Jo and Jonathan's two Siamese cats and I am quite smitten. Seriously. Which is weird coz I am not a cat person. I mean, I'll stop to clap one on a wall but have never wanted to own one (or two!) until now. Jo's are such characters and having done some research it appears to be a breed trait and not a result of the fine Linlithgow air! Chook is, of course, delighted since she's been desperate for a cat for years. Spouse took one look at that photo, did some googling and was in! (he had a cat when we first started going out) And, yeah, obviously this is a long term project since we have the boys (of the rattus persuasion) and various summer holidays booked. So maybe next year.

Jo also took us shopping to the two fabric shops in the town. I find it weird seeing fabric in the flesh and it always takes me a wee minute to get in on the action! I managed, though (natch) and came home with this pretty pile...



And, oh happy day, when I arrived home this metre of loveliness was waiting for me. All the way from Spoonflower and ordered on March 2nd. I really thought it had gotten lost. Haven't a clue what to do with it but little girls playing with toy ponies? C'mon, that was a shoo-in for purchase, dontchathink? It's Heather Ross, btw. But she's so distinctive I'm sure i don't need to tell you!

And on Sunday I did housework and tidied my wee room. I was telling Jo and Julie how I don't have stash (I have no room!) so took a photo while it was tidy.

Bottom shelf has over-quarter-yards, my fat quarter bundles and scrap boxes (Chook colour sorted them for me, she's such a sweetheart!) and the next one up has a fat quarter pile, 2 boxes of less-than-a-fat-quarter-but-more-than-a-scrap fabrics and the giveaway cushion is sitting on my solids box.  

And that's about it! I'm looking forward to the Easter long weekend now! My boss has been off sick (his kidney troubles have left him open to all sorts of bugs) so I'm running the show again and walking to work (first time for nearly 10 years - I'd forgotten how much I loved it) and I am knackered. Spouse is still doing stupid hours and I saw him for an hour today - the first time since Sunday morning. Roll on Thursday night!

a centenial giveaway!!

So if you look over there ---> where the followers square thingie is? You will see I have hit triple digits! Yep, as of late yesterday evening I have 100 followers! Woop! (although at the time of publishing I have 101. Like buses, followers, I've been waiting ten days for the last two and three come at once!) So in honour of this most auspicious occassion I thought it was about time I had a small giveaway. It is small, don't y'all get too excited now!

The LynzBobSquareKnickers block from a few posts ago has transformed itself into a cool and groovy cushion. You like?

If you DO like and would perhaps like to rehome it then you may leave a comment telling me how wonderful I am (not really! Just hi will do!) No hoop jumping, no extra entries and all that carry on although since it is celebrating followers? It would be nice if you actually were (or have become) one. That being said, if you do the reader/feed thing and aren't in the wee pretty follower box over there I will trust you. Coz I'm nice like that. And basically too lazy to check. *grins* Good luck an' all that jazz, the winner will be picked by random number generator (or a small child. or a rat!) on Sunday evening.

P.S. Part of me hopes you all hate it and no one enters so I can keep it. Don't feel obliged to comment or anything!!

P.P.S. Yeah, international peeps are always welcome, my cosmopolitan chums!

a busy long weekend, part 1

I've been off work since Wednesday what with the school holidays and don't seem to have sat down! Thursday I was supposed to have a nice sewing day while the spouse and Chook went to the local cinema to see "Gulliver's Travels" (only 95p entry at the 10 o'clock kids am showing) but I ended up walking up to the shops after my car wouldn't start and I needed some stuff. Proper needed. Not like fabric needs. *g* That pair arrived home with a KFC for lunch, though, so it wasn't all bad. Friday was cleaning and visiting this little old lady.

Yep, my Beloved Wee Granny turned 88 so we took her booze, chocolates and some DVD's. And I made her this.



It matches her Not Pushing Up Daisies, Yet! quilt from her last birthday. She was looking great, I have to say.

And then Saturday. Well, firstly there was some difficult getting ready after the spouse's "wee job" helping out at his work on Friday night turned into an all-nighter and he didn't arrive home until 7am Saturday. Lots of tippy-toeing about and blow-drying of hair in rooms with no mirrors so as not to wake him. Not easy! Anyhoos, we managed and got Chookie all ready for her riding lesson in her new *clears throat* PINK JODHPUR BOOTS! Oh, yes, look at this.



It's Saturday stable-girl Barbie! Where did I get this creature of the pink from, eh? Takes after her Dad, I reckon. *nods sagely*

And then I was off to Linlithgow for drooling, chatting, eating, sewing, shopping and the definite beginnings of a new obsession. Or two. More on that tomorrow.

I'm *all that* AND stylish. Yeah, baby!

A while back (a couple of weeks, in the middle of our under-house flooding incident) I was awarded this rather lovely award from Judith at Rags to Bags and Leanne at SheCanQuilt.

They think I'm stylish! I'm really not. And I'm supposed to share 7 things about myself.
1. I'm shorter than I look.
2. I'm older than I look!
3. I hate gore flicks passionately. *shudders* Why would anyone want to watch someone else being tortured?!?
4. The word "moist" makes my toes curl.
5. I love my work. Not that I'd do it if I won the lottery or anything (those people are freaks!)
6. I don't particularly enjoy driving.
7. My favourite season is the Spring. When everything is new and everything is possible.

And then last week I also received this chap from Beth at ModernJax.

*sniggers* I'm copy n' pasting this next bit.

From beangirl: These things have to start somewhere, right? Why not me? And I mean, I figure I can operate under the time-honored tradition of believing that what is highly annoying in others is totally fabulous in oneself. Ergo, another meme with which to blatantly promote oneself whilst simultaneously irritating the crap out of everyone else. Awesomeness.

And again with the sniggers! And onto the awesomeness.


1) What size shoe do you wear? If you wear a size 7, can I borrow your shoes? I wear a UK 6 which is a *runs to check Etnies* a US 8.5. Sharing trainers is a one hundred percent no way, in my book. Yuk.

2) 30s or 60s? As much as I love the hairstyles and whole hats n' gloves thing of the thirties? Gotta be sixties all the way. Jeans, long hair, colours, flowers, bare feet, the best music ever made (at least up until that point) - seriously. What's not to love?

3) Have you ever kissed someone you shouldn't have?  As in a bad choice? Or someone already attached? *shifty eyes* Affirmative, captain. You may decide which one yourself, my parents read my blog!

4) Have you ever been poisoned? Was it by the girlfriend of the person you kissed?? That is awesomely "Knot's Landing". Er. Not that I remember. I'm not sure I've even had food poisoning. My brother got salmonella from a dodgy burger in Spain once. My 21st birthday meal was a carry out Indian coz he'd just got out of hospital.


5) Who's on your "Celebrity Free Pass" list (top 5)?


                          
Look, pictures and everything! Left to right and in no particular order,
 
1. David Tennant.
2. Jackson Rathbone.
3. Jake Gyllenhaal.
4. Gerard Way.
5. Jared Leto.
 
And to continue the awesomeness I'm kicking this on to Lynne (who is super cool but also super busy so no pressure, chickie!), Biff (who was always the cool one when we were at school!) and Molly (coz I am full of the envy at her instantly fantabulous hand quilting!!)

makin' stuff.

I'll be brief, I have an episode of Fringe to watch with my guy and a bowl of stuffed chillies with my name on it.

A pretty block. Lynnebobsquarepants by Lynne at Lily's Quilts. I love half square triangles.

And another made with my Hideaway leftovers from the hexagon quilt. No, it's still not quilted. Oops.

And my 6 blocks for the Lily's quilts quilt-along. They are biiig so this is a nice snuggly quilt.

I've the next 2 days off work and spouse is taking that Chook to the cinema and for lunch tomorrow so I have a whole block of time to play. Yay! Must dash. Joshua Jackson awaits. Squeee!

paper piecing in Georgetown

Lynne from Lily's Quilts has put up part one of a tutorial for a variation of a Georgetown block tonight. Now, I've not done any real English paper piecing so thought this would be a nice little intro. It's much easier than I was expecting which is just as well since as I was gearing up for starting the war cry sounded.

"Muuum. I'm boooooooored!"

So I offered up some fiddly fabric messing and she wanted to do it! She picked the colours and the fabrics, pressed them (carefully!) and pieced about half of them. You can see the concentration here! (I'm still wondering where those long, tapered fingers came from. Spouse and have short, stumpy digits - as does my whole family!)

 Of course, tearing off the paper was major success. Shame. That's my favourite bit. *pouts*

 And anyone who knows me will be familiar with this face. Spooky.

 Here's our first ring. It's only sitting on the grey for photographic purposes but I think that may be what it ends up on coz I love it!

Lots of makes to show later in the week and a cool-as-beans award. Busy busy!!

Easter makes.

Chook wanted to play with Fimo yesterday. So we did. She was busy putting this bunny together. Cute, huh?

 While I indulged in some Easter pin-topper fun. She made the egg (it had chicken pox, apparently! *g*)

 And while I didn't make these eggs, I had to share. Free range and given away at the stables this morning.

Spot the duck eggs!! *g*

Happy mail and not so happy girls.

It's the Easter holidays here currently (yeah, we know Easter's not for another fortnight but our schools here always take the first 2 weeks of April off and we get Good Friday and Easter Monday, too. Just because.) and Chook's riding school is having pony days all this week.  Just the thing if your kid fancies a whole day mucking out, catching ponies, grooming, cleaning tack and having 2 lessons. Sounds like a lot of hard work to me but Chook absolutely loves them (she had 2 last year during the summer.) It was a cracking sunny day if a little chilly and she had a ball. Learning to ride bareback and all sorts of jumping as well as the aforementioned hard graft. She has a really bad cough just now, though, and by the end of the day was totally knackered. And muddy after chasing after her pony to get her head collar off in a water logged field. Prompting this sour face when we got home and I wanted a picture of the mud.

 Bless her, she was a grumpy kid! And she's a snot monster today so no mucking out tomorrow, methinks.

I got happy mail this morning, though! I've a day off work due to the kids-not-in-school thing and a courier delivered this exciting box.

 The Disney Store!!! My favourite shop. Well, one of them. I succumbed to online shopping on Wednesday night and this arrived this morning (Friday) which I thought was pretty good. Don't grudge the fiver postage when it's not left to the mercies of Royal Mail! And what was it? Mugs!!

 Piglet! There is a real dearth of Piglet merch, I fear. He's my favourite so I tend to jump at stuff with him on when I see it. Although these managed to NOT make it into my basket last time we were in Edinburgh. I think I was on a mission for bowls that day.

Pretty, huh? And nice and Eastery, too. And comfy! Perfect, in fact. Happy day!

anyone fancy these?

I spent a few hours today tidying, clearing and sorting out my wee room. Making some space and things. In amongst a box of half finished things I came across these leftovers from the hexagon love quilt. I think I was planning a cushion or something but I'm never going to get round to that! The triangles aren't made up into the hexies but when I laid them out there's a few of them (they're about 7in across, I guesstimate) and I've divvied them up into 2 groups.

Group 1 - the full hexagon set. Six matching triangles in each.

'

Group 2 - the scrappy hexies. No 2 triangles alike, I actually quite like these!

I was going to chuck them and then thought someone might be able to use them? I'll post worldwide, leave me a comment if you fancy re-homing them (they're Moda's L'Amour and quite pretty) and let me know if you like group 1 or 2. First come first served and all that. Any takers?

I got a cat for Mother's Day!

This is Fred chillaxing on my bed. Isn't he cute?

 Yeah. He's a doorstop. An impulse buy from the spouse. Isn't he a real cutie! I actually gave myself a wee fright the first time I walked back into the bedroom and there was something lying on the bed. What an eejit, aye?

 I made some stuff to gift, too. A mug sized tea cosey for my Mum, the idea of which I nicked from a gift Trudi received.

 And a pinny for my beloved Wee Granny who isn't keeping so fabulously well. She loves daisies (the fabric came from Sooz a long time ago - thank you!!) and the pattern is from Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing book.

And I shall bid you adieu so I can go and eat some rubbish and work up to the ironing. Blat.

jump and jive and wail

The Chookie had an amazing riding lesson this morning. You know how her courage and general equilibrium has been slowly returning since the tooth thing?  Well today her riding cohones made a welcome reappearance. Trotting poles were first up which were happily navigated.                                             



And then came the cross poles. Proper jumps again! You want to have seen the smile on her wee face!

Her lesson partner is a contentious little madam and decided today that she didn't want to do anything the instructor was asking of the girls. And instead of spending precious minutes cajoling her along, the instructor said "okay then, you just keep walking round" and left her to it. So Chook had an absolute ball riding round all the poles herself and working on her technique. Needless to say, Little Madam came round eventually (a little!) when she saw what fun was being had when you're not a bossy, crabby so-and-so. Someone was getting a talking to at the end, though. By the staff and her parent. So hopefully she'll be in a better frame of mind next week - although I think Chook may not mind if she's in a strop again if it means she's in effect the sole pupil!