June 2013

Sorry to all my readers (Bev) I have been very remiss in posting on here but so much has happened since Feb it has got quite daunting to try and catch up so here's a start.

The Elephant bag mentioned in the previous post finally got finished but only two weeks ago.  But it's done and I'll probably add a picture later in the post as this will probably take all day (on and off) to post.

Got to do the school run in a minute and then intend to go straight to the gym for an hour.  Yes I've finally pushed myself and got back to the gym and once I get there I enjoy it, it is just the thought of it that holds me back.  But I'm managing three times a week now.  After the gym I'm going straight up to B&Q to get some more paint (unless I wimp out and do the gloss first), to repaint the kitchen walls.  At a quick glance they're OK but any closer inspection shows that they desperately need repainting.  Dave has done the ceiling this week, as it needed several coats and I've been out quite a bit or hiding in my sewing room.

We had the lights changed a couple of months ago and where the old lights were taken down it left big  dirty marks on the ceiling - but they're all gone now.

Now Dave is not working at the moment I'm trying to come up with some ideas to make a little bit of money to help out.  Sarah's school is running a craft fayre at christmas at which I thought I'd have a stall, and that led me to think that maybe I should look into having stalls and selling some of my work.

I still have some cushions left and I can make more but they are quite labour intensive and I could also do with some lower priced items to to pull people into the stall.

I have made some little tissue cases with keyring holders which I hope to be able to sell for about £2.50 and in fact have been asked for one already.  I also made myself a little book bag to carry all my books to Slimming World and another of the ladies has asked for one, which I made yesterday and will take to her tonight.  I have sat and worked out the instructions for the bag as I made the first one by playing with some spare fabric and needed to work out what I'd done so I could reproduce it - made a second yesterday before writing out the instructions and I think I undid as much as I sewed - serves me right - but I got there in the end.

Well since the last paragraph I've done the school run and been to the gym for an hour and that's really what's life's like at the moment.

I made a lovely notebook cover for myself from a kit I bought at Malvern quilting show it's got an owl on it.  Got the idea to make some notebooks covers for the craft fayres.  Started with a cat one and then a xmas tree, after some input from the girls on Facebook I've made a couple with 50's style ladies on.  One of those has sold already and I'm posting it out today.  So excited - how sad is that, I've created my first invoice on Paypal and been paid for something I've made and someone else values enough to pay for.  How sad is that. 

Just need to get more creative and carry on with things.

So here come some pictures (sorry Bev you saw these yesterday at quilting).

The lady in the Blue dress is the one that's sold and will be posted when I get showered and sorted out.

There will be more designs but I think I'm going to need to keep a note of the different ones and name them so I can find them again.  In other words I need to get myself organised.

I've also spent a lot of time in my sewing room lately - painting some of the mismatched storage so they now all match and having a major clearout, getting rid of empty boxes and some of the craft stuff that I don't think I'm going to use, these will go up to school to the art department.

On another note:

Mike went to his first cub camp in ages and had a really good time, the weather was fab and he got to have a go at lots of activities, including abseiling, rock climbing, archery and swimming.

In April Sarah and I went to the opening of Guthrie and Ghani the sewing shop opened by Lauren from The Great British Sewing Bee.  While we were there we met a few of the contestants from the show and they were really friendly.

Sarah and Ann (Winner of the Great British Sewing Bee)

Sarah and Tilly - one of the contestants.

 

Sarah and Stuart

 

Sarah and Lauren the owner of Guthrie and Ghani

 

 

 

The shop is really pretty but it was absolutely heaving with people and took over an hour to get to the till. 

After the shop we met up with Michael and David and went into Canon Hill park for a drink while Mike played with a remote control car.

So that's a bit of a catch up.  I need to photograph the Elephant bag and the changes to the studio but need to get on with something now.  Think I need it to be a shower first...lol