mother's day

I really must get organised and make something for my mum for Mother's Day this Sunday.
so far I've made two mother's day presents for friends to give their mums, but nothing for mine....

red tractor tea cosy (not sure why a red tractor - but that's what was requested)



and the other side.


note to self - when trying to stitch lettering on the sewing machine go and get some interfacing from upstairs, and then do the lettering. don't think "I know, I'll finish the tea cosy and then hand embroider the lettering later". 3 hours of hand embroidery later, and lots of different sized letters, maybe not such a bright idea. must practise lettering on the machine, everyone else seems to be able to do free motion quilting, why can't I? (oh and must sew on a little loop at the top, as I forgot to add it into the seam whilst sewing it up)

nuno felted scarf on white silk chiffon for another friend's mum, the most scary thing about this one is I couldn't arrange to meet my friend to give her it in time for her to post it to her mum, so she just asked me to post it direct. without her even seeing it. way too much responsibility.....



I hope her mum likes it or she may never speak to me again...



off in search of inspiration ... she already has a tea cosy, and doesn't really wear scarves. coasters maybe?

happiness is........

shiny new tiles



cupboard doors



somewhere for the important kitchen equipment



no more cobwebs or dodgy wallpaper

new toys

and a dishwasher for when you've finished!

a tale of two cookers

out with the old






in with the new!

progress and a tea cosy

there is definitely progress with the kitchen, but right now there is a blissfull silence.

tomorrow the tiler comes

I will save photos for the final reveal!

hopefully later there will be photos of chocolate chip cookies which is what I'm planning for the ovens "christening"!

due to all the kitchen stress ( I won't bore you with a LONG list of what has gone wrong along the way), mess, noise, oh and children under foot as it's half term there hasn't been much creativity this week, but I was very excited to see that the shop that has some of my things in, (which is in an upstairs part of a bigger shop) has one of my tea cosies in the window.

cupboards and cobwebs

kitchen update, we have some cupboards!



and some cobwebs!



never seen in that corner before, interesting wallpaper!

a trip to the woods

last time we went to the woods E, Miss K, and a friend's little boy ran into a bee's nest, and came out screaming, and covered in bees, and stings. in the resulting stripping off of clothes there was much crying, and sobbing, and "I don't like bee's" and my friend and I ended up stung several times too, without being able to shreak because we didn't want to further upset the little ones. fortunately none of the children had an serious allergic reaction, although my friend's arm did later swell up hugely, and she ended up at the doctors.

this incident has seriously affected where we've been able to go on walks recently, and this weekend we decided we had to bury the woods phobia, and with lots of assurances that there were no bees in winter, and with daddy in tow we set off.

there were snow drops

some nice tree bark

a good place to hide,

some trees to climb,

and a good book to curl up with when we got home all tired out.

and no bees

they're coming

the builders are coming today to rip off the remaining tiles and plaster the kitchen.

then next week they'll rip out the few remaining units and start putting in the new ones!

in preparation for this I've started to empty out the remaining cupboards.

maybe I should do this more often.........

pancakes

pancake day breakfast;

teddy bear pancakes with choc chip faces.



well you can't send the children to school with a healthy breakfast everyday can you?

and because it's nearly valentines a sneaky peak at something I've been making.



thanks for all the lovely supportive comments about the house moving dilemma (it does frustrate me that I don't get everyones email so I can thank you personally).
it is slowly becoming clearer what we will do, I'll try not to drive you all mad with tales of house moving heartache. but thanks for being there!
but soon there'lll be lots of photos of kitchen building to show you - I HOPE!!!

how far is too far?

there's a light at the end of the tunnel with the kitchen saga.

it's a pretty dim light, but I'm hopeful.

in theory someone is coming next friday to plaster the walls, and then the following week (half term no less but I didn't dare say no in case they then didn't come till April) they'll rip out the few remaining cupboards and put the new ones in.

and the new cooker, which we haven't chosen yet...

and the tiles - as above.....


so then we'll have a lovely kitchen, without lumps of plaster falling off the walls, and piles of plates on the floor etc etc.


but...............

last year J got a new job, it's a great job, it's a permanent contract - hard to come by in his field of work at the moment, and a promotion.

and it's 100 miles away.

so every day he leaves the house at 6.15am and comes home at 7.30pm completely exhausted, last week he worked out that every month he travels the equivalent of from Yorkshire to Chicago, and the travel costs are quite high.

so it would make sense to move nearer..............

also on the plus side we could move to somewhere with a better secondary school (11-18 years), the local one here is not great, and maybe get a house with a bigger garden, for vegetables, and even chickens.

on the negative side, all my friends and family live near here, E doesn't understand at all - he's only 7, Miss K is very positive in general about the idea of moving (probably wants a house with a bigger bedroom!) but I think when she realises that we'll be a long way from Grandma and Grandpa, and her cousin, and she'll have to go to a new school where she doesn't know anyone one she might change her mind, and last time we moved house was so stressfull I can't bear to think about it, but there was at least one sobbing in the bank incident - not pretty....

I know lots of families deal with long commutes, and for anyone living in London, or other big cities it can take hours to travel even short distances, and lots of people move to be nearer work in fact when we first got married we moved 3000 miles to a new job (but we didn't have the children to consider then), but I'm finding it really hard to get my head round this.

at least when we didn't have a kitchen we couldn't even consider selling the house..