Bits and pieces

Hello bloggy friends! I have missed you! I have made a resolution to post more often. It is nice to come here and warble away. I don't visit often enough. I have a great excuse to be here today though, as I'm waiting for my literature search records to export on my other computer, so am temporarily paralysed work-wise!

I haven't been making very much recently as we've been thinking about moving house so all my thoughts have been on mortgages and property rises/crashes etc. Eek! We have looked round a few houses that are quite nice on many levels but alas, it's expensive in the Bath and all houses that we can afford have a fatal flaw. Some recent examples of fatal flaws:

-house built on top of cliff and garden perilously clinging to cliff, necessitating perilous cling to cliff for selves to navigate to shed.
-house built at bottom of cliff, necessitating much artificial lighting or slight troll-feeling whenever in back half of house
-house in good location but internal walls in wrong location, necessitating builders coming and talking of 'steels' and '£1000 for that, £1000 for that, oh yeah, another £1000 for that' jobs
-house perfect but location imperfect (ie adds another 30mins to my 1.5h commute)
-house perfect but costs too much

So, still hoping for a miracle unflawed house, and will probably get the sewing going again while I wait!

I have been being DIY handy though. Not much call for this in a rented house admittedly, but our house is plagued by black mould (curses! condensation. problem with single-skin stone houses!) so requires a fair bit of maintenence to keep mould at bay. One of the more distressing mouldy area discoveries last winter was the inside of our coats. We had hung them on the back of the front door, and condensation had built up there and there was mould all over them! So horrid. So I bought this frankly OTT girly coat hook thing from the shop opposite work. More of a convenience purchase than an actual style decision (am surprised the husband did not complain. Perhaps he is a secret shabby chic lover). Put it up last year but the weight of it pulled one of the tacks out of the wall. We had (the shame!!!) been living with this for a while:

Sorry about the perpetually shabby photos.

This situation was not satisfactory, but the tack had ripped a hole in the plasterboard and couldn't go back in. So it was MILLIPUT TO THE RESCUE!!!! I love milliput. Most of our house is held together with it. It's this sort of plasticine-type stuff that comes in a grey part and a yellow part. You roll the two different colours together and get a sort of yellow-grey putty stuff. You can then make it into whatever shape you want, and it will become ROCK HARD in a few hours. I stuffed it into the hole and then put the nail back in and waited a bit. I also got a knife and smoothed the wall so it was flat and not all lumpy with weird grellow plastaciney stuff (good tenant?!!!!). Now we are set for the heavy coats of winter:

Yes, that is a little bird sitting in the girly coat hook. It had a little picture frame in the 'o' of LOVE (of course!) so I framed a scrap of happy Tilda fabric that I had (used here). I love it! Although am now thinking I should have used something more manly to offset the 'Love'. Perhaps a photo of a lorry? Or a muscle? Suggestions welcome.

tweeeeeet! hellooo!!!

Ooh and whilst references 1001-2000 download (groan!) I will just show you the few other things I've made since we last spoke:

Veg cake mix (incl beetroot). Turned out lovely. Note also pleasing 1980s juicer in background!

Ooh and this tea cosy for my lovely work friend who got married in a flurry of bunting and joy:

Yay! Made with leftovers from our own wedding bunting. 2011/12 truly are the years of the bunting!

And finally, the one I'm most proud of: A LADY!!!

Was going to give her to our niece. Fairly sure I still am. Quite in love with her tho. Ack!!

I made her from a pattern in Mollie Makes. So proud!

Ooh and talking of proud, and ladies, our friends in the Midlands recently welcomed a GORGEOUS baby girl to their family. Just so happy for them. Congratulations J&F. 

I wanted to show you this quilt I made for them, which will hopefully be a nice playmat or something for their little one:

Tried to be gender-neutral as they didn't know whether they were expecting a boy or girl, and think it worked ok! Yay. I basically made it up as I went along. First one I've ever made. Def won't be the last! So satisfying. And the nice thing about sewing gifts is, you can feel your love for the recipient as you make them! If that makes sense.

Have a lovely evening everyone! xxxx