New to my craft room in May

Like last month there’s been some essential spend. This month it was the turn of my ‘take to’ machine, somehow just as I was packing up at patchwork group I caught the shank, which holds the presser feet in place, and part of it fell off. It’s a consumable part, so after a quick email with my sewing machine man a new one was put in the post - but at least this replacement only cost me a fiver!

Thankfully it was right at the end of the sewing session as the machine is pretty much useless without it - it’s photographed in the second image below, right in the centre of the Le Crueset manual, which in case you’re wondering why I’m keeping that it’s because I think the printed pages will be good for cards at some point!

I actually don’t have much new stuff this month, but as it’s my birthday month I am including two of my birthday presents, the first of which is these 12wt Aurifil threads, the Foundation pack, with its beautiful jewel like colours and which will be great for hand sewing and embellishing some appliqué I have in mind.

The fabric on the left was a total bargain and an unexpected purchase. In Newark last week and looking to get a new citronella candle for the garden I spotted a clearance sale in the fabric department of one of the larger shops, well I had to take a look. This fabric was marked down to £3 a metre and so I thought I’d have 3 metres and see how much was left on the roll, as I didn’t think it would be much. They measured it out, and I thought they were being quite generous as they did and as luck would have it there was exactly three metres left. When I got home and remeasured it, because I was curious there was just over 3.6 metres, so a total bargain.

MOH bought me these rainbow plant dyed materials for my birthday and they are as gorgeous as the threads above, which is just as well as my plan was (and still is) to use these together somehow, I’m just not sure quite how yet. I decided to treat myself to a couple of Aurifil storage cases for my threads as they make things so much easier to find, and while I was there I added a spool of ‘dove grey’ thread which Jo Avery recommends for appliqué - and that’s a big clue as to where my head is going with this rainbow project!

It was all going so well, then at my sewing group I left with two books, a pattern and two small pieces of material with a donation to the group funds - it’s dangerous when they’re clearing out their stash!

So that’s another month in my craft room, check out my previous updates for earlier additions, and remember to let me know below what you’ve added to your craft supplies this month.

This May...

Thankfully May has gone more to plan than last month, although the high temperatures towards the end of the month have thrown a spanner in the works slightly; while it’s been nice to see the sun having temperatures in the thirties on quite a few consecutive days it has meant I haven’t achieved as much as I’d hoped to. But then again it’s my birthday month and if you can’t take your birthday month more easy, then when can you?

I’ll share more next week about the genius plan for my garden, which was necessitated by the influx of quite a few unplanned plant purchases - some were for charity, and others were just too gorgeous to leave behind! But my plans are on hold until the warmer weather subsides a bit, as digging a new bed isn’t going to happen, not least because the ground is harder than it was!

The warmer weather has meant plenty more barbecues though, so that is definitely good news. Even though MOH is on what he’s called ‘light duties’ by the end of the month he was definitely up for barbecuing, and back to washing up. Result!

At the start of the month it was all about MOH taking it easy, which meant I had a lot more chores on my plate - obviously I didn’t mind and I know he’d do the same for me, but it was a lot. I learnt some new life skills this month, nothing too spectacular - well apart from cutting the grass which I haven’t done in over 20 years, but there was also charging the Ring doorbell (and the treasure hunt for the screwdriver), plus lifting everything because MOH couldn’t. But as I said by the end of the month he’s doing so much better - I know I’m being vague, but as I said before it’s not my story to share, but also I can’t write my blog completely ignoring it. So this is where we are right now, maybe another time I’ll share more.

My self imposed plant buying ban has well and truly been broken since our visit to the Newark Garden Show last month. I’ve bought some dahlias and cosmos on our visit to Flintham Hall which opened its Walled Garden as part of the National Garden Scheme for charity.

We also went along to the monthly Gardener’s Market at relatively nearby West Bridgford - and worked out afterwards we could get the bus next time, which would definitely help with my plant influx! We’d not been to West Bridgford before and it was great - it reminded us of a London village, full of the hubbub a Saturday morning brings and we stopped for brunch in Cote, something I’m sure we’ll be doing again. So discovering the Gardener’s Market on social media was a very good thing!

Our holiday plans have progressed and we are off to the Loire to stay in a chateau or two, breaking the journey with an overnight stop in Paris each way. There won’t be any cycling but we’re hoping for some walking, plenty of relaxing and temperatures that aren’t in the thirties!

We’re restricting ourselves to one large sized case, and a hand luggage size case as between as that’s as much as we can manage, so that’s made planning what to take more focussed than normal. Usually my packing ethos is ‘put it in, just in case’ but not this time, although I fully expect still to take too much. The more challenging thing is my shoe choices will be limited, which for anyone that knows me knows this will be hard - I’m better than I used to be, but then again I am the girl that took seven pairs of shoes (plus trainers) for a two week netball tour to South Africa, and I wore the lot of them!

It won’t surprise you that while I don’t know exactly what clothes I’m taking, I do know exactly what my holiday sewing project will be - that’s all packed!

I’ve mostly been slow stitching this month, and really enjoying it. I haven’t made too much progress on the dream birds pouch from last month as I decided I needed a new pouch for my holiday, as you do. And the pouch kit in my Advent Calendar seemed to be just the thing, though I was missing a piece of material, but sourcing another from my stash wasn’t an issue.

All was going well until the instructions said ‘quilt how you want’ which my brain took to mean use hand sewing to embellish the fabric and quilt it at the same time, so that’s what I did (see below), and once I’d done that the newly-substituted fabric looked plain by comparison, so that got a similar treatment.

I’m sure I’ll manage to complete it in time though…

I have managed to complete my mystery block of the month quilt top, and it’s looking great. I ummed and ahhed about the borders and how wide they should be and eventually made a decision to increase each one by an inch. I finished it at patchwork group this month, which was a really sensible thing to do as the village hall floor is way more spacious than mine!

Though now I’ll be putting pressure on myself to baste, quilt and bind it so it is really finished. But that means a temporary rearrangement of my craft room as that’s a lot of quilt and once it’s through the machine it needs to go somewhere, and the ten inches or so I have behind my sewing machine isn’t going to be enough!

But that’s at least next month’s problem.

Post Comment Love 29 - 31 May

Hello there, welcome to this week’s #PoCoLo - a relaxed, friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked, comment and share some of that love.

Please don’t link up posts which are older as they will be removed, and if you see older posts are linked then please don’t feel that it’s necessary to comment on those. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

Well in shocking news it didn’t rain on the bank holiday, and the forecasts were correct. It was hot, record breakingly hot. We spent the weekend hosting family, and being in the garden using the barbecue was absolutely fabulous. It was warm but not uncomfortably so, that came as the bank holiday drew on and the following day, which was unbearably warm even indoors.

And then came the storm, which I’m sure at some point included hailstones. It rumbled on for a bit, the new road through the village seemed to foam a bit at its first introduction to heavy rain, but thankfully the gutters were able to deal with the deluge.

It’s a strange old world though isn’t it, today as I write this it’s 10 degrees cooler than it has been - and yet, that temperature is what we’d usually refer to as hot!

Have a great week.

MY ROSES ARE MAKING THE MOST OF THE WARMER WEATHER THOUGH

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter