eugh been feeling rubbish for the past couple of weeks, now have temperature, sore throat etc and have been sleeping lots, done some crafting but not taken any pics. I have made two skirts from Sew What? Skirts and have played around with the embroidery stitches on my Pfaff machine but no pictures.
Garden is growing well with all the rain we're having, here's a pic of my first dahlia...
and some of the baby carrots, courgette and new potatoes.


Anyway whilst I am not feeling well I have made a start on an embroidery transfer of my Gran's, first project like this since I was a child!!!

Blogging Habit...

Argh it seems I'm not very good at blogging regularly. The past couple of days have been busy with tidying, cleaning and washing. I also had friends from uni round to see how I am recovering from recent op. It was lovely to see them and have proper girly chat. One of the girls brought me gorgeous pink gerberas. They are so vibrant and zingy, unfortunately my photography skills aren't quite good enough to capture their beauty fully.
In honour of them coming I dusted off my cake tins and rustled up a carrot cake. Since I have been ill I have been practising my baking and I have proved to my Mum that I can be trusted with her secret Carrot Cake recipe, unfortunately this means I cannot share the recipe with you, so instead here is a picture of it iced with cream cheese icing.I have had such bother with my icing of late, I always seem to end up with runny icing even if I follow a recipe to the letter. Don't know where I am going wrong. Mum has said I can come through for a tutorial (my Papa, her father, was a master baker - no jokes please!!!)

In addition to the lovely afternoon with the girls I was smiling with my find in the supermarket... I got an orchid for just over £4!!! Reduced from £12. I spent about 10 minutes standing working out which one had the most flower spikes, which was more likely to flower again and which I was less likely to kill!!! I am VERY happy!!
Not much in the way of crafting going on, tried my hand at batik yesterday but it didn't work very well, I think the wax I used (ends of candles) had too little beeswax content. Here's a picture of the best result...
I used some linen I had, well a pair of white linen trousers which no longer fit. I got an old shower curtain from the charity shop for £1 which has a fishy print, so I plan to make a lined bag. It was going to be a bucket bag for gardening stuff before I discovered the cold water dye was blue not green, oh well I'm sure it will work!

While I was using the hand dye I decided I would dye a t-shirt my hubby got from his Mum. He has refused to wear it as it was white with a red cross, rather similar to the English flag (he's very proud to be Scottish) so I dyed it for him, he says he will wear it now. So glad about that. I hate waste.

bye for now

Ok I realise I didn't explain the picture above, the beautiful puss is my gorgeous cat called Nala. I am stuck in the house most of the time just now due to ill health and she is loving it. I think she might actually be confused and think she's a dog! She follows me everywhere and if I do go out she follows me out and watches where I go! And of course eing a cat she insists on walking over my laptop whenever she can!! It's like why are you typing on that when your hands could be gainfully employed stroking me!

Anyways today I shall share some pictures of things I have made. I've been back into making things for around 8/9 months now. When I grew up I was taught how to sew by my Mum and my (paternal) Gran. She was a fantastic seamstress, often she made her own clothes as she couldn't get any to fit, except in the kids section - not terribly appropriate for an older woman!!! She taught me both dressmaking and embroidery, but I am so out of practise that I have a long way to go before I am anything like as good as she was, I'll need to take some pictures of her work, you know the type, where the back looks almost as good as the front! Mum sewed more out of necessity, saving money by making clothes for us and herself. Her health has made it impossible for her to sew but she is very good at giving me advice!
OK so here are a few items I have made, comments are welcomed!