Friday 10 June 2011

Sewing a cube

What a difference a day makes!!  With a good start to my day, a tidy house and a clear head I set myself the task of mastering a cube.  I chose some pretty fabric (unlike yesterday) and thought about what I was doing instead of rushing in 'guns blazing' and guess what - it worked.  Thinking back to a year ago I have to laugh at how my life has changed.  I get so much more satisfaction mastering a sewing project than I ever did mastering VLookups on Excel spreadsheets.  Little Kirsty might just get her fairy doorstop yet.


My trial cube - turned into a pin cushion


As pin cushions go I still prefer this one I made a while ago

Thursday 9 June 2011

A Grumpy Old Woman

Today has been one of those days where you know you should really just have stayed in bed.  I am lucky enough to be a stay at home Mum with a great workspace to tinker about with my sewing machine creating lots of lovely pretty things all day.  In reality those kinds of days are few and far between.  A year ago, a bad day at the office would have consisted of a nightmare commute into London at the break of day, endless meetings with nothing to show for by the end of the day, trying to be polite to people who really P you off (something I found particularly hard to do towards the end of my time), the same commute home, etc, etc.  What you can do after such a day is off load to anyone in the same predicament.  In my case it was my good friend Amy who was going through pretty much the same thing as me and incidentally is now also a stay at home Mum, or to your other half over dinner and a glass of well deserved wine.  Being a stay at home Mum does not allow you this outlet of frustration because you run the risk of sounding ungrateful and being reminded how much worse your life used to be.  Well this is where blogging comes in useful.  I am going to have a good moan about my day to nobody in particular and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.
My day started off by getting up late.  Normally this would not be an issue, as I usually have no set plans.  Today however I had an early morning appointment that I had to get to.  Again, I would normally be able to round the kids up, give them breakfast and have them in the car within half an hour.  But no, not today.  Today was Kirsty’s 2nd day of potty training.  Anyone having gone through this process knows that a great deal of patience is required – something I seemed to be lacking in today.  After sitting on the potty at least 15 times in the space of half an hour and telling me that she had done the necessary only to find she had done nothing, I finally decided to get her dressed in her clothes for nursery sans nappy.  Yes – you guessed it – she wet her trousers and had to be changed.  Again, this is not as straightforward as it sounds because ‘big brother’ has to come and investigate what is going on and proceeds to try and give her a lesson on what to do.  Any other day this would be fine – but not today.  I finally get the kids to nursery without any more mishaps and make my way to my appointment – my gym induction.  The lovely young chap who has a permanent smile starts by asking what I would like to achieve with my time at the gym.  Is this a serious question I ask myself – why would you go to the gym for any other reason than to get fit.  I politely answer that yes I would like to get fit and if possible gain the body that I had in my twenties (like he has never heard that before).  The next 45 mins are hell – I am puffing and panting, trying to wipe my sweaty brow on a miniscule towel all the while listening to my friendly young trainer chatting away.   Can he not see the pain on my face – I don’t want to chat!  I finally finish my session and head off for the changing rooms to be confronted by a bevy of elderly ladies walking around in the buff.  Why, why, why is it necessary to parade around the change rooms doing your hair, shaving your legs, doing your make up with absolutely no clothes on?  It is just not necessary.  I make my way home for some well deserved peace and quiet, forgetting that the house is in a mess.  For the next couple of hours I move toys around from one room to another – because that is where they are supposed to be.  Why?  The place will look a mess again by the time I go to bed tonight.  I finally sit down to think how I am going to spend the rest of my day.  I decide to make a doorstop for Kirsty’s bedroom.  They are very in at the moment and I am constantly trying to keep her door from swinging closed.  I am in my comfort zone now – I am in control.  I decide on a square shape that will have embroidered fairies to match her room décor.  I have tried my hand at most things when it comes to sewing but never a cube.  OMG how frustrating.  I could just not get the measurements right and eventually gave up on the cube.  My next idea was a toadstool but found that I didn’t know how to sew a circle on to a rectangle.  Any other day I would probably be able to work out what I was doing but today is just not one of those days and it didn’t help that I was practising on the most hideous fabric.  Oh well tomorrow is another day.
My conclusion is that for today I am just a Grumpy Old Woman – or some might say I am permanently a Grumpy Old Woman.


My next embroidery project from http://www.embroidables.com/

Wednesday 1 June 2011

A bit of fun

Well it has been a while since I was last on my blog but we were lucky enough to be able to spend the last month in France and there was so much to keep us busy that crafting was the last thing on my mind.  The good news is that we are now home and ready to go again.  A friend had borrowed my sewing machine while I was away so I had to find something different to do when we got back.  Sean's nursery school teacher is going on maternity leave this week so we decided to make her a 'Nappy Cake' which involves no sewing at all and was something easy for the kids to help with.  We glued a cardboard tube onto a cake board and then placed the nappies around it to form the cake tiers.  In between the nappies we put some rolled up onesies, bibs, socks, mittens and a few baby toiletries.  To hide the nappies we used a couple of baby blankets and burp cloths folded and wrapped around the tiers to form the icing on the cake.  To keep it all together we tied ribbon around each tier and a little cuddly toy on the top.  We also popped a little onesie into the top of the cardboard tube to form the candle.  Kids and I had great fun...


How many cakes can you cuddle?



Kirsty determined to get the cuddly toy