( click on for clearer details, Typepad will not allow me to enlarge the photos).
What more could a girl ask for?
I wonder if my teenage girls would be interested ; )
All taken from this delightful book, donated by my Father-in law.
Lately I find myself looking at 'myself' and wondering ' why' I often think that when I hit '40' I really did embark on a permanent mid -life crisis and a change of personality, many positive things have happened but also lots of 'why' incidents. My embroidery work started to change direction and I often find myself making things that I would never have dreamt of or that I thought that I didn't even like ( a bit like when you are a child and you really cannot understand how adults can like wine, sprouts, sloppy kisses, afternoon naps and classical music but then you hit 30 and suddenly they become part of lifes staples). Take this book for example, found in a 'charity shop'
It is full of weird and wonderful crazy looking '70's dolls, absolutely perfect for how I am feeling at the moment. I fell in love with this one and had to immediately start making it (in my mind I was convinced it was Mr Punch-yes I now realise it isn't) but I just had to make it. So I sat up day and night and day and night,
and I obsesively made him but I found it increasingly difficult because it was so small and there was lots of tiny pieces and the felt kept on de-felting. So I cursed and moaned and kept on going back to check that I shouldn't have enlarged it but No, nowhere in the pattern did it say to enlarge so on I continued for what seemed like days and nights until finaly I completed it.
And then after my frenzied obsession with making it I looked at it and thought 'why'? What on earth has come over me ? So it now lies abondoned on the kitchen table, where people pick it up and say 'Mmm, nice Jester' and I look bewildered and say 'But I thought it was Mr Punch.'
(It is only now after i have studied the book from cover to cover that I have found out it says on the first page about enlarging the patterns!! Perhaps I should forget mid- life crisis and think more along the line of 'senor moments'.)
I have been absent from this blog for quite some time, lots of things have been happening in life, new directions followed, eldest child leaving school ( how did that happen so soon? ) new courses researched, market stalls sought out, mess sort of tidied up (!), weight finally lost (4 stone) and clutter from inside dealt with. At the same time I have tried to be quiet, calm and kind to myself. To let things go and to just be. I reached a point in my life last year when I knew some things had to change and now I think I am nearly there. It is starting to feel so good and positive - feelings that have often eluded me for most of my life. Feelings that now, in quiet golden moments, I take out and unfold and look at in wonder - how did I get so far in life without having known them? It makes me study them with such awe and amazement. At last light seems to have taken over my darkness.
I hope to be back soon with news of some courses I have been researching and some projects I have been starting and hopefully some work completed. Happy days to you all.
Hi and welcome. It seems I have had a bit of an unscheduled break! One of my daughters borrowed my laptop for 3 weeks to complete her coursework and then returned it to me with a 'not working' spacebar. No matter what we have tried we cannot get it to work, so back to the shop it has gone and I am doing this on the library computer. Hmmm. I feel like I have been living a waiting game for the last month, I had a bit of a health scare and have been waiting for a hospital appointment and then various tests and results. I have now got the all clear but it has left myself and Mr Thimble feeling incredibly exhausted, it has been a frightening and trying time and now it is over I feel like I have been given a second chance at life. I feel that the saying 'you don't miss ordinary until it's taken away' is so very true, I am taking great pleasure in ordinary at the moment. My heart and thoughts go out to all of the people who I shared waiting rooms with in those scary moments.
On a much lighter note, I am so very happy for this family. Congratulations and very best wishes to you all. I hope to be back soon with brighter words and happy pictures, hope you all have a happy weekend.
A whole week has passed since I last blogged, whatever happened to my good intentions? If only I would spend a fraction of the time spent on other blogs on my own, I would have more postings. This girl has been to all her concerts (this week at least) and has got home in one piece and as you can see her tongue is healing well. She's back to non-stop chatter.
Other daughter went for a haircut (she had long blond hair) and came home with it in the nape of her neck and heavily layered. She said she stated that she wanted it shoulder length with some layers (why do some hairdressers seem to do what they think best and not what you ask for?). We had many tears the next morning when it came to school but she bravely went in and I was very proud of her. She is now getting used to it but can't wait for it to grow.
I decided to make myself a new apron, the one I had was disgusting and last weekend I felt thoroughly ashamed of it whilst making muffins for daughters' sleepover. But when I came to make it I found myself going for 'not very 'liked ' pieces of fabric and a basic pattern because 'after all it was only me'. So after battling with myself I compromised and used ok fabric and decorated it with a bit of applique (at the time I was watching this on the iBBC website, hence the musical notes).But I did make it double sided to cut down on the laundry. As usual it had to be photographed outside because of the dreadfuly dull weather and the lack of clear space in my house! The least said about that the better. Happy thoughts to you all this weekend.
This daughter is here tonight, this week she will be seeing these and later on this week this band. She has a great appetite for these things and saves all her money so she can go to them. She is 5ft and weighs 8 stone, from the minute she goes to them (because of course she has to go mega early to meet everybody queing up) I think about her (meaning worry). I always ask her to stand at the back of the crowds, to not be at the front squashed up the barriers and to keep out of the 'heaving, frenzied masses'. She always tells me she will (with a smile) I always know that she doesn't but I pretend to myself that she does. It seems very hard sometimes to let your kids grow up. I will be very glad when she gets home.
It's Saturday morning, 11.30- Mr Thimble has gone to Bath 'on a mission', eldest daughter Thimble is at her Saturday job and youngest daughter Thimble has gone to town shopping with friends. And me, well what more could I ask for - home alone, a nice warm studio and these;
Hope your weekend is as pleasant.
Busy, busy, trying to complete the above, trying to tidy the below and wondering how this person manages to do all she does.
Tha last few days have been very busy, I have got up everyday with good intentions of tidying my workroom but always end up getting distracted (rather I let myself get distracted because I HATE, HATE housework) by other things . We have been very busy making mint jelly, spicy lentil burgers (to freeze), dying some cream linen in jewel- like colours to make some trousers and preparing lots of salt mouthwashes for my daughter who came home on Monday with this;
Hmm, as you can see her tongue is quite swollen. She has other piercings but the tongue is always one I did not want her to have. But now its done we must deal with it, so it's fruit smoothies and soup for the next few days! At least it's keeping her quiet ; ) . I have also been setting up my Etsy shop but I cannot work out how to get the 'mini Etsy shop badge thing' onto my blog. When you create it at your Etsy shop it tells you to grab and paste it, but where? Can anybody help me with this please (told you I was hopeless at computer stuff). When I copy it and go to my Typepad account what do I do with it? Now I will leave you with a prettier picture than my daughters tongue, recent W.I.P.
I haven't been able to post all weekend, we have had my parents staying and we have been celebrating Mr Thimbles' Birthday. Mr Thimble is an absolute delight and I love him very much. I would like to thank him for being my husband and I hope he has a super day. This picture is for you sweetheart.
( If you have commented on my blog and I have not replied please forgive me, I am still finding this a little difficult and still feel a bit unsure of what I'm doing).
