Day 45

Thursdays are supposed to be for Coursework, so I've swept the kitchen floor and pegged the washing out, chatted to a teacher regarding the scenery she would like me to do for the school play, which my son is in and opens while I am at the Summer school! Son and I are counting the days while I create and he rehearses.

So no more excuses - COURSEWORK...

This is the paper idea I had for the accessory I need to make, well actually this is the base - the accessory will be the buttons and tassel attached to the hat. The idea came from the punchline of a joke told to me once I had mentioned I was making a "fascinator"

"I have a donkey jacket it is great, it has nine buttons but I can only fascinate!"

This is the title for this piece, it has nine buttons of varing sizes and only eight will be fastened.

I made another toile in vilene and calio, but it was far to large - more hat then fascinator.

Did some resizing and here is the new toile

Front

Side

From the top

I am now creating the fabrics - fabric printing and embroidery and will use the toile as a pattern to make up the finished piece. The nine buttons will "move" down the spiral, eight will be fastened through button holes but the nineth will sit on the spiral and the "empty" button hole will bend down the side of the head into a spiral tail and the tail will end with a tassel.

Off now to do some more!

Summer School Countdown

As of the 20th May there will be 47 days until the Summer School and the end of Module 3

From tomorrow I shall keep you all (?) informed as to the status of the module and what as been done with the coursework each day - see if I spend the 47 days wisely!

Quilt madness

Tonight I set up my folder, money box, stapler and hole punch and waited with baited breath...

At 7.15pm I was in demand as the Ladies of Thameside Quilters swamped me with entry forms for the quilt show which is to be held in June. Well I say swamped, it was a steady stream and a few queue jumpers! All seems in order as I have banked the money with the Treasurer and inputted the info in the spreadsheet the previous Quilt Organiser used. It seems a big responcibility for if I mess up there will be no quilts to show!!!

I have entered two quilts the Frayed Denim Quilt and the Boutis - neither are finished yet, but it's not June yet is it?

End of SATS, a trip to the Loft and a break through

Darling Son has been very patient and had a break from the PS2 for approx 3 months while practice SATS and revision have been going on. Today was the last SAT paper so I went to the loft to return the PS2 to it's "rightful place" - attached to the dining room tv!

Very happy boy, he's confident he has done well and I know he has worked hard so a well deserved treat.

I have been busy making my accessory for chapter 9 and 10, after a frought time catching an idea! On Tuesday I got the idea while completing a circuit at my Curves gym (where do you get your ideas?) after the owner told me a joke! - of all things to trigger a design! On arriving home I scribbled out different curved spirally drawings, but nothing really came. Later on I went to bed with this design swimming around my head but still it wouldn't come out. On Wednesday I took my design diary to my toddler group and kept trying to get the design out. It wasn't until the afternoon that I nailed it and created a basic paper touile of the 2D idea. Thursday I was able to make a fabric and vilene touile which I am happy with - it needs afew tweaks here and there but it is basically near to what I want to make as the finished piece. Once the final piece has been completed - hopefully very soon - I shall post the developement photos.

Meet the Frogs!

They may look the same to some, but here are the three main visitors to the pond

This bigger one may be responcible for the frog spawn - then one of you will tell me that this is actually a male!

If I'm sounding abit over the top with these frogs please forgive me, but I've waited nearly four years for the pond to be accepted by the wildlife. I felt like a property developer who couldn't sell his flats and had squatters - the fish, in my case who appeared from nowhere, seemed to scare off other pond dwelling creatures. When I find my first newt I'll probably scare them all off myself as I whoop for joy!

Busy Sunday

Darling Daughter made croissants for breakfast, sadly, although I read the recipe, my hand reached to the wrong side of the ready made pastry and bought short-crust insead of puff! Despite the pastry fiasco everyone enjoyed them, especially DH who secretly ate one after this photo was taken.

With this evidence we found him out!

What you don't know is that they are filled with chocolate - a substance DH cannot say no to.

Chocolate is left in the fridge at your peril.

It is Pentecost, so lots of card flames were made today at Sunday school.

Today was so nice it would have been a disgrace to stay indoors, so I took the ironing board outside and tackled the pile that had been staring me in the face all week.

There was abit of a breeze which made the job interesting as I battled with the fabric!

Sunday Lunch

I thought I'd do something different on the vegetable front and found this recipe in one of Jamie Oliver's books

I had to avoid the olives and anchovies as the children aren't keen, but I did everything else as per instructions

Here's the result

It made a boring vegetable much more interesting although views were mixed on the "Shall I do this again?" question, so I might make this for myself as a main meal

What bit was left was made into a pasta sauce.

I spent the rest of the day continuing to sew the design on the Boutis quilt, having already done the ironing I had the evening to sew, but still it's not ready to stuff!

Furnish

I am off this morning to pack boxes of household goods for the charity FURNISH. Each year our deanery of the Mothers' Union get together and pack around 100 boxes of bedding and kitchen goods for single people and families who have need. For example homeless people who have been found accomodation will be eligable for one of these boxes to start them off.

See you later...

...Later...

Boxes waiting to be sealed

We've packed 97 boxes of bedding - single and double beds, towels, utencils and crockery. It would have been over 100, but we had to double up on some boxes - two lots of towel sets per box - as the charity didn't send enough boxes. All the duvets and pillows are new, as are the dishcloths and flannels - bought from money raised from a Maundy Thursday lunch, but we rely on donations of good quality second hand towels, bedding and kitchen goods. So we did well again this year.

Now that I've done something good, I'm off to do something for myself...

How decadent!

I had to eat it, you understand, as part of Module 3's spiral research!

I'm thinking hat designs, can you see where I'm going with this?