Shabby chic, cheapy-cheap scrapping bunting flags.

Doncha just love bunting?  I have it up whenever I can, birthdays, obviously, royal events (see previous posts) celebratory BBQ when the animals arrived and now summer high teas.  I saw some lovely shabby-chic flags somewhere or other and admired them but they came with a hefty pricce tag.So I decided to rustle some up myself.    Also this week my daughter has been asking me if we could do some sewing together - last year we made lavendar bags - sooo...  my scrappy bunting became a joint sewing projet .
Uber easy to do,  I rummaged round my scrap stash and found some colours and patterns that I liked together (I keep even the littlest of scraps so I had quite a choice).  Next I drew a paper triangle pattern the size I liked -  the best proportions I found was baically an isosoles triangle where the length was the same as the width (mine were 14cm along the top and then I measured 14cm down from the mid-point along the top) and added an extra 1.5cm x 14cm rectangle on top of the triangle which
made attaching the trangles together much easier. (I would have had my daughter draw up the pattern but her Dad had got robots out so I ended up doing the preparation bits by myself....)

Then we cut out zillions of triangles and sewed them right sizes together leaving the top open, this turned into great practise for leaving the needle in the fabric to turn a point! Also she learnt pinning and the great importance of RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER, only one wrongly pinned triangle ;-)   We turned them out the right way and  sewed them into a length of ribbon folded in half - bias tape would have worked well but I didn't have any in the house!

Et voila, easy-peasy, cute and cheerful for a summer tea,  a quick easy sewing project for a six year old AND finished in an afternoon.

Spring in my step.

Everyone is moaning about the weather at the moment and I can't deny that I have added my share of grumblings too.  It has been fairly rotten for May, we haven't had a decent run of sun for months, it seems to manage a day or two and  then collapses with exhaustion over the sustained effort and lets the wind, rain and general coldness run riot for the following week until it can bear to drag itself out of hiding and stares in astonishment at the hoards of people suddenly stripping off jumpers and winter coats again.  But miserable weather aside Spring is still lovely, we have leaves and flowers again and the little sun that we have seems to intensify the colours as it comes through the clouds.  And since you can never be sure when the sun is going to sink into depression once more, the slightest glimmer of blue sky sends the whole family whooping out into the garden.

So today when the lashing rain abated, the thunder stopped and the sky blued up a bit it was a mad dash outside to get the new plants planted, the chicken shed cleaned out (new chicks arriving soon, watch this space) and set the two natural lawn mowers loose in the garden, and also to gather the lilac that survived the storm so now my kitchen smells gorgeous too.  Not so bad for a wet day.

Lilac and herbs.

With a little help from my friends.

Things had been going a little too smoothly recently.  Found a new job, sun was beaming frequently, children happy and doing well at school, animals well settled into a routine and a particularly lovely Easter weekend   spent with our family hunting for chocolate eggs in the garden and a long walk with the rest of our village round little country tracks, donkey and pony in tow.  Spring had well and truely sprung.  Of course all of this idyll meant that we were well and truely due for a shake-up.  First the pony went lame - and little sympathy from the vet who took one look at her and declared her obese.  My fault I know but she is a total drama queen when it comes to feeding.  Powders and injections to be given and exercise to boot

What did I do?

.  Great.  Two days later my parents returned to their boat in the uk too.  And then work phoned, 'could I possibly do two extra days work a week'? Having just received the vets bill I agreed, sigh, not part time work then.  I think that I really got miserable when, having reduced the size of the field and stopped the hay feed, Caramel the donkey decieded enough was enough and he was off.  He was brought back to me having been found lurking round the back of the recycling bins.

Then I found that I had lovely friends.  One came up every day to do Sophie's injections (the mere thought of doing them myself terrifies me) and despite earning the hatred of the pony she managed to get all her doses of jabs into her.  Another is coming to help me lunge her as she really hasn't got the hang of it - and four hands are certainly better than two.  Then, whilst trying to organise child care for when I need to get to the aeroport, friend three - misunderstanding what I needed her for, was going to do the four hour round trip to meet a flight for me! " No no, just get my kids from school!! Then finally having poured my woes out to a friend back in England I came home from my first day of work at the new school to a beautiful basket of spring flowers that she'd had delivered.

Honestly it was almost worth the stress of the last few days.  

Growing realisations

Until this weekend I think that I believed that my childhood lasted for about thirty years; from birth until the age of 16.  erm yes, I know the maths doesn't really add up.  And actually Mum doesn't really believe that I have grown up at all (although I refute this, I have to admit that the evidence is on her side - I got Playmobil for Christmas and J came home with robots for me the other day.... but I digress)  My reasoning goes thus;  I remember doing many different activities, each one for a very long time, I had lots of toys each of which I played with for decades.  I went to three primary schools and was convinced that I went to each for about three years.  So you see, when you look at it like that my maths was not so skewed.  But this weekend I popped into my parents attic to find some more age-appropriate toys for my own two children,   and then it happened, I started opening boxes, finding memories and re-calculating my age.  It went something like this; "Wow here's my brownie uniform, oh I was living in Berlin then so I must have been 8ish and I went for YEARS, we did LOADS of stuff and then when I went to guides I was SOOOO grown up and mature, I must have been, what 16? Or there abouts - ah yes here's my guide handbook, let me see I was ....10!!!!!  I was 10!! Noooooooooo  10 is still little!! But I was so BIG when I went up to guides, quick close the box" 

The 'uniforms' suitcase

Next box "oohhh pony riding stuff, yippee, the rosettes I won, the speical badge to wear as a "helper" for the show - oh yeah, that was when we were allowed to tend a stall over the lunch break, and here's my sweatshirt for riding, dear me Mum must have shrunk it in the wash it's tiny, but I was nearly fully grown by then, what with riding and taking part in shows and being trusted to sell things to people, Heeeey here's the programme let's have a look at the date......... AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH I was 11"  And so on.  And then the toys.......  I now realise that I must only have played with some of them for a few years, maybe sometimes only a couple of years.. but they seemed to last for decades.  Anyway, painful as it was I now realise two things, a lifetime is exactly that when you are a child, the whole of your life, and it needs to be filled with fun and activities and memories in the making.  And secondly; don't open boxes.

Winter Idyll ?

Well possibly the lack of posts through autumn and winter has alerted you to the fact that autumn and winter are not quite as idyllic as all that.  I could talk to you about the roaring wood fires, the hot cappuchinos in the cosy living room, candles lighting the centuries old stone walls,  the stews bubbling away on top of the stove all day to be wolfed down with hunks of french bread and the joy on the children's faces as they race into our bedroom having seen the snow piled high in the garden.  But,  I could also tell you about the daily loading of the wheelbarrow with forests' worth of logs, the relentless cold in numb toes that manages to get through two layers of socks.  The worry of ferrying children to school and ourselves to work on icy, frozen roads and maniac lorry drivers who still think that overtaking little cars is a good idea in a blizzard.  Soggy clothing hung round the fire to dry and missing gloves mysteriously re-appearing weeks later in someone elses coat pocket. And the worst, oh the worst worst is that first inch of skin making contact with the air outside the lovely snuggly duvet on a Monday morning when you know that this is absolutely the very last second that you can possibly stay in bed because really it is now time to get up and if you delay any longer you really will be late and there is now no more excuse for not getting out of bed, no matter how warm it is under the covers and how cold it is in the bedroom and that has now made you another five minutes late but my goodness isn't it cold out there.  KIDS GET UP WE'RE GOING TO BE LATE AGAIN!