Freecycle gold for all!

Went to pick up a load of crockery from a lovely chap through Freecycle today and am now the proud owner of yet more pretty china teacups! I could host my very own WI meeting now :-) Jude is quietly weeping in bewilderment at the range of (as he sees it) utterly pointless crap I manage to infest our cupboards with.

All but one of the slightly mis-matching saucers are blank underneath except for one which has my old mate Meakin stamped on it. I reckon someone must have loved this pattern so much they collected it however it came! There were two other sets with very kitsch patterns but I didn't dare even wash them up: they've gone directly to a friend who will hopefully turn them into mosaic artworks. Milly has absorbed the rest into an ongoing tea/soup-pouring workshop outside!

Each cup has a careful sprinkling of sand in the bottom!

Oh and the whole lot came in an old tin bath exactly like I used to play in as a child! Of course I'll be forcing mine to do the same in order to vicariously re-live my own childhoood...

The skies have cleared after a day of rain and intermittent sunshine, and somehow everything feels a bit lighter today :-)

xx

Where did summer go??

School run views

Artist at work

Tula's growing fast!

More chair rescue using salvaged fabric

Sisters posing

Milly and her babies

Cheeky monkey

Always smiling!

Footprint painting!

The result! Just need to find a frame for it now....

Important to make a decent cup of tea every now and then if you only drink it once a day!

Homemade bread + homemade jam on favourite birds of paradise china!

Weaning - oh the mess!!!!!!

Sewing

Those colours again and again

Up to 22 squares now - all very wonky, sewn at speed! Question is now when to stop??

Here we are nearly halfway through September and already there is a chill in the air once the sun has dipped below the treeline that makes me want to get a fire going to curl up beside. I'm still breastfeeding Tula to sleep in the evening and although she sleeps very deeply at night, she has recently started wanting to feed up to five times during the night too, which means I'm shattered during the day.

Hence the infrequency of my posts lately! Jess is having a great time at school, but has instantly turned into a sulky teen, which is very hard to deal with at the end of a school day, along with two tired siblings. Luckily my parents have very kindly offered to pay for Milly to have an extra day at nursery which is fantastic, as she absolutely loves it there, and she is much loved by the staff in return! So it means I will have two whole days where I don't have to be thinking up new entertainment and ways to keep Mil occupied when I'm trying to put Tula to sleep during the day...

I honestly don't know how homeschooling families cope when there is a new baby at home - Tula is by no means very demanding, but I can't juggle all three at with their various needs and keep them all stimulated let alone educated. I did seriously consider it at one point, but Jess seemed so keen on the idea of school from books like Harry and his dinosaurs and Angelina Ballerina for example that we just went for it, and it is a really nice little school by the sea so we're very lucky.

Anyway, quite selfishly I am looking forward to having a little time to myself to gather my thoughts: not having grandparents or other family nearby means I literally never have a break and I think that it is quite important to have some space for yourself every now and then, or you can start to crack up. Jude does what he can to help when he gets in from work, but he's tired too. It feels as though friends are moving on, moving away so I need to look outwards more, find the strength to move on too. And of course, there are all those projects to work on! At the last count, I think I have five sewing projects on the go, three of which are quilts.... lots to keep me busy!

Enjoy this beautiful season xx

A (mumble, mutter) lovely (grimace) giveaway

I don't want to tell you about this giveaway because I WANT TO WIN, but I am anyway cos I'm nice like that, see? (Plus I get an extra chance to win if I blog about it >cheesy grin<)

Hop on over to Hoola Tallulah's blog for a chance to win a Skitchbook! A glorious concoction to keep all your sewing kit in for on-the-go stitching!

The original post can be found here

..or don't, I don't mind!! Just have a look at the other lovely posts instead xxx

PICK ME! PICK ME!

♥♥

Good Moooooo-rning!

Our neighbours saying hello!

Lucky keeping an eye on those pesky cows

Morning all! We have had sunshine here in Cornwall for nearly a week!!!!!

It's amazing!

Mil's off to nursery all day today for the first time - I'll be home alone with baby Tula - very odd!

Have a lovely weekend xx

New beginnings

I've been obsessed with these colours for a while now

so I put them together at last in a scribble

 then added some scrap/thrifted material

 to make this

 then these followed

 added a little white

and so far the colour demon has been satisfied with my labours...

...don't know yet quite how big, or who for, but it's definitely something quilty....

Mil's been busy with colour too

  and Big Sis started school this week

and is very very pleased with herself!

and I'm missing my not-so-very-little girl :-(

Flowers in the allotment

Another Green Day with Fiona @ Raindrops and Daisies! Have a look at all the other lovely blogs taking part.

Here are a few snapshots of our increasingly abandoned allotment... the girls are both starting school and nursery next week so I'm hoping I might be able to get out there and start getting it into some kind of order for winter - maybe even make some Autumn sowings, who knows?? 

So far, my little herb patch has been overtaken by the mallow and cleomes I sowed in Spring, but that's fine, because hopefully these little baby thymes and pot marjoram will take their place when they've finished. My dream of having a little plot of fragrance may yet be realised! The lavender hidden amongst them is now two years old and is thriving, soon to be joined by more sown this year.

This year's veg was a complete failure because of the proliferation of slugs in all the rain we've had, they ate EVERYTHING!!! So I'm not sure whether to sow anything this Autumn or just hope for a drier season next year.

The girls love their knackered old trampoline! Behind them you can see the makings of a greenhouse out of old windows Jude's been s l o w l y working on for a friend. Another project thwarted by the rain!

Happy weekending!!

x