love happy

Rose captured outside Liberty yesterday in London on my way home from a meeting   Here's wishing you all a very blessed and peaceful Easter.   This morning started with some serious Spring cleaning in our home. Firstly sorting out the linen chest at the end of our bed. We live in an old Victorian house and have no real cupboards other than the one under the stairs which is full of our camping and DIY stuff! After a little moaning and push by Andy, I agreed to face the linen chest which I actually sorted out about a year ago and recycled LOADS to charity shops then, I was in a ruthless mood then, so lots went, however I didn't expect much would go today.....I am a sentimental old fool when it comes to memories and fabrics.   Ok, so I have to admit I love old linen, 100% cottons as bed clothes and Indian patterned cloths, African fabric and lots more....   I thought it might be fun to log some of the fun bits of fabrics/curtains/pillow slips/sheets etc here on my blog....

Sometimes, my dearest bloggy friends I just have to sew a needle and thread in and out of fabric. I love the process of choosing fabric, scissors snipping, colours coming together and although not perfectly matching, being sewn together to create a work of pretty patches. Each with their own secret history and magic harmony. One side Spring,the other side Summer. A perfect calling to mother nature to change her ways here in the northern hemisphere. I hope almost 3 year old Maddy likes my first ever patchwork cushion cover. Please note that a little jig of joy was done when I realised that some of the patches joined just about perfectly! Enjoy the rest of your week and see you all soon xox Penny

This past week has been a bit of a topsy turvey one,one minute up, next minute down kind of thing. Life really, nothing too surprising in that. I have managed to keep on track with photographing some of the simple happier moments of my week. My camera goes everywhere with me these days, sometimes I feel like a mad woman possessed by that camera! Firstly, I bought some pastel yarns, some Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino and some millamia. I am not normally a pastel yarn loving girl but somehow these soft colours were just calling me. It might have had something to do with one of my colleagues telling me she was 18 weeks pregnant. I started thinking soft sweet baby skin and pink bunnies and so, this yarn was bought with my last few pennies before payday. I have been playing around with it, but will soon hopefully be inspired with what to make. Do you ever do that? By yarn just because? My sweet Alice had a sleepover party to go to this Friday and so she rushed home on Thursday after school a...

Hello Firstly can I say thank you for all your lovely comments on my last post, I can happily say I am feeling much better as the week has gone on. Sometimes these deep dark blue days appear for reasons I guess, and its better to ride with them knowing they too will end. I wanted to show you a bright, happy thing that happened to me last week. I received a tin box of surprises from a gorgeous bloggy friend Lisa of  Bobo Bun  in the post. We had arranged in the wings for one of her daughters (Little Bun) to do a little postal swap with Alice and decided that we didn't want to miss out on the action so to speak and threw in a little surprise for each other. Much to my immense delight I opened up the tin to find so many little treats neatly packed into the vintage Dick Whittington tin.  I was overwhelmed with all the thoughtful little bits and bobs from a fox notebook to a wee mini hexie patch and a homemade crochet cherry brooch (I love this so much Lisa) The surprises just...

I'm not myself today, feeling a bit blue and sad. I woke with the heaviness of life, fear I think. I remember this feeling all too well in my early twenties, fear can be so ridiculously debilitating at times. I remember fearing weekends in my early 20's because that meant that I would have time to think and become introspective and depressed. Work was a welcome distraction. And so, this morning I had to say hi ho hi ho it's off to work I go and a bit of the "feel the fear and do it anyway" kind of attitude helped me. The day got better and I've achieved a lot and now I can just return to the cocoon I came from this morning. Tomorrow will be a brighter day, it will be ok in the morning. I'm pleased I managed to make this cushion* cover over the weekend. These three colours are some of my all time favourites. I love mustard a whole lot and the combination of these three have comforted me in a sweet way today. That and cups of chai. Thank you for letting me b...

Some more finger less crochet gloves made for my friend Helen, her hands were freezing a couple of weeks ago, so only one thing had to be done :o) Made with a skein of  Manos del Uruguay  and some left over tweedy and cashmere yarn.  Some of the sweet gifts received from Alice on Mother's day. She is a bit of a fan of  Lush  handmade cosmetics and I am pleased to see that she is starting to read up about and understand a little more about using cosmetics free from animal testing. A polka dot jug from Age Concern charity shop for �1.49 to pop some Spring flowers in. My goodness its been dismally grey and wet this past week after the snow, I needed a colour injection like this. See what I mean when I say its been grey! Waking up to a huge bunch of opened daffodils from Helen's allotment and enjoying reading the  Brighton Festival  program which came through the post this week. Enjoying seeing some of the daffodils reflected in the mirror of my mosaic I m...