My apologies for my absence; the hours on my main part time job vary from month to month and currently I’m working the equivalent of 4 working days a week (although it’s spread out over 7 days) and will be doing so until the end of September, but most of those hours are for a really cool project that I will literally be able to tell my grandchildren about, so work is busy but all good.
However I may be busy but that hasn’t stopped me embroidering, in fact it’s encouraged more embroidering because in my much needed breaks, my idea of the perfect relaxation is a spot of embroidery with a good audiobook, so I’ve been embroidering but I haven’t had much chance to get to the sewing machine to finish things off but I managed to today, so first up *drum roll*, three ladies who’ve kept me very amused in quiet moments over the last month or two.
The patterns are by Sew Lovely, from a lovely big detailed pattern set and they were a pleasure to stitch, so much so that I don’t even mind that they *whisper* don’t even go with my sofa (eek) but I’d always planned these for the bedroom. Really I need a guest bedroom, these would make fantastic guest bedroom cushions because as lovely as these are going to look in my bedroom, my bedroom is very much a working room and I can imagine I will probably be spending most of the time fishing these cushions off the floor (nothing new there). But none of that matters because these were such fun to stitch, I couldn’t resist!
Next up something of a slightly more practical nature; Boy Lacer starts swimming lessons at school this week, which is an extremely big deal, as he’s very nervous of water (going as far as not even liking rain, although he is getting better). I am confident though that he is in the best possible hands, his swimming lessons have been discussed at a number of meetings and I know he’ll have 1 to 1 support from the class’s extremely talented TA. He’s already had several preparatory visits to the pool and although he admits he’s nervous, he is not currently as freaked out as he could be (right now he’s more concerned that I’m going to forget the letter I need to write requesting that he wears swimming goggles).
Anyway, so, just as I made a swimming bag for Girl Lacer when she started school swimming lessons, I wanted to make one for Boy Lacer, I made a start on it over the school holidays but as I, on instructions from the school, was not meant to be telling Boy Lacer that he had swimming lessons the next term (so as not to freak him out over the holidays), I couldn’t ask him what design he’d like. I fell in love with this design from Urban Threads
but I was concerned that considering he’s so scared of water (although like I say, getting better), it might freak him out a bit but on the other hand, it’s such a fun, adventurous design, it might make swimming just that little bit more fun and exciting, specially as I paired it with some cool pirate fabric on the back. But just in case he didn’t like it, I knew I had to make an alternative as well. Now I’m not going completely mad, as although I don’t swim much, I could do with a swim bag as well, as Girl Lacer’s swim bag has worked so well over the last two years (she still uses it) and the shower curtain lining has worked to make it really waterproof and that has been useful. So I made a second, safer design, knowing that whichever one he didn’t want, I’d have.
This one is a September House design from the first issue of the &Stitches magazine (which I’d highly recommend by the way).
And which one did his choose?
……. the Urban Threads one. Quite relieved actually, as much as I think the Urban Threads design is cool, September House’s fish are far more me. But either way, both patterns were again a pleasure to stitch, I loved using just one colour for the Urban Threads design (a very dark brown to give it an old sepia look), just as much as I loved the genuine excuse to use some variegated thread on the water in the September House design and I always love doing a spot of chain stitch.
And finally, just because I couldn’t have a blog post title with the numbers 3 and 2 in, without a number 1, these are the tights I’m wearing today.
I think they’re really cool (and they’re from M&S).
Update 25.4.12 - school rang, Boy Lacer had his first swimming lesson today and guess what . . . he loved it!
