The shape of things to come .....

It seems that I am not very good at this blogging malarkey,I am full of good intentions - and ideas for my posts - but not very good at putting fingers to keyboard !

Things at the long thin house have been a bit hectic, which is no excuse, but has led me to re evaluate my blogging strategy.

I know I would miss blogging if I stopped completely but I feel a change is needed to make me blog more, so from now on I shall be trying a new style of blogging, please let me know what you think, and thank you for coming along for the ride, it may be a little bit bumpy to start but hopefully it will settle down soon.

I shall start with a short catch up of the things that have happened here in the long thin house while I have been away.



My first Grandchild Ramona s. Broadley was born.





There has been lots of sewing.







Plenty of crochet (more of this  to come! )

and also some of this...







...Packing !!

speak soon xx

Make cushions while the rain falls!

Flaming June! Well what a to do, June has seen our household entering the domain of another Teenager, although I maintain she has been a practising teen for the last 5yrs! It has seen a trip to the Harry Potter film studio tour, for said Teenagers treat, funny how somethings' remain 'cool'.It has been the month where the garden has gone from lush to lush with knobs on( for lush you can substitute wild!)June was also the month that my lovely Husband ( he will probably read this ! ) gave me a 1930's Art Deco ruby eternity ring! Which i have been hankering after for many a year! It has also been a month of crochet, sometimes frantic, finishing egg cosies for the Bicycle Bazaar that fell foul of the weather, but mostly enjoyable, bags, granny squares, and my first ever circular cushion ! Oh and there was something about a jubilee and apparently more rain than than you can wiggle a crochet hook at, not that I am complaining, bring on the rain as long rainy days = crafting days I'll be humming ( singing would upset the animals! ) And to think it's only 13 days in, wonder what will happen in the rest of the month!
Speak soon.
x

To crochet or not to crochet !

Hello, I have not forgotten all you lovely people in blog land but routine maintenance at the long thin house has somewhat taken over any spare time I seem to have! On top of the usual routine of feeding Dogs, Cats, Chickens, Fish, and the cleaning up the menagerie demands, the human inhabitants of the long thin house have also had to contend with renovating the Bathroom,fixing a leaking ceiling, and stopping the long thin garden from becoming an horrendous overgrown jungle instead of a slightly overgrown jungle, as well as cleaning,washing,baking, Meanwhile Dolly sewing has really ground to a halt, after a few unsuccessful attempts, of which I am too ashamed to document, I am still at the beginning stage.



We are also starting to get Sunny our 1976 VW camper ready for our summer festival excursion, We are trying to decide how much of a facelift she will be getting, it might just be a cat's lick and a promise or...and this is my preferred option.... the whole nine yards ! including a new coat of paint!! I shall keep you posted and hopefully have some pics of her crochety goodness granny chic/ retro interior !



I have however managed to fit in some crochet, there is always time for crochet! and have finished a granny square cushion, and have now started on a sunburst granny square cushion, so I haven't been entirely bereft of crafty goodness !





Ho hum, off to feed the Chickens, take care, speak soon.

Sackcloth and rabbits!

Really it all started with a soft spot for antique French grain sacks,(of which I have a few), they are all individual to the farms where they were handmade and although the reason for buying them was to make cushion covers,table runners etc,I couldn't bring myself to cut them up ! While in France (waiting for husband to get away from the postcard chap!) I spied an old hessian grain sack, much rougher but with a motif and name of a French town we had visited stamped on it,thinking this would make a great floor cushion( an idea stolen from my good friend) I purchased it, but once home I decided instead to use it to cover a vintage Lloyd loom chair, and was so pleased with the result,I thought it would be a good idea to get more sacks for the dinning room chair cushions I needed to cover, no chance! It seems something that was as 'cheap as cheap things' in a village brocante demanded huge fortunes once they hit English shores! The remedy was I found 'new' coffee sacks, a nice man on eBay sold me twenty hessian sacks all with designs and printed with mainly South American country names ( French towns would have been nice,but beggars can't be choosers!) for twenty English pounds, so now I have chair cushions covered in 'sackcloth' without a hint of guilt.Being on a roll I decided to use the off cuts to make some bunting( something else I am quite partial to). Having cut the hessian into mini bunting size I used a rubber stamp of a hare( it could pass as a rabbit!) and a normal ink pad to stamp on the design,I had to press quite hard,more than normal,and not much of the fine detail shows because the hessian is quite a rough texture,but I think you get the idea.As for the antique grain sacks,one I used as a floor cushion,as it only involved sewing the top closed after filling it with feathers, one I use as a short table runner - the work that has gone into it ! All those neat hand stitches! I couldn't unpick them! A few more are just to look at on my linen shelf and one.. Yes just one.. I made into two sofa cushions with vintage mother of pearl buttons,and, which, I am glad to say please me very much.