Early Night

Feeling awful after getting cold and wet and standing quite a bit to watch Emily horse riding.  Think I will be in bed before she is.  She was terrified, but did enjoy it and would like to go again.  Need to build her confidence to be able to go without me I was the only parent who went. Emily's horse was called Benji, which she thought was great as her cousin is called Benjamin and often gets called Benji!

These look cool, buzzers, I am sure we could use these to stop people interrupting or talking over each other or shouting for attention.

Changes

I used to have website to sell my handmade cards.  Due to having less time and the standard of card making continually growing I am no longer selling cards.  I have decided to use my website to host my blog, links to the many sites that I use and a gallery of things that I have made.  It is still work in progress as my husband needs to do the technical side of things.  My website is Crafty Janes.

Its now the school holidays so there is not much time for craft or websites.  I am hoping to complete a few cards that I need for people with upcoming birthdays, just hope I get time.

Emily is going on some activities with children's extended services, but she wants me to go along and watch as its children from all over the area and many not be children she knows.  It will be hard work, but hopefully good fun, Emily is very excited. Luckily transport is provided, I would not be able to take her otherwise so its a great help to me.  Its horse riding today, hope the weather picks up a bit or I will be sitting in the cold and wet.

Emotions running high.

Its been a rather emotional week this week.  The UK has been gearing up to celebrating Mother's Day, which was yesterday and all the shops are full of flowers and gifts, but for some this causes a lot of sadness.  I have just returned from a Mother's day service at Emily's school.  It is a church school, so Mothering Sunday is celebrated by the church and they put on a lovely service lead by the children.  The first thing the vicar said was put your hand up if you have never had a Mum.  As adults we understand that he is saying you would not be here if you didn't have a Mum, but to the poor little girl in Emily's class whose Mum has died doesn't see it like that :'(  Later another child in Emily's class burst into tears as she had been given a prayer to read and her Mum was not there to hear it!  The service was a lovely idea, but harder for those whose Mums were not there and probably did not explain why they could not be there. In fact there were more children in the room whose Mum weren't there than were there.  The headteacher did try to rescue things a bit by saying its not only about Mum's but anyone that cares for you.

We spent the weekend in Sheffield with our parents, but you can't be with both sets at the same time so its difficult on special days to make time for everyone.  I did not see much of Emily as she was spending time with her Grandmas and I was feeling terrible from the busy day on Saturday.  We are hoping to do something together later.  Emily got very upset at bedtime as although she had enjoyed seeing other people she then wanted me and it was time for bed, so she ended up getting into trouble and upset as did I.

There are many people who will have found yesterday a difficult day including my Auntie whose son died 2 1/2 years ago, a friend whose niece died yesterday, another friend who has been diagnosed with Breast cancer recently, those who are not able to have children or that have lost children.  I myself have a beautiful daughter, but still mourn the fact that I cannot have other children and that Emily will never have a sibling.  Having fertility treatment is heartbreaking and anyone having treatment around this time will find it hard.  One of my own treatments failed close to Mother's day.

Moving on from these sad thoughts.  I have been doing a little crafting.  I made another framed button picture for a friend and also a card for her and a Mother's day card for my Mum.  As ever I forgot to take photos of some of them, I was sure I had!

Patterns are from Ann's paperart.

A few posts ago I posted about crafting and cats.  My cat stays away, but at Quilting the other week I got the company of the Rivers Meet cat.

I am hoping to get to Rivers Meet this week to see Barbara the knitting lady so I can get on with my waistcoat.  I have some other cards to make as well, but it will be slow progress as school breaks up at the end of this week.  I will have to check if Emily wants to attend any of the Rivers Meet Easter Craft classes, she usually enjoys them.  Sadly because of the Easter holidays I won't be able to go to the next quilting class so quilt progress will be slow too.  There is an Easter craft fair on 13th April too that I hope to attend.  I got some lovely Mothers day presents from the Mother's day fair, including items from Leeds Bead shop, Sharon's essentials.  For other people we bought gifts from Kelly Lou, Maggy Hunt.  Also purchased from a lady selling knitting, a wood turner, Baht at Ruby Shoesday and Ready Planted.  I also had a Mother's day gift from Our Handmade Collective and a lovely plant that Emily had plated and decorated at school.

I will go and have a think about which cards to make next.

Recycling

I have just made the card I made for my husbands birthday into a card for a neighbour who is 80 this weekend!  Its quicker, easier and cheaper than going out and buying one and unless he reads this he will not know that it wasn't specially made for him!

Off to search for some more now as I need another card for Monday.  Foiled I don't have any others that I have made, don't think its fair to recycle someone else's work!  

Feeling pretty rubbish now was a busy morning, well only out for coffee with friends, but meant driving and our first choice was closed and second choice was noisy, but nice to have a chat.

Got my geese cut out last night (well Rob cut most of them).  Emily informed me they look nothing like geese, not much gets past her!!  Should be fairly easy to stitch, I really want to get on with it, but seem to have little time and energy between bouts of hecticness ( is that a word?), well hectic for me, for anyone else its a walk in the park (which to me is hard work! and something I would love to do). Had planned a bit of my Mother's day card stitching, but not up to it now, oh bother!

Shock

Shock, horror I made a decision, an expensive one!!

I have finally gone for the sparkly black for the borders and the backing!!! Got to make a good job of it now.

Two days to go to next class and some cutting to do before then to make flying geese blocks. Hope it less confusing than the last class where I got everything back to front! But finally got a cat block!

Thank you to Sarah for your patience.

Fabric ordered, wonder when it will arrive, ooo its exciting!

Still undecided

As ever I can't decide, if there was a degree in undecided I would pass with flying colours!!

Talking of colours, my latest thoughts are to do the borders black and then use red on the back (the images don't display the effect properly) and there is a black too.

I have just seen this hearts fabric in my local fabric shop, which would tie in with my heart theme on the front and the colours are right. it is only a small shop and they only have a few 100% cotton.

Have just booked for respite at Fountains Court after the Easter Holidays.  Much in need of a rest, but worried about leaving Rob and Emily.

Another Dilemma, to save or not to save? Help needed!

Having sorted out my border dilemma, I have opted for black, I now need to decide on the reverse of the quilt.  The fabric I originally intended does not really work.  I have to buy the black needed for my border to get the look right, but I have lots of fabric and don't really want to buy more if I can help it.  The fabric I like best for backing would cost £35, black fairy dust fabric

While there is no doubt that it would make for a striking finish, I feel that it is difficult to justify the cost whilst I have other things I could use.

Last night Rob and I had a play about with some options

These are the options, or variations on these options, the bottom one showing what it would look like with black borders to match front.

I am not convinced by these.  Laid awake as ever I thought that this might work better, again with black borders.

Or I could really splash the boat out and have sparkle black borders and sparkle black back, oh so many choices.  After I have put so much effort into the quilt I don't want to scrimp and not be happy with the finished thing, but feel that the cost is a bit much if a good effect could be gained in another way.

I am also worried about putting too much effort into the deciding as my health is not good at the moment.  I am in a lot of pain and getting by on very little sleep.  Although I have been putting the insomnia to good use looking at fabric ideas!!  Just hope after all this I am well enough to go to the class on Friday!!

Rob got me the frames from Ikea so now I need to make up one of the pictures and also get on with stitching cards I need for next few events, but I am just not getting anything done as I feel so exhausted all the time.

Better go and pick up the fabric before my cat comes along and decides to sleep on it and add more paw prints than it should have.

From reading other crafty blogs many of us seem to have cats and many of the blogs feature the cats.  My cat tends to keep out of the way so I don't have any pictures of him with my craft projects, but will post a picture of him anyway!

Ok two then!!  These pictures are quite old now, he is not a neat and tidy these days, bless his little paws he is nearly 15.  This is Timmy by the way.

And just in case he feels left out here is the hamster, whose name I never know as it gets changed every week!

I have a tank of fish too, but not taking pictures of each one you will be glad to hear!!

Emily is asking for a guinea pig now as she says her friends guinea pigs are going to have babies once they have got a boy guinea pig to go with the girl ones.  We have said we will think about it, I am not sure I could cope with the work it would create, so I am secretly hoping that the guinea pigs don't get on ;-)