jeans bag with tartan lining

Today I finished off this jeans bag with a tartan lining. It's for Debbie and Jason to sell in their shop - One Stop Wood Shop.



And the inside complete with magnetic catch.



I would love to tell you the name of the tartan but I'm pretty sure it's not a genuine design. It was labelled as Royal Stuart in the shop where I bought it but it's not. Royal Stuart tartan has blue in it - see: (mine isn't as orange as it shows up. The true colour is as seen in the bag photos.)



Close but no cigar. :o)

Oh well, I'm sure the person who buys it from Debbie and Jason's shop won't mind that it's not a genuine tartan. Hopefully!

Now I need to make a few more and get them sent over to Nova Scotia.

a giveaway on Sew Create It

Jane over at Sew Create It is having a book giveaway on her blog today.

I've already entered myself by commenting on her blog but I get another chance to enter if I blog about her giveaway - does that make me greedy? I hope not! I just love the look of the book. Dorling Kindersley books are fab!

Oh, and sorry to all my friends from foreign lands - the giveaway is only for UK residents.

Good luck - but I hope I win! LOL

eat me biscuits

Last December when I was out blog-hopping, I read Anna's post about all the goodies she'd made for Christmas and was intrigued by the biscuits with the words on them. Anna had linked to the German Amazon site for the printer kit and I had bookmarked it at the time with the thought of coming back and getting it or seeing if amazon UK might get it in.

I found the link again this week and decided I wanted to have a go at that type of biscuit. Unfortunately, Amazon UK didn't have the kit and the postage from the German site was a bit off-putting so I thought I might have to give up the idea.

But then I wondered if it would work with a child's printing kit - obviously one that hadn't been used with ink. So, on to Amazon UK again and ordered myself this kit.

I tried it out this afternoon with these words:



This is how the biscuits looked before I baked them.







And how they looked after they came out of the oven -



I'm not disheartened though. I'll just try again with a recipe where the biscuits are rolled out and cut rather than rolled up in a sausage shape and cut with a knife.

And, even though it's not clear the biscuits say "mine", "eat me" and "yummy" - they are, I will eat them and they are yummy! :oD

Thanks, Anna, for the idea! :o)

blog hopping with google reader

I used to spend a lot of time jumping into my bookmarks where I had saved various blogs to read. They weren't in any particular order and it was sometimes frustrating to find the blogs hadn't been updated. That's not a slur on the bloggers - heaven knows I can be a slow blogger myself - I just wanted to be able to read blogs that had new posts on them.

Anyway, one day I found a blog called "Oops, I Craft My Pants". Well, after getting over the giggling fit - toilet humour *always* makes me giggle! - I read this post. Oh my goodness! Google reader is genius.

But. After reading a few blogs on the reader I thought about the fact that I was no longer "going" to that blog. I was just reading it on the reader. So I wouldn't show up on anyone's blog count or their Feedjits, if they had them loaded. Okay, not that much of a deal, I suppose, but I wanted to be a supporter of the blog - not just read it sort of sneakily.

Well, not long after this, OICMP posted another way to use google reader where you can add a "next" button up in your browser's toolbar.

OMG, I LOVE it! Now I can blog-hop really easily and I only go to blogs where people have posted. Fabulous!

even with Diana's help . . .

. . . I'm sad to say the blouse I was making didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. In fact, truth be told, I don't like it.

The neckline is very wide - not me at all! The shoulders were about 2" down from my shoulder line - not clear on the pattern that the shoulders were dropped as far as that.



I haven't taken a photo of me wearing the blouse because I just don't want to. It's that bad.

After all that time I spent in the sewing room cutting out, embellishing the front with fancy stitches, all that pinning and sewing and pressing - I'm miffed it didn't turn out!

I remember now why I stopped dressmaking for myself - because I can't find patterns that fit me. If they fit over the bust, they don't fit at the shoulders. If they fit at the shoulders, they won't fasten over the bust. And, always, the sleeves are too tight for me. Always.

I'm going to have to think about what to sew next. But, in the meantime, I'll probably cut out some patchwork pieces. No worries about how big my boobs or how fat my arms are when I'm cutting out wee strips and squares! ;o)

meet Diana - and a special day

Let me introduce you to Diana. I just know she and I are going to be the best of friends! :oD

This was when she was still in her box.



Then I built her up.



Tried the paper pattern on her.



And halfway through the blouse I'm making.




So, why am I showing you Diana when the blouse isn't finished? Well, she was an anniversary present* and it's our 31st wedding anniversary today.



Happy anniversary, Douglas. Here's to the next 31 years! :o)

* Diana was meant to be a Christmas present to me. Jo told the story on her blog about how she (Diana) arrived and gave the game away. Really, really funny! :oD

9/11

sweet peas and gerberas

I was going to blog about something else entirely but, when I downloaded the photos from my camera, I found these ones and realised I hadn't shown them off.

These are probably the last of our sweet peas for this year. I picked them on the 2nd - well, that's what my iPhoto says the date of the photos is so I won't argue with iPhoto. :o)




And another view - I just turned the jug around a wee bit!



And these are a couple of gerberas which were in a bunch of flowers I'd bought. Their stems were collapsing so I cut them short and put them in these glasses - shot glasses, I believe! Aren't they gorgeous?



Okay, I'm away back up to the sewing room to see if I can take better photos of what I was going to blog about - the ones I took were really fuzzy!

do you read PW?

Do you read the Pioneer Woman? I do.

I read her blog faithfully. If you'd asked me a couple of years ago if I would be so hooked on reading someone else's blog, I'd have said "No way. Who wants to read about someone else's life and all that's going on in it? Not me".

If you'd asked and I had replied as above, I'd have to admit now that I lied. I *do* want to read about all of that - and more.

I look at her photography part - even though I only use a point and shoot camera. At the moment she's running a photo competition called "Funny". Good for a laugh! :oD

I read the cooking part of her site. I have even made a few of her recipes like her chocolate sheet cake. It is soooooooo good. I must admit, I like the look of the "Pretty Little Brownie Bits" on show today.

I read the Home & Garden part of her blog - just because I can. I even read the Homeschooling part even though I have no children of school age any more - and, if I did, I doubt I would home-school them.

Today, Ree (aka PW aka P-Dub aka The Pioneer Woman) has posted about "Ten Important Things I've learned about Blogging". She is a genius!

I was going to list her suggestions here but I think you need to read her comments under each heading. All I have to say is, I can learn from her suggestions - and hope I do.

Let me just leave you with her number 10.

10. Value every person who takes time out of their day to stop by your blog.

I do, I really do! Thanks for stopping by. :o)

google has done it again!

I've talked before about the fabulous logos on google - see here, here and here.

Well, today's is, in my humble opinion, the best yet. Unfortunately, any attempt at getting a screenshot isn't working very well.



You'll just have to go and see what I'm talking about. Move your mouse over the logo and see what happens! It's so much fun.

And this is where I hope that everyone reading this blog today will see what I see on google.co.uk!

Joanna told me it's Google's birthday today. Happy Birthday, Google!

She also shared this site so I've been looking at tons of old logos. Fun stuff!

already?

I can hardly believe it's the first of September already. Where did the year go? I'm told by a reliable source that there are only 115 days until Christmas! How can that be? I'd better start thinking about it!

It's definitely autumn here now. The air is decidedly chilly and the nights are drawing in more and more. I like autumn well enough but I just wish our long days of summer stayed around for longer.

Mind you, I'm not complaining. Debbie was telling me today that the temperature with her (Nova Scotia) was 37ºC and that was at about 11am her time. Oh. My. Goodness. I'd be like a greasy spot! And poor Molly. She's so hot she can't get comfortable! Poor doggy!

Let's hope Hurricane Earl doesn't do any damage on his way past them and that he manages to lower the temperature to something more bearable!