strawberry top and straight edges

I finished one of the makes in Joanna's pile today. It's the top that I made the muslin for here. Gosh, that's nearly a month ago! I didn't realise I'd taken so long to get around to making this!

This is the pattern - Butterick 5956, view A.

And here's the finished top.

Those strawberries look good enough to eat - or they would if they didn't look so fuzzy!!

Knowing it's the autumnal equinox today, I remembered to look at the dashboard on my computer and took a screenshot of the shape the sun makes today. I always find it interesting that the edges are so straight at the equinoxes. I suppose equal day and night will make a straight line!

Fascinating stuff! :o)

a few sillies to end the year

For my last post of 2013, I thought I'd show you a few silly photos. The first two show what Molly got for her Christmas. To say she loves both of them is the understatement of the year!

Joanna gave her some lips complete with tongue and teeth:

We gave her a penguin complete with Santa hat. She was a wee bitty tired when I took this photo - all that chewing had exhausted her - but she still kept her paw on the penguin in case someone decided to steal it! :oD

And this was how our countdown to Christmas blocks looked on Boxing Day.

I'm still not sure if the number is right but it's close enough! :oD

So that's it. The end of another year. About to start a new one. Let's hope it's a great one!

1 finish + 1 nearly finished

I made my first thing from the crate yesterday - a nightie for my Mum's Christmas. There's no way my mum's nightie would fit on Diana the dummy - my mum is MUCH smaller than I am - so this is only pinned on which explains why it looks a bit odd.

Today's sewing was successful too. I've almost finished this "blank" - I'll be able to get it finished tomorrow. No full photos of this "blank" until after Christmas.

2 finishes - or almost finishes - in 2 days is very satisfying to me. Yay!

This final photo amused me. I had left the camera on the table in the sewing room and hadn't realised I'd left it switched on. When I noticed it was still on, I thought the view through the viewfinder was quite cool.

searching for a new avatar

I decided the other day that I wanted to change my avatar for my blog to a photo of myself instead of the wee tartan bee. Of course, I didn't have a photo of myself in my iPhoto because, let's face it, who takes photos of themselves? Not me!

So, I decided to ask my loving family to send me any *decent* photos of me to maybe use as an avatar. I would be able to crop out background stuff so I was hopeful that they would have something I could use. Let me show you what they sent me.

My hair isn't this colour any more.

How many double chins do I have in this one????

I have no idea what that is in front of my face ... but it's probably just as well it's there!

I look like I just ate a bug!

Wrong colour of hair and the shadow isn't helping! At least Molly looks good!

This one isn't too bad but what about the expression on Douglas's face?

Was I caught mid-word or something?

I love the expression on Joanna's face!

This one is actually okay. I very nearly used it.

I liked this one too but my hair wasn't quite sticky-uppy enough!

This one was taken yesteday. I just rejected it because it looks like I've got a lamp growing out of my head. The teddy bear in my spex looks completely normal!

And finally, the one I chose.

I might look daft in most of these photos but the best thing is, so do they! Gotcha back! Hahahaha! :oD

odd photos

I loaded some photos from my camera today and found a few odd ones that I hadn't blogged about so here we go.

I made (ugly) bagels -



I made them half-size but that turned out to be a mistake because we just ate 2 of them! And some of them had no holes!! but, oh my goodness they were gooooooood! :o)



Rosie got a haircut:



And I bought half a metre of this fabric



As the girl was cutting it for me she told me that there was a wallpaper in the decor department that I might like. She went and got the roll and, sure enough, I did like it but what on earth would I do with it? I certainly wouldn't put it on any of my walls. She asked me if I'd like a free sample so I said "yes, please" more out of politeness than any desire to have any of it!

She unrolled the roll and cut off a metre of it. A whole metre! (This is only half of it!)



If I cut out each of the cupcakes, I could make them into birthday cards and use them for the girls for the next 24 years! 48 birthday cards out of a free sample? Not too shabby! LOL

teeny tiny and other things

I was fascinated last week by this small purse tutorial on the stash manicure blog so I decided I would give it a go.

This is what I ended up with: (sorry about the yellow cast on the photos. The sun was actually too bright!)



Now I know the tutorial says it's a "small purse" but it's actually teeny tiny. Here it is with me holding it - I don't have huge hands! LOL





I do love it but it's just a smidge too small to do anything with so I decided to increase the width measurements and see what I came up with.



As can be seen in the third photo, I had to cut a seam along the bottom of this one because it was *impossible* to get that zip sewn in otherwise. To be honest,I'd had a bit of bother with the zip in the teeny tiny version as well and I'm not scared of zips so it wasn't me being dopey! It was just really awkward trying to get it sewn in.

Anyway, I like this one too but, to be honest, it was a bit too finicky to make and I probably won't make another one for a while.

Whilst I had the camera out, I thought I'd take a photo of my incredibly tidy piles of material! I'm almost scared to touch them they look so good! LOL



And here's another photo that my camera made me take. (Remember the one it made me take back in this post? Scroll down.) This is what was showing when I switched the camera on to load the photos on to the computer.



My camera is really good at seeing interesting things to photograph! :oD

Happy Hogmanay + books read in 2010

It's the last day of the year. Almost time to say goodbye to 2010 and hello and welcome to 2011.

It's been a busy year one way or another. I read 96 books and 3 of those I read twice so that's 99 books in total! I'm reading book number 100 now but I won't get that finished tonight to make it a nice round 100. I must admit, I'm amazed at how many I read!

And finally for 2010, here's the Google logo for today.

Happy New Year!