Things I love today

This song - it makes me cry for some reason. I love his voice.


This blog - what a fantastic imagination.

These prints - i love them all.

This book of poetry - my son recently found out that his new teacher in September will be Mrs Butler, I immediatley thought of this book and then, hey presto a few days later I found it in a charity shop for a £1! Brings back lots of good memories.

This book - another charity shop find, Patrick Gale is one of my favourite authors - loved this one.

Puff the magic dragon

My littlest boy and I love this song, but my eldest leaves the room when it comes on because it makes him sad.
We particularly love this version by Bonnie Prince Billy and Red.



This track and lots of other lovely songs are on the album Songs for the Young at Heart, it's a fantastic album of well-known and especially written children's songs for grown ups (and kids of course) who like something a little bit different.

Resisting

I do love bags I have to say - my husband really can't understand why i need more than one at any time!

Last Summer I had a bit of extra money from marking exam papers and decided to treat myself to a new bag. I searched and searched but could not find a bag I liked until I stumbled upon the Ollie and Nic website. I ended up buying three bags for £50 as they had a half-price sale on at the time, and I was gobsmacked at the quality of them when they arrived.
I love attention to detail and Ollie and Nic bags always have it - whether its the funky print lining or the zipper purse included inside. I use all three bags all the time and they are so well made they still look like new.
They're new summer sale started today so I am desparately trying not to look - but it's very hard.

Trousers (take two)

I've definitely got the bug - have just finished my second pair of trousers, this time for my eldest (5 and a half).

The actual trousers were just as easy to make as the previous pair (the gingham cotton was actually easier to work with), however I did run into problems with the patch and back-pocket.

I wanted to add something (mainly to stop them looking like a pair of pyjama bottoms) and had some brown corduroy scraps from a ruined pair of the boys trousers hanging around. It was an experiment really and I made quite a few mistakes - the main one being not realising that I should have attached the patch before I had sewn up the trousers. I also managed to stitch the front part of oneleg to the back part of the leg (twice!), had to unpick stitches several times and had to dismantle my sewing machine three times due to stuck thread (I think this might have been because of the bulkiness of the corduroy). The zigzag stitches on the patch and pocket are far from perfect but I like the way they look - and they suit my boy down to the ground.








I have to apologise for the grubby grey socks - this boy does not like to have bare feet for some reason.