Quote hoops

 I’ve often looked at the embroidered quotes on Pinterest and Instagram, and though I loved them, thought I wasn’t neat enough (or patient enough)

But then I found Little Light Stitchery and discovered a simpler way of doing things.

Nicky uses a very simple font in her work which is quite effective. I initially bought a few hoops from her Etsy shop, but have since made 7 hoops!

Some using her kits, others using her ideas as inspiration. I love this very simple one, and I think I’ve got similar fabric 

One of the things she does is use a ‘whipped back stitch’ which gives a nice finish, and smooths out curves.

Last night, she did as Instagram live thing and I realised that she also is really, really careful how she does things.

I’m more ‘BodgeIt & Scarper’, so, for example,I like to get to the end of the word and don’t look at how individual letters look.

There’s a mini sew along, so I thought I’d join in.

I only had 4” hoops and a couple of 10” ones, so tiny was the way to go

First job, do the writing. I can’t find my light box, and couldn’t be bothered faffing round with boxes and torches to trace anything, so decided to just ‘do my best writing’. It looks ok as writing, bot not so sure of the results once stitched.

Hmmm, not that neat. And also, song a cursive script means you really have to finish each word, rather than individual letters. Which makes it hard to do the whipping round the backstitch, so I think I’ll probably not bother.

Today is day 2, so the second word needed to be done. As I was awake at stupid o’clock this morning, I’ve cracked on, and also done some very simple Christmas ones.

Now I need to buy some more hoops. 

Really looking forward to seeing Nicky’s new website to see what she’s got.

Slow sewing

Often, during this pandemic malarkey, I didn’t feel in the mood for getting the sewing machine out. Also, it’s in a different room, so mainly I did hand sewing.

I’m not very good at hand sewing. My normal ‘Bodge It &Scarper’ approach doesn’t really work. And I get bored easily, so flit between projects, then have to remember where I got up to!

I’ve done a fair bit of appliqué, this was started in July last year at Threadhouse Summer Retreat

Some embroidery, this is a teeny tiny brooch 

Red work, mostly Secret Stitch Club from Dandelion Designs.

And some teeny tiny piecing. These finish at 1” square, and may end up as a quilt (or maybe not)

More recently I’ve discovered the fun in making little quote hoops

Should I stay or should I go?

Thoughts on moving house.

I’ve always liked the idea of living nearer the river. (It’s the Mersey, not a pretty little countryside thing)

This house needed lots of work doing, I found that incredibly depressing. I didn’t really have the spare cash, and was reluctant to spend money I didn’t have. But it got to a point when the very fact of the thing was stressful. I avoided thinking about it. This caused friction with my son. He’d mention that something was broken, I’d fly off the handle.

Eventually, things got better financially, but I was reluctant to spend as by that point, I just hated the house. And the things that needed doing would a) cost money b) be disruptive and c) probably highlight other areas I hadn’t previously thought of.

Every time I thought about it,I went back and hid under my virtual duvet. Ignored it for a while, in the hope it would go away. But it never did. Some things, like the teeny tiny leak in the flat roof over the bay window would just get worse.

Some things just plain broke, and needed to be fixed straight away. Like the oven, that gave up the ghost on Christmas Day one year; fortunately just after the turkey was cooked.

Or the hob. Which I didn’t know was broken (a tiny crack in the glass) until it tripped the electrics. And we had to get the Electric Board out, and they basically condemned the electrics. So goodbye old Bakelite fuse board, and welcome to a modern consumer unit. And a new induction hob.

I love the induction hob! I don’t know how I managed before. I’ve got one as it uses a 13amp plug, so doesn’t put too much load on the electrics.

But eventually, things changed. I turned 60, and, on a whim, asked for my figures from my Local Government pension. Turned out that by taking my pension 5 years early, I lost out to the tune of £200 a year. So I took the pension, and the lump sum.

I now had proper spare cash, so had some things done to make the place better for me.

Double glazing. I absolutely hate most of it, but if I sell, it will be something that will be used to negotiate the price down, so decided to bite the bullet. The poor surveyor didn’t understand that I wasn’t really interested in anything fancy, just something that did the job. Fortunately it was a local firm, so no pressured sales patter.

I had the back of the house done, with a date set a few weeks later for the front. Then guess what happened? Yep. Lockdown happened.

And I realised that it’s quite useful having shops at the bottom of the road, where the queues were minimal. Small independent grocers within walking distance. If I moved to a flat near the river, I’d need a car to get to the shops. Or have a really long walk.

Now I’m re-evaluating the future. Maybe I should just stay here. At least for the next 5 years. By then, I’ll have no mortgage. I’ll have my personal pension and my state pension. That should be enough to live on. 

So maybe I’ll stay.

Finally, some sewing

I hate the phrase 'the new normal', I don't want this to be normal. I want my 'old normal' back please.

The normal where I spent my evenings hand sewing, and my days not working I'd do some basic housework and then get the sewing machine out for a few hours.

Before the lockdown was announced I was on a conference call (by phone - how the world has changed!) and I made a list of all the projects I could potentially finish.

How many of them have I finished?

How many of them have I actually even touched?

Did I do any sewing at all?

Yes, but my focus changed.  I didn't have the concentration span for working out what pieces went where - what colour went with what, how to do the quilting.  The list is endless.

I joined up a fair few scraps, to make other pieces of fabric. 

Then made them into pouches. I also did a virtual retreat with Threadhouse where I learned to add tendrils, so added those to a pouch

I took part in a 'Random act of kindness' on Instagram so I made lots of little things, small enough to go in a standard envelope. To be honest, it’s about all I could manage.

In Mid March, I managed to get to Merseymade and had enough room to almost finish my Mystery Quilt.

I've since put the borders on, but its waiting until I've got enough room to spread it out and get it finished.  Who knows, maybe some of the get togethers will happen in a month or so.  Otherwise it will sit there unfinished for ages.

Liverpool FC - Champions!

And of course, one of the most brilliant things to happen, but in the weirdest circumstances was Liverpool FC winning the Premier League.  I'm old enough to remember the last time it happened. It felt real in December, when the first team were playing in the Club World Cup, and there was an FA Cup game against Shrewsbury Town a few days later.  The 'kids' drew the game and played amazingly.  Giving rise to one of the most famous Bill Shankly quotes being seen everywhere.

I can vividly remember the feeling, in mid January when it became very real, that maybe, just maybe, this year could be 'the one'.  But we'd been here before. We'd had hope. Been tantalisingly close.  But somewhere in mid January, spontaneously the chant went round Anfield 'we're gonna win the league, now you'd better believe us, we're gonna win the league'.  Almost from that point it was academic.

By Mid March, it really was academic, they needed 6 points from 9 games. Given current form, that was going to happen.  But then football was suspended.

At the restart, like most other teams, it was a bit shaky.  But still never in doubt.

The Chrystal Palace game had me in tears - 4-0. It was so emotional. Inside an empty Anfield.

But the next day, Chelsea beat Manchester City and that was it!  There were people in the street, fireworks. The lot. The team were all together in Formby Hall - the tv pundits tried to make out that they were all speaking from their homes, but it was blatantly obvious they were together.  Some of the scenes from that night were great.  The team all singing 'Championes, talking to the tv people, obviously drunk. Virgil being attacked on camera by his teammates.  Jurgen Klopp so emotional.

So I'll just leave this here.

And of course this

Oh - another year went by!

Oops!

I forget I've got this blog, and then think about updating it.  Then realise it's been a while, so I put it off.  So then its even more time, and so it goes.

Again, not going to post everything that's happened in a year (especially not recently), but here are a few highlights in photos

Lisbon- Sintra 

I got back from my holidays to discover that the local Housing Association, who own the house next door, where replacing the back yard walls. 

I wasn't sure if the party wall agreement was just agreeing to next door's being done, or whether they would do mine too.  So a week later, this happened.

Now I've got a lovely new FREE wall

I was 60 in July 2019. Great to get my free travel pass!

Had a few sewing retreats, this seems to be the only photo I have

And had a lovely pre Christmas meet up

I've been planting stuff in the yard, and bought myself a new deckchair.

I've always baked bread, but sourdough is difficult if you work away all week, so enjoyed having the time to do this.

And resisted the temptation to have supermarket deliveries but shopped local wherever I could. Discovered some great local places that I'll continue to support.

Beckibobs didn't happen, and a few thoughts on the last couple of months.

Ah well.

This years holiday didn't happen - for obvious reasons. We should have been going back to Becky's place in the Dordogne.

I had so many weekends away planned that I'd decided to post them on this blog.  Then the 'things' didn't happen.

And then I  realised that I didn't want it to become another 'my life in lockdown' blog. Because I got annoyed with the 'we're all in the same boat' and the 'you're only being asked to stay at home' kind of stuff.

We weren't all in the same boat. Some people really struggled financially as they fell through support gaps. Some struggled because trying to work from home with 3 kids attempting to do their schoolwork and moaning that they can't go out was just too much.

And some, like me, were hardly affected at all.

Because, to be honest, other than not going on my weekends away, and holidays, my life wasn't that different.

I live alone, I'm not really that sociable; I meet friends occasionally for lunch/coffee or go round to friends for tea. I'm generally OK with my own company.  

I'm also really lucky that I was working when this started, I switched to working from home. I've since started a new contract, again working from home and so have some financial security into next year.

Like most people, at some point I found it all a bit much, and had a bit of a wobble.  What with the toral mixed messages from the UK government and the constant criticism of others on Facebook etc, sometimes it was all a bit of a mess, but generally I was fine.

I missed seeing family though - my son lives 50 miles away, so I'd have struggled to call that 'essential travel' - fortunately my sister lives only 2 miles away, so we occasionally 'accidentally' bumped into each other when on our daily walk (keeping our distance etc)

Then the rules changed, and because I'm a single adult household, I could have a 'bubble', my sister could legitimately come round for a coffee and that was so marvellous.

I went to my local cafe and picked us up a takeaway coffee and some cakes - it felt great.  Or we had a takeaway coffee in the park.

I went out on my bike for the first time in ages, I'm not that confident , so was happier when there was less traffic about.

I cycled to meet other friends in the park, we're fortunate to have quite a few.

But what's really changed?  Apart from all the rules. What do I really miss?

Spontaneity, that's what.  My sister and I would chat on a Saturday and arrange to meet, and would decide where to go later. We can't do that now. Everything requires planning.  Even the simple stuff. You've got to try and work out how crowded anywhere will be.  Generally its easier not to bother.

I have a National Trust venue near me, and would occasionally walk there and walk round the grounds, now I need to arrange it weeks in advance.  

I used to put a fiver in my pocket when going out for a run, in case I decided to nip into a shop on my way back. Now I have to remember to take a debit card and a mask. Which means I need to spend more than a fiver because of card fees, so I need a bag.  It's all too much of a faff to be honest, so I don't bother. So my little local shops are missing out.

What have I gained?

A tidier house - maybe.  Although that's a bit hit and miss.

A new found love of cooking.  I've always cooked from scratch, have very little processed food in the house, but now have the time to experiment.

I'm no longer petrified of video calls - although I still avoid mirrors at all costs!