the patchwork dress

a new sign

When we moved in to the cottage, there were a few times delivery people couldn't find us, mainly because the sign on an old piece of wood was badly faded.

I'd been waiting until good weather to repaint something - and decided to do it straight onto the stonework of the cottage, no fuss working out where to hang a sign.

I thought I'd share the steps, just incase anyone felt the urge to do the same!

First of all I drew the image to the size I wanted in Illustrator and chose a font. You could also do this in Word or any programme, as it fits on a sheet of A4 paper and can be cut down. I then cut it out, drew round it on the wall and masked off the outside with masking tape. Then filled it in with Weatherseal paint - a grey mixed from black and cream.

Then I reused the template, rubbing on the back of the letters with white pencil. Repositioned on the wall, I just went round the outline with a hard lead pencil so that the white pencil would transfer onto the wall - knew those primary school techniques would come in handy one day!

Then, with cream weatherseal paint and a thin artists paintbrush just fill in the lines... You could use this technique for a sign, just some words or a quotation - or even a smaller version with your name. I quite fancy painting the birdtable with something next! My lines may not be the neatest, and the photos are also a bit blurry! But a friend did remark on the new sign, and I instantly earned a commission to do his!

garden

my blog seems to have turned into a gardening blog all of a sudden - it's the place I've been spending all my spare time lately - am so tired after work, even 5 minutes out there makes you feel as if you've done something, and I find being outside so therapeutic, even though I am a novice gardener.

These are the sunflowers that Melissa sent me last year in this post..

the tomato plants I bought a month or so ago from the Red Cross Plant sale in the village, are now up to my shoulders! The first flowers are coming out, and I have been getting tips about growing tomatoes from a chap at work. I was just commenting to N last week about how quickly they are shooting up - and that I'd been advised to pinch out any new growth between the stem and leaf - when he told me he'd kindly been pinching off the flowers to help. The tomato growing has consequently been left to me, and I also gained some courgette plants from a friend.

today I have been out madly tidying in the garden, and replanting an old trough - moving the plants I wasn't so keen on, to turn it into a herb garden. In there are parsley, basil, some coriander and one or two lettuce... The parsley marker was bought at Potfest on the last foray. I really like the typewriter typeface on it!

Speaking of forays I have had a couple of good finds at work. During the week I savalged 3 old wooden pallets from a skip, as since N had seen an article about this designer in Dwell magazine - he'd wanted to make one of these...

I am so delighted with my recycled sun lounger. (By the way, if you like this kind of thing, check out Scrapile as well.) Had been needing some garden furniture to add to the 'bench' and had been planning an expensive trip to Ikea - so the next day he made a table to match!

which also doubles as a footrest and another sitting bench. Total cost £0 - from 3 pallets.

I hate having to work on Saturdays, as it means a 6 day week and I miss my morning of R4 and pottering in the house. It knocks the system, which I don't think recovers without a break - so thank God I am having a week off later this week. However, being at work did have some payoff as I was given this Cath Kidston fabric by a colleague - with another piece in beautiful roses.

All I need is some time to do something with it!

Bon appetit!

room with a view

Yesterday the doorbell rang and a delivery man asked me to sign for a box. We were expecting a delivery of one of these, but after I signed for it, realised that it said "M&S flowers" on the box. (Snapdragon Jane, look away now!)

...far more exciting than the logmaker (or is it?...), it was a delightful surprise delivery from my friend Jill as a gift for our new home. I'd not really done anything about spring bulbs when we moved in, as with so many other things to do, it seemed like a bit of an indulgence. But I do LOVE them. So this was a very nice surprise, and a promise that Spring will arrive. Although it would probably look good by the front door, I put it in the garden just outside my sewing room window so that I can enjoy it everyday.

Speaking of which...

..still a work in progress, but I was keen to post about it now, as it will never be 'perfect' - the chances of me catching it on a tidy day with sunlight and all the pictures on the wall may be a few months off yet! So here it is Stage 1!

BEFORE... (as it was when we moved in)...

...hm, in need of some t-l-c I thought...

and for several weeks it was like this...

...war torn dumping zone...

So I much prefer it like this!

...there's the ol' sewing machine... cutting mat... ready for action.

Total cost of revamp £13.99 for the stripey Ikea rug.

We pulled up the carpet to discover the blue floorboards, which I may repaint, but quite like and will do for now.

The cream blinds had a scalloped edge and braiding that I didn't like, so cut it off and hey presto, got 2 new plain blinds! Luckily the 'weighted edge' was above the scallop, but you could always trim and rehem an old blind, as usually they are much longer than the window anyway.

The pine chest at the end of the room is holding all my secondhand fabrics. It was originally in another room and most of the drawers were stuck. With the aid of a can of Pledge and a rubber mallet (!) - oh the Boxing Day fun we had - we got the drawers out and N planed them down. If he'd taken any more off he said, they would have become trays.

The Hornsea pots on top were charity shop rescues which now hold & keeps tidy - threads, strings and things. (That's the Creative Café coffee pot there too, where we put our written intentions inbetween meetings. We then pull them out at the next meet, usually having forgotten what we put, and are surprised to discover that one if not several have come true. Mine was moving house!)

The Ikea clear fronted chest under the sewing machine was a giveaway from my friend Suzanne. Now I have a bit of a confession... I saw in a magazine a "gift wrapping table" - it looked like a huge tupperware table with legs like a wallpaper pasting table - and I exclaimed WHAT! are you MAD? - a table to store giftwrap and all your ribbons etc on extending legs. Madness I cried. Then thought, what a good idea, I'm fed up with rolls of wrapping paper stuffed behind wardrobes and squished ribbons - so they all fitted in the bottom drawer! neat and tidy. If I read this elsewhere I'd think 'anal', but actually the satisfaction of having it 'out of the way' does exceed this.

There is still the unseen end of the room which is housing some piles of magazines and some storage boxes, but it generally all is much neater and more organised and feels more efficient. Magazines come in the door, go to the cutting table, recycle bins underneath, scraps into the logmaker, cards out the other end!

Watch this space!