Sunday 17 March 2024

A Varied Week and a Fabric Stash Count - W/E 16th March 2024

This week has been quite a mixed one. It started off with some bad news for LB. There was another incident at her Uni halls, which shook things up. She was away at the time with her work placement, which I am grateful for to be honest. 

The weather was filthy on Sunday, grey and rainy all day and night. Horrible. I'm over all of this rain, although I know we need it to replenish the water table. Despite the rain, OH and our neighbour managed to get a few more fence panels up, which was good.

I was working on Sunday afternoon, so after a leisurely morning sewing and pottering, I headed off to work. It was not as crazy busy as the previous Sunday had been, so passed without incident. I even left a bit early. 

LB, meanwhile, was travelling back from the event she'd been to over the weekend, but unfortunately the minibus got a puncture and they had to call the RAC, who came out to them. Luckily, they were at a service station and not on the motorway, which was something else to be grateful for.

As a consequence, she was home later than expected, so OH and I picked her up from the drop off point and brought her home. It was good to get her home, especially as it sounded like she'd had quite a manic weekend. She needed to rest and get a good night's sleep before heading back to Uni the next day.

On Monday morning, LB packed up and headed back to Uni. I dropped her off at the station and then took the dog to a different place we don't often go to for a walk, which made a change. It was another grey and depressing day. I'm really looking forward to some sunshine now, when we do eventually get any.

Later, I did the weekly shop locally, as I was due to work in the evening. The time flew by and after putting away the shopping and having some lunch, it was time to get ready and go to work.

On Tuesday morning, I'd booked into my usual class. I made sure to book the day after last week's class and got a place easily for once. It felt good to go back. I did appreciate it more for missing the previous week's class. Three sessions in the gym in one week was too much for me, I prefer a bit of diversity in my exercise regime.

After returning from the class and having lunch, I decided to hole myself up in the sewing room and do an audit of my fabric stash, which I posted about earlier in the week.  It was an interesting and enlightening process, when you actually quantify your fabric collection.

On Wednesday, I had a quiet day at home. I just didn't really want to go anywhere. OH took the dog out and dropped in at the allotment to plant some potato seeds and then when he returned, we moved a few things around in the garden to straighten things up after work was done on the fence at the weekend.

I spent the rest of the day working on my Hexi Star patchwork project and then continuing with the fabric count I'd started the day before. This time, I tackled the fullest drawer of fabric. It felt very satisfying to get this one done.  The remainder of my stash is divided between various locations in the sewing room, so it will be a case of working my way around the room, digging out, measuring and documenting every piece. There's no real hurry to complete the count, so I'll just do a bit here and a bit there when I've got some spare time and the inclination, until it's all been accounted for. I'm quite enjoying the process, but spending at most a couple of hours at a time on it is quite enough.

Later, on Wednesday evening, OH and I watched a good film on Netflix called Infinite Storm.

Thursday, was a busy day. When I got up, I needed to I take my 4 weekly body measurements and selfies, as part of documenting my fitness/weightloss journey. My weight loss has once again slowed down this last week, which is disappointing, but I guess that's just part and parcel of the process. I still lost 1/2 lb and my measurements reduced very slightly, but I just have to be patient and consistent and hopefully things will continue to move in the right direction. After having lost 2 and a half stone since last June, I'm down to losing the last 10 or 11 pounds to reach my preferred weight goal and I kind of expect it to be more difficult at this stage and possibly take much longer. I may need to change some of the things that I'm currently doing to get the eventual outcome that I'm hoping for.

After doing the above, I took the dog out for a walk and then after lunch, I booked a gym session and headed off there.

In the evening, OH and I had been invited to an art exhibition opening night, by an artist friend of his, so we headed into town for that, which was quite exciting, as I've never actually been to one before. It was taking place in Soho in Central London, so we got the train and tube to Oxford Circus and had a nice walk around the area on our way to the event.

It was a nice sociable evening meeting and talking to people I didn't know well. After the opening, we retired to the pub for an hour with everyone and then headed off on our own to get something to eat before coming home.

On Friday morning, I came across an interesting course that I fancied studying locally, whilst scrolling Instagram. Sometimes doomscrolling can have positive outcomes. I applied for the course. It starts in April through to July and it's a Level 2 qualification. I won't give details yet, I'll wait and see if I get onto it. It's not too expensive for what it is and I may be able to get help with the cost, or possibly even pay it in installments over 10 months, which might be a good option.

Once I'd eventually got up, I needed to pick up the car from where we'd left it near the train station the night before, so I took the dog for a walk and picked it up en route. Meanwhile, our neighbour had rented another van and he and OH loaded it with all the rubbish and debris from the fence replacement work and took it to the tip. They then put up the rest of the new fence. It was nice to come back to a completed fence, no rubbish cluttering up the decking and and raised beds newly unearthed and ready to sew some salad seeds into. Here's a picture of the progress:



All I needed to do was sweep up the debris left behind on the decking and through the house which was very easy. I then decided to do a bit of pruning and hang out some bird seed. Our next job will be to dismantle the shed and heavily prune the trees on the other side of the garden, so that we can take the old fence panels out and put new fence panels in. Exciting. I can't wait to get stuck in and get it done. We just need some dry weather to be able to get on with it.

After lunch on Friday, I retired to the sewing room and then promptly fell asleep for the rest of the afternoon. I must have needed it.

On Saturday, I headed off to the gym first thing and got in a free session. Next week is the last free session until the end of April. The end of term comes around so quickly. 

OH picked me up from the gym, as we had an errand to run. There was another Zero Waste event today and I had a bunch of stuff that had been clogging up the landing to take and donate.  It felt good to drop this off and clear the space.  There's just one bag left that I need to take to the charity shop and a couple of items I need to drop off at the Little Free Library. With the pile of doom gone, it looks a lot better.

I wasn't working this Saturday and OH was out cycling in the afternoon, so I had the house to myself to potter around in. I spent most of it sewing. The Hexi star quilt is coming along nicely and is currently a joy to work on. I love having a hobby that is so inexpensive to participate in and brings me such pleasure.

Ultimately, it's been a varied week this week, with some progress being made, which makes me happy.

Friday 15 March 2024

Allotment at the Start of the Growing Season

On Friday morning, I stopped off at the allotment on the dog walk, mainly because the dog wanted to and because I saw that the brown garden waste bins from the site had been emptied that morning and they needed to be put back on site. I did this and then decided to take a few pictures of the plot at the start of this year's growing season, just to document it really.

Here's a couple of pictures:


OH put some potato seeds in this week to get things started.


There were some lovely white bluebells growing around the compost bin.


The strawberry plants had started growing.


and my rosemary bush was looking lovely and healthy.

It's always good to take some photos of it at the beginning of the season when it's bare, all the better to appreciate the difference when the growing season really gets underway.


Tuesday 12 March 2024

Starting a Fabric Audit

This week, I decided to embark on an audit of my fabric stash. It was an idea that I got from Karen of JustGetItDoneQuilts on YouTube. She posted a great video the other week, about counting your fabric. It is something that I've never really thought to do, but I figured that it might be useful to know how much yardage I have, as it would allow me to monitor how much I use. It is also useful to keep myself accountable in terms of buying any new fabric, which I try not to do these days, but I do very occasionally succumb to temptation.

I decided to make a start by going through a couple of the drawers where I keep most of my fabric. I started with the drawers that held the least amount, just so that I wouldn't get overwhelmed and give up. 

To aid me in the task, I gathered together a brand new notebook (to write down a description of each fabric and document how much I have of it) and a metal rule (to measure the length/yardage of each fabric). Most of my fabrics are full widths, but where they are not, I calculated the yardage approximately by measuring how many fat or thin quarters they contained. 

The process involved a lot of unfolding and re-folding and the first two drawers did take longer than I intially thought they would. I then moved on to measure some of the fabric that I keep in plastic boxes on the sewing room shelves. These didn't actually take very long, as there weren't too many different fabrics in each box.

At this point I decided to finish for the day. There was still lots of fabric left to measure, mainly in the fullest drawer, but also stored away in other places. 

There are also the fabrics that I currently have out for use in different projects. Karen, herself, doesn't actually include fabric that is currently in use on projects, probably because you're actually using it and until the project is finished, you won't know how much is left over, which does make sense. These leftovers will need to be added into my audit once the projects are finished or once I'm not using any more of them.

By the end of my first session of auditing my stash, the total yardage of the fabric I had counted was over 90 yards, which equates to approximately 82.5  metres.  These figures actually only include full width yardage and not fat quarters and other off cuts, so the actual figure of fabric counted so far is actually much higher than this.  I must admit that I was quite shocked at the amount.  It is quite scary to think how much I have, especially when I haven't yet tackled the fullest drawer. Thankfully, my one time obsession with collecting and buying fabric has abated in recent years, so it shouldn't really increase in the future. I probably have enough here to last me for the rest of my life. I just need to get creative about the projects I choose to use it up.

Here's a picture of some of the entries in my stash book (please excuse my handwriting, it is notoriously bad): 



I think this kind of record could be useful, as I could look through this book when I need a specific yardage or fabric width for a particular project and see what my options are, without having to rummage through all of my fabrics. (I made sure to put the width of each fabric in the book)  I will also know where to go to find the suitable fabric lengths, as I listed them by location. I have left room in each location for more fabrics to be added once projects are finished and I hope that this will allow me to account for everything in the book eventually.

It was quite an illuminating process.  I imagine you could do the same sort of thing with wool stashes or stashes of other crafting materials.  With much more fabric still to count, it's left me wondering what the final total will be. 

I think I may need to seriously think about selling or donating some of it, but I sometimes find it quite hard to motivate myself to do this.

I'll keep you posted as I progress with the audit. Wish me luck.

Monday 11 March 2024

The Garden Renovation Begins

This year, we're hoping to renovate our garden. It's a small urban garden, the size is typical of many London gardens. Here's a little video of the current state of our garden, (please don't judge us) taken the other day:


It's changed a lot over the years, but as you can see from the video in recent years it has really deteriorated, through neglect, I have to admit. Much of the decking is rotting and needs replacing. OH did replace some outside the back door, but the side return and more beyond immediately outside the back door, still needs replacing.

More particularly, the fences are starting to rot and fall apart. One fence was damaged in a recent storm. This one was our neighbours responsibility, according to the deeds, so he is replacing it and you can see that he has already replaced several panels down the side return.  The others, which are our responsibilty, aren't great, so we're looking to replace them this year.  

In doing so, we will need to take down and remove the old shed, which we've had for nearly 20 years. We bought the shed for our first allotment nearly 20 years ago. It then came home to our garden, when we moved to a different plot 15 years ago and has been here ever since. It's not in the best shape, although I did re-roof it a good few years ago and OH has done repairs to it at different times. There are, however, plants growing through it now, which is weakening the structure and we have plans for this end of the garden, so I'm afraid it's time for it to go.

Here's a few pictures of our current fencing situation:




As you can see from the last photo, OH has removed some grass type panelling that we put up for privacy, revealing the old trellis fence on this side, which is falling apart. This is the side that our neighbour is replacing. The other fences are the ones we are replacing. We're starting with the bare bones structural changes, as these jobs need doing before any vegetation springs into life come the spring.

Once the fences have been replaced, in the long term, we'd like brick paths laid around our raised beds, which OH built and which are definitely staying, as they are a great place to grow salad leaves and pick them daily as we need them. This may take a while to achieve, as we need to find someone to lay them, but that would be the ideal. The bark chippings that we put on the paths don't work, as the dog scatters them as she runs around and some of the local cats use them as a litter tray, which is certainly not ideal. There are virtually none left now anyway.

We'd also like a new large shed at the end of the garden, that stretches the whole width, offering both storage for tools, bikes, etc. and a place where we can sit and read or hang out in. It is going to cost a fair bit and might take a while to materialise, but that is the current plan.

I'll keep you updated as the renovation progresses.  Wish us luck.



Sunday 10 March 2024

A Week of Comings and Goings W/E 9th March 2024

This week started with a long dog walk, one where we didn't have to get back for a delivery and we could just take our time and enjoy a leisurely walk. We were out for about two hours in total. When we got back, after feeding the dog, I made an early lunch, as I was due at work for 1pm.

Work was crazy busy, I think the sunshine had brought many people out shopping and the section I worked was just constantly busy. It did quieten off after a few hours, but it was very challenging for a while. At least the shift passed very quickly, although I was glad to finish and go home to the dog. 

LB had messaged earlier in the day, to say that she was coming home later in the evening, as she was starting a work placement the next day, in East London and it was easier to commute from home. I didn't  object, as it's always lovely to have her home for a few days, but especially so when OH was away.  She got home quite late, but we had a good chat and caught up before heading to bed.

On Monday, I was desperate to go to the gym, as I hadn't done any exercise for nearly a week, save for walking the dog and gardening. I headed out with the dog first and then after lunch, I headed straight to the gym. The weekly shop could wait as far as I was concerned. Gym time was a priority. I had a good session in the gym, but I felt a bit tired and out of shape if I'm honest, as it was probably 10 days since I'd done a gym session. I felt a lot better for it though.

Later, I did the weekly shop at our local Lidl and saved over £8 using the 10% off voucher I'd earned last month.

As I was unloading the car, LB returned from her work placement and it was nice to find out how it had gone. She'd treated herself to a bath bomb from Lush for a soak in the bath later, as she doesn't have a bath at Uni. One of the perks of coming home.

For once, on Tuesday, I couldn't get into my usual class. It has been oversubscribed for weeks now and I often find myself on the waiting list, but I usually manage to catch a cancellation, not this week though. In all honesty, I wasn't too bothered, as I'd done cardio and weights at the gym the day before. plus I had stuff to do before OH came back. Sometimes taking an enforced break can be good, as you appreciate it more when you return.

As a consequence, I could take my time getting up and ready and out with the dog. I took the dog in the car to a favourite spot that is just a little far for her to walk to these days and we had a nice walk..

When I got back, I had lunch and then decided to head up to the sewing room and start a new small scrappy project. It was something that will be useful.

OH returned from Sicily later, he brought me a present:



Perfect for my daily salads and with such a summery design. He usually brings me food or alcohol, but due to my sticking to a calorie deficit, he bought me this instead, which is very thoughtful. I love it.

On Wednesday, I headed back to the gym. I had another good session, despite the gym being busier than I'd ever seen it before.

I picked up my new prescription sunglasses after lunch and did a small top up shop. I'm very happy with them. The transparent frames actually go quite well with my greying hair. I'm looking forward to wearing them when we get some sunshine.



Later, I did some sewing. I needed to hem some jeans for LB and then I finished making this pouch. I treated myself to a pair of Bluetooth headphones when I got paid this month, using the staff double discount, so I got a good reduction on them. They weren't very expensive, but they are very useful for walking the dog and for the multiple walks to and from the gym each week, when I like to listen to podcasts or YouTube videos. LB got me connected, as I don't have a clue. I'm such a tech dinosaur.

I wanted to make a pouch for them when travelling or taking them out in my handbag, so they don't get scratched or damaged. I based this on a pouch I made for some sewing shears many years ago. It's a very basic envelope design and it works well for this purpose. I lined it in a soft varuna wool type fabric from my stash.





On Thursday, I was home alone again. LB headed off to the Midlands for a few nights, with colleagues from the artist studio she's been working at for her work placement, to help out at an event and OH headed into the City to attend a workshop all day. 

I took the dog out, had lunch at home and then took myself out to finish off the weekly shop. I needed to head out to Home Bargains, which is out of town, to stock up on quite a few items we were running low on. I always enjoy myself when I go shopping out of town and I managed to stock up on lots of things that we needed, that tend to be more expensive locally.

On Friday, OH and I needed to do a job in the garden, in readiness for the neighbour putting up the rest of his fence. It involved drastically cutting back a bush. It was a difficult one for me, as it is a beautiful bush when it flowers and there's no guarantee that it will grow back well, but we had to do it and then bag up the debris. It took the whole morning. 

After lunch, I headed out to the gym for my 3rd session of the week. I felt quite tired in this session. I may have overdone things slightly this week, making up for the dearth of exercise last week, but it was good to get it done.

Saturday, I was due to return to work in the evening, after 5 nights off. I couldn't make it to my usual free gym session in the morning, as OH was cycling most of the day and I needed to take the dog out, hence why I went on Friday. The dog and I had a nice walk and then I spent most of the afternoon sewing, which was nice and relaxing, before eventually getting ready to go into work. Work was good, busy but good, a positive end to the week.

It's not been a particularly productive week this week, but I've enjoyed getting back to the gym and having LB home for a while. There's always next week.

Thursday 7 March 2024

Quilting Progress - March 2024

I thought I would do a quick post, to bring you up to scratch on the progress I've made on the Hexi Star quilt that I've been working on for probably the last 4 months. I think I last posted about this quilt in November last year, when I'd completed 2 or 3 of the star blocks. I've now completed 10 large star blocks for this quilt.

I changed tack a little on the second five, as I decided to use fabrics of another colour in these blocks, namely green, so the main colours for the quilt are now navy, red and dark green. The reason for this, is that I had quite a few different fabrics in this colourway, that were similar to the fabrics I had used in a red colourway, so I thought they would possibly go well together and it would add a bit of extra interest to the quilt and help use up more fabrics from my stash.

I recently laid all of the star blocks out together, to see how they blended. Here's a photo of what they looked like when I did:



It's a pretty random quilt, but I quite like that about it, no two blocks are the same. You will see that two blocks have been outlined with a row of navy hexagons.  All of the stars and other blocks in this quilt will also be outlined in this way and this should help bring together all the different colours and shapes of blocks when all are sewn together and make the actual blocks stand out. You can just about see from the second photo how the blocks will fit together. I'm actually reasonably happy with how well they go together. I think because the navy is used with both colourways, that it helps with continuity. This probably isn't the final layout, I'll play around with it when all the blocks are completed.

Now that all the hexi star blocks are done, I have moved on to another part of the process of making this quilt and that is to make some smaller blocks in the shape of diamonds, using the same fabrics in different combinations. These diamonds will fill the space between the points of the star blocks and I think I will need to make between 40 and 50 to complete the quilt. I have started to make a few of these blocks already to show you what they look like. These are really enjoyable to work on, as they are much smaller and quicker to make, only using 9 hexies. Here's a picture of the ones I've completed thus far:


I will also need to source some more plain navy fabric to fill in between the star and diamond blocks in order to complete this project, as I don't currently have enough, so this will, of course, involve a trip to one of my favourite places to buy fabric. It is a particular London high street where there are lots of different fabric shops, so I'll very much look forward to that. I don't really want to buy more fabric, but I have virtually no plain fabrics in my stash and they are necessary to make the kind of quilts I like to make. I will try to use up any fabric I do buy in this project if I can. This will actually be the only thing that I have actually had to buy to make this quilt, which feels good, as it means I am gradually finding a use for the fabric that I already have at home.  This is what I love most about EPP patchwork projects, they are great for stash busting.

I'll keep you posted as the project progresses and the different blocks get sewn together. 




Tuesday 5 March 2024

A Few Favourites

I haven't done a favourites post for a long time, partly because I use the same products over and over, but recently, I've come across a few new to me products that are worth a mention here.

The first couple of things are products to uplift my daily salads. I'm always looking for ways to make my daily salads a bit more interesting and last month I did a bit of research into finding a mango salad dressing. I was inspired by the Chicken and Mango salads that I used to buy from Lidl on days when I was out shopping. The mango salad dressing gave a lovely sweet flavour to the salad and I really enjoyed this treat.

However, these pre-packed salads have got quite a bit more expensive in the last couple of years, so I rarely indulge anymore. As a consequence, I went on a quest to find a salad dressing to recreate the experience at home. There weren't too many out there, but I did find this one by Mary Berry, which is sold in Waitrose. It's not cheap at £3.80 per bottle, but it tastes nice and once opened lasts a month. I've been using this for the last week or so and quite enjoying it, as a change from just using balsamic vinegar. The calories aren't too high either, which is a plus. I probably won't buy it that often though on account of the cost.


Similarly, I came across these Sweety Drop Peppers in Sainsburys the other week. I've been keeping an eye out for these since we visited Lanzarote last year. I had a lovely salad in one of the restaurants there and it was sprinkled with tiny yellow peppers like these, so when I saw these I thought I'd give them a go. Again, they are not particularly frugal at £2.80 per jar, not something I will buy every week. They're not quite as nice as the yellow ones, but do add a bit of interest to my salad, so were definitely worth a try.


In terms of beauty products, I tend to use the same products regularly and just replace them when I run out, but recently, I decided to try this collagen face cream from Home Bargains. 



It's from the Dead Sea Collection range and I've found it to be a really good face cream. Not too greasy, makeup applies easily on top, and it doesn't break me out, so I'm probably going to re-purchase this very soon. If it had SPF too, it would be perfect. I think it only cost something like £2.99 or maybe even less. I have used the hylauronic acid serum in this range too, which was equally inexpensive and it was okay, but I've moved away from using serums recently and gravitated towards a face cream. I know that you can get a gift set of three products in the range for £4.99 in store, which is an amazing price.

I have also been love, love, loving this Palmer's Cocoa Butter Formula Daily Skin Therapy lately. I began using their handcream in the same scent, but I haven't been able to find it recently and could only get hold of these larger bottles of daily skin therapy. They work just as well as a handcream though and you get much more for your money. What I love so much about it, is that it smells just like chocolate and I love just breathing it in everytime I use it. It's almost as good as eating chocolate. This is going to be my go to handcream from now on, for definite. I think this bottle cost £3.29 or something similar from B&M. It's a keeper.


Finally, another current favourite of mine is this book by John Lane called Timeless Simplicity - Creative Living in a Consumer Society. I put this book on my Amazon wishlist years ago, but never actually got around to buying it and then Vivi from What Vivi Did Next on YouTube reviewed it in a video the other week and it spurred me on to buy it there and then from eBay. It only cost £4, but it's a subject I love to read about and Vivi's review was so positive, that I just had to buy it and read it.


Having already picked it up and started to read the introductory chapters, I know it is going to be something I'm going to love. It was published between 2001-2004, but it is still completely, if not more relevant now. It's a thin book, but with quite small print, just to warn anyone who might want to buy it, but this does not detract from it in any way.

Have you stumbled upon any new favourites lately?