French Knots

Busy, Busy

Goodness how did I ever find time to go to work!? I love the bustle of this time of year but find I'm flagging by mid afternoon, which is a great deal better than a few weeks ago. Last week got off to a shaky start as the Doctor sent me to hospital worried that I might be loosing amniotic fluid, happily 6 hours later (!) I was home again safe in the knowledge that I was not but having leant that Tena Lady may well figure in the future and also to avoid sneezing!! Nearly halfway now, 18 weeks today.

The week took an upturn from there as I had been invited to sit on the Citizens Jury for Midwifery run by our local Primary Care Trust. It was a facinating three days, we heard evidence from midwives, obstretricians, staticians, finance experts and had some heated discussion amongst ourselves. It focussed on the fact that my local area is loosing it's maternity unit ( something to do with bringing services ' closer to home' - yeah right) and we were assessing the need for a Midwife Led Unit to serve low risk women in this area. Without that, the only place to give birth would be at home or by travelling outside the area to a big maternity unit at a hospital where it is already hard to park and people feel they are on a conveyor belt. Possibly I am biased, given my current condidtion, but I voted in favour of it and a report will be sent to the jurors in a couple of weeks before it is presented to the PCT. It was great to use my brain a bit more than usual, ok so I've been learning spellings and times tables with The Big Sister but that's not the same! It's an aspect of my working life I had not realised I missed, analysing information, questioning, probing, assessing - the lunches were pretty good too!

I've made some progress on my list of Christmas presents - how are you doing?  

 

A little quilt for a certain someone, the first I've made.Well more of a patchwork blanket reallyas I didn't actually quilt it, perhaps next time.

My Christmas Swap has arrived with Tracey my partner and hers is here too.........of course we couldn't wait to open them

 

This is what I sent, hopefully she is an apron person,the soft trees were all over blogland a couple of years ago and I decided to make mini yo yos for the baubles 

I really enjoyed the hand sewing and, time permitting will make one or two to add to my Christmas decorations.

Tracey really spoilt me

   

She is a talented needle woman, the bag is wonderfully made, so neat and absolutley perfect and the decoration is really sweet with it's embroidery. Thank you Tracey for being my partner, I hope everyone else is as happy with their swap surprises.

Parcels at the ready!

Have you finished your surprises? Wrapped your parcel? Don't forget to get your swap in the post ladies and please let me know once your goodies have arrived. Happy swapping!

 

Whoosh!

That was the sound of last week rushing by me.....a whirlwind of a week. Mr FK was away on his course again so it was just me and the children. Suddenly there seemed to be so much happening - a new after school football club for the Big Sister, swimming lessons, secondary schools to visit ( along with about 2000 other people) to help us start the process of applications and 11+ exams for the next year, choir practice, friends over for tea, costumes to be chosen and then made for the book themed day at school ( 2 days sewing a mediaeval style dress like Lucy from Prince Caspian and a Jolly Postman outfit!) apples to be picked from the tree, apple sauce and stewed apples frozen for the winter, new tyres bought for the car, the DJ booked for the PTA Christmas children's disco, spellings learnt, flapjack made for the Macmillan coffee morning .....no doubt pretty much like your week too!

When I stopped to draw breath I noticed a honey bee on the, still flowering, verbena bonariensis but by the time I grabbed the camera it had flown off. A busy bee too.

 

An exciting parcel arrived to cheer me up from the generousSuzie Sews with a wealth of goodies   

pegs,sparkly thread and a wonderful selection of brooches which have been much complimented in the playground. Thank you so much Suzie!

I must thank Rachel of Contented too as she solved the upside down screen problem, and I could be rather smug with my husband, for about 2 minutes, as he had fiddled around with it for about an hour and not been able to work out how to fix it and I'm certainly not known for my technical wizardry!

Speaking of which just look what Emma from Bagladee has put together for our swap   

feel free to use (a smaller version!) on your blog. Has everyone heard from their partners? We have one extra player who can steo in if their is a problem otherwise I will swap with her too.

Right off to tour another secondary school - I wish my school had had the amazing textile, art and technology departments they all seem to have these days, am I too old to apply for myself do you think?? - then a peacful afternoon enjoying the autumn sunshine. Have a lovely weekend!

Christmas swap partners

Typing at top speed as this post has vanished into the ether 3 times already, my wonderful linktastic post lost when the flammin broadband crashed again....and again...!

I have a great idea for what I'm going to make and I hope you do too. I suggest something that takes two or three evenings of creativity to finish so everyones gets a similar amount of swap goodness.

Please post by 19th Novemebr at the latest to allow time for the international parcels to arrive and if you are anything like me it will free up December for making presents for family and friends as somehow Christmas always creeps up on me! It might be a good idea to get a proof of posting in case anything goes missing in the busy Christmas post.

Please take a photo of your swap before you send it and email it me so I can do a showcase of swap lovliness in the New Year.

ok here we go...

Lynda and Kiona

Lucy Locket  and Vanessa 

Diana and Maxine

Sal  and   Claire P

Rachel L and  Lesley 

Angel Jem  and Suzie 

Camilla  and Kat

Karen T and Tea and Cake

Monique and Nicola  

Leslie and Solorn 

Anne and    Julia 

Maryanne and Periwinkle 

Tracey and French Knots

Ginny and   Kali 

Elizabeth and Bagladee 

Mary   and Frugal trenches    

If you have any problems with the swap- missed you out,changed your mind, links don't work etc- please let me know. I will email the partners contact details for the people who don't have a blog.

Happy swapping!

I have amended the links that were wrong so hopefully they should be working ok now. I have also emailed the contact details for the ladies without blogs to their partners, if you've not had the email please let me know...I'll assume no news is good news!

Quick one...

We changed our ISP this week and all I have to say is grrrr!! Have tried to write this post several times but it keeps crashing and throwing me off line.....oh yes and My Little Helper has done something to turn the contents of the screen upside down ( if anyone knows how to get it back the right way round I would love to know!) so anyway....

Thanks so much to everyone who wants to join in the Christmas swap, I'm really excited. There are 30 of us participating and I'll get the children to draw partners this weekend.

Just a couple of things I want to check -

Does anyone mind posting internationally?

Does anyone not want a blogless partner? My thoughts are that while a blog is great to see what someone likes and would appreciate for their gift it is not essential, perhaps flickr photos could give a feel for their lifestyle and taste. 

Please email me and I'll bear any preferences in mind when partnering you up.   

If anyone else wants to join in please get in touch and I'll post the partners ( ISP willing !) on Monday.

I'm off to enjoy this lovely sunny day.

Ta da!!

And the winner is..............................

Michelle Rosborough! Please drop me an email Michelle so I can get your prize in the post, the comment you left doesn't have a link in it. Thank you for all your comments, it's always great to find some new blogs to visit too.

The prize is one of my draught excluders ( unless I discover that Michelle lives in the tropics!) as so many of us are thinking about living a cost efficient life these days I thought it would be handy to keep the December draughts out. It's made from a recycled pair of jeans and decorated with some fabric I picked up from the remnant bin recently. I'm going to make some more to make sure I'm toasty warm this winter - which seems to be fast approaching despite the non appearance of summer this year.

I've been buying old woollen blankets to line the door curtain and curtains too as we live in an old house which is prone to draughts, I shall be hibernating in front of the wood burner with my knitting from Autumn onwards.

Birthday Giveaway!

Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes! I have been enveloped in good wishes,kind thoughts and treats by family and friends ( including a trip to a tasty tapas bar with friends who made sure everyone in the place knew I was 40 with balloons and enthusiatic 'Happy Birthday' singing!) so I thought I'd spread the love a little.

Please leave me a comment on this post, just say hello if you don't usually like to comment, and I'll draw a winner next Wednesday  for some handmade goodness from me.

Thank you to everyone who gave me camera advice too, hopefully you will see an improvement in the photos around here as my new one arrived this morning

It is a Finepix S5800 ( happily the link button has mended itself with the newest typepad changes, though the spell check doesn't work any more so please forgive any mis-spelt words!) which is just what I wanted - more functionality than my old camera but small and lightweight too, and a brilliant price, perfect! Thanks to Sara eden  for her feedback on it. Then I discovered my brother has the same camera too, we all have such good taste!

 It arrived while I was in the shower, so I scared the Parcelforce man both with my enthusiastic grabbing of the box and my state of undress. No....., I had my dressing gown on, otherwise he'd probably still be collapsed on the path in a state of distress...I am 40 now you know!

Technology!

Ok so the PC has decided it doesn't recognise the camera any more so I can't get at my photos of the new things I've been making, Typepad still doesn't't want me to do links as the button won't work so this is a bit of a boring post before I've even started! And I was going to try and be smart and write a post to be published in a day of two just to see if I could do it. 

A rather windy and soggy half term so far, with just a few hours of sun yesterday afternoon when the children played in the garden making pies from sand, water and grass - how delicious! I took the opportunity to laze in a deckchair and enjoy the warm sunshine. Today though is back to the grey skies and occasional drizzle, ah well.

This lovely bag has been lifting my spirits since receiving it in a swap organised by Rhonda Jean over at Down to Earth ( sorry, still no links today!) from Julia at Blue Apple Farm. It's the perfect size for summer bits and bobs - brolly, gloves...... no I mean sunglasses and suntan lotion, if only! It's my favourite colour combination and has been complimented many times already.  

This is an amazing coat that we saw on a recent visit to the Museum Of Science and Industry, it's made of thistle down and has a wonderful magical appearance which hasn't really photographed very well.

I can only imagine the patience needed to make something so delicate, and certainly not something to try when you have the sneezes!

Hope you are enjoying half term, if you have children, mine are off next week too and we've some plans for a fun week so I'll see you in a while. Hopefully Typepad will be keener on doing links by then!