Small progress

Large parts of the living room floor are now clear space and I have Thrown Some Things Away. Eek! Will I miss them? I don’t know, but I’m sure that I won’t remember what I put in the bin in a month’s time.

Tonight I have crossed two things off the UFO list. The undies now have waist elastic and the bag now has one single strap not two lonely ends. I have also sewn a little needle case for Miss Amoo as part of her christmas gift. The cover is denim from Mr G’s old jeans, the lining is part of a double cuff that I cut off all Mr G’s old shirts when I made them into a rag rug. The bit for the needles is cut from the sleeve of a felted jumper and I blanket stitched the edges of the wool while I was watching trash on iPlayer. Doing little things like this reminds me why I keep so many bits of fabric and why it is such a struggle to get rid of stuff.

A nice peaceful evening at the end of a kind of weird week. I forgot to go to work on Wednesday night which is a sign of something being a bit discombobulated in my head for sure.

Time to talk

Today when Miss Froo was at her Dreamweavers drama group (the only thing she does that is big sister-free) Miss Amoo and I went to the post office to return the boots of the previous post then went to the cafe at Pegasus Theatre They have an amazing wire tree which starts on the ground floor and ends up almost reaching the roof. The tree has coloured circles of perspex growing on its branches some of which are engraved with messages and inspiring quotes. We had a drink and a big fat slice of shortbread and read some of the bubbles that were close to our table.

We are four weeks into the Dreamweavers thing and I have found that this time with Miss Amoo has been strange and welcome as it gives her time to say something without having to shout over her sister or have her sister contradict her or say that she also wants the same things. I love how close they are but I do also want to give them opportunities to be themselves and not a lump of FrooAmoo or AmooFroo depending on who is more forceful at any given moment. Some people might (and sometimes do) argue that if they were at school they would be more individual but we don’t think that is the answer. As they get older their desires and needs will change and they will find paths they want to walk together and others to show each other but for now they spend significantly more time together than apart which is special.

Today in these peaceful moments walking and talking then sitting and watching, Moo told me two things that need some action on my part. She would like to learn to draw better as her portraits of different people are starting to all look the same and she thinks that a denim belt with a button on it would be good to hold her trousers up. I’ll do what I can to help her with both these things.

Tomorrow Miss Froo and I will be home alone as Moo is off to a friend’s house for the afternoon. Froo is sure to have some things that she wants me to do for her too and we may have time to do them before her sister gets home!

Moving Stuff

I’ve been emptying out cupboards and bags of fabric with the aim of moving all my fabric out of the house and into the caravan.

This has revealed that my stuff falls into several categories: yardage for me; yardage for the girls; smaller bits that can’t be used for whole garments but would be handy to keep for this, that or the other; clothing/sheets/other that have yet to be upcycled in their entirety; UFOs and muslins, USOs (sewn to sell but as yet unsold) and other stuff which is really just rags.

So far I have sorted out the yardage for me and the girls without any trouble, then a bag load of Mr G’s shirts which are now minus sleeves as I’m working on another rag rug. The other stuff is a bit more difficult to organise as some of the UFOs are quick fixes and could stay indoors. Another couple of metres of fabric need to stay near the machine because I want to sew them up soon… other bits seem to dissimilar to put into the same bag…. I’m a Virgo you know! I’m one of those people who is generally messy but has a spick and span filing cabinet and has been know to tidy bookshelves so that the colours of the spines go from light to dark through colours…. Try it: it looks great!

Something else that needs to stay in the house is a large amount of Ikea fabric under the sewing machine which is the start of a friend’s curtains which must be sewn soon as winter is coming round again. On top of that is half a Winter Sling Thing as I’m back in the swing of sewing them up for winter too.

The UFO pile contains the unsuccessful Sorbetto, a Novita needing one more bound armscye, some undies needing waist elastic, an Ottobre top for Miss Froo that needs some coloured FOE to finish the neck and cuffs, a bag that needs the strap sewing up and a pair of New Look 6190 trousers in brown linen that now fit me so might be worth putting a zip into!

While I’ve been doing all this sorting and moving of piles, Mr G has bought a new heater for the living room which is ‘More efficient and heats up faster” than our oil filled radiator. Unfortunately it is also a bit larger than the old heater so I think we are going to have to put dismantle this chair and put it in the shed for the winter in order to fit it in. He bought this heater from Amazon and accidentally also bought a pair boots I had in my wish list. This is not the first time this kind of thing has happened but last time we didn’t really want My Daddy is a Pretzel! He brought the boots home sheepishly as I hadn’t intended to buy them right now but we’ve had to send them back as the box says size 4 but the boots inside are both size 5 and far too big for me 😦

And all this palaver makes MORE MESS! How is this possible?

The caravan of delights

Well, it’s here and we’ve been investigating every crevice.

The caravan has a cooker, a two ring gas hob, a grill, a fridge, a sink, a porta potti, a wardrobe, cutlery and kitchen utensils, plates, cups, saucers, eggcups, pots and pans, sleeping bags, pillows, blankets, sheets, power cables, gas tanks, toilet cleaners, an awning and inner tent for the awning, a mallet and pegs, an old style camp bed, water carriers, coat hangers, extra cushions, wing mirror extensions thingies…. and more

Having found all this stuff I have been wondering about the previous owners and what happened to make them decide to leave all this in the van because they were never going to use it again. I hope they don’t have too many regrets and there wasn’t too much sadness.

Here are a couple of pictures to give you an idea

70s sleeping bag! Deja-vu anybody?

more cups and stuff

extra curtains that don’t seem to fit anywhere

more retro plates

I have an idea to make a poncho out of one of the crazy sleeping bags and some large fabric baskets with handles to fit under the benches to keep my fabric in. *If* we ever go away with the van I can make a second set of baskets to put our camping stuff in. Having seen everything that is in the van I am really tempted to get a towbar on the car, get new tyres for the caravan and plan a getaway for the spring. Even Mr G is slightly tempted by this idea…..

Today the girls had a friend over and they played out there for nearly two hours without any props or toys at all. I went out there the other night to measure up some more bits and it started pouring with rain so I stayed put instead of getting wet coming back indoors. I closed the blinds and the curtains, lay on one of the seats in my puffa jacket and closed my eyes for half an hour of peace and quiet listening to the rain. I was out there so long that Mr G came out and lay down too. He has a white noise app that sounds like rain on a roof so he loved it.