Oh 'eck

OK, I know it's been almost a month since I last posted, but I have excuses. Don't I always come armed with excuses?

For starters it was January and January is not the lovely quiet month everyone says it is. I've been lied to, I've lied to myself. I have to try and remember what January is like so it doesn't bite me next year!

I've had all the ick things to deal with like tax returns (never as bad as I think they're going to be) and paperwork to complete because Bob's out of work (worse than it really should be), but we've packed in the fun stuff too ...

Countless bike rides around the Floodgates


Trips to the duckpond



The birds really aren't walking on water, it's just frozen solid.

And I've been a busy little beaver making new stock.



I've even booked my first fair of the year, so I've been making like a woman demented for that too ...



Totally Bazaar is run by Decadence Premier Vintage Fairs, the same great organisers who bring you Frock Around the Clock each year. It'll take place on Sunday 3 April 2011 and starts at *11.00am at the Holiday Inn, Ormeau Avenue, Belfast so if you're in the area feel free to drop in for a natter.

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On top of everything else we've been kept really busy by school things too. First there was the Exploris visit, a really fun day for the kids in school but it did come with a ton of extra homework. I don't mind homework but Chloe was being a bit of a nightmare about it, then she came down with tonsillitis and that explained everything. Obviously then once she was better and back to school we had a mountain of homework to catch up on, but at least it's finished now.

We've had two sponsored events to take care off and then there was pirate day!. Have you tried finding a pirate costume in the shops in the middle of January? It can't b done, so another thing went on the to do list and it had to be made from scratch. I've photos and I'll show them to you but they're on the camera and I just haven't had a second to deal with them yet.

I've a stack of foodie photos too and I will get round to posting the recipes at some stage, it just won't be today because today I'll be mostly making birthday presents for my mum and dad and finishing 3 skirts for Chloe so that I can drop them in the suitcase ready for pressing and packing before the holiday. I know it's not until June but I just like to know these things are done, then I don't have to think about them again. It's my own fault really, I cut the fabric and pinned it all and set it on the back of a chair where I could see it. Every. Single. Day. So it has to be done today, for my own sanity.

And at some stage in amongst everything else I'll manage to squeeze in my 30th birthday on Friday. I might sit down for a coffee or something instead of carrying it around with me like the cup's attached to my hand.

* You really have to love an organiser who appreciates that loading the car at 6.00am on a cold Sunday morning in April is not a big ol' bundle of giggles and let's us have a lie in!

Happy New Year

First things first, I hope everyone had a happy and relaxing new year. We took it easy here and saw the New Year in with a movie and a glass of champers which has been in the fridge for donkey's years. I was a bit worried it might have turned into vinegar it's been in there so long but it was very lovely:)

I've seen countless posts about New Years Resolutions in the last few days and to be honest I wasn't going to bother myself because I never wholeheartedly make them so I've never gone a year and kept any resolution I've made, but ... I did manage to keep one of last years so I may just have another go this year.

I said back at the start of last year that I would try and appear in a magazine and then in true Leanne Woods form I did nothing, zip, nada, bupkis. Then in October I received an email from Alice Blackledge of Sew Hip asking if I'd like to write a tutorial for them.

Let me think about that one for a second ... aye go on then!




Issue 25, with my tutorial for the Evergreen Wallet went on sale on 31 December 2010, so I just made it by the skin of my teeth and what's better is that I even have a copy to prove it.

That was the important part of the resolution because a few months ago my brother's girlfriend was getting off the bus when she say a girl reading a magazine that she had folded in half and could have sworn she saw this bag in the shopping page but without knowing what magazine it was, it may have even been an old copy of something I could never confirm it.

And back at Halloween in 2009 I might have had a cushion in a special edition of Chat but I forgot to buy it and couldn't get a back issue either. A friend of my mum's thinks she remembering seeing the cushion in there but didn't have her copy any more so I'm still none the wiser if it was in there or not.

But I know this one's real, got a paper cut rifling through the pages and everything:)

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So now for this years resolution. Sleep, that's it, I'm going to make a real effort to sort out my sleep patterns this year because my brain still thinks it's a night owl, but my body thinks it's an early bird which leads to a lovely combination of my brain keeping my body awake til stupid o'clock and my body dragging my half bedraggled brain out of bed at half past a freckle and I end up losing about 3 hours a day to laziness and a good dose of knackereditis.

I think I'm going to embrace the early bird and start shifting my bedtime forward a bit at a time until I'm at least going to sleep the right side of midnight, hopefully then the 5am wake up won't be so hard to deal with and I'll make better use of my time.

More time of course means I should get more done in a day, like keeping accounts up to date every week, making more stock so I can approach more outlets, hopefully write another tutorial or two for Sew Hip, work up a few new patterns when my brain isn't addled and with a bit of luck I'll have more energy too for things like exercise and the most important one of all ... spending time with my family, time of the non knackered "can we just sit here on the sofa and watch TV variety".

So what are your plans for 2011, any resolutions made or are you going to be clever and keep those to yourself for the time being?