What a difference a few days make

Sorry, I know that last post was a bit grumpy.

It was panic, maybe, at least I think that's what it was.

I'm all better now though, I promise.

All my outstanding orders are cleared and I was even able to just faff around with a couple of new things yesterday.

I made a new cuff bracelet and I'm really trying not to keep it for myself ... might have to make another one though:)


We had mad hair day on the last day of school. I even found the time to customise Chloe's shop bought wig with a big blue bow which she told me made the wig cute but not mad, so I flung every drop of glue and sequin I could find in the house at the thing until it was deemed suitably mad. I know you can't see the bow but my lovely husband doesn't take photos with me blogging in mind. He'll get there though, won't you husband?



Chloe's really starting to rub off on me as far as the holiday goes. She is so excited and now we're down to our last 3 sleeps she'll be nearly impossible to contain. So I'm just going with it, letting her rub off on me and getting a bit excited myself.

It helps that I've found the time to iron everything and the cases are packed, well except for the couple of things that are still drying after being hammered by hailstones on the line yesterday. Do you think the weather knows it's May?

Anyway, the point is I feel much better now. I'm all cleared up and don't have that panicky feeling that I won't get finished in time and I'll let someone down.

Now the only thing left to do is get Chloe back for her last day of school on Thursday and try to find some way of tiring her out enough to get her into bed really early on Thursday night because we have to get up at 3am for our flights on Friday morning and I don't know if I've mentioned it before but Chloe getting out of bed early in the morning makes Kevin look like a precious little angel. Does anyone have a treadmill I can borrow?

Holidays are coming

Or looming depending on how you look at it.

I'm still not sure if I'm looking forward to this holiday or not, there's no doubt it couldn't have come at a worse time.

For a start Chloe isn't well at the minute. It's only a dose of the cold but it still means all hands are on deck trying to get it cleared up before we leave in two weeks.

I said back at the start of the year that the whole point of the holiday was to take Chloe away for a couple of weeks. My mum has been promising to take her away on holiday since she was three and my dad (the sensible one) kept putting it off because she was just too young to be away from us for more than a night or two ... but then my dad was diagnosed with cancer, had most of his bowel removed and was eventually given the all clear. Today you would never know to look at him how close a call he had last year, he's as fit and healthy as he ever was, even more so to be honest. But he doesn't put things off until later any more, so when the idea of a holiday came up before Christmas it was booked to include Chloe.

Of course then the realisation dawned that taking Chloe away on holiday for two weeks meant spending two whole weeks with Chloe:) She's not a bad kid, in fact after some of the play dates we've had this year I'd say she's a complete dream but she is constantly on the go. You need a lot of energy to keep up with her.

And so the booking was changed so that her own mum (that would be me folks) could go and play babysitter.

I'm not ungrateful, I know from all this it sounds like I am but really I'm not. They're spending a lot of money, and it all comes from a good place. They know we've had a crap year and think a holiday will help and it probably would, if Robert were coming too. Instead he gets to stay at home and carry on having a crap year while I have a crap time 1700 miles away worrying about him.

Plus I'm 30 years old and having a holiday entirely paid for by mummy and daddy so I feel rotten about that too.

Plus it means taking Chloe out of school for two weeks at the end of term meaning that she'll miss most of the fun end of term stuff including a couple of school trips.

Plus, business wise, if I have a busy time it's as Summer approaches and I'll have to close. I can't exactly ask Robert to handle custom orders, which is the vast majority of what I do these days.

And we're selling the house and need to have a good clear out and tidy up to make it more presentable so that's another thing landed on Robert while I'm away.

Does it sound like I'm feeling a bit guilty? It does, doesn't it?

Nose to the grindstone

Wahay, the kids are back to school again ... for three whole weeks.

Still it's given me time to catch up on all the things (more than a lot but less than a helluvalot) that were set to one side during the never ending Easter holidays.

But for now it's back to normality again, making, designing, doodling, filling orders and cutting out more panniers than you want to know about. Seriously I have bicycle bags coming out of my ears, who knew they'd be so popular.

I did manage to free up a morning for a good cause though. You can pop over and visit Louise at Sew Scrumptious for the full details but basically Louise is kindly offering to coordinate and send handmade dresses to Hope 4 Women International's "Dress a Girl Around the World" campaign. The idea is to make pillowcase dresses, as many as possible and these in turn are distributed to little girls by Hope for Women International.

I managed to make 3 in one morning.


They're very easy to make once you get going, but truth be told I'd never made a pillowcase dress before. I've seen plenty though and the little white ones always look lovely so I set about making my first white pillowcase dress (I know what you're thinking but give me a minute, I'm getting there).


When I was finished, I hung the dress on a hanger and stood back to survey my handy work. I grinned, congratulated myself and gave myself a mental pat on the back, I'd successfully made my very first pillowcase ... nightie.


Some colour was definitely called for ... and a matching scrunchy for each. I hope you agree.

If you'd like to whip up a dress or two yourself Louise links to a great tutorial and you have until the end of May to send them.