Life in a Laptop.

PANIC! PANIC!

DON'T PANIC! DON'T PANIC!

Start breathing again...in...out...in...out.

A nasty virus took hold in my luverly laptop, my Wonderful Man worked on it for about 3 hours. I paced the floor, back and forth, chewing fingernails and boiling water! Eventually wiping his brow he put it right and said, "That was a tough one."

He's a superdooper computer whizz.

MY HERO.

But just when we thought everything was running as normal...AAAARG!

All of my pictures and photos had vanished! My little 'My Pictures' folder was empty!

And I have to tell you, that 'My Pictures' folder is my life! It holds all that is 'virtually' dear to me.

It holds all photographic records of my work for about the last 7 years!

It holds my virtual inspirations scrapbook!

It holds images I just like that make me smile!

It holds my creative life!

But Wonderful Man is wonderful for many reasons.

And on this occasion it's because he retrieved my creative life,

and gently with caring tiptappety fingers made it all reappear in its little yellow folders.

He truly is a WONDERFUL MAN.

Alas wonderful does have it's limits sometimes and at the moment I have a very blank space where my 'favourites' lists should be.
And it was a VERY long list.
My list of favourites was soooo long that I had them organised into folders. There was one for property websites, one for shopping, one for textiles, one for fabric, and most important of all THREE for blogs!

Yes I have you or should I say HAD you all organised into UK blogs, World blogs, and my '20 minuters into a Daily sewing blogs.

So my dear friends I need to make a new favourites list. I need to find you all again. So please be patient with me if I don't visit for a while, I've lost your address.

Of course it would be most helpful if you left a little calling card when you drop by to aid me with filling my new favourites folders :)

The pictures are of my last felt piece. A commission for the lovely and very patient TillyRose. If you would like to see it in person you'll can visit Karen's new craft barn which will shortly be open for craft workshops and crafting goodies check out her blog for more information.

That's all for now folks!

Rest assured 'My Pictures' folder has now been backed up and copied!
and apparently is soon to be 'burned' to a CD!

And to my Wonderful Man...

Thank you darling X

Aaaah...Deep breath in...take in all that lovely fresh air...aaaah.

Hello, I'm stood in the middle of the most beautiful buttercup meadow.

I thought I'd better take a photo quick smart as it won't be long before the farmer comes along to cut the buttercups down, he'll need winter provisions for his animals.

Anyway lets go back to my house as I really am behind with my blog posts, I must have at least 4 or 5 projects that I want to show you. (not all today though, that really would be too much!)

Firstly a bit of colourful crochet.

Can you guess what it is yet? Scrummy isn't it?
I found a picture on the interweb-thingy and just had to have a go.

This is the blog I found the tea cosy on, it's quite simple. I had to do my own thing here and there as my teapot is a different shape, but I just made it up as I went along.
I enjoyed making this so much that when I noticed a friends 'naked' teapot on one of her blog posts I couldn't resist making another.

Next up, lavender hearts.

Twenty to be precise!

A very nice lady from our local posh hotel spotted one in the pretty shop whilst browsing for something else and asked if they could supply 20 to hang in the posh bedroom wardrobes. So with only two evenings to get them made I went into a frenzy of snipping and stitching shortly to be followed by a lavender induced headache. It's mighty powerful stuff in in large quantities over a prolonged time!

I have to tell you I had a bit of a panic when I realised that the fabric pen I use to draw the heart template wouldn't fade in time. There were huge purple heart outlines on every one of them. I had to bite the bullet and soak them all with water to get the ink out, leaving them all to air dry over night in the airing cupboard. This meant I had to fill, stitch up, trim and pack them up, all in an hour and a half early on the morning they were due to be delivered. It was a very close thing I can tell you!

But they did look lovely.

I know it would make me smile to open a wardrobe door and find a pretty, vintage, linen heart dangling inside.

Well thats two projects down, we still have a felt wall hanging to look at, new brooches, new greetings cards and some felted flowers to look at.

Oh! I nearly forgot, I've made some more bunnies too!

We're going to need a serious amount of tea and biscuits!

love Fi x

Napkin Greetings!

Once upon a time, many moons ago, a pretty lady, in a pretty shop, in a pretty village, bemoaned the fact that she couldn't source any really pretty greetings cards to sell in her pretty shop.

Aaaaaw.

But then the pretty lady had an idea and turned to her lovely friend who often visited the pretty shop and drank tea and chatted for far longer than she really should,

and said, "Oo...We could make some really, really, pretty greetings cards for my pretty shop couldn't we?". (Big flutter of eyelashes and sweet smile.)

It is at this point dear reader that I must explain that the word we when used in conjunction with fluttery eyelashes and sweet smile really means Fi.

So for future reference, We = Fi.

Got it? Good.

So after lots of sleeps and many moons had passed, the lovely Fi finally took up her pencil one evening and began to sketch. She sketched and sketched until her fingers were sore and her tiny brain hurt. By the time she fell into a deep slumber she had a little pile of sketchy ideas.
The very next day (or maybe a week or two later) after eating her porridge, Fi set to work with her snippety scissors and some odd vintage napkins. She snipped and she sewed looooong into the night.
The work was hard and Fi's tiny brain was tired but she persevered until....

Ta-daa!
She had a lovely pile of napkin corners all appliqued and embroidered, celebrating the things we all celebrate! I must tell you dear reader she was mighty pleased with her work.
But this was not enough!
NO!
All these gorgeous napkin corners had to be photographed, copied, printed, trimmed, glued and positioned. Card had to folded and labels had to made!
Once again Fi toiled hard into the night. She'd heard stories of old about little elves but alas they were only stories. Maybe her very own little people would like to help, but she knew deep down in her heart, it was a task only she could complete.

The next morning dawned (a little gloomy by the look of the photo) and BEHOLD! There on the table was a big pile of....very pretty ..... GREETINGS CARDS!
HOORAH!
A selection of 10 different designs.
Blank inside (just how Fi likes them.)

And all with a little label of love on the back.
aaaaaaahhh.

Soon after the little napkin corner cards were whisked away in a magic shopping bag to the pretty shop, where they were lovingly placed in the whirly-gig-thingy to wait patiently until they were chosen by lovely, lovely customers who, in turn, would fill them with 'lots of love' and send them to the four corners of the world to spread much happiness!
The pretty shop owner was also mighty pleased and gave the lovely Fi a cup of tea.
They sat together in the pretty shop sipping tea and gazing lovingly at the whirly-gig-thingy.


The pretty shop owner smiled and fluttered her eyelashes.

"I think we need to make some more of those!"

The End.

Pretty gypsy caravans have been travelling through our little valley all week.
They're on their way to the annual Appleby horse fair in Cumbria.


I do enjoy seeing them but they do slow the traffic up quite a bit as there are only 2 short stretches of road in the whole 17 miles beetween us and the next town, where it is possible to overtake safely. (It's a very bendy and winding road, bikers love it.) If we remember we try and use a back road to avoid them on our return journey.

And this is where we were returning from,

.

Pretty eh?

Aaaah thats better, no sneaky dog or wonderful man blocking my shot.

I had to snap this one.

NO PARKING ON THE GREEN!

Stitchy stuff next time, I promise.

love Fi x