This Moment

Here's a link to Soulemama's moment, and here's mine...

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{this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

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A happy weekend to you all, but I'll see you tomorrow anyway, Sally.

Embracing Autumn

For the last couple of weeks I haven't so much been mourning the passing of Summer, I've been trying to pretend it hasn't actually passed at all. Complete Autumn denial really! So I thought it might help me to work through my Autumn issues on here!

Chicken and dumplings - yum!

The tastiest one is always slightly out of reach!

The first ceremonial lighting of the wood burner

So here goes, I know it's no longer Summer because:

Children are all back at school, holidays are over.

We haven't been wild swimming for over a week.

Board Games are coming out now and being played much more.

Favourite fruits consumed in the house are no longer peaches and strawberries - it's now all apples and blackberries, with a few plums thrown in too.

Leaves are turning and falling.

We seem to start the days now with a low lying mist - if it's not drizzling that is.

Spiders are scuttling inside like mad.

The oak tree is covered with acorns, as is the grass underneath.

I think I've seen a squirrel every day this week - sorry, no photos though.

Our last two meals have been a hearty 'Shepherds Pie' and a lovely, warming Chicken Casserole with dumplings - try the dumplings from here, they worked well.

The evenings are drawing in and it's still dark when I get up on Monday mornings now.

Our builder is no longer wearing shorts (no before or after photos here, probably a good thing!)

I wore socks and boots for the first time yesterday.

We even lit the wood burner yesterday for the first time.

My washing isn't drying nicely on the line outside much anymore. Got a whole load of it damp inside and not drying very well at all.

Some of these are good, positive things (maybe one or two!) but mostly you might notice a slight despondent tone about these statements. In fact it could almost be mistaken for a whine!

It's not that I don't like Autumn. I do! I love the colours and the crisp mornings with a mist hanging low. I love the spiders webs covered in dew. I love the fruits and the warming suppers. And we have lots of family birthdays coming up in Autumn, mine included!

But I love Summer more and I really wasn't quite ready to see it go this year.

But since it most definitely has gone, no more denial, I've decided I need to embrace Autumn. Before it turns into Winter - and I'm mourning the end of Autumn before I've even started appreciating it! And what better way to embrace it than through some Autumn makes and crafting? Especially if these can then decorate the house.

So I've started off by making a quick and easy Autumn banner.



Some brown wool from an old blanket, with pretty prints for the letters.

 And the girls have been helping me get in the spirit more too. I saw this idea on Pinterest and really liked it:


http://www.pinterest.com/pin/65654107041243367/

There's no information about it that I could find, so we just did our own thing. We used some sticky back plastic - not sure if its called that really though. It's the clear, sticky stuff you can use to cover books - find it here if you haven't got any lying around. We made a few different versions with it. Here's a butterfly Venetia made:

And I cleared out our old 'Summer' window sill ...

 to create a new Autumn one...

There's a round sticky back plastic, leaf decoration hanging down there as well as individual leaves stuck on the window (just with blu tack). The individual leaves are ones I had left over from crafting last Autumn - we dipped them in melted beeswax to 'preserve' them. I wasn't mad keen on them last year, but they look lovely in the window this year, particularly when the sun shines through.

Another Summer window sill needed a clear out ...

The shells got packed away, and in came some 'strange vegetables'!

My older three think it's very strange that I've put these on the window sill, but I quite like them there, and I think Maria does too. The gourds in particular are very tactile, I like them there! And there's a little bowl of acorns Maria collected, as well as another sticky back plastic, leaf picture.

That's as far as I've got so far. There are lots of other things I'd like to make and bring in but I think it will happen gradually, so 'Embracing Autumn' may become a regular weekly post. Hopefully we've got a while yet before we have to move on to Winter.

I've started an Autumn Pinterest Board - here if you want to take a look. There are some lovely fabric pumpkins I want to try, could be good because I'm not sure the wool ones I started the other day are going to work! We have already tried another idea from my Pinterest board too - and so far failed abysmally! Don't these bowls look lovely?


http://thekrazycouponlady.com/family/thrifty-fall-decor-diy-leaf-bowls/

We thought they'd be great full of acorns in our display, so Venetia and I had a go...

We tried making it on a balloon - the purple bit in the middle is the slightly glue smeared, half deflated balloon. It just didn't work for us at all unfortunately!

I'd really love it if you all felt like joining in and sharing your own Autumn makes - whether they're children's crafts, sewing, cooking or anything else. The more help I have embracing Autumn the better! So I'm hoping this little linky thing will let you add your makes for us all to see:

Please feel free to add your makes any time throughout Autumn - probably up till the end of November? Then I might be about ready to switch to more Christmasy crafting! Really hoping you'll join in, and I'll be back again tomorrow with a photo, Sally.

Wild Swimmer and Wonky Watercolour

The sun came out again today, so Autumn can wait! Maybe tomorrow...

But for today, something a bit different.

Over the Summer holidays, Theo and I set ourselves a challenge - to 'wild' swim every single day of the holidays. We're so lucky where we live that this is a feasible challenge.  We have several gorgeous rivers nearby, including one within walking distance, and lots of amazing beaches. So our challenge was really a pleasure, and we managed it very happily every single day. Quite often the boys and I would walk down to the river for an evening swim to make sure we managed to fit it in the day, and twice we had to get up early and swim before breakfast. But I can honestly say that I enjoyed every single swim, even the few we had in the rain! It was a great challenge, one we're hoping to repeat again next year - and Sam and Venetia want to be part of it too then (Sam was poorly right at the start of the holidays so he wasn't officially in on it after that this year, but he did swim almost every day).

Anyway, I wanted to make something for Theo as a momento of our Summer's swimming. I thought at first I'd like to do a fabric picture of a scene from our river with a little Theo figure sitting next to the river. I started it, but really wasn't happy with how it was going.

This was a very rough sketch of how Theo would look on it.

It just looked nothing like I wanted, and I couldn't see it improving enough with more stitching. So then I thought maybe I'd try to do Theo's head sticking out of the sea instead. I used wool and machine emboidered detail on there.

I was quite impressed with it in lots of ways, but it really wasn't Theo!

I was nearly on the point of abandoning the idea when I decided I'd try something completely different and have a go at painting a picture instead. I'm not sure why I came up with this, it does seem like a slightly crazy idea now. And it didn't start out brilliantly either, my initial rough sketch didn't shout Theo at me too much but I decided to slap some paint on anyway and see how it went. Painting is not something I've ever done (except with the children), and my effort is probably woefully poor in many ways, but, as I painted, I did, miraculously, feel like there was a glimmer of Theo coming through. And I'm reasonably happy with my end result.

Certainly I much prefer it to my fabric attempts. I don't know yet what Theo will make of it, but at least when Harry looked at it he recognised that it was supposed to be Theo! And I think it was good to try something different for a change.

I've also retaken photos of my peacock quilt today (for my Facebook page), I really wasn't happy with my previous photos. But to be fair, rain was hammering down all day last time I tried. Today the sun was shining so I took it outside and dangled it from a tree! Much better, do you think?

Got to go now, back tomorrow, Sally.

Blogging Review Time

It isn't any kind of blogiversary (not a real word, I know!). I started this blog back on the 1st of July, so this isn't a convenient 2 month/3 month reflective milestone even.

But I've been thinking for a week or so that I really want to do some posts on Autumn - mainly to get me in a slightly more upbeat Autumn mood! - and I thought it would be great to have a 'linky thing' where anyone could add their own images, makes or thoughts about Autumn. So last night I was trying to find out how to put a 'linky thing' on my post.

My search took me all over the web to various different places, including several very interesting blogs. Interesting blogs with lots of tips on starting and improving a blog. So I settled down to read. And whilst I read lots of  useful information, I did end up feeling slightly inadequate from a  blogging view point. In fact, you could even say I felt completely amateurish in a world of professionals!

I leapt into blogging, back in July, without a huge amount of preparation, or planning, or knowledge about blogging, and, to be honest, I've just kept going since then with very little forward thinking or strategy. And no attempt to improve what I'd started really.

I'm not beating myself up too much about it. School holidays with 4 children came along and I think I did pretty well just to keep up with the blogging consistently. And to keep up with the making reasonably well too. But I did think, after my reading last night, that some more focus on the blogging side of things, as well as on the making, might be a bit overdue.

So today I've just spent the whole day tinkering with the blog. And if I felt a bit down beat about my blogging inadequacies last night I feel even worse tonight! All day sitting at a computer, getting wound up by how slow my internet is and how I can't get my ancient PC to do what I want it to do, is really not my idea of fun! And probably most of you reading this won't even realise that I've done anything at all!

Before I tell you what's changed I'll give you a few links in case you'd like to read lots of good blogging tips and then spend a day tinkering with your blog too!

The Thinking Closet - some very sensible advice from a blogger who was only 2 months into her blogging when she wrote this - 2 months, she'd been doing it less time than I have been! This is why I felt inadequate!

A Turn to Learn - this is where I think I might have found details about doing the linky thing. But I haven't tried it out yet.

Funky Junk Interiors - lots of good blogging tips on here, and lots of interesting junk makes too!

So, today. I've jiggled around a bit with a few little things - the main ones being to do with comments. Commenting should now be easier - I've got rid of that anti spam bit where you have to type in some silly words! And then the bigger thing I've been doing is that I've created three new pages - shown across the top tab, next to 'Home'. You hadn't even noticed them till I just told you, had you?!

• One, you've hopefully noticed now, says 'About Me' - fairly self explanatory, and if you've been reading the blog for a little while, I don't think there are many surprises there.
• Another that says 'Why Wonky Patchwork?' - if you read it then you'll know! Most of it I tried to explain in my very first blog post, there's a bit extra at the end about who I'd most like to be reading this blog - something I've gradually realised over the last couple of months. 
• And then my last new page is sort of a 'gallery' of all my quilts so far, with links to their blog posts.

And I've also been coming up with a long blogging 'to do' list. I like 'to do' lists! Although this one feels too long. Here it is, in no particular order:

A 'gallery' of other craft projects, not just the quilts.
Catch up on 'labelling' posts - haven't been doing this for weeks!
Put more thought and effort into photos - unfortunately I think this is probably my biggest priority.
Try out photo editing options (several suggested in the links above) - to maybe improve my photos, do collages etc, write text on them, as well as to try and label them 'Wonky Patchwork'
Attempt (ha!) to get ahead of myself - rather than be finishing a 'make' the morning I'm going to blog about it! I'm finding this doesn't give much time for the previous points on photography!
Make sure I still stay focused on the making, which is, after all the bit I most enjoy.
Sort out my Google plus, 'about me', profile link.
Find out how to add a 'You might also be interested in ....' at the end of my posts.
Try and start making a few things that I might be able to sell - really struggling with this, can't seem to keep up with presents!
Join in with some more 'Linky Party things' on other blogs.
And do an amazing post on Autumn, with a 'linky thing' at the bottom, on my blog - maybe tomorrow, or possibly the next day!

I can't believe I've written all that with no pretty pictures, this is not a good start to blog improvement! I'll leave you with just a couple of pictures, not very exciting ones I'm afraid, of the beginnings of Autumn makes.

I'm a sucker for any kind of retro print and I found this - a double sheet - a few weeks ago, in a charity shop of course. I've got plans for an Autumny quilt (a present for someone!) and this seems like a perfect quilt back - what do you think?

And I cut these out the other day and haven't got back to them yet. You might think they're supposed to be leaves, but they're actually a bit of an experiment at making a stuffed pumpkin. If it doesn't work they'll become leaves - I need lots for the Autumn quilt anyway!

That's it for today, I'll be back tomorrow with, hopefully, fewer words! Sally.

Peacock Mini Quilt

It seems such a long time since these beginnings...

Maybe that's because it began back in Summer and now it feels very much Autumn. But here is the Peacock Mini Quilt finished:

I'm very happy with how it turned out. I love the colours and I'm really pleased with how the quilting lines worked. Mini quilts are great to play around with different quilting lines. Lines that I just couldn't manage on a big quilt with my basic, little machine.

My only problem is that I still like the idea of giving all my mini quilts a quote or words of some sort (bee mini quilt with quote here, mini quilt wall idea at the end here), and I'm really struggling with peacocks! Anyone out there know a good peacock quote? One that I'd like to have hanging on my wall?

I've got quite a few possibilities, a couple of them are quotes, some of them are taken from peacock stories, some of them are lines the children and I have been coming up with. See what you think:

'Beauty gets the attention,
Personality gets the heart.'

'The sparrow is sorry for the peacock at the burden of his tail'

'Circles within circles
Magical all seeing eyes'

'Strutting and proud'

'Feathers with a thousand eyes'

'He walks so very tall and vain'

'A festival of eyes'

'Standing proud
Looking beautiful'

'The eyes of the Gods'

'Decked in his finery'

'All regarded him with envy'

'Extravagant and showy'

'Do not sacrifice your freedom for the sake of pomp and show'

'What good is all this beauty with such an unpleasant voice?'

'Each one has its special gift,
Do not envy the gifts of others. Make the most of your own'

'The female of the species is less vain than the male'

Any of them stand out to you? I can't decide.

Back tomorrow, Sally.

Chocolate pudding

I've just got another recipe for you today. Sam won't be impressed, he says if I choose to call my blog something silly like 'Wonky Patchwork' then I should stick to patchwork! But this recipe has come my way because of blogging. When I get views or comments from other blogs I always like to go and have a browse on the blogs, and I found this recipe for Chocolate Pudding on just such a browse. It's another recipe that's incredibly simple and therefore very child friendly. I like that kind of recipe! Maria really wasn't at all well yesterday and, after a trip to the Doctors, she had to take some 'yucky' medicine. By late, late afternoon she'd picked up enough to be up to some cooking with me and we made this pudding together to cheer her up after she'd had to swallow the yucky medicine. Which reminds me, she's got to have her first dose of the day in a minute - I must think of another distraction/reward for afterwards. But back to the chocolate pudding, here's a photo from the blog to tempt you...


As you can see the blog is in Portugeese, but, with the wonders of Google translate, still wonderfully accessible. I think my link, above, will take you straight to the English translation. It worked really well and was delicious with ice cream. I think next time we might try making it with milk in the sauce rather than water, I think the children might like it more that way, but it still disappeared pretty fast.

Off to attempt that dose of medicine now. Happy weekend to you all, back again Monday, Sally.

This Moment

Here's Soulemama's moment, and here's mine...

this moment

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

In case you're wondering after yesterday's post, the cheese and bacon bread was a big success, both the making (above!) and most definitely the eating! It was very easy, only 2 ingredients for the dough, and very delicious. I think it would work well with different additions, rather than just cheese and bacon, too - maybe chocolate chips for a start! Follow the link at the end of yesterday's post to try it yourself.

Have a great weekend, Sally.