Buttonholes

I have had my Janome sewing machine for close to two years now and yesterday decided it was about time I attempted to do a buttonhole! I have never, ever done one!

My sewing machine comes with an automatic buttonhole foot, where you put the button in one end and the buttonhole is sewn the perfect size!  Easy I thought, erm..... it should have been but I managed to make hard work of it!

I have to say, deciding to do this at 11.15pm was probably not the best idea!
Finally at about 12.15am after quite a lot of swearing..

lots of studying the instruction manual..........

lots of failed attempts...

I finally managed to do it!

And what is it? Well, it is just a little travel document holder as we are off to visit some relatives in Germany on Friday and I wanted something to hold all the flight details, passports and travel insurance info!

I can see 'things' with buttonholes are going to be my new thing!

Quick catch up

Me and the kids have been at my parents for the last week having a little holiday there! We had a fab time catching up with grandparents, great nanny's, cousins, uncles and aunties. We also had a lovely day out in London and went on a river cruise to Greenwich.

We are off again next week to visit some relatives in Germany so I am playing catch-up before we head off. Ohh and just to say as well that the new blog for Crafty at the Coast is up and running - so have a look if you think you might like to come along.............

Crafty at the Coast

I haven't touched the sewing machine for a while so no pics of new makes, but we have been to the beach lots so that is all I seem to have pictures of lately!!!

I have been busy with other things too though. I decided the Craft fairs I organise in Whitstable needed a bit of an update rather than just Craft & Gift Fairs, so the new name I have come up with is.........Crafty at the Coast.

I am hoping this new name will make it a bit more exciting and more in keeping with the fantastic handmade stallholders who take part. The next fair being on 12th December will be Christmas Crafty at the Coast. I am working on a logo and a special Crafty at the Coast blog so all will be revealed soon (I hope!). I am also planning on doing goodie bags like Jenny did at the Makey do, as I think this really worked for her and I am hoping it will here too!!!

And I am very excited this evening as I just found out that I have won a giveaway by from all about eden's blog!!! It is a lovely mushroom brooch and green & black chocolate! I have never won anything since the barbie doll house I won in a drawing competition when I was about 8! So I am very excited! Thanks Sara!!!

More blue and white stripes..

Stripy finds at the boot fair last sunday! Some offcuts of old 50's nurses uniforms, which I thought I could use for appliques on vests and cushions, some very old ticking -which I am hoping will clean up as it is a bit grubby! and more stripy staffordshire finds to add to my collection! And it all cost me about £3 in total...oh I love a bargain!

Six

From this ....


To this.....

To this.... in six years.

Gosh, that was quick. And he gets more gorgeous every year!

F was six on 1st August, gulp...I can hardly believe it.

Happy Birthday Monkey!

Blue and white

I have always loved blue and white china, it just makes me smile and over the last year or so have managed to get a little collection going! It wasn't planned, I just managed to find two Staffordshire china jugs within days of each other and that was it, I knew I had to get more! One of the jugs and the little lidded pot were charity shop finds and the jugs were antique fair buys! The little cups and saucers were a gift from my sister.

The butter dish is my latest addition and is a Cornish kitchen ware one and gorgeous! Thanks to my mother-in-law Mags for this one. They are about to move to Whitstable and whilst sorting out all the antiques in her loft (she used to do antique fairs) she found this one and gave it to me!

Another addition to our kitchen is the gorgeous dresser top style shelf - also a gift from the in-laws! Made especially for us by a carpenter near their current house. Well, I had to have somewhere to display all the china and it is brilliant for my cookery books too!

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside....

...especially when it's the school holidays!

I haven't really been looking forward to the summer holidays. Last year, my two argued non-stop for the first 5 weeks of the holidays and then finally stopped arguing in the last week!

Ok, we might only be one week in and there are still 6 more weeks to go, but we have had a lovely time and fingers crossed they have been getting on brilliantly. It has helped that it has

been the Whitstable Oyster Festival so there have been lots of free events around town, plus it has been lovely and hot and sunny. The picture below is a rather bizarre shot of D in a black wig with my mum taking part in an oyster festival project called Puppets & Dolls.

Today has been all about the grotters. This is our grotter building gang! (the hands under the chin is D's latest photo pose - who knows where she has got that idea from! My friend Vicki decided to join her in the pose!)

These are pretty unique to Whitstable and are basically a decoration of oyster shells. You start with a circle of shells and build up with more shells, a bit like building a wall until you have a beautiful tower. At twilight, candles are placed inside and they are lit up. They were originally built by children as a lighted shrine to celebrate St James' Day.

Now the trick is to turn up early and gather oyster shells quickly! We got there about 45 minutes after it had started and all the shells were gone! We only managed to get a few shells so our grotter was all about width (we had to improvise and use sand and pebbles!) rather than height! It didn't get any higher than this!

I made L go back at twilight and take these pictures when they were all lit (sadly ours was so low it didn't even get a candle!)

These ones were beautiful. They were right next to us and the makers had brought a huge bucket of their own shells and had obviously been hunting out the lovely white ones for weeks beforehand!

Don't they all look fantastic lit up.......

By the way I apologise for the layout being all over the place - ahhhh, I have been playing with it for ages now and it keeps going all wrong so blogger you win, I will leave it like this!