Rambling On :: About This :: and :: That

Last week was very exciting and tiring.  Little Kimbles and I were in the local Pantomime, we were both in the Chorus and had an absolute hoot!!!   We did eight performances  over the week and each night the production seemed to crank up a gear, so that by Saturday night we were all on a complete high!  We sang and danced to songs from a variety of sources, from the theatre, such as Wicked and Les Miserables, films such as Toy Story 2 and Mary Poppins and pop songs from Abba and Elton John.  Apart from the odd occasion when the scenery didn't move quick enough before the curtains opened, and a few attacks of giggling when not supposed to - I think we did well!!!!!

As promised, here is a picture of me in one of my costume with the Daisy pinned on to it that I made with the Daisy Maker

As you can see, I think the Daisy added some interest to a rather dull costume!

My other costume was a little prettier though and was nice to wear. 

So this week we are back to normal, and looking forward to the spring

This is an Amryllis I was given for Christmas, its sprouting from everywhere!  Looking forward to seeing this come out.

In the meantime my favourite Yellow Roses are adorning the dining table

Bringing some sunshine into the dull dark days.

I have done some crocheting too,

 These two squares are now with Mrs Twins for the SIBOL project,

This is how far I have got with the African flower inspired squares. I think they may be turned into a cushion, I m just not feeling it for a blanket - but this may be revised in the future.  Instead I have decided to make a plain granny square blanket for my camping in the summer, so blues, peach and yellow will be the theme.  Karin made a super one with many colours in her blog, and I want to do something similar, something that I don't have to think about too much!  I have only made a couple of squares so far, so will show you when I have made more.

Well I have rambled on enough - I must say though, it is nice to get back to some rambling!

Speak soon xx

Daisy Making

There is much excitement this week in the Kimbles household, myself and Little Kimbles have been parading round in our costumes, practising our moves and smiles in front of the mirror and belting out the songs and desperately trying to get the Lyrics TOTALLY right!!  You know what I mean don't you, you THINK you know the words to a popular song, you have been singing it to yourself for years that way - then you are given the lyrics typed out and suddenly ........ they are not quite what you thought they were.  Its a very difficult habit to break then!!!!!!!!  Last rehearsals tonight and then full dress rehearsal on Saturday then its the performances from Sunday oooooh I can't wait!    This story is leading somewhere, you see, for one of my costumes,  I have this rather dull black coat to wear, and a sort of browny skirt with greeny patches on it (poor villager look!), I thought what can I do to  make this jacket less "dull".  Well searching through my stuff in my workbox I found this

A vintage daisy maker - I have had this - wait for it - since the mid 1970's  I made a daisy to go on a bag I made for school!  I think it came from "Womens Own" mag.  You have to wind the wool round and sew it up in the centre.

I found a lovely green button for the centre, then sewed a little circle of felt and a badge pin to the back

I am deeelighted with it! Isn't it cute, I think I may be making more of these, I orginally was going to make a felty flower of which I have seen loads around, but this is different!

You will have to wait to see it on the costume until after the show I am afraid!

Wish me luck!

Speak soon xx

A Quick Evening Project

Hellooooo!
Good to catch up with you all again.  Have you seen the new SIBOL CHALLENGES blog?  Sue has been super organised and has listed all of the blanket themes for the next few months, they sound really exciting, so please check it out, as it is such a worthwhile cause and Sue works so hard making the blankets.

I am finally settling down back to some kind of normality.  I was thinking - didn't 2010 just fly by?  Maybe its me getting older, but that was the fastest year ever!  Still finding it hard to remember to write 2011.  

Yesterday, I took on a little project - a slight variation of one that I did in the summer.  My small cream coloured teapot has been looking sad ever since we had it - it has no tea cosy and has had to suffer the indignity of a tea towel thrown over it or the oven gloves draped over it to keep the tea warm. I have been meaning to rectify this for ages, but have not had the time - so yesterday I decided NOW was the time. 

So using the Rico Cotton I set about making the cosy.  Sadly I had to modify my plans as I realised I didn't have enough cotton in the two tones of green to finish the project - darn it!  I didn't want to start again so I decided to add a trim of two tone red ( my kitchen has green and red in it), anyway after fiddling around this tea cosy evolved.

I topped it off with the same flower that I made for my tea cosy in the summer.  Now our tea will stay warm!

This morning I was in town and couldn't resist  this

So now my teapot is sad no more, it has a lovely new coat, flowery hat and a super red heart stand!

I just love it when ideas evolve!

I have started Number 28 in the Jan Eaton book of crochet squares - its the Christmas Rose one, for SIBOL but I ran into difficulties last night on the first green round - it wasn't going right - the rose itself is lovely - I am hoping I was tired and therefore didn't read the pattern properly and that all will be fine when I try again this evening. 

The next couple of weeks will be busy in the Kimbles household as myself and Little Kimbles are in the local Pantomime, its the first time we are going to be in it together - such fun - so many songs learnt and dances practised and we will be adorned in the usual "villager" costumes!  Its full on rehearsals all this week and then the performances all of next week.

Thank you so much for dropping by!

Speak soon xx

::HAPPY::BELATED::NEW::YEAR::X



Snowy Sussex Countryside December 2010

 Hello Blogland friends - and on the 4th of January may I wish you a very late Happy New Year and hope all of your dreams come true!  I am still here, just gave up trying to "do it all" in December and blogging went out of the window I am afraid.  I hope you all had fun, I have dipped in and out of a few blogs, but that is about it.  It has been full on with both happy and very sad times, but that is life in a nutshell. To tell you the truth,  I could do with a little break myself now, instead of straight back into work!

I haven't made any Resolutions this year, no point, didn't get round to last year's ones!!! 

Yesterday afternoon I finally had a couple of hours to myself and I sat and watched TV whilst doing some lovely hookiness!  I am starting another blanket, joining motifs together as smaller projects suit me better.
I have worked on a four leaf flower based on the Elizabeth Cat African flower pattern.

 You may remember me showing this to you before, this was one of my first attempts.  I have made several attempts at this and you may have seen that I used this idea to make pot holders for my three pay it forward winners.

I used the Rico cotton for these and was pleased with the results.  So after these were finished I decided I would like to make more of this type of motif so hence the new blanket - its very small at the moment a WIP! Here is a sneak preview

Posing with my lovely Chicken door stop - a Christmas pressie from my daughter. 

As you can see by the photos, I am sewing them together in a diagonal pattern for a change so the colour changes will alternate between the blue, pink and yellow.  Its nice to have a project on the go again which isn't sewing curtains!  I made four sets of curtains in the run up to Christmas so I am a bit curtained out!!!

This was the last set, heavy curtains for the front door, so we are really snug and warm now!

It's lovely to be back with you all,

Speak soon xx

Here I am - with Pay It Forward winners!

Hi there lovely Blogettes - I didn't have any intention of staying away for soooo long from blogland, but you see I set myself a target - to finish the decorating in my lounge and dining room AND make the curtains by the 1st of December. I started on the 15th of October so it has been a while, and I have had to be very disciplined to fit in the decorating with work, so in the main I have had to resist dipping into blogland.  I am looking forward to spending some time catching up with your blogs and finding out what has been going on and the latest projects you are all working on. 

When I finished the painting I was left with lots of fabric

which was a little daunting.  The cutting out made me feel a little nervous, you know matching the pattern, but luckily we had emptied the dining room so was able to lay it all out on the floor

so it was a lot of crawling around with pins and measure, measure, measure.  My sewing machine was put to good use

Yesterday, because we had rather a lot of snow here, I was able to finish off and hang the curtains. So I met my target!  I know its silly, but I do work better when I have a "target"!!!

Sorry the light is not too good this morning, I will take some better pictures tomorrow, but just HAD to show you!

Now, I am excitied to tell you that I have drawn the winners for the Pay It Forward and they are

The Garden Bell
Aussie Maria
Gibraltar Louise

Congratulations!  please email me your details (link at side of blog) and I will send you a little something that I have been preparing in my bit of spare time which I do hope you will love - here is a peek:-

Well here in the South we have had tons of snow - this morning we woke up completely snowed in!  I actually don't mind it too much, but feel for people who have been stuck on trains etc.  It is the first time we have been really able to test our new heating which is an air source heat pump - and we are really toasty which is sooooooo fabulous after last winter when we froze. 

Our little garden lights had "snow hats" on this morning

so did the bird bath

and my little garden table and chairs

Well I am off for a nice hot drink and may start to write my Christmas cards, snow does make me festive! 

Its lovely to finally catch up with you all!

Speak soon xx

Thank you Karin - I will Pay It Forward!

Hi there,  I just looked at my blog and realised I haven't posted since the 3rd of November!  I have been solidly decorating and have at last finished the wallpaper scraping, rubbing down, washing down, painting, painting and painting!  I was getting a tad fed up with it but, now the end is in sight, I am moving furniture back in and now have the curtains to make.

Thank you all so much for the lovely comments on my Granny Stripe blanket, it was really lovely of you to take the trouble to comment as there are soooo many Granny Stripe blankets out there at the moment, so thank you again, it is much appreciated.  I am slowly working on a new project which I am hoping to share with you all soon.

In the midst of the Kimbles chaos, a surprise arrived from lovely Karin :-

A package, because I had left a comment on her blog when she did her Pay It Forward.

Inside was sooooooo.........................................Dutch!!!!  Fabulous  have a peeeeeek

Gorgeous blue and white, and wait......................

A hand made coaster for my teapot (actually it is waaay to nice to put my teapot on!)  and look at that lovely little tag she had made with beads adorning it!

There were also two Dutch pot holders, can you see the little couple kissing and the lovely windmill? 

Karin, I can't thank you enough, you certainly made my day. 

So .........

Now it is my turn to Pay It Forward, so if any of you would like to take part, just leave me a comment and after lets say a week, I shall send three of you a little something to brighten your days too!  Then of course it will be your turn to do the same.

Take care all of you

Speak soon xx

Granny Stripe - Finished - At Last!

Hi everyone, I popped by to show you the final result of my Granny Stripe blanket.  I started this waaay back in the summer on a Crochet-Along with Attic24, but it proved to be not very forgiving for my hands and I had a huge break from it and since then I have done a little here and there.  It was crying out to be finished and I sooooo wanted to - it was really frustrating - in fact I fell in and out of love with it, I just wanted it to be a completed project!  Now it is!

Ta Dah!

Boy, am I glad that project is over!  Now I will concentrate on something much smaller I think!  I decided on an one colour edging with a picot trim

So now it has taken its place in our conservatory with mini hexagon blanket - waiting for a cold day so we can snuggle up together!

Our house is chaos at the moment because I in my infinite wisdom decided the dining room and lounge needed decorating ( you may remember me showing you colours and fabric in my last post)  well I have finished the decorating in the dining room and we have now started on the lounge, sadly the wallpaper is holding on fast to the walls, so there is much steaming and huffing and puffing whilst trying to get it off hehe!!  I keep saying once the preparation is done it will be all plain sailing - don't think hubby is quite as enthusiastic about it as me, I have done most of it - just don't think men see any need to decorate at all!!!  I think despite the upheaval, its great to scrape off walls or paint and have music blaring out  to sing along too - yes a very jolly time could be had.........................

Speak soon xx