Generally Gemma

Bank Holiday

Bank Holiday sunshine round our way is a rare and wondrous thing. Especially when it happens to fall on the same bank holiday as our village carnival is always planned for. This has been the way of the world ever since we moved to our little house. Not that we have any great desire to attend the carnival you understand. Living in the same place as G's school means there are far too many opportunities as it is for bumping into children from school which while never unpleasant can sometimes take the bloom off the day both for him and the kids as "special" behaviour sometimes has to be observed. There is normally always one Mum who seems to think that because he is a teacher it is fine to use him as an unpaid baby sitter for the day which to be frank isn't much fun for me! So we were at home all weekend. 

G pottered about the garden tending to his plants, listening to sport on the radio, bringing me drinks as I languished on a blanket. I did have to tell not to get the strimmer to the patio though. We have chives poking out through the pave stones and along the edges which although prettyish are rather stinky and beginning to look rather raggedy.

But they are an utter bee haven! And knowing as we all do that bees aren't as plentiful as they once were G and I do do everything we can to keep them coming back to our garden. Especially as they are so necessary for tomato flower pollination!

This was my view for most of the day though. Lazing on my back with a book and iced drink to hand. Shifting only occasionally to pick up my camera, issue a command or to roll over and toast my back instead of my front.

I so hope we are lucky enough to have more weekends like this through out the Summer. A week would be ideal so that I can feel as though I've had a proper Summer holiday this year!

Birth of a new quilt

The extended side of my family consists of my Granny, three aunts and six cousins and when you are all as loud as we are that is one large family gathering! (As G will tell you because he is quiet and can't handle the family "braying"!) However, at some point next week it is going to be one member bigger when the first one of my generation gives birth to the next. My cousin is due to any moment from Wednesday give birth to a little baby boy and all of us are tremendously excited.

And of course as a crafter what do you give but handmade goods and this is the first part of that little parcel that will most likely be winging it's way off next week. Please excuse the multitude of pictures that I am about to post! I couldn't pick just one or two!



This is the fabric that started it all off. The new baby is apparently having an elephant themed room and when I found this fabric on etsy I couldn't resist it spoke to me and we all know that that is something not to be ignored! Although Japanese linen is seriously not a cheap item! But what a delight to cut and sew with and how cute are the little tiny elephants!



I picked up some other fabrics here in there in blue, because obviously he is a boy and I tried really hard not to make it too pretty because G says that boys don't appreciate that sort of thing! So it is mainly dots, vines, leaves and a cloudy grey/blue fabric.

I wanted to keep it simple so I went with squares in a diagonal pattern as I really wanted the elephant/hippo fabric to be the main attraction of the quilt rather than the pattern that I used. And to be perfectly honest after the ongoing saga that is my large quilt I really needed something simple to convince myself that yes I could actually complete a project! (I hate taking pictures of the full size of them though, I didn't seem to be able to find a good way of doing it so I've just pinned it to the clothes line here.)

The back I am still a little bit on the fence about, I love the two fabrics that I've used but I'm not too sure if the bottom one is a little bit too girly. Lets face it though it is really too late to be worrying about that detail now! That was one of the reasons for carrying the navy leafy pattern on to the back in this way though, to try and balance out the delicate with something a little more masculine and I also like the idea of it have a turn down at the top.



You can see the back a little better in this one. I'm also think of maybe embroidering his name, when he gets one and the date on the back but I shall see how I feel to facing up to the challenges of tiny embroidery stitches when I find out how long his name might be!



And indulge me in just a few more please! Look at those corners! The bane of my life this binding and cornering was! I sewed the binding on the wrong way twice! Then I couldn't get the join right! I was convinced that after all that the corners were going to be a complete nightmare, but how wrong I was, they went together like a dream!

You still with me here folks? We are in the home stretch with just two more pictures to go! The quilt was machine stitched and hand quilted, which is the most relaxing thing ever! I did all the hand quilting whilst watching old Disney films last weekend an indulgence for me but I also like the idea that perhaps somehow the magic and happiness of those films has been stitched into the quilt too.

The only problem now is, I love it myself. I've never given away a project as big as this before, and I really don't know how some of you do it! I'm keeping my fingers crossed though that my cousin and her new little one love it as much as I do.

Now I just have to figure out how to wrestle it away from this fellow who has grown some what attached to it!

PS there is good news over here!

Stitching Saturday

I had a lovely day yesterday quilting and watching Disney films, a day that is only ever really possibly when G isn't here he can't really stand them! I find when I have a project like this it's best to do it when he is away for the weekend so I can get a couple of full days in to try and finish as much of it as possible as when I do bits and pieces at a time I tend to leave things languishing for ages. 

Something that really isn't possible with this quilt as baby arrivals don't tend to take in the procrastination of grown-ups! I thought I'd finished the quilting yesterday but a closer look during the daylight reveals a couple of places where the fabric has puckered so I am redoing a couple of areas today and then hopefully it will be on to the scary binding stage! 

My cousin's baby is due next week and while I won't be seeing him asap I would like to have it finished so that I don't end up staying up till three in the morning the night before I go to visit stitching binding on by candle light!

I've just added a new little button over there on the left hand side which looks rather like this

If you click on it it will take you to a new bit of the blog that is still rather in the planning stages, so excuse the mess and the fact that it isn't quite complete yet. However, it may help to explain a little bit why it is I haven't been about quite as much either here or commenting on any of your blogs. And whilst it is in no way going to replace Generally Gemma I hope to post there at least once a week.

I'm sure that the vast majority of people have no desire what so ever to read about my struggles in that department so I thought I would create a place all of it's own so it doesn't spill into my "pretty" blog and so that I have a place to document the journey that I'm just starting.

And tomorrow regular programming will resume with, yes, some actual sewing!

 

Blissful

Given the awful state of the weather the last few days I've been trying to cheer myself up with bright colours and photos of warm times past. Hopefully my walk home will be warmed by the internal glow of thought!

End of an Era

Gareth's beloved Cardiff City are leaving their ground that has been their home since 1928 for a brand spanking new stadium that has been built across the road. A few weeks ago he went to their last ever match that will be played there and whilst I wasn't there myself I have been assure that he wept a few manly nostalgic tears.

When they all got home from the match the talk of matches gone by continued and ended with the G and his brother collecting their various football shirts from around the house that they've been buying since they were little and continued the stroll down memory lane. Including such highlights as best game in this kit, most humiliating defeat in this one etc etc.

G had more than I would have thought possible! We certainly have quite a few at our house that didn't make it into the montage below but I'm thinking that over the Summer before the gates get torn down we might take all his shirts over there and have a bit of a photo shoot in front of them. I have an image in my head of a fast flickering slide show where the only thing that changes is the shirt that G is wearing in the pictures. Whether he fancies stripping his shirt of in public a multitude of times is of course another matter!

Too Early

I declared it Summer at the weekend. I bought new linen crops and flip flops and indulged myself in the first pedicure of the season, complete with brightly coloured nail varnish.

We bought and planted out the summer bedding plants and the broad beans and tomatoes are now out in the big pots too. 

We purchased a new BBQ and christened it not once but twice. We uncorked the first bottle of rose wine of the year and ate dinner outside.

Then this week it has clouded over and the wind has blown in and I am sure I felt a smattering of rain on my stoically still bared arms this morning. Of course it could just have been the dew bouncing of my goose bumps!

What I am trying to say folks is this. Sorry, Summer's belated arrival is my fault for jumping the gun!

What I wasn't early on, in fact rather late was changing to my May banner. But it is there now!