That's Torn It!

I took Bob a cup of tea, as it was 11am. He turned round from his computer and stared at me, raising one eyebrow quizzically "Why are you dressed like that?" . I was wearing a crop top bra and a pair of ancient capri-length lycra running shorts. I explained it was the winter/summer wardrobe swap. I try on everything.  If something is too tight over these undergarments, then it goes. The thickness of the shorts guarantees I have 'breathing space' at the waist - and avoid anything too tight in hot, sticky weather. Three garments, all made around 2014 didn't make the cut. 

They were all made from the same Lisette pattern. The first, a tunic which I previously wore a lot with leggings, was a genuine 1960s vintage print  given to me by a neighbour. My splashy Lily Pulitzer dress. The second, was a lovely Javanese cotton sarong from Kezzie which I turned into a summer dress. The third a pretty cotton dress made from a cheap 'Poundland fabric' down in Dorset - I added useful patch pockets.

In this week's trials, I discovered that the Java dress fitted beautifully, except for the cuffs on the sleeves. A teeny bit tight on my 'bingo wings'. I love this one, so I have removed the cuffs, and will bind the edges, so it fits comfortably.

The third is just too tight - but is a cute teddy bear print. This may make something for Jess.

But the first? Ooops! This shift has no fastenings, which is why I like the pattern! I got into it ok, but when I tried to wriggle out it completely disintegrated under the left arm and across the bust.  Absolutely no possibility of salvaging this one. Let's face it, the fabric is 60 years old - and at that age most things have either worn thin [like this] or run to fat [like me]

The final casualty was that £1 Patra dress from the CS shop last summer. When I got it, it was reduced because the sleeves had ripped. I wore it quite a lot at the end of the summer - but like the Pulitzer frock, the fabric had definitely reached the end of its life, and as I shook it out, I could see it was worn through in places, and ripped even before I out it on. I removed all the lovely Mother of Pearl buttons, and cut out and salvaged the best parts of the pretty print.  And rolled up the blue fabrics to go into the loft.

The Pulitzer will make a good lining for a bag, the Petra will perhaps be used in machine embroidery, and the teddy bears may make a skirt for Jess.

A few 'wearable' garments have gone into the donate bag, A  satisfactory swap-around

Do you do a seasonal wardrobe swap?

They Never Expected That!

In the old days, my parents went into the shop, selected their purchase and handed over the cash. They could see the size. and weight , and quality. Now we order online, and pay with a card, and within a few days, the product we have chosen is delivered to our door. Or is it?

Years ago I had to alter a fancy dress costume for a slim young friend. She had ordered 32/34 thinking it was the bust size. It wasn't, it was the American dress size [bust 60"+]! It could have been a 2-man tent. I altered it for her, and had an awful lot of spare camo fabric left over.

Then there are those people whose supermarket online orders come with very bizarre substitutions. "a birthday cake candle, number 5" being replaced by 2 and 3 [because 2+3 = 5!]  

And others who order patio furniture or cupboards, only to discover they are sized to fit a doll's house. One of my loveliest birthday gifts this last week was a cross stitch kit. At least, that's what my friend thought she was ordering. When it arrived, it was simply the pattern chart, printed out on three sheets of paper. She was, understandably, concerned - she had expected fabric and threads to be included. 

Was it of any use? Fortunately I have some evenweave fabric left over from the 2024 project with Kirsten. And lots of threads- all recently sorted, I can line them up with my DMC shade chart and sort out the exact threads I need. What might have been a disappointment has actually turned out to be an excellent Stash Buster. Thanks C.

Have you ever received a delivery which was not what you expected?

Wool Gathering

If you buy yarn from The Wool Warehouse it will be delivered* in a tulle drawstring bag. This is useful for keeping knitting clean and tidy, containing the balls of yarn and the knitted pieces. I have just started a new project. It is rather complex so I'm not revealing anything yet.

But I did want to mention that this is the second time I've used WW and I am very pleased with their stuff, and there is lots to check out on the website. As well as knitting yarns, patterns and accessories, they have sewing stuff too. [*WW give you the eco-option of 'no bag' if you want to avoid unnecessary packaging.]

The dictionary defines wool-gathering as "indulgence in idle daydreaming, or aimless wandering of the mind" I will just say that the latest pattern I am working on requires 100% concentration so I am doing just a dozen rows each day. 

Do you have anything on your needles right now? 

Count Your Blessings...

... then ask for grace to share them generously with others. 
 

Prime Time

Thank you Côte Brasserie for a fabulous birthday lunch 

1. Bob had crab paté, I had a Kir Rosé alco-free cocktail 
2. Main course - he had steak frites, I had moules et frites
3. Dessert - pistachio brulé for him, cafe gourmand for me.

We strolled back to the car park, and came home very full, and very happy . Thank you all for such kind words yesterday, I had some lovely gifts and cards

Yes that is a Christmas card. My old schoolfriend remains in hospital [since November] but she found an unused Christmas card in her locker so wrote me a birthday greeting inside. The Manchester boys made a card with" all the things Grandma likes" on it.

Jesus the King, the Bible, Palm Sunday, family, tea, flowers...I think it is excellent! 

So very grateful to be surrounded by love right now.

In My Prime

Today is my birthday - looking forward to going out to lunch with Bob later.  We all ate the birthday cake last week - it was Jon's birthday on Easter Sunday - so I decided we would share cake and a cuppa together one afternoon while they were in Norfolk. My lovely new neighbour asked me to alter some trousers for her recently. I said she didn't need to pay me - my sewing is a gift I love to use to help my friends. She said she would like to do something - so I suggested she might bake me a cake. She has a reputation for baking, and I told her coffee&walnut is Bob's favourite. 

Doesn't this look splendid? It tasted fantastic, and was soon eaten up! Gloria delivered it on a cakeboard, saying she did not want the board back, she had plenty, and this one had been used before anyway.

Never one to waste anything, I covered the board in grey wallpaper - it made a brilliant stone in front of my Easter Tomb last Sunday! 

I do not feel any older than I did yesterday. 71 is a prime number, so this year I think I shall be 'in my prime' 

I Have Seen The Golden Sunshine

🌞Wednesday dawned bright and sunny. It was a rare Wednesday-Without-Shed day, and Bob was eager to get out and enjoy the weather🌞 I'd had a bad night, and woken with a headache. After he'd brought me breakfast in bed, it seemed churlish to say "I need to stay home and do housework"

🌞We got in the car and drove up to Deepdale Market on the coast. We stopped briefly en route to investigate a sign saying "Bric-A-Brac - Everything £1" I bought a sign which amused me, and Bob bought a filthy pair of pincers. We drove on to Burnham Deepdale, the sky was so blue, and the countryside so green...

I do love the mural in the alley way to the pop up craft shops. Not much of interest, but two lovely ladies were selling handmade jewellery and knitted accessories in aid of Duchenne UK. They were sisters, and one was the gran of a boy who has DMD. I treated myself to a kilt pin brooch for £5 - decorated with sewing notions and a Manchester bee. 

After a jacket potato lunch we drove home stopping in Fakenham, for milk in Lidl and a mooch round the Sue Ryder shop. I found a book

A simple cover, with fantastic contents. Years ago I got this from the library and knitted Steph the fingerless gloves for her birthday, then made half a dozen pairs as Christmas gifts. The book is divided into four sections with seasonal items to knit, sow, bake,craft and grow... 

Here is a photo of Steph's gloves from 2009

I shall enjoy reading this book again, and maybe I'll have time to do more of the projects. Some are pictured below. The illustrations are clear, with good templates and photos. Worth £2 I think. Altogether I spent £8, plus my spud. A good day out. I'm deciding where to put my sign, Bob polished up his vintage pincers the moment we got home. They look splendid. 

"o

I am not sure why we should" beware children playing". I think "be aware of children playing" probably would sound a little kinder. But the sign made me smile, and I love that children come and play in my garden.

This week's sunshine has been lovely. I hope the weather is kind where you are.

Occasional Tables And Other Musings

Lenny Henry once asked "What are 'occasional' tables doing the rest of the time?" A good question**. When we first met, Bob was surprised by the number of little tables around my tiny flat. This was the 1970s, and preIKEA. but Tricia Guild and Terence Conran were everywhere flogging cheap chipboard table kits plus round cloths... I confessed to Bob these were not tables - under the fabric were piles of plastic crates, full of school worksheets, Sunday School resources, haberdashery, tools etc. Hidden storage everywhere.
Nowadays we have cupboards, a loft and a workshop. But occasionally I relapse. Like when the family are coming, and I clear everything hurriedly into a stack in the spare bedroom. And throw a quilt over the top. And I warn Jess and Rosie - please do not go under there, as there are sharp things and breakable things which you mustn't touch. Bless them, they are very good about it. 

But they are back in London now, and Tuesday morning was spent tidying. It was a very productive exercise! Whilst tidying up, I found

• my box of vegetable seed packets [which I have been hunting for more than a fortnight] 
• my box of felt pieces [mislaid after the French Hen Project] 
• my packable waterproof jacket [I had to take a heavier coat to Bewilderwood] 
• my folder of small cross stitch designs

The sun was shining so I abandoned tidying briefly and planted some seeds, then came back to the task in hand. Whilst I worked, I listened on BBC4Extra to "Growing Solo", about retired journalist Max Cotton and his year long food self-sufficiency experiment [2024] . It was interesting - he only ate food he had produced himself, or found growing wild. So no tea or coffee, no Worcester sauce or exotic spices... Spoiler alert - this was not Tom and Barbara in the garden of a suburban semi. Max lives on a small farm in Somerset, with an attached vineyard, whilst his brother runs a nearby small-holding. So he had room to grow wheat, keep cows, pigs, chickens and a beehive...as well as producing veg and fruit [and grape juice] I am not sure he would have achieved his goal without the support of his wife and family.
I am never going to achieve self sufficiency with my little plot at Cornerstones. But I hope to grow plenty of veg again this year, and I am pleased to note the fig tree has dozens of tiny figlets.  
**Lenny says that "the rest of the time, these tables are dining or nesting"

The Chapel At Easter

The windowsills at Chapel were well received. In previous years we have had bunnies and eggs and chicks and jars of fresh flowers. But as I seemed to be without helpers, I took the line that less is more. I made some green fabric runners from the Great Stash, and then each sill had a couple of pot plants, a card with a Bible Verse or two, and either Willow tree figures or a cross. I prepared everything at home, and took a photo beforehand, showing which verse went where.

The plants looked so pretty in their wallpaper collars. I did discover that every window is a different size [the building is 200+ years old!] but the one sill I had measured was fortunately the largest, and folding, pinning and using blutac kept everything looking good.

Maybe less 'busy' than previous years, but I think they did the job.

Bob made the stands to support the crosses [which normally hang on our study wall] I created an Easter Garden on the platform. A cloth covered the table, and at the top was the cross draped with purple ribbon and a crown of thorns. Below, fresh plants, and an empty tomb. Not sure if the brief video will show the flickering tealights inside, which reflected beautifully against the gold foil. 

And I used lots of wallpaper to create the stone surround, and the green frieze in front of the plant pots! After the service, the small plants went into little paper carriers with cards ["These Easter flowers come with love from Foulsham Baptist Church. Christ is Risen!] for distribution to other. I have already had two messages of thanks from people who were really touched to have been remembered.

Now get on your way quickly,  and tell his disciples and the others that Christ is risen!

  

What I Did In The Holidays

Start of term, our writing task. . The highlight for me had been going with my Mum to a rather posh Garden Party. I was 6, and had to present some flowers to the important guest of honour. All summer, I'd practised presenting [not dropping] said flowers,  smiling and curtseying to The Lady.

I wrote about the garden, and the cakes, and then wrote "I gave a bokay to a Lady" My teacher didn't know what a bokay was. She interrogated me at length about this word. I tried to explain to her, I even showed her how to curtsey. She asked the class, and none of them knew about bokays. "Angela, I think this is an imaginary word you have made up." Everyone laughed at me. I cried tears of frustration. I thought everybody knew about bokays, after all, the Queen has them. When Mum collected me from school, she explained about the bouquet. But I was a miserable wreck, and felt the Most Important Day in my holidays had been belittled. But that was 1961, now I am happier talking about holidays!

On Monday morning we went to Felbrigg Hall [NT] and did their splendid Easter Trail. Bob borrowed a mobility scooter and he was able to accompany the Jess and Ro on the whole trail. The scooters are a free service and very well organised. The girls played games on the grass, built dens, found clues, and made music in the woods. The trail cost £3.50 each, but they received a quality chocolate egg at the end. 

Monday afternoon we made Easter cards, and then made and decorated pizzas. The girls had a sleepover.
Tuesday we did more crafts - painting rabbits, and making baskets for egg collection. Jess had asked Grandad to make a sign for her door on a piece of bark she'd found. It was rather soggy, and when Grandad explained, she was happy to have a sign on a better piece of wood. He made Rosie one too.

Then on Thursday I went with the family to BeWILDerwood. Bob and I took Rosie to this theme park back in 2023, for an evening event, I had never been in the daytime before. It was great fun with treetop walkways, zipwires, mazes, slides, and other energetic activities. Plus gentler stuff - facepainting, crafts, story time, puppets, a boat ride and facepainting. And another Easter Trail to follow. We were there from 11am till 4pm, and really enjoyed ourselves. 

Overall verdict: all good, 5*venues.

The NT day was good - three of us have membership, and Jess is under 5, so we only had to pay for the Easter Egg Trail. The snacks from the food caravan were very generously sized - the girls shared their chocolate brownie, and I took half my pasty home for later. Facilities for the less mobile were excellent, and all the staff were so friendly and helpful. 
BeWILDerwood was a little more expensive [but we spent 5 hours there]  Unlike Felbrigg, where we saw lots of people clearly doing Granny-Duties, at the theme park, there were far more parents-with-children. I suspect that is because there is a lot of walking, and terrain is a bit bumpy for mobility scooters. [Bob was busy anyway, so didn't come with us]
That said, it is very well laid out, with lots of places to sit down if your little legs [young or old] get tired, and plenty of clean, well maintained loos dotted about the site [no need for surreptitious Tree Wees!] The food cabins do not charge excessive prices [we took a picnic, but bought hot drinks when it turned chilly] There were picnic benches and well labelled litter bins.  

Again the young staff were engaged and relentlessly cheerful. They were word perfect in recounting the stories of the Twiggles and the Boggles, and Cedric the Easter Bunny. 
As we left, the girls each got bags of sweets for completing their worksheets. We were all very tired but happy.

Those are some of the things I did in the Easter Holidays, and we were grateful for the opportunity to spend time with the family. I hope you had a good Easter too...

Easter Sunday

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ

No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life's first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
Till He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand

 

Easter Eggs

 My French hen has a sister! 

Floral Frusta Frustrations...

A frustum [plural frusta or frustums] is the solid shape formed when you cut the top off a cone, or a pyramid, with its top parallel to its base. The other way up it looks like a paper cup or a flower pot. This was my challenge...

We usually decorate the chapel windowsills for Easter Sunday. But for complicated reasons, it seems I will be doing this on my own on Saturday morning. 

I took the decision not to spend hours wrestling with cut flowers in small jars, but to buy some pretty pot plants from the local nursery. Afterwards we can add gift cards, and distribute them to the nick and seedy of the village [oops, that should probably say sick and needy!] 
But plastic plant pots are not terribly attractive and need to be covered. This was when I realised that cutting a piece of stiff paper to wrap a frustum was not an easy task! I worked it all out mathematically then realised it was not practical to attempt to draw a circle 72cm in diameter.

I found two empty flowerpots of the right size, and rolled them round on a piece of old wrapping paper, marking their edges as they rolled. This gave me 2 templates. I used these to make the final wraps. And yes, dear reader, I did use one of the wallpaper books!

It was called 'Linen' and had dozens of shades of paper, with a linen-like texture. I chose shades of cream and gold, and made 10 templates. They are simply fastened at the back with two paper clips. I have prepared the other parts of the display, and so all is ready to go in place on Saturday morning.

I also used some fabric from the Great Stash to make runners for each sill, to protect the woodwork from any dampness.

All that is left now is to print off the gift cards which will go with each plant on Sunday,

I love Easter, a glorious celebration of the resurrection, our eternal hope, and a reminder of God's eternal love. It is right that the building where we worship reflects that joy.

Do you have any special Easter Decor?
Bonnets, bunnies, lambs, flowers....

Coming Clean

 Here is Frøya [sometimes spelt Freja or Freya] Her name comes from Old Norse and means The Lady. She is the goddess of love, beauty and magic. Many generations of Scandinavian women attribute their healthy skin and glowing complexions to a particular brand of soap named in her honour. It is expensive, but for the next 24 hours, in a continental supermarket near you, this beauty product will be available at the bargain price of £10 for a pack of three tablets. 

So if you are at the shops today, keep a look out for Lidl Frøya Soap. Remember, it's only on offer until midnight. 

HOW Many???

Last year I went with Bob to collect some materials for a Men's Shed project, from a local decorating supplies firm. By the door was a large bucket with a sign saying "FREE!" It would have been rude not to check it out. It had some 2m lengths of wallpaper. I grabbed a couple of William Morris designs. A week later, I gave one to a friend who needed to cover a large gift box. In January, we went back again, and I took just one piece. I went to the counter to wait for Bob. "Can I help you?"
    "I'm with him - but can just I say thank you, for these lovely free samples of wallpaper"
"We will be getting rid of the big sample books soon, would you like some?"        
    "Yes please!"
"Give me your phone number and I will call you- I will be really pleased if you can use them, we usually just throw them in the skip outside"
And so a couple of weeks ago, she rang, and I went early next morning [they open at 7.30am for trade customers] I left Bob at home, preparing breakfast. The woman remembered me, and said the books were behind the counter. 

I said I would like to make a charity donation, and while she was getting them, I put a couple of quid inside the pink elephant box for the blind children.
"Here you are, where's your car?" The woman, plus another assistant helped me carry the sample books out to my car. There were TWENTY of them. She insisted that any I left would go in the skip, and I couldn't let that happen, could I? Bob was a little taken aback when I got home. "HOW many? Ang, will you use them all?"

We lugged them into the lounge, and stood them up against the sofa. A real mixture - patterns, plains, textures, stripes... Most from a French company, Casadéco, one from Crown.

I enjoyed going through them as I sipped my coffee, muttering "Ooh look! Isn't this cute? I can make use of this one..."

Later in the day, I took the Nursery Patterns Book, and made an Easter Card and a new baby card for my latest nibling.

I used a rabbit design, mounting the pictures on the co-ordinating golden polka dot paper. There are lots of great patterns in this book [animals, trucks, dinosaurs...] which will make good cards for children. I am planning to use one of the other books to mount displays for the Easter windowsills at Chapel.

And Bob is right - twenty is rather a lot. I took some to my good friend Val a few days later. Val has been a friend since 1981, when we lived in the Medway and Bob was student minister at her church. Teacher, Girls Brigade Officer, crafter - we have heaps in common and have been firm friends for 45 years. She still lives in the Medway with her husband Philip [like Bob, former employee of Marconi, and into woodworking etc] They were on holiday in Norfolk, it was lovely to catch up [now we are both mothers of two grown up daughters and we have grandchildren] I gave Val the books, and she gave me a jigsaw and a striped teeshirt! [Thank you Val, it fits a treat]
I gave three more to my young friends who are home schooled. And when I told the story to my old school friend [who is sadly back in our local hospital again] she laughed, and said "Please can I have one when I get home?" So that is one third of the hoard distributed... and I have so many ideas in my head for papercrafts! Look at these gorgeous pictures from the Casadéco website...

A Household Name?

Have you come across the author Geoffrey Household? He was an amazing guy, born in 1900, died in 1988 - and as well as writing, his  career also included training as a banker in Bucharest, selling bananas in Spain, serving as a security officer in WW2...He was passionate about cats, gardens, Spanish Rioja and pipe-smoking - a quintessential Englishman with a glamourous Romanian wife. He wrote 37 novels, numerous short stories and a few children's books. 

I first came across GH in the late 1970's, when his book "Rogue Male" was made into a film for the BBC, starring Peter O Toole. I thought the plot was brilliant and found a secondhand copy of the book, which I read, and re-read till it fell to bits. GH wrote it in the late 1930s. Told in the first person, it is the story of an aristocratic Englishman who makes a failed solo attempt at assassinating a 

particularly evil European dictator. He escapes captivity, and gets back to England where he hides from foreign agents seeking to capture and kill him.

Having grown up in Dorset, our hero returns there, and digs himself into a sandstone tunnel at the end of a country lane in a remote woodland area. Radio 4 commissioned a audio version of the [abridged] book, which was first broadcast in 1989, and starred Simon Cadell. Then in 2004, Michael Jayston read the whole book [15 halfhour episodes] 
During March 2026, to mark the 30th anniversary of Cadell's death, R4extra re-broadcast his Rogue Male. For the next few weeks you can hear Michael Jayston reading the sequel, Rogue Justice [which Household wrote in 1982, 40 years after the first book] 
Household was an extremely prescient guy - living in Europe in the 1930s, he watched Hitler's rise to power. He was aware of what Adolf was capable of, long before many others.  He hated the Nazi regime with a passion. This  inspired his Rogue Male story. It is considered to have inspired Fleming's Bond, David Morell's Rambo, Forsyth's Jackal, and a number of other action-hero books. 

Just before we moved to Dorset, author Robert McFarlane set out to find the "Hollow-way" where Household's hero hid, although GH had said it was not marked on any OS maps. He failed! But since we left the area [typical!] another author, Sara Hudson, claims to have located the spot.  One day I might get back...

It is a cracking adventure story, a true classic, and I think Geoffrey Household deserves better recognition. 

I recommend you get ahead of the game, and read Rogue Male now. If only because the lovely Benedict [Sherlock etc] Cumberbatch is busy making a new film version!
Have you read Rogue Male?

Do you remember the Peter O Toole film?