an apology

This is an apology to myself for neglecting me! One of the reasons for starting a blog was to encourage myself to try different things. I have a list of projects I want to undertake, I have visions of what I would like my house to look like, recipes I would like to try and new experiences I would like to, well, experience  but they all seem to require enormous amounts of time, which I can not quite seem to find. My weekends seem to pass by in a blur and no matter how hard I try I can not quite get on top of things at school. I would love to be able to freeze time just for a day so I could catch up on those little things that get in the way of life - like that pile of ironing I can see out of the corner of my eye.

Well that is my rant of the day.

E

Positive Friday

As some of you may have guessed already I am a teacher. I teach languages at a through school (2-18 years) in rural England. Apart from teaching I also have a tutor group made up of 10 twelve/thirteen year olds, who as you can imagine, can really take some motivating at times. We have tutor period every Friday afternoon and at the beginning of the school year we decided that Fridays would become "Positive Friday". During tutor period each child tells the group about something positive that has happened to them that week and we take pride in our successes and in our small victories. Louis might have remembered his planner every day, Abbie got her maths homework all correct, Nick scored the winning try in a match, etc. You get the gist. In return for such positive vibes I bring in a treat. I like baking and this gives me an opportunity to try different things out without having to eat all the spoils by myself. 

This week I decided to try a cookie recipe from a book I bought a couple of weeks ago. The book is called The Biscuiteers Book of Iced Biscuits written by the owners of Biscuiteers. I fell in love with it as soon as it arrived in the post. I baked the vanilla cookies and used a foot cutter that I have. I iced the biscuits and I must say that I think they look pretty good. The kids were very impressed and are looking forward to next week's contribution.

This weekend I have quite a few projects to get through. I have to make some netball bibs, which should be simple enough and then my new craft light has arrived so I plan to get cracking on some of the embroidery I need to get done. 

Have a good start to the weekend.

E x

Busy, busy, busy

Quick post before I retire for the evening, I just wanted to share some new fabric that I received this week.

I bought it in the Sew Mama Sew fabric sale. I love all of them but my two absolute favourites are the safety pins, which I think I will use to make a travelling sewing kit. There is a tutorial on how to make one by Dawn, creator of the uklassinus blog.

I am going to use this material to make some bibs for two colleagues at school, who are both expecting babies in a few months. I think it is so cute and also gender neutral as neither one of them knows what they are going to have. 

The staff room is full of baby talk and I must admit a small part of me is jealous. My baby, all nineteen years of her, is getting ready to start university in September. I am very excited for her.

Goodnight

E x

Where does all the time go?

Well it's Sunday night again and another week has gone whizzing by. I honestly don't know where time goes. I was saying to a friend of mine this morning that wouldn't it be great if we had a 48 hour day so that we could accomplish all those things we want. 

I had good intentions this weekend to start on some embroidery that I want to have ready for when my sister comes to visit. She is going to show me how to piece it into a quilt. She's coming in February so I really need to get cracking but by the time I had finished teaching, done the shopping, etc the light wasn't right. I think I am going to have to invest in one of those special crafting lights. I quite like the look of this one:

Today was spent with the boys. Three back to back football (soccer) matches did not leave a lot of time for crafting. I did take my needlepoint to the house but the excitement of the games and the running comments from two of the more vocal boys meant concentration was zilch. Not good when cross stitching. This is the cross stitch I am working on. I have been working on and off on this particular Butternut Road design for three years possibly four. 

I need to finish it as I have another one to start and I can't do that until this one is done. 

Finally as I seem to be rambling I'll add the last picture of the day.

Yes, a tree, I have a thing for trees, hence the title of this blog. I will explain one day the why of the name of this blog. But back to the tree. I walk past this tree most days, it not only tells me of the passing of the seasons but it is also one of my favourite trees. I don't know why, it just is. It makes me happy, it greets me like a friend. 

Good night 

E

I like it!

I received a message the other day from my sister. Six little words and I was hooked....

Check out my stuff on Pinterest

I pressed the link and there it was for me to see, a picture board or two or three with pictures of all the things that inspire my sister. So many things to look at, so many ideas, what inspiration.

I have set up my own board but there is not much on there at the moment. I will add to it slowly but surely and fill it with things I like, pictures of things to make and bake, places to visit, people to see.

Check it out and you might be inspired to create your board.

E

And I'm off...

Today I finally had the opportunity to spend some time playing on the sewing machine. I decided to have a go at making that cell phone case I wrote about a few days ago on here.

Marina chose this material for the case:

Here I am sewing:

And here is the finished product:

The phone snug in it's bed!

Sorry about the quality of the photos.

A short blog today but I'm off to bed as I am still exhausted from yesterday's trip.

Good night

E

Out and about

I am out and about today so I thought I would try a mobile blog. It won't be a long one because I am nearing my destination.

I am travelling by train tonight because I have to admit it is one of my favourite modes of transport. Faced with the prospect of a long drive or the comfort of the train, give me the train any day. There is something strangely reassuring about a train in motion.

I was planning on bringing my embroidery with me but I must admit that in my usual disorganised way I didn't quite make it home in time to pack in style, it was more of mad 30 second trolly dash. Instead I caught up with some marking as I really had no excuse!

There goes the announcement, must dash.

E