Monday - no Wednesday, there were builders

There were builders, at my daughters house, putting in french doors. The doors fitting was the easy part. The plastering and floor fixing took the rest of the two days. Now I am home again and avoiding going upstairs to sort the Fornow Room

 Played around with baubles and the old lantern and a jar that Mr M bought last year. I think the lantern is great but the jar needs a bit of adjustment - and a clean.

I must sort out the Fornow Room this week and get Favourite-Son-in-Law to help with moving the big stuff so that Wicked-Uncle-Cliff will have a bed to sleep in when he visits after Christmas.
I have another jar and I have put my carol singer baubles into it with some quiltwadding for snow and a whole bunch of LED lights. It looks quite good but needs tweaking before the photograph. Now I am off upstairs to get the shelves emptied ready to move

Monday and Me - A Memory Quilt for me

 It's been a funny week - not funny-ha-ha, more funny-peculiar. As you know Cousin Russell has been staying with us while he finds wokr etc but he had a chance to work in West Wales this week so he departed on Tuesday and it was odd to have to scale down the cooking a little. I used the time to pull out all the old and precious T-shirts I have worn over the last 40+ years and set to work making my very own memory quilt.

 It was so much fun, even if I am sadly out of practice with sitting at a machine for hours. Of course the memories came flooding back as I cut and stitched and I confess to crying a lot as I held the Wrangler T-shirt because I had worn that on our special holiday in Scotland with The Lord Admiral and Lady B (long before they had earned their titles and were just Mr and Mrs).

 As the tears flowed I realised just how much I miss him because he was so much more than "just" my cousin. He was the baby brother I never had. It reminded me that we did so many things together when we were growing up and I don't think we ever fell out over anything. Perhaps because he could make me laugh?

I used a quilt as you go method which means that the back is as colourful as the front. Now I intend doing a little hand quilting this winter just to make it even more mine. This means I will be able to wrap myself in it and then do a bit of stitching while watching TV with the weather raging outside. A definite win/win situation. I am now about to embark on making a quilt for my great grandson and I started the templates for the letters this morning before exchanging the really hard wooden chair at the table for my lovely cushiony chair in front of the computer.

Monday and Me - A quiet weekend

We did absolutely nothing except the shopping this weekend. No gallivanting, no little rides out in the country and lunch at somewhere nice. We stayed home. Mr M played on his Puter and I watched Christmas24 and knitted my blanket. Cousin Russell is now able to talk to his wife face to face because of the joys of messenger and that's made him a lot happier. He continues to look for jobs and I continue to feed him to build him up - I have my orders from Cristina to feed him and get him back to strength.

I didn't even have to cook on Saturday because Mr M decided he wanted chinese. Night off! The weather turning chilly has encouraged us all to stay in and keep warm, something I will continue to do until the spring arrives. I don't do cold.

My eldest grandson and my great grandson share a birthday with a mere 23 years between them. It was good to see that they were so obviously enjoying their special day. I also feel really blessed to be able to see these youngsters growing up. Someone asked me if it was awful feeling old because I have great grandchildren. I thought about it and realised that they have never made me feel old. I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to watch their lives unfold and to see in the third generation after me the wonder and joy of the world in their faces when they learn something new.

I always hoped that I would get the chance to watch that process with my own children and it was glorious and then came the grandchildren and while I tried my best not to interfere - and I still do try to shut my mouth and not pour unwanted advice onto my children and their partners - I am able to see again that dawning wonder as the world reveals itself to them.

The great grandchildren are a bonus. I never knew mine because they had all died by the time I was born. It was not quite the same for my children as my maternal grandfather was still with us when they were born. They were all very young when he died and they have only the vaguest memories of Pop. They see him in the scrapbooks and I am writing all the stories and doing the family history so they will have something to pass on to their grandchildren.

I am extremely lucky to have all these youngsters around me. They don't make me feel old. They make me feel honoured to know them and the fact that they still talk to me says I am doing something right

Today's introspection has been brought to you by birthdays and grandchildren - you're welcome

How could I have missed this?

A Picture of a birthday girl

It seems that I have been missing an essential part of the blogisphere. A feed. I vaguely remember having something like this about three computers ago but as with everything technical when the puter croaked it took away all the handy stuff. I couldn't remember where or how.

Anyhoooo, I have been pointed in the right direction by my lovely online friend Ruth and I am at last "up to date" - well I have to be don't I after reading the riot act to someone who did that silly "I-don't-do-Facebook-because-I-am-too-old/setinmyways/intellectual/smart" thing at me. I pointed out that they are more than 10 years younger than me and I can do it and not get sucked into it....

I digress all I am doing is connecting my blog to my feed by inserting some code - that makes it sound like I actually know doesn't it?

Monday no Wednesday - I'm late I was busy

When we went to North Wales for the Christening of my youngest granddaughter I realised that somehow I had missed making a quilt for her elder brother. I had made one for her eldest brother when he was Christened and now I had made one for Little Miss but not for the middle one. I talked to him about it and promised to make a special quilt for him.

It took me a while to get going because I could see his name in my mind but the rest of the quilt just wouldn't form. That was until I was looking at fabric on this here t'internet and suddenly I spotted a range of fabrics called "To The Moon And Back". There were planets and rockets and constellations and everything fell into place.
This also made me realise that I gave a quilt to my great granddaughter but I haven't yet given one to her little brother ... I have enough To the Moon jelly roll* left and certainly enough layer cake* so that's one of my objectives for the next two weeks. I have to get this done because that will empty the bag of wadding and the backing fabric and get me started on reducing the contents of the "Fornow" room (you know about the fornow room, yes? that's the room you point to when someone asks "where shall I put this" you say "Oh, put it in there For Now")
My Cousin Ann is coming in two weeks to help me get all the crap stuff sorted and sent to either the tip or the charity shop or photographed and put on eBay. I want to make sure that I have reduced the sewing stuff a bit just to get started.
We have Wicked Uncle Cliff coming to stay just after Christmas and we have Cousin Russell staying too so we need another bedroom so this is the push I needed to reduce the amount of junk. I am not moving just downsizing LOL

* for the non sewing readers Jelly Roll is a roll of fabric strips usually about 6cm wide and about 120cm long. There are about 40 of these strips in a jelly roll. Layer cake is a stack of 10" squares of a range of fabric usually about 40 squares and with this amount of fabric I can make two quilts that will go on the beds until they grow up and can also be used to cwtch under when watching TV.