Putting my Stitch on it

We moved into our flat almost a year ago and have only managed to decorated one room so far which is of course Flo's room.  It's quite difficult to decorate when you have a little one, so when we decided to paint the front room we were super organised, bought the paint in advance, had all the materials ready and most importantly shipped Flo off to the grandparents for the day. All the preparation and a little bit of planning really paid off as with one day of work we had a fresh, newly painted room all tidied up and ready to be messed up again by sticky fingers!

There are still a lot of finishing touches to be added to the front room but I managed to put my own stamp on one corner. I bought a print over a year ago now from Knit Nation 2011. The print was from Tilly Flop Designs and is a knitting rhyme which looks like knitted stitches on a needle. I was drawn to it by the mustard yellow colour and of course its connection to knitting.

 

We mounted this on the wall in a cheap Ikea frame, then I moved in the lamp I bought at the Country Living Fair at the beginning of the year. The base is made from an old machine bobbin from 1913 and the lampshade is from B&Q. The flowers I got at Wood Street Market which set it all off nicely.

I spent a lot of last night slogging away on the baby blanket in front of comfort movies. At the end of the night I surveyed my progress and although I know I had done about 10 rows, it looked like I hadn't moved on at all. Huff! There's got to be an end in sight... JUST GOT TO BE!

Big Yellow Courgette

My friend Karen gave me a couple of courgette plants a few weeks ago. They were in pots so I popped them in ground in the little veggie patch we've got in the back garden. They seemed to like it because a few weeks later this BEAST emerged. Although rather swollen it was very tasty in the risotto I made at the weekend.

I am very much a novice gardener and grower but my parents have always kept a veggie patch so I like to think that their green fingers might have rubbed off on me a little. The veggies have been a bit battered by the windy weather lately and I've lost my last remaining squash plant to it's blustery demeanour recently. I've still got leeks, spring onions, pumpkins, rhubarb and the courgette's in the ground although I'm now battling against slugs and ants constantly. I'm really enjoying doing the little bit of planting and growing that I've managed so far this year and it was so exciting to be able to pick and use something from the garden, although Karen did do most of the hard work.


In knitting news I might have made an 'accidental' purchase in the Liberty yarn sale already this week. 50% off right on my work-place door step is too much for a girl to resist! But I'm telling myself it's an investment as it is earmarked for baby projects for the Parkinson babies on their way into the family via my sisters in law this year.


My current baby blanket knitting was starting to get to me a bit. The never ending boarder is mindless enough to do on the train but I'm finding the main blanket so boring now that I keep making mistakes. I have motivated myself by aiming to finish before the Olympics so that I can take part in the Ravelympics 2012. But until then I shall continue on... and on... and on, with this baby blanket.

Bunting, Cakes and Corgis

Although we're all sick of the Jubilee by now I thought I'd share a nice little idea that I had during the celebrations:

Flo just LOVEs to paint. She regularly comes home from nursery covered head to toe in the stuff and so I decided to buy some for her to use at home, along with some protective matting! Just before the Jubilee weekend we had a (heavily supervised) session of painting with Flo producing five large works of art. 

Now, however much you love your child you are never going to have enough space to keep all of their 'art' and frankly you most likely want to get rid of some of it. But as this was our first time painting at home I felt quite bad about shoving the pages straight into the bin. So I held onto them wondering what to do with them until the swathes of bunting weighing down our local streets gave me an idea. I simply cut the painting up into triangles and strung them together with masking tape to make our very own Jubilee decorations!

It was a really lovely way to involve Flo in the celebrations and could be repeated for other celebrations such as birthdays, the Olympics, Mothers Day?

As a side note, I also made lots and lots of mini cup cakes and used a cute cupcake stand that I bought on sale for 99p last year after the royal wedding. 

And I bought Flo this Happy Land Queen set from Early Learning Centre. I went a bit Jubilee crazy didn't I?

Jubilee Market

Here's this weekend's Wood Street Indoor Market in photos. A fabulous day out well worth a visit any time.

A bit of British Institution to get you started 

 Animaux Circus provided original sketches of Da Queen

Lady V's little shop selling bespoke teas and providing vintage tableware hire.

I bought some Rooibos loose leaf tea... yum! And Lady V herself is lovely!

They do tea tastings at the shop on Thursdays so go get your fill of lapsang souchong.

Erm... Red, white and Blue doughnuts? YES PLEASE! 

Naturally Flo wanted the blue one i.e. the one that is most likely to stain

Flowers from Because Or Just Because. 

We were the first customers of the day and the Mr bought be a lovely bunch! 

Craft Guerrilla providing an alternative Jubilee cup cake and animal prints.

Significant Seams. Keeping it stitchy.

Please do come again!

Walthamstow Royal Knees Up!

I blogged about the lovely, unique Wood Street indoor market back in February and just had to tell you about their Jubilee Bash coming up this weekend. If you pop on down to the market on Saturday not only will you find their usual array of vintage, record, antique, clothing, art, craft and cake shops but also free face painting for the nippers, traditional games (I read that as egg and spoon or sack races), craft workshops and 50's music as the sound track to your day. It promises to be the coolest thing you'll do this Jubilee weekend!