whats that I hear- is it spring?

Today has been a lovely day, I have been out without my coat for the first time in ages. Look what I found in the garden when I went outside;

Can you see that little pretty flower just peeping out from that photo?

Here is a close up of it for you;

 Such pretty delicate flowers, I love them. Its the only one opened up so far, I can't remember how many I planted.

I brought myself a 4 tier mini greenhouse today so that I could get started on my seed planting.

In here we have salad tomatoes, plum tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, leek, broccoli, lavender and something else, it escapes my memory at the moment, I also planted some carrots in one of my grow bags. You can't quite see it from this picture, but I have used some of my salad pots that shop bought items come in as seed trays, I really am trying to recycle as much as I can. I am hoping to be more prepared this year with my growing, so that I have lots going on in the garden minimising the amount of vegetables and salad I need to buy.

a catch up post

The past few days have been rather busy.
I have taken Dylan to London for the day, we saw the Thames Barriers, St Paul's Cathedral, we went to the Bank of England museum (but it was shut), we shopped on Oxford Street and High Street Kensington, then we had a Pizza hut before coming home. We had a fab day, Dylan chose everything we did on Saturday, it was a fab day and lovely to spend the time with just Dylan.

as we walked along one part of London we saw this little fellow, he was so friendly and came so close.

On the train I spent the journey sewing hexagons together for the quilt. The ticket inspector was very impressed and asked me loads of questions about how the quilt is made, before deciding I was a little bit mad as she would just buy a quilt rather than doing all the work I have been doing.

I sew for the children as I love the feeling that I am making these things myself. This is how far I have got so far;

Obviously I didn't sew all this on the train, I have been sewing almost every evening on this I am so determined to finish it before Stephanie's birthday. I have got lots of other projects I want to get started on, but am trying to hold off until this one is finished.

The last thing I have been doing is tracking down poetry books. I have been looking at poetry in uni; it is an area of teaching I am lacking in confidence in. I am not comfortable teaching it, as I don't feel I know enough about it. I have ordered from ebay some books I have seen in lectures. I am hoping by reading these books I will gain further understanding and confidence in poetry.

mmmm

Ok still not quite 'celebrating the boy' but look;

YUM! It's the beginnings of a chocolate trifle for tomorrow. Not sure it quite counts as a celebrate the boy, but he will definately enjoy that I made it :-)

Another Stephanie Skirt

OK so you may have noticed the celebrate the boy button which appeared on the side of my blog last week. This button is linked to all sorts of things to make for boys. I joined this group as I always seem to be making for Stephanie and never for Dylan. Although to be fair Dylan is a funny lad about his clothes and only wears certain colours/ types hence he aways looks the same! I joined in the hope I would find inspiration for something I could make him.And many of the makes over there are very sweet, if only he was still a toddler.

So instead of making for something I made something else

Yes its another GIRL make! does it look familiar? that's because I made it from the off cuts of my dress. I'm quite impressed as I made it without a pattern, I just had an idea in my head of what I wanted it to look like, and its pretty close.

I walked to my QTS skills test today and popped in a little sewing shop along the way. I found these fabrics which I thought would be perfect for the little pirates party bags at Stephanie's forthcoming birthday;

So I will be making something for boys, even if its not MY boy, just yet. Well the flower print is destined for a different project, more of that later.

So how was your day?

Today on twitter I saw a couple of tweets by Vanessa Kimble which to me gave shocking statistics.

Apparently only 27% of families eat together each day and 20% of people say they use Facebook and twitter whilst eating.

Whilst I know there is plenty of BIG news out there, this really shocked me and I have spent most of the day wondering about it. It is making me ask the question- How do you do dinner times?

In my house everyone eats around the dinner table (shock to my brother in law over Christmas!), I have a ban on mobile phones/ laptops/ actually all phones at the table. I also do not have a TV in the kitchen. For me dinner is a time to talk to each other. We waffle about all sorts, I try and prise snippets of information about each of the children's days at school etc, I must say I am pretty successful at getting them chatting now. We talk about our plans and suggest things we could do as a family, or just plan the next days dinner. Anything and everything gets aired at the table.

Last night we discussed having this for dinner;

Lasagne is Dylan's favourite, however, Stephanie and I don't like it. So we decided to have Jacket potatoes, which Dylan doesn't like.

Tonight's discussion contained, amongst other things, that next time I make lasagne Stephanie would like to try a little (she couldn't today as I had used a tin of tomatoes with citric acid in) and a decision that tomorrow's dinner would be chicken curry.

So go on share your routines- how do YOU do your dinner?

eco cleaning power!

OK so after today's dinner I thought- My gosh I need to clean that oven!

So a quick root through the cupboard and I had none of my usual oven cleaner. I though I could not do it, but I vaguely remembered that Bicarb and vinegar are often used to clean by some people, mix them together they kind of fizz and foam a bit like oven cleaners? Do you see where I am going with this?
Yep I sprinkled bicarb on the oven then shook vinegar all over. Look what happened:

I am so impressed with how well it has come up. It only took 5 Min's in total, no scrubbing required. All I did was wipe round with a damp cloth.

So I will NEVER need to buy yucky nasty chemical concoctions to clean the oven again.

A new dress

I have done it- I have made myself an item of clothing.

I love it.

OK if I am truthful (and for the more observant of you) its a shop bought dress which I altered as I didn't like the mid-calf length of it. It now sits just above my knee where I am much more comfortable wearing it. I will make myself a whole garment sometime soon, but for now I am planning a tiered skirt for Stephanie with the cut offs from this dress...