One not to be missed...

Last night Twiglet treated my darling hubby and I to theatre tickets to go to see Blake at the Severn Theatre in Shrewsbury.  They are truly 4 very talented young men [and very handsome too].  They have amazing voices and sang a variety of types of music [and are very handsome too].  They were joined on stage a couple of times by a local youth choir and another choir from Chester who raised the roof with their harmonies.  It was really brilliant entertainment and all three of us came home feeling uplifted. I'm still humming their music....this is helped by the fact my hubby bought me their CD and the [very handsome] young men signed it for me before we left the theatre. 

If you get the chance to go to see them grab it with both hands.  It was a brilliant night's entertainment......and, by the way, they are very handsome.  :-)

Thank you soooooooo much Jo. xxxx

I feel it was worth the effort....

I know a lot of you were fascinated by me using two balls of wool to knit the fronts and sleeves so the pattern in the wool matched when knitting my latest little hoody.  I finished it last night and though you would like to see how it worked out.

I'm so pleased with it and really love the little toggles I've managed to find for it.  What do you think?  Wasn't it worth the effort to get the matching two halves?.

WOYWW.....

Another busy week for me and the sun has been shining too.  This means there has been time spent outside at the weekend.

Monday was another fun day and the table had 4 of us round this week.  My Tuesday afternoon coffee friend has been off work following having her tonsils out [ouch] so she brought her knitting round and joined in the fun and laughter [and chocolates of course...thanks T].  Twiglet sat on her sewing machine creating another amazing work of art in her Montgomery featured range of buildings [I'm sure she will be doing a show and tell of it soon].  T sat the other side of the table on her machine making a beautiful appliqued owl cushion [I hope to show you that when she has finished it] and our friend E and I sat knitting [E is knitting a beautiful fluffy scarf and I'm knitting the next little hoodie for one of the grandbabies].  What an industrial lot we looked.

During our funday Monday I had a lot of customers with a lot of items of clothing so it was a catch up Tuesday...that is in between a hair cut, a house viewing at our neighbours house [ yes folks, we are now able to sell out elderly neighbours house for her :-) ] and of course Tuesday afternoon's coffee time with E.  :-) so this is what is on my 'to do' rail today.

I have now finished the beautiful baby blanket.

This is just a close up of the border....I love it cos it has really brought the right colours out in the blanket.






Of course it wouldn't be a Wednesday show and tell without just a few snaps of our garden for you.

A newly trimmed front hedge.  This took all of Sunday afternoon to trim and we still have the other side to do for our neighbour!

A much treasured old milk churn of my fathers that sits by my sewing room door and looks lovely with the begonias in the top.

I couldn't resist a quick snap of this beautiful clematis....I really love this colour and shall prob use this picture as inspiration for one of my fabric pictures.

Look at this amazing flower head on this dahlia.  Isn't it just gorgeous?  Thanks M [this was one you gave us].

Now folks I would like to thank you for dropping in.  Please leave me a comment if only to say hello and then pop over to Julia's to join in the WOYWW fun and to find out more if you have no idea what I am talking about.

Wahoo a new award for me.....

Sam or Hettie from Hettiecraft has awarded me the versatile blogger award.  Thanks Sam.

Well, I have been called all sorts but rarely versatile.  Apparently it means...

"...capable of or adapted to many different uses, skills etc, liable to change..".

I have a coaster in front of me that Twiglet gave me many years ago with the meaning of my name on it.  Apparently Ann means

From the Hebrew meaning 'graceful'. [I'm certainly not that!!]

She is industrious and practical and can turn her hand to anything. [guess that means versatile.]

A lady of many talents. [I have to say I do wear many hats in a day.]

Now the Rules of accepting this award.

• In accepting my award I must place a link back to the person who awarded it - done
• Share 7 random things about myself (OMG!) - next job
• Award 7 recently discovered bloggers and contact them to let them know - might just wimp out of that one.

It is becoming difficult to tell you more random things about me that you don't already know but I will have a go.

Here goes. 

1. I have met Prince Charles...he was a lot shorter than I imagined.
2. I was once commissioned to design and make sets of 6 puppets to be used in puppet theatres for a company in London. [You can buy my puppets here over in our blog shop]
3. I used to be able to touch the back of my head with both feet at the same time and even when 8 1/2 months pregnant with my youngest daughter I could still bite my toes nails! [not any more, alas].
4. I used to be trusting enough to stand spread eagle against a wooden shed and let my brother throw darts in the spaces around me!! [yes mad I know!!]
5. I have used the same single felt pattern to make the heads of literally 1000s [2500 at least!] of tiny felt bears.  I have made 800 of them into Shrewsbury bears and sold them to the tourist info office so I know these ones are all over the world.  I love the though of the smiles I have spread all over the world.
6. I taught all my 3 children to cross stitch [and even went into their school and taught the children there] and we were featured, as a family, in a magazine when our eldest daughter was commissioned to do two cross stitch pictures to commemorate a church bell ringing link up between a local church and a church in Sarasota, America.  We even went over to Sarasota and were hosted as a family by the church people as a thank you.
7. I now live in the same house that my family have lived in for over 60 years although it has changed much in that time and when I was born there was 8 of us living in a third of the house that the two of us now live in.  Back then we had no bathroom and no running water and my cot sat at the foot of Twiglet's bed in the same room as Mum and Dad's double bed!!  Happy memories.

Thanks again Sam for making me use the old grey matter this time on a Monday morning.  I would like to pass this award on the the very many versatile bloggers that read my blog [you know who you are].....all the clever people that juggle busy lives, their families and all the challenges life throws them and still find time to craft and create wonderful things.

Nearly there....

Yesterday I finished knitting the squares for the latest baby blanket and last night I sat sewing all the squares together while I watched telly....yes I do have to admit it was a late finish but I hate to leave anything in the middle  :-)

All I have to do now is crochet the border  :-)

WOYWW...

It's been another week of fun and celebrations for me.  We have had fab 4 days hosting our Dutch visitors with lots of fun, laughter, sight seeing and showing off our wonderful family.  Sunday saw the second birthday of my blog....I struggle to believe that I have been blogging for 2 years but I'm aware that lots of water has gone under the bridge in that time.  I have blogged a little about it in the last couple of posts so if you would like to know more feel free to check it out. 

Today is that wonderful, midweek day of crafting exposure all over the world....so many now join in the fun and they all link up on Julia's blog.  Please feel free to pop over there when you've finished here and join in.

Today I am showing you my table full of finished knitted squares....only another 4 to go then it's time to sew them all together and crochet the edging.

I'm also showing two little children's baking aprons I have been asked to make.  They are for 3 year old twins who love baking.  I have printed out the horizontally flipped lettering on paper, transferred it to bond a web then cut it out in white fabric so I can applique it onto the front pockets.   :-)

Finally I am sharing the latest scan picture we have of my youngest daughters third baby, a brother for little P & L.  I think he looks so much like his daddy.  He is breech as yet.....what intelligent baby would spend 9 months standing on their head by choice eh?  :-)

That's about all from me for today.  I need to get the little aprons finished and have a few other sewing jobs waiting in the queue.  Hope you all have a great week.  Don't forget to make every day count and keep smiling.

Learning to share...

We have had a couple of very special Dutch friends here for a few days staying with us [you know the sort?...you meet them on holiday in France in 2000 and say if you are ever over in England then pop and see us....and they did!....and we have had at least one holiday a year together ever since :-)].  Good friends are a blessing and these are the sort that even though we only meet up once a year its as though we have never been apart.  We love them to bits.

We usually meet up on common ground in that we usually have a week together in a cottage in France but the last few years we have met them for a holiday in cottages in England.  Of course, this year has been pretty hectic with work and family developments and when they rang us just over a week ago asking if they could come here to stay we jumped at the chance.  It had been 3 years since they had seen our family so we had new family members for them to meet  :-)

Saturday night we had an evening of fun and laughter.  Sadly our son and his girlfriend are over in Fuerteventura at the mo on holiday so they missed to join in the fun [of course I'm sure they were having plenty of fun there too  :-) ].  We had a warm, dry evening [if a little cloudy] and a BBQ in the garden.  Our little granddaughters, of course, were here with their Mummy [plus bump] and eldest daughter M [plus twin bump] and her gorgeous other half  B joined us too.  It was a very special evening....I felt 6foot tall with pride  :-)

I thought you might like to see a few snaps of our little girls learning to share  :-)

'Which button do I press to get this thing started?'

'That's it.  Now hold on tight L'

'My turn to drive P.  Give Nanny a wave'.

'Now P don't get too clever!'




Happy happy memories  :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

2 years of blogging....

I took the plunge on 3rd July 2009 to start up a blog....the idea was to write it to record life here at Sewing by Annie's [a bit like a diary] and along the way to put a few smiles on the faces of the folk who just might stumble on my blog.

So what has changed since then?........

• I still aim to record a little of what is going on here but I now have 169 followers and many of those drop in regularly to leave wonderful comments.  Many of then I would now call friends although only a very few of them I have actually met in person.
• Back then I just had 800 or so customers that visited me for sewing alterations etc and now I have over 1090 and my sewing business has gone from strength to strength.....I love it.
• Towards the end of summer 2009 I found a very special blog called Stamping Ground...it was written by, 'The Queen of snoop', Julia and she had started up a group of crafting bloggers who on Wednesday every week were taking pictures of their crafting spaces and 'exposing all' on their blogs.  I took the plunge and joined in the fun and have been completely hooked ever since.  There are some really talented, creative people out there and the world seems a much smaller place to be.
•  Early 2010 I joined a group started by the wonderful Fi over at MarmaladeRose.  Fi encouraged us all to spend 20 minutes of our day crafting of some sort.  It could be sewing, knitting, crocheting etc and, I know I spend my days sewing for work, I started also putting aside at least 20 minutes for creative crafting for fun.  Of course there have been the odd days when I haven't managed it but mostly I still do at least 20 minutes every day and still love it.
• In Jan 2010 Twiglet [my much older sister  :-) ] and I were encouraged to open up our blog shop and since then we have been given a lot of positive encouragement in filling the shelves with wonderful crafty creations [we have even sold some of it too  :-) ].
• I now have 2 wonderful little granddaughters and have another granddaughter and 2 grandsons on the way.....I feel very proud to say we are filling our little bit of the world with lovely young people.

What a lot I have to celebrate.  Please join me in raising a glass to the next 2 years.  Thank you to all who call by here.  Please leave me a comment if only to say hello.

Cheers!