next time you travel….
… don’t leave the train tickets at home!
Oh, yes i did… i left home with everything (and the kitchen sink)… and forgot the tickets. Stupid me. fortunately i’d gone to the library to return a book that was due back before i left to go to the station and realised then that i’d left them at home, so i had time to jump into a taxi, go home (and ring Michiel to meet me on the street with them), then race to the station. I made it, but, boy, it was close.
Sitting here with Mum and Dad now – Dad is waking up from a nap to watch the World Championship Cycling, Mom is giggling at loldogs. We’ve had dinner and opened pressies (they gave me a pressie from their holidays, a lovely bracelet from Orkney), so we’re all relaxed and comfy…
Tomorrow: cooking lamb casserole and apple pie to take to my grandmother’s on Saturday, shopping and chatting with Mum. Should be a good day!! 🙂
I finally got the waistcoat and the skirt done last night. I was up till 3.15am, stitching the applique to the skirt – and oh! how my fingers hurt this morning! – but its worth it, they both look wonderful, and i’m really pleased with the bias binding i bought to finish the waistcoat. This is almost an entirely new outfit, the white top apart, the whole thing cost around £3! the waistcoat was made from 2 pairs of Michiel’s old jeans; all i had to spend on that was the buckle and the bias binding. Even the buttons for it came from an old jacket (I knew that time spent cutting off buttons and zips would come in handy!). The skirt was a pair of old jeans of mine where the thighs had worn thin; recycling it like this means i get more wear out of it. Even the material for the inserts, front and back, the colourful material, which was also used for the applique and the buckle ribbon at the back of the waistcoat was donated to me by my grandmother, so the skirt cost nothing except the electricity to operate the machine. So i’m really pleased with my new, thrifty outfit, and i feel much more confident about making more waistcoats in future. More pictures behind the cut, below.
Speaking of my grandmother.. today is a very special day. Its her 90th Birthday. She’s an incredible woman, at least to my mind, someone i admire very much and look up to. She, and her husband (who’s now dead) are the inspiration behind the blog, well, the “Stoneheads” part of it, which was the name for their home. She was a primary school teacher for most of her life (only not working when she had Mum and her brother, before it became acceptable for a married woman to work, after the war) but she’s always worked, in one way or another, even after retirement. She’s put a lot of work in serving her local community, the village where she lives, but she’s also a craftswoman – she sews & paints – and a gardener, something that she inherited from her father (and it seems to run in the family, as my mother is also a gardener). Gentle, but opinionated, well read & intelligent, there’s a lot to admire in her. And as i said on her card: youth is the gift of nature… but age is a work of art.
Happy Birthday, Grannie…. i hope you have many more!
I’m off to Birmingham in about half an hour – i may be able to blog from there, but if i don’t get time… see you all when i get back!
(more…)
~ Urbania to Stoneheads ~ 