Today

Today I had a rotten migraine, I haven't had one for months. Not sure what the trigger was but I had to go home from work, take some migraleve and go to sleep for a few hours. Felt better when I woke up, although still a little fragile around noise.

I am planning on going to a geocaching meet/event tonight. Hope my head holds out alright and it is not too noisy there! mmm, some hope. I am really looking forward to meeting other geocachers, especially those whose names crop up on the website. I have met some and it is always nice to meet people with the same interest. Andy is not interested at all in geocaching and moans and groans every time I want to stop off somewhere to find a cache. Hopefully I might be able to pick up a few caches tonight before the meeting starts at 8pm.

So from the last log it looks like I AM making another jeans quilt. Will have to gather some dark coloured jeans and some red material to make one to match Sarah's room. I enjoyed making the one that I have done already and am looking forward to making another one.

Jeans Quilt

I decided to make a jeans quilt after having seen one that my mum had made. I liked the frayed edges and appliqued hearts. So I collected together some jeans, a pair Andy's old jeans and a pair of Sev's and someone from work donated three or four pairs that she was going to throw out. So these were all painstakingly cut into 5 1/2 squares. I cut out about 130 squares. I think I will probably only need 120, but there may be the odd one or two that doesn't work for whatever reason.
Step two meant cutting out 33 hearts from some cotton material that I had bought. One with flowers on and one with strawberries on. The strawberries look very realistic. You could almost reach out and pick one. So these were cut out and appliqued on using a zigzag stitch on the sewing machine.



Then I randomly sewed the squares with hearts and the squares without hearts into strips of eight squares each. This made 15 strips of eight squares. I have laid them across the backs of the dining room chairs here. Then all of those 15 strips were sewn together to make the final top of the quilt. I was very pleased with the result. To make the edges frayed I snipped at them all, giving myself a blister in the process. Then put the quilt in the washing machine with a tennis ball. Don't ask I don't know why but apparently this helps with the intended fraying. Mine didn't come out as frayed as I would have liked, so I may need to pick and snip at it a bit more.

Then I sewed on to the back a nice warm fleecy material in bright red. It really sets of the blue jeans material and matches nicely with the hearts. So here is the finished quilt. It didn't take too long to make at all and I am very pleased with it. I might just think about making sarah a quuilt like this but with green hearts, or even stars. Then again if I could put sheep on the squares that would look really cool, but I don't know how to make sheep shapes to applique on - could be tricky.

My first FTF

WOOHOOO, I got my first First to Find (FTF) yesterday. The cache had been enabled on 6 Jan and I had driven past it on my way to work four times. When I saw yesterday that it had still not been logged on the website I though i woudl go for it and see if I could nab my first ever FTF. The snow was still on the ground, so the site was not as green as on the map! The main roads were okay to drive on but the road alongside the cache site was pretty snowy but Andy was okay driving on it. After a quick search I found it easily nestled at the bottom of a tree.
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=756dcac2-cc74-463a-aaaf-c505c53713c1

As we were close to a country park near where I work we thought we would continue on and take Millie for a run. When we drove up the country road towards the country park car park, there were loads of cars parked along the road. I thought "What on earth?" Then I cottoned on. Everyone had come from near and far to go sledging down the hills. We parked up and had a little walk. Millie loved the snow. Andy did a video of Millie rolling in the snow. When he gets it loaded up I will load it up here for you to see. She is so funny in the snow. There were loads of people sledging down the hill using almost anything that would slide. It was really great fun to watch.

We were so excited about going sledging ourselves we called the kids and told them to get something to use and make a flask of tea. We drove home and picked them up, made sure everyone was well wrapped up as it was very cold out on the hills. We took them back to the country park and we all had a great time going sledging down the hills and watching others doing the same. Even I went down twice. It was really exhilerating. Unfortunately I spilled the tea so we only got one cup! Then it started snowing quite heavily so we called it a day and went back home before it got too tricky to drive home.

Beautiful day for a walk

I went for a lovely walk this morning along the river bank. It was very cold, about 1C, but there was little or no wind and it was nice and sunny. I took Millie with me and we were out and about for about three hours. It was really lovely. At first it was peaceful with hardly anyone around, but nearing lunch time a few more walkers were around. The sun was rising over the sea. It was a very nice walk indeed.
Of course I looked for a few caches along the way and was successful in all but two which were very tricky. One was in a thorny bush on the slope of the bank so I found it difficult to balance and look through the base of the thorny bush. Maybe another time. I think I need to work on my training of Millie to go in for difficult finds! LOL. I will upload a photo of her enjoying the walk tomorrow.
Tomorrow is chores day. Enough of fun, frolicks and holidays and going for long walks. The decorations are coming down and I have quite a list of things to do to get everything up to scratch. Back to normal on Monday.

bitten

I've been bitten by a vicious little chihuahua. I apologise if anyone actually likes these little tykes but I never have liked small lap dogs that yap a lot. I like them even less now. We were sitting in our living room when we spotted a small dog running around the round. I went out and tried to coax it to come to me but it wasn't interested. It had a collar on. So I grabbed my coat and a dog treat and went after it. It still wouldnt come to me, perhaps the treat I had was not to its taste, but it did get close enough to me for me to attempt to pick it up and the little bugger bit me. Naturally I dropped it straight away but a few minutes later managed to corral it into a walled garden. I asked the owner of the garden to call the police. The police called the Animal Warden from the council and someone came along pretty quickly which was good because the dog was trying to get out but I had it cornered. I was worried it would try to nip me if it did get past me. Thankfully the Animal Warden managed to get it very easily. So that was that. Now I have a very sore finger for my troubles. I defintely don't like chihuahuas now.

It's Christmas time

It is the lull between Christmas and New Year and time to reflect on the year gone and to think of New Year's resolutions. Here are a few photos of our Christmas celebrations.

Sarah, Sev and Alice, despie being 19,18 and 16 stil wanted Christmas stockings. Did anyone order a toy boy! LOL. My four year old nephew had fun with a box on Boxing Day.

A few photos of us all at Christmas. This last one is of all Andy's parent's grandchildren.

Christmas Eve

Well the snow has all gone and it is much easier to get around now. I took Milie for a walk over he woods and she still managed to have a roll in what was left of the snow/ice. She was so filthy we had to wash her AGAIN when we got home. She met up with a 9month old labradoodle and the two of them had a great run around.

I have finished cutting up all the jeans squares for my jeans quilt. At some point over the holidays I will sew some red hearts on some of squares and then start to sew them altogether.

Well it is Christmas Eve and everything is done. The shopping - between us Andy and I have been to Tescos EIGHT times in the past two days! LOL. But we have everything now, finally. All the presents too. Off to church in a few minutes as I dont think I can stay awake until midnight.

Have a great Christmas and New Year everyone.