Having not really made any soft toys before I thought I’d start with something simple - this doll from Cloth Kits who are based in England. It was a fun and easy project to make taking about two hours. Tilly gave her a big hug when she first saw Kiki (now renamed Sophie) and then promptly put her in the ’sick bed’ to receive medicene and have her temperature taken. I just need to make some clothing for her next, probably a sweet kimono or something similar.

Update: It’s taken me a few days to notice that I’ve sewn her arms on back to front, will she notice?… ahem…

I was also very tempted by their women’s clothing kits especially this skirt designed by the very talented Rob Ryan.

There’s been a flurry of activity in the garden while the weather has been so warm - new raised beds and a greenhouse built. The raspberry canes are in (rather belatedly), peas, beans, tomatoes, beetroots and potatoes. The garden is transforming daily before our eyes and we’re managing to spend a good few hours a day outdoors, let’s hope the warm weather and clear skies continues. We have a family of about nine frogs in our small pond and beautiful blossom on our apple trees, Spring is wonderful!

Last year was a different story… we had a dreadful summer weather wise, the highest rainfall in the UK since records began - sadly many people were flooded out of their homes in our town - it rained almost daily for 8-10 weeks (no joke) with frequent flash floods, so it feels asthough we’ve gone through two winters with little respite, hence I’m making the most of the good weather while it lasts.

I really enjoyed this little project I completed for a friend’s new baby - it made a refreshing change to make something other than laptop sleeves! I used the tutorial for the baby blanket from Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts. The blanket is a soft flannel fabric trimmed with Lecien’s Alphabet soup print. It was my first attempt at double-fold binding, it took a few evenings to hand sew but the blanket is quite large. The cushion was made to compliment the blanket with a fun elephant print, navy blue cord and alphabet print.

Before making the cushion gift I did this trial version for my little one to ensure I was happy with the proportions of each fabric section. I’ve had the vintage storybook fabric for a while and paired it with a light blue needlecord and vintage trim.

I finally got round to making some new macsacs out of the new fabric I’ve had for a few weeks. I found this darker linen from my local haberdashery store and I’ve also started using a black denim as a number of customers had requested darker colours. The prints I’ve used are from Heather Bailey and collections from Tina Givens, Alexander Henry and Michael Miller. Most of these laptop sleeves are now available in my Etsy shop and will be updated to my website soon.

I’ve recently been getting acquainted with Emily of Ravenhill and what a pleasure it’s been. Emily kindly agreed to doing a swap with me - some vintage fabric for a handmade doll. The doll is called Liv, she has some lovely hand embroidered details and the face is very skillfully hand painted. Emily has just updated her shop with more of these lovely dolls.

In the parcel Emily also included these two fabrics which are really sweet.

The shelves went up this weekend so now we have lots of storage space. I finally unpacked a box of fabrics and trimmings that was recently donated by Tilly’s Great grandmother (she’s in her early 90’s now). This family circle biscuit tin is so reminiscent for me of the 70’s, we would always have at least one tin in the house, the lurid pink wafer biscuits were my favourite along with the jammy dodgers. There’s lots of unused bias binding, old lace trimmings and ribbon a big bag of ric rac which will surely find itself onto some dresses for Tilly.

These crocheted placemats were in the box too, made by a friend of Grandma’s - I never used to appreciate the time and skill that goes into crocheted pieces like this, but I see it differently now. I’m not quite sure what I will do with them yet, save or re-purpose?

I took Tilly swimming the other day and stopped by briefly at the antique’s place down the road. I picked up this very sweet yellow dish, it’s by Carlton ware and will look perfect in my craft room (when it’s finished). I also found a large bag of unused embroidery floss (50 for £10) which seemed good value.

One of my aims since the New Year has been to re-organise our house. We moved in just over a year ago but haven’t done much to it, so it’s all very neutral and plain at the moment. We pulled out all our frames the other day from the attic and counted 25 in total and half are empty so I think a shop around on Etsy for some prints is called for soon. With house improvements in mind plans are afoot to re-decorate the lounge and kitchen so we’ve been looking at colours from Farrow & Ball’s traditional paint range and finding lots of inspiration on Flickr.

As a solution to the lack of storage space in the house so we bought two bookcases from Habitat which will enable us to finally unpack a few of the boxes of books gathering dust in the attic. I decided to also designate this cupboard for my fabric collection which seems to work well for now. It’s all in one place now apart from the bulkier fabrics which are out of sight.

There are a few thrifting shops that I visit when I can - recently I picked up this little bag of vintage sewing items, along with some embroidered linens. Actually, the shops are more like Antique shops with lots of dealers selling furniture and collectables - but a number of them sell vintage items and clothing which I tend to gravitate towards. One of the shops specialises in french antique furniture and has lots of items I’d love to buy.

I was really pleased to find these letterpress cards on Etsy and bought a set of four - one was for a friend’s new baby and the other three are destined to be framed for my daughters’ bedroom wall. The designs are really sweet and the colours are lovely.