August...ing

 I thought I would do an 'ing' post as I am always stuck for a title, and it helps me sort my thoughts a little bit too.  I hope you are all having a lovely summer not that there is much of it left but lets grab a hold of the bit that is and make the most of it.   So here goes...

Riding my new bike, for the first time actually this morning.  My husband has been out on his quite a bit recently after converting it to an an e bike.  The problem from riding straight from our house to get any where was the hills coming back.  He has added this option just to use when you are shattered and need a boost getting up the hill.  It has worked for him as he can now go much further knowing that he can get back up many hills.  He wanted me to join him but I only normally do cycle paths, today was the first time for me on the actual road (with a bike that is, I do drive a car).  Sunday morning seemed a good idea to me and fortunately a lot of it was still cycle paths and canal paths.  We rode from out house to the city centre and around the canal paths there.  We did nineteen miles I know he would have done more without me but I enjoyed it.  It is now raining so we chose the best time.

So this above is Victoria Quays in Sheffield, quiet a few places where I was very close to the edge of the canal!

Listening to The Keeper of Lost Things, I am still undecided about listening to books in this way it is the voices that seem to annoy me.  Am I alone in that? Some of the narrators sound as if they are auditioning for Shakespeare and would you really read a book like that in your head, even with the non fiction books there seems to be too much emotion.  Well that aside the book is not bad.

Reading Those who leave and those Who stay by Elena Ferrante and  Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver, the first is digital and the second is in actual book form from the library as our library is now open for orders. 

Making quite a few things over the last few weeks, this last week I have made a dress from the burda August edition in a lovely stretch cotton jersey from Minerva.  I had to make quite a few changes, it was quite loose and sack like in shape so I have added shape and removed the back vent as that would have made it quite baggy. 

That little purple flower button was in my stash and it is just the perfect match  think.  I have also made some little coin purses and listed these in my etsy shop. 

They each have a little pocket inside for cards or notes.

Watching a German series on netflix called Biohackers, I really enjoyed this but it was only six episodes long.  It has been left as to make another series but worth a watch if you are wondering what to watch next. 

Planting some winter pansies and Viola, I am hoping that we will get a bit of colour from these in the winter months. I have some more lettuce on the go and Basil and my giant tomatoes are just starting to red.

Enjoying my last days of the summer holiday, I am really never bored and can never understand when people say they don't know what to do with themselves when they are  not at work.  

That is all for now, take care everyone. 

 

 

Summer Days

Hello everyone I hope you are enjoying the summer, we are trying to make the best of being at home.  My husband had two holiday days last week so we went to Chatsworth gardens on Friday.  It was hot so we left the dogs at home with my son, we did see a few dogs being pulled around exhausted and they did not look happy so I think we made the right decision.   The gardens are beautiful and I am glad we had a look but we both agreed that the estate is so large that next time we will pay to park and explore the wider area but not pay for the gardens now that we have seen them. 

We took a picnic and I am glad we did as I remember when we visited at Christmas there was not a great deal for me to eat.  We found a nice spot near some ducks on a bench and had our lunch there.

There were people swimming in the river and really making the most of the good weather, there were also families with children playing on the waterfall steps.  We thought it was nice that they let them do this as some places would have come and told them to stop in this world of health and safety gone mad.  At the first sign of anyone having fun there is usually someone with a clipboard ready to put a stop to it. 

 I was about to add another image but I have tried three times and this new set up keeps changing my font to blue and underlined no matter how many times I change it back or try to remove the underline!  I am losing my patience with it.

I have just been weeding the garden, this took me a lot longer than I thought it would, I also had a go at taking some hydrangea cuttings while I was out there.  There are now three in pots, I followed the instructions as I read them online so now it is just a case of waiting to see what happens. 

There has been some bag making this past week and I have also added a make up bag, I thought I would do some smaller items for my Esty shop as sometimes people may not want a bigger gift.  I have to say that I end up taking quite a bit of time on the little things too as I end up faffing about with fabric!    The bag I made I used a panel I created some time ago called cathedral window, it has been sitting waiting for the right project.

There I am going to say goodbye for today as this new set up keeps playing up!  I may have to change to a different platform if this nonsense continues as I have tried every tool at the top and it will not behave.   Have a good week everyone.

Burda Summer Dress

I spent yesterday making a summer dress from the July issue of Burda, it was the only thing that really grabbed my eye in that issue but that may not have been helped by the over use of pastel colours in a lot of the styling throughout  the magazine.  These are not my favourite colours to wear so I suppose any garments made in those colours would not naturally attract me, also I found a lot of the styles in this particular issue a bit boxy. 

So for the dress, it was nice to make up once the original pattern was traced off.  As usual I went off and did a few things my own way I do find the instructions to be a bit vague which is just as well as I rarely follow them anyway but that could be problematic if you are uncertain about what you are doing. 

For the neck I chose to use ribbon rather than the suggested cord and I also shortened the dress before adding the bottom frill as I thought it would be a bit long for me otherwise.   There was lots of pinning while on the mannequin as that gave me a better idea about the gathers and also if the fit was looking ok. 

I will share a few pictures here but I am saving the rest for the Minerva post...

Overall this is a very loose fitting dress so any sizing issues I may have had with some of the other magazine patterns would  not really apply here.  I think it would be a great dress for all sizes and abilities.  The most time consuming part was arranging the gathers evenly at the shoulders, wrists and hem.

How is everyone else on blogger finding this new layout?  I am uncertain whether to revert back to the original format but is that me just being resistant to change?  I think it is when you are used to just quickly doing things a set way then someone comes along and changes everything, it just takes longer. 

Here is my fabric set up in my new room, that is a bit different too as I still need to cut out downstairs as that is where the table is and the other day I  kept forgetting things upstairs. It will take some adjusting.

 It is so much brighter up here I have to say, the computer is there as I was listening to a podcast and I know that is not a very practical place to put it but I wanted to be able to reach to forward through all the adverts!

We don't have any holidays booked so this week we are having a meal out and then hopefully a bike ride on Friday.  My husband has spaced out a few holiday days so we can make use of them that way, I have seen a few people have still ventures abroad but I don't think I would be able to relax wondering about quarantine on arriving home.  There are a few interesting properties here in the UK we have seen for rent maybe October time, we will wait and see what happens first.

Have a relaxing week everyone whatever you are up to.