I'm Back

I've been on holidays and it has been lovely. Firstly we went to St. Ives to meet up with my brother and his family who were over from N. Ireland, unfortunately this was at the time of the floods and the torrential rain and hurricanes (not good when you're in a small dome tent!) I'll tell you about it one day, I think there may even be some photos!!

Then we went over to Portugal. We go all the time because my husband's family are all there, they live just south of Lisbon and it feels like home from home to us. Very nice indeed. Great weather, ate too much, drank too much but hey we were on holidays!!!

and so it was back to work this week. YEUK....

Our daughter starts her Secondary school next week, so we had the 'new shoe experience' which to be fair wasn't too bad this year - just the one shop produced the two pairs of shoes we needed.

Just before we went away I was busy making some Christmas samples which I had been asked to produce (more of that later - but if you can keep your fingers crossed it would be helpful thanks) - what do you think?

These are wheat & lavender bags.

I know they are in red and green but I tried to make them so you could use them all year around......

and then there are the Christmas cats. again their hats are removable so you can use them all year round....

and then my favourite Xmas stockings - I'm really pleased with how these have turned out.

There are a few more almost finished things on the table which just need the final touches and then they'll be ready to be photographed.

I've also got quite a few things on www.tuggle.co.uk which has gone off-line for a couple of weeks to have a revamp, but I'll be loading more stuff in the next few days and you can find all my products (a lot of which are one-offs) if you do a search under Lesley De Matos.

more will follow soon, and thank you for those of you who mailed me to find out where I was.

Lesley

Busy Weekend

This weekend we visited the National Patchwork Championships at the Sandown Racecourse, it it always something I look forward to each year and I have taught myself to go with a list of things in mind to buy which then controls the spending (yeah yeah).

This little selection came from Creative Quilting. The blue ticking is for a little doll bed which I am currently refurbishing and have made a nice vintage fabric quilt for it, and I thought that a matress would be good in traditional ticking. The stripe fabric next to that is for a project I have in mind to make for the edge of my table, I've seen them and I want one, it has a heavy pin cushion square which sits on the edge of the table and then hanging from it is a fabric box shaped thing into which you can put all your little cut off bits of thread and stuff. The pink pattern next to that will probably end up as lining for one of my denim bags, and the blue bit on the right I have no idea what I'm going to do with but I bought it because I liked it.

I couldn't resist this. It is my favourite Lecien fabric (I bought a few of these because you never know when you might need one!) and this little collection is going to be made into a little japanese style bag - brown on the outside, floral on the inside , lovely carved coconut shell button as a fastener and I might even do a little flower style design on the side, we'll see.

Then I saw these and thought they may be useful in brooch making, perhaps contrasted with some nice fabric. Note how I keep the info from the stand with the product and the bag, this is the only way I can keep track of where I got things, in case they turn out to be the best thing ever and I need more....

Oh and then there was a huge decision to be made, there was a japanese book which I really really wanted but at £25 my mummy head kicked in and said no, just take the ISBN number and perhaps ask Santa for it. There were so many lovely books, and I was attracted to this one (perhaps because I have some nice linen at home) and it is so fresh looking...

I recognised this because of the Panduro Hobby supplies mailorder catalogue, this is the Tilda range and I think normally it is in Swedish but this is an English translation version and has some lovely patterns and pictures and ideas. See what I made on Saturday night, just needs the final touches and then I have a nice little bunny.

I have started working on a new selection of miniature pictures and am currently adding curtains to this one

On Sunday we went to IKEA and I finally got some shelves to put next to my sewing machine so I can then clear up a bit!!!

I have signed up to put my craft items on a new webside called http://www.tuggle.co.uk/ , there are a few other bloggers already there as well so it's quite a little community. Apparently there is going to be a feature soon in the Daily Mirror (?) and Country Living are also going to be doing something.

TaaaDaaaa

Erin and Susan, thank you very much for your advice and assistance. I finally got my pictures against the white background - well at least it was close enough for jazz!!! They're still not great, but they are better than the first batch.

More to follow.......

excuses excuses

I've been busy finishing some more pictures and tonight I plan to frame them and take pictures, so there will be more to see in the next couple of days promise.

I've also been getting some stuff together because I have joined Tuggle (www.tuggle.co.uk) they are launching next week. More info when I get it......

I'm struggling to get photos of my things against a white background, I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but any hints would be appreciated.

Also, I've been moving all my sewing stuff from one room to another. Can you believe I'm trying to work in this mess!!! I'm hoping the light will be better in the conservatory and at least I will be out of the way.....

Once I get my covered board up on the wall and sort some shelves out and get organised so I can find things when I need them then it will all be lovely.

yeah yeah yeah. I've heard myself say this before.......

Lesley

WIPS and things

I am really pleased with this little embroidered picture.... it is only approx 8cm square but it really works well in this box frame. you can't really see, but there is about a 4cm gap between the glass and the picture which really draws you into the frame.

So having done one little house, I thought that it might be nice to do a row of them, so here is my first WIP, and I'm hoping to finish this in the next few days. I am planning a 'finish all the things sitting around all over the place' type of weekend , oh yes, and 'don't start anything new til you do'. yeah yeah yeah.

And there's more......

And here are a couple more which have now been framed. The Mary Mary quite contrary is almost my favourite. We were on the beach last summer at Meco in Portugal and my husband and daughter had gone off for a swim and I was just noodling in the sand when I noticed that there were loads of tiny white cockle shells all around so I gathered a little bag of them and thought they'll come in useful one day and sure enough here they are.......

The boat one is made with antique linen and also some old bits of trim which had been my mums so it's nice when I can use bits and pieces which had been hers, and it makes the piece that little bit more special.

and the little squashy things were just a bit of messing around really but I quite liked them, and then they needed little quilts as well. I could make those all day, but then what do you do with them all??? suggestions on a postcard.......

I'm looking forward to the weekend. My Dad came over from Belfast last weekend and has taken our daughter Lucia to Portugal to visit my in-laws (did you follow all that?) and they are back on Saturday night and then we have some friends coming for Easter lunch and we will fit in a couple of mega car-boots in the middle of it all. My favourite car-boot is in Ascot opposite the race-course and I am hoping to find some tray cloths and vintage fabric this weekend.

I'm taking the pictures to Sarah in Cocoa-Bean in Windsor, she has expressed an interest in them for the shop and I have a couple more to finish. My husband has said that if we have time over the weekend he is going to start doing my web-site, how exciting is that, I've got as far as setting up the www.countrygirlcorner.co.uk bit but at the moment it doesn't go anywhere, but keep watching because one day it will........

Country Living Fair

SO, having been inspired by the things I saw at the Country Living Fair, I have been really busy putting together some pictures using my lovely stash of antique linen and scraps of vintage bits and pieces.

My daughter has been trying to convince me to get a stall at the next Country Living Fair and thinks it would be a great idea (she was also asking if she could take a couple of days off school so she could come and work on the stall as well!!)

There are more in the WIP stage, so more pics will follow soon.

This is as well as some little squashy things I've been making and some cats and some sock creatures, needless to say the workroom is looking a little 'lived -in' at the moment........

more to follow