The secret to successful child-rearing

I recently bought some iron-on embroidery transfers from Grandma's Attic. (Note to self: stop buying crafty things online, remember your car rego is due, Christmas is coming, pups are nearly due for their vaccinations etc! It is an addiction, and you need help!) These were so cheap, and they actually work, giving a clear, crisp outline with minimal ironing on! Unlike my experiences with iron-on embroidery patterns from here.

The above is from a set of 1930s tea towel designs, one for every day of the week. Only, I am planning to make these ones into a quilt, if I finish them all.

I also bought a set of iron-on puppies and herbs, so lots of embroidery to be getting on with.

I was restless on the weekend and started flipping through old, old magazines for some vintage inspiration. I love old women's magazines, especially from the 1940s, even the ads and recipes reveal so much about the period. For instance, lots of inventive and imaginative, if unpalatable, butter substitutes to deal with rationing. And lots of lard - yuck!

But the ad below came from a magazine in the early 60s and I laughed so much at it, I just had to share it - click on it to zoom in:

Drunkenness - the answer to all problems!

A couple of milk jug covers

Here is one of the beaded jug covers I made through the week. The pattern is one I found on the antique pattern website I referred to in my earlier post (and which I am too lazy at the moment to go and link to). I had enough thread to make another which I did last night, using this free pattern:

I love the little three dimensional flower on this one, although the loops (at least in my version) are a bit biggish and aren't going to stop pesky flies from getting through. Then again, I don't really have any jugs that need covering so I guess it doesn't really matter.

One of the goodies I bought online  recently was this little Christmas stitchery book by Natalie Bird. There are twelve 4 inch stitcheries, which can be made into a quilt, pillow or other things as well as another one for a stocking. One of my favourites is this little penguin:

Checking in

I thought I'd better check in and write a post so my poor blog doesn't feel abandoned.

It isn't that I haven't been doing anything worth posting about, but I certainly haven't been finishing anything. My house is a trail of half-finished little projects at the moment, none finished enough to be blog-worthy. I wish I could take some annual leave and just settle in for a few weeks and do some serious crafting - I have 4 1/2 months annual leave accrued which does not make our auditors and senior management happy, however I'm a project manager and there's no one else to manage my projects so I can't take it right now. Maybe I'll get some time off over Christmas.

Right now I am working on a little crocheted milk jug cover which won't take much to finish so that will be one UFO down. I've also started an embroidered little tablecloth which is one of a bunch of kits I bought in a sale a few years ago for the only reason that they were about 80% off and I thought they were too cheap not to buy, even though I doubted my ability to finish such a project. The one I am doing at the moment is a stamped cross stitch design on linen. The thread is pretty thick and the crosses pretty chunky so it actually doesn't take that long. It is just a little boring. It might take me a bit longer to move this one out of UFO/WIP status.

I've also had a couple of slowish days at work so have spent a naughty couple of hours Googling to fight off boredom. Apart from a few rash online purchases (well, not rash, as they are absolutely gorgeous, but hardly necessary in a house bursting at the seams with craft goods and a projects list about 200 years long. I'll post more about these new purchases soon) I've also come across a couple of fantastic free resources I haven't come across before:

• Needlecrafter - hundreds of free vintage redwork and embroidery patterns
• Antique Pattern Library - a fabulous library of scanned vintage patterns, especially crochet

Just what I need, more projects worth starting!

And apart from all that, I've been spending more time gardening now that Spring is here which is fun, but eats into my crafting time. My herbs and lettuces and spinaches and rocket and leeks and spring onions are all being very productive, my finger eggplant plants I'd left in since last year and just looked like sad sticks have bloomed back into life, and I've been growing a lot of new vegetable plants from seed. I've just transplanted tomatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers and zucchinis and am still waiting for some other seedlings to grow and mature to transplant - a couple of more types of tomato, another type of eggplant, rhubarb, beans, and I forget what else. Oh yeah, okra. I've never eaten okra before and am told it is quite horrid, but I wanted to grow something different.