Happy Friday!

before

It's been a busy few weeks round here, school Easter holidays which included half the family's birthdays and much baking, celebrating, eating and drinking. Happy birthday to my boys. 

after

• Spring has definitely been in the air this week and my thoughts have turned to growing stuff. I was given James Wong's Home Grown Revolution for Christmas. It's a really great book with some amazing plants that I have never heard of before.  Despite having a tiny, shady garden, I rushed out and bought some wonderful sounding seeds; Cucamelon, Tomatillo to name a few. Suttons seeds have a collection here. The book tells you about growing them, cooking them, after a few sightings of that glowing orb in the sky this week, it feels like time to get sowing. (These amazing raised borders are sadly not mine, but my mum's - I still had fun digging them though.)

 

Some great tutorials for you:

• Learn how to do a scalloped hem
• A great tutorial for a cute apron
• A gorgeous Starburst quilt pattern by Sukie

• What's on my sewing machine: heading towards the end of my medallion quilt. Still some work to go though as I have A LOT of these crosses to make, like most of the detail on this quilt, it never seems as tricky or repetitive as I expect when I actually get into it. I am very much looking forward to finishing this quilt but also a little sad about it too.
• The Great British Sewing Bee: tell me what you think. I have to admit, I have not been drawn into it the same way as I was with the Great British Bake off and after Tilly left, I have rather let episodes accumulate on the box. Are you enjoying it, should I give it a try? I would love to see more sewing on the TV, I did enjoy the Young Tailor of the year competition that was on some time ago. The skills and projects on show there were amazing.
• and finally, the obligatory pet picture, they made me do it.

Happy weekend all!