A & H Crafts

Ive had a busy week getting ready for our roof arriving on Monday 12th its on its way across the water I believe but to be honest I will not believe it until I see it on site.

Anyway Ive had back ache since I did my last run so I have not done any running this week instead Ive been giving my table lots of coats of clear matt varnish.

Here are the before and after photos.

Ive put back all the ironmongery and as i couldn’t get the corner metal brackets off I have painted over them, but I may distress them with some sand paper but have left them for now.

This table was going to skip when we moved a few months ago and for some reason I gave it a reprieve, I am thinking of using it in our sun room in the new house but will have to wait and see.

As the heading says just when you think all your planning is OK you find out that its not, well that’s what has happened to me this week.

As ive mentioned before we are building a new house and are having a special roof designed and made off site and when it arrives it’s basically a kit and the fitters piece it all together which means you have a watertight roof in a matter of days.

Now this roof has been booked to arrive on the 5th July since the 5th May and all the other things involved have also been booked and in place since that time, i.e. crane, fitters our builder/stone mason all working on making sure the building is ready to receive this roof on that date.

So on Monday I started phoning all parties involved making sure they all knew to arrive on the 5th however imagine my surprise when I find I cannot get an answer from my contact here in England about the roof and then my phone calls start being diverted to Ireland.

Well in a nutshell my contact here in England no longer works for the company (based in Ireland) and then I am told they still have to finalize some dimensions and my roof will not be with me until sometime week commencing the 19th July.

At this point I rant a little but not too much and after many phone calls in the day I am told someone from Ireland will be over to see me on Wednesday and my roof will be delivered on the 12th.

Sure enough the man arrives on Wednesday and take loads of measurements and assures us that  the roof will be delivered on the 12th but some steel they were also supplying he thinks will be best if we get it and have fitted as this is a complex roof with a lot of glass at the back.

He says he will get details made up and sent over to us so that we can arrange for it to be fabricated in time so it’s on site when the roof arrives and is fitted.

Thursday came and went and no details and my husband is not the most patient of men and it doesn’t help that this part of the build is out of his control, so on Friday he asks me to start chasing Ireland for this info but also can I  take a velux window (for over the front porch) to our window suppliers so that they can spray it the same colour as all our other windows we are getting from them (they said they would do this as we are spending such a lot of money with them).

I got back about 1.40 sports day at my daughters school started at 1.15 so I think ok I will just check the emails and try and get there for 2.00pm and catch the last hour, Oh no,  husband comes back you have to keep trying Ireland I need this info to take to the fabricator, well I phone many times and there’s no answer at all and bearing in mind its the world cup 1/4 finals days I assume they have shut down early but husband says please keep trying so in the end before I know where I am its 3.00pm and time for me to collect daughter from school.

As soon as I got there I could see she was upset and tired we got into the car and she just started shouting and crying ’why didn’t you come to sports day’ well I was gutted and also near to tears I had to try and explain that we had this problem all week and that I had to try and sort it out which to be honest wasn’t any help to her or me I was just as sad that I had missed her sports day and even now 2 days later I feel so bad.

I only agreed to building this new house for her future as husband said it would be far better than our existing home which we also built 18yrs ago.

He promised me this would be perfect and it would all be worth the upheaval, but how do you explain all that to an 8yr old.

In the middle of this it was her birthday on Wedneday so we went out for tea and needles to say I havent done any running for a week.

Ive done some sewing and I have posted my recent project below and we went for a bike ride last night but now we are  going out for a run before it starts to rain and I hope that this coming week will be better than the last one!

Ive been wanting to make some bunting for ages and finally got around to doing it this week.

I cut a triangle template at 4.75″  x 4.75″ using the pazzles. The fabric is a scrap bag of Moda material, but because the scraps are various widths i cut strips of all the different samples into lengths of about 2ft and sewed two strips together to give me enough width to use the template.

I sewed two triangles together right sides facing using a 1/4″ seem, turned them the right side out and pressed them.

I used bought bias binding which is about 1″ wide folded it in half and sandwiched the triangle inside it.

I used a decorative flower design just for a bit of extra detail.

This bunting is over 16ft long so Ive taken a photo of it just draped over the toy box and another close up.

Its for our craft room in our new house when we move later in the year.

Well here it is all finished and I have to say I love it. I have used zig zag stitching as my main quilting and a wavy line stitching down the long sides.

This is shown here on top of the toy box I painted recently and its for our new craft room when we move.

I chose the stripe originally and matched all the other colours with the help of the lady in the shop, it has all the colours of our crafting equipment in it.

Ive had itchy feet so to speak where crafting is concerned I still have all my stash packed away as we will be moving again in a few months but this mirror was one of the few things that came with us when we moved into our temporary house in march and i don’t really know why i kept it.

Its a fairly good size about 20×15 and used to hang in our ensuite.

It was a washed beech effect wood frame so i painted it a few weeks ago when I did the toy box and today I decided that I would etch it.

That was really because the etch cream happens to be in one of the large storage box’s that I can get to.

Ive seen a bird on a branch with a birdhouse somewhere recently on the net I have no idea where and I dont even know if it was on a card or layout anyway I have not been able to find it at all so I decided to make my own again based on an image I found whilst trying to find the other one.

I cut it on the Pazzles using vinyl, then transfered it to the mirror and etched it.

Anyway I think it turned out ok.

Well I woke up last Thursday to the main PC not working after it had done a big windows update.

To cut a long story short had to have a new hard drive and sound card anyway back up and running now.

Did some sewing last night and made this bag for my daughter.

She wanted a flap with a magnetic clasp fastening I had to look on the Internet about how to fit that, anyway she loves it.

Ive decided to sell my craft robo, as now I have the pazzles i do not use it any more and its been packed away in a box for ages which is a shame as it needs to be used.

Its got about £78 worth of extras with it and I am asking £130.00 Ive put it on eBay in my shop here Here if anyone is interested.

My stock of Pazzles Home Decor  Wall Art Vinyl has arrived, it is available in my website shop here

It comes in 12 great colours and each roll is 12″ x 48″ long but you can also buy it by the cut length of 12″ x 12″ if preferred.

Just click on the item image in the shop listing and you will be able to see all the great colours that are available.

I also have the transfer tape available, again in rolls or cuts to make getting your wall art off the sheet and into place easily.

This is Pazzles wall art vinyl but there is no reason why you could not cut in with a Cricut Expression or a Craft Robo but as its 12″ wide you would have cut to it to fit a Robo.

Well I missed my run on Wednesday night so I have started my week 3 run again tonight.

To my surprise I did it all without stopping, I know I was running slower but at least I did it all so I don’t have to run again now until Sunday.

Its my birthday in a couple of weeks and as Ive started sewing again after about a 30yr lay off Ive treated myself to a new machine.

I bought one a few weeks ago and all though its a perfectly good machine I am struggling with my eyesight and couldn’t see to do a button hole properly so I will be selling the machine and have bought this

http://www.sewingmachinediscount.co.uk/special-offers/brother/ms6nt/9273-c0-v0.htm

This beauty does it all for me and more even some nice fancy patterns. I dont even have to use a presser foot or peddle what ever its called, just push a button and it sews.

I am sure I will have lots of uses for it when the new house is ready.

We went to Arkwrights Mill at Cromford today and there’s a great little patchwork shop there. I wanted to get some fabric to make my frilly dilly bag but forgot to take the pattern with me.

My little girl liked these yummy fabrics and wants me to make her a bag so that will probably be my next project.

I will have to go back when I get some time, with my pattern and pick up some more great fabric for my bag.

Anyway I thought I would show you what she chose.