stuff

Thank you all so much for the comments on my Luka. The Boy was delighted to be told he is 'cool' with 'great taste', not to mention he has a fab jumper! The onset of puberty is making its mark so thank you so much for the self esteem boost! I bought a couple of pattern books at the weekend and hope to get stuck into the next project as soon as I can choose some yarn (and thank you for your advice there, too). I know if I don't get going straight away it'll be a long time before anything happens.

I'm having a house blitz at the moment, one that's been long overdue but now I've got stuck in, it's beginning to feel rather cathartic. I can see floor space, areas where the light hasn't got to in a very long time, even. And there is so much 'stuff' to be gone that I've talked the kiddos into staging a car boot. Admittedly not so keen on the outset, fair enough given it's mostly their stuff (oops!), the promise of splitting the booty 25% each way soon brought them round and all we await now is a warm, fine day!

Which brings me to the weather I suppose and I wouldn't be British if I didn't mention it at least once in a while. The last few weeks have been a concoction of torrential downpours that the chimney stack has reacted allergically too and found us flicking the boiler switch once again. Bright and beautiful sunshine with 20 degrees C one moment, then gales that perhaps forced the practically featherless robin out of his nest too early. The poor thing was doomed anyway but was sadly snatched up by our black and white feline before we knew what was happening. And suddenly, from nowhere, there was this urge to make myself a new dress.

Despite the commitment to doing other domesticated things, the feeling wasn't going anywhere in a hurry so I sewed up another Merchant and Mills dress shirt. This is number three (see one and two), which I think pretty much justifies the price I shelled out for this wonderful pattern last year. I know it pretty well now so it was a quick and easy fix, truth be told. The body of the dress shirt is taken straight from the pattern but I shortened the sleeves and rounded the hemline so it is now less shirt and more dress. A summer dress version, made with navy Irish linen and my new Saltwaters in mind. Actually, now that's it done I wish I'd shortened those sleeves a fair bit more but rather than changing things, I'm going to start wearing it straight away with a cardi over the top and thick tights (they won't come off for months yet!) and come the summer I'll be on that sandy beach, testing out those sandals in and out of the water. Do you remember when James Bond drove his Lotus out of the sea onto a crowded beach in The Spy Who Loved Me? Clearly there is no real comparison but all the same, I'm mindful of the fact that these leather babies are so very, very cool, don't you think?!

I took these photos using the self timer. No mean feat, deep blue not being the kindest of colours to snap, and focusing ain't the simplest of things when you're the wrong side of the lens as I've said before. But I'm guessing you'll be getting the general idea. Before I go there are a couple of ladies I really must mention here. Firstly, lovely Maider of Masustak Eguzkitan kindly awarded me a Versatile Blogger award a couple of weeks ago. I thank you Maider, for being so kind and thinking me worthy, but I hope you will forgive me for not playing the game properly. I'm so sorry but I'm just too busy at the moment to do it justice, I hope you understand.

Then there's Vanessa from do you mind if I knit. Vanessa kindly commissioned me to make an Iona dress not so long ago. I made it with some marled greeny/turquoise Irish linen, very similar to the blue fabric used in the Clare top, although obviously a different colour! You can see her blog post here, where she models the dress so well and says some absolutely lovely words. Thank you for such a fantastic PR job, Vanessa! x

And finally, the giveaway. Thank you to those who took part, it's been fun to meet some new bloggers and now I've got a lot of visiting to do. But as we all know, there can only be one winner so congrats go to you, Maider (again!), because your name was picked out of the hat by the Boy this morning! If you could let me know your address, a nice little package will be on it's way to you shortly. Enjoy, I hope you have a lot of fun with it!

I think that's about it for today! Have a great week, everybody.