...mish-mash

• After the bungled first attempt at a nostalgia-themed birthday T-shirt for my son that featured in my previous post, I had to wait a day or two for a replacement "blank" T-shirt to arrive. In the meantime I decided to have a look through the little collection of my children's art-work I've kept over the years, and came across some tiny paper collages that he made when he was a little boy at primary school. Although they're very faded, you can still see the careful cutting and sticking that went into making them, and I thought they might make quite an apt design for someone who just finished building his own house last year and is still obsessed with power tools! I photographed them on a sheet of yellow card and then added a black border on the computer. I checked and double-checked the positioning of the transfer on the T-shirt, and literally held my breath whilst peeling it off. Thankfully it worked perfectly this time, and the T-shirt went straight in the post for his birthday the following day. "It looks cool", said my eldest son. "Very creative", said the recipient!

• Next up, an Extra Pocket Bag for my daughter, made from a pair of completely worn-out (but formerly favourite) jeans. I was pleased to be able to incorporate the back pocket, but not so keen on the stretch denim fabric, which kept bunching up in front of the presser foot when I was inserting the zip. I'm pretty sure there's something I could have done about this, but was far too impatient to figure out what, so there was a lot of stopping and starting and tugging instead.

• We did a couple of long park-walks at the weekend and I had a lovely time squirrel-spotting. They are everywhere at the moment, and it's very amusing to see the XXSCat dog's utter bewilderment when time after time they vanish into thin air behind a tree trunk. She spends ages looking for them, in every direction except up!

• We're off to Seahouses for three nights this weekend, and if the recent hot weather continues (fingers crossed) then sun-screen and sun-hats will be in order. I can never find hats to fit me properly - a combination of thick hair and a large skull mean they are always either bone-crushingly tight and uncomfortable, or simply won't go on at all. With all the sewing I've been doing this year my DIY confidence levels are pretty high, so I downloaded a free pattern off the internet, sized it up a bit, and made myself a fully reversible "bucket hat"  out of remnants I had in my stash. It actually turned out a little on the big side, but that just makes it feel even more airy and cooling to wear. I love it!

• Flushed with the success of the hat I also made myself an Extra Pocket Bag out of the remnants of an old pair of jeans  belonging to my husband. They've previously been used for patching other jeans and there is very little of them left now - two lower leg sections, the other back pocket and the button fly, which I feel could come in handy for something I haven't quite thought of yet! I'd been so busy bag-making for other people that it seemed only fair to make one for myself, as I didn't have a zippable everyday version. Since it was only for my use I was 100% lazy - made the wibbly-wobbly top-stitching along the zip into a "design feature" by adding a few more wibbly-wobbly lines of stitching, and didn't even bother with a lining - just zig-zagged the raw edges together on the inside and called it done!

• I have to include this photo of a perfect rose from my Mum and Dad's garden. It's my absolute favourite colour for a rose - all the gorgeous peachy shades between yellow and pink - simply divine!