Loads of photos!

I am so bad at keeping up with this blogging malarkey! I kept thinking to myself during term-time "It's just cos of work, I'll catch up in the holidays"; 3 weeks in (that's half way!!) and I'm still being pants! In fairness, I was away for 10 days at Sandringham (the Queen's estate, don'tcha know?!) in the caravan, first with my mum, then with my darling OH. Here's a few piccies...

This is the gardens at Pensthorpe, where they film Springwatch. So beautiful, and as we are caravan club members, we get in for half price: that's £10 instead of £20 (£10 per adult), bargain!:

And some piccies from the aquarium.... An octopus:

Sea horses:

Giant sea turtle, who I had to talk to in a 'dude voice' because of Finding Nemo...he didn't look impressed:

Red squizzles!

Reminded me of the climbing nets on Super Mario, remember those?:

And the otters!! They are my absolute favourite and best:

Plus, I got my sewing mojo back! I have made a beautiful bag using an old dress that didn't suit me but I love the fabric. I used the tohoku tote pattern at "I am Momma, hear me roar". I am so pleased with it:

This was my first time using a magnetic clasp. It was so easy, and makes it look really professional... so I bought 3 more! I also used the skills I learnt from making my 241 totes to insert a couple of pockets:

And look, I bought labels! I got mine from Woven Labels UK as I didn't have to create a logo or anything, the gizmo on their site does it all for you.

I have also made a cover for my sewing machine. We spotted a pine table and 4 chairs for £30 outside someone's house the other day, ideal for us, so we snapped it up and so my sewing area is no more :( So my desk etc have been relegated upstairs and my sewing machine has to live on a set of drawers next to the dining table, so it needs to look tidy. I had been planning the design for a while in my head, so it came together pretty easily. Here it is on the new pine table:

And a better picture outside in the sunshine:

The fabrics are left over from my New York Beauty Quilt - notice in particular the petals, which were the middle piece left when I cut out two outside arches. A clever use of scraps, if I do say so myself.

And finally, hopefully a few of you dropped by and checked out my tutorial over on Lily's Quilts. If you missed it, check it out here. That was for the first part of my picnic bag/rug, that has bunting on one side and Union Jacks on the other. It's like a 4 for 1: bag, rug, bunting quilt, Union Jack quilt! I am hoping to get it all binded (bound?) and the handles on, and the tutorial finished by the end of the week, but until then here's a teaser: