when the child's away...

It seemed strange having all the household chores done before ten and then the house staying tidy and straight until this afternoon. It also seemed strangely quiet, not that my son makes a lot of noise but just having no one else in the house was a change. Nothing cranking the music up couldn't solve though. Of course it also meant time to get back to doing my own things again.


I decided that today would be a good day to try and dye a coat I have had for ages. It is just a cotton duster style coat that has become very faded and just boring looking. Over the past year I have bean trying to decide the best way to give it a new lease of life. At one point I made lots of these flowers to sew onto it.


Then I thought of embellishing it with ribbon. Both ideas came and went. It has taken all this time for me to realise that the problem was the colour.

The coat was a blue-ish grey-ish colour so I opted to mix it with Deep Pink to see how it would turn out. Sadly the colour stripper doesn't work properly with blue based colours so I couldn't go for a lighter colour as I would have preferred. Anyway, it is still churning around in the machine at the moment so I haven't a clue whether it has been a success or not.

I also finally got moving on the octopus that has been a work in progress for way too long. I promised to make it for my nephew - he actually rang me himself to ask if I would make it for him. Well he didn't ring he's too little so his mum did that bit for him but he did ask very nicely all by himself. We are due to see them this weekend and I can't go empty handed.

The good news is that he at least has legs! I am hoping to get the body done tomorrow and then I just have to decide on the face. I always find the face the hardest part it is so easy to give a creature a crazed mad psycho face when what you were aiming for was cute and serene.

Also whilst enjoying a leisurely meander through various blogs I found out about this book which I has now been added to my wish list.