Monday morning woes

My apologies for being pretty incommunicado for the last few days. I spent most of last week fearing Friday and then every day since then trying to ignore the pain I had the dreaded root canal – now I only have myself to blame and, believe me, I’m being A LOT more careful about brushing my teeth – but whilst lying there on Friday I did feel like it was some form of torture meted out to those who don’t follow the rules. I felt pretty punished anyway.


To be fair the actual treatment wasn’t that bad at all and, except at the end, there was barely any pain. But then I got home and the anaesthetic started to wear off. Since then (although it has improved) I’ve had a constantly throbbing tooth…I’m starting to get a little worried because it is improving but it’s still really painful to eat – could help the diet I suppose I had wanted to eat solid foodstuffs at some point in the near future…oh well, just got to be patient – not one of my strong points admittedly – and wait for it to heal. I’m back at the dentists on Friday for the permanent filling so maybe by then/after that the pain will go away. Soooooo tired!

So think of me perhaps, sat at my desk at work, feeling far too sorry for myself and laugh at what a wuss I am!

I did get started on piecing together Granma’s quilt so I’ll post on that tomorrow, maybe after a nap…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The quilt that Granma made

I’ve been thinking about doing another hexagon quilt…I know, slightly mental, particularly as I was going to start focusing on other crafts and look at creating a range of home stuffs using recycled materials. I love the idea of creating a usable item out of some fabric that has a history and I do like recycling

But anyway, when my Granma gave me a load of her stash (including every colour bias tape you could EVER need – what to do?) there were a number of paper pieced hexagons in there. These are the ones that inspired me to make my own hexagon quilt. I think that they must have been made by some of her students as some of them still have names on them, I’ll just have to imagine the whys and hows though as unfortunately I can’t ask her anymore.  I think that’s the saddest thing about losing someone, all the questions that you’ll never get to ask them…

They’re a lot larger than the ones I made and in a variety of fabrics, not my normal choice of colours admittedly but I really like the idea of making them into a proper quilt. It’s not going to be the biggest quilt in the world as there are only around 50 hexagons but I’m wondering if somehow I can piece them together in a grandmothers quilt pattern – fitting I know. Well I’ll need to mull it over…and try to find the leftover batting from my first quilt…I put it somewhere safe?!?!

Carluccio’s – Reading

We had a lovely day out on Saturday, a bargainous day in fact as we used vouchers I found at Vouchercloud. Mr B said he’d treat me to lunch so I booked Carluccio’s where I’ve been wanting to go for ages but with our two main courses for one it was a lovely meal for a very reasonably price.

Mr B had a Peroni and fettucce con ragu di cinghiale (wild boar ragu) which was lovely though I thought a little bit salty and I had a glass of house white with spaghetti alle vongolle in bianco (clams). Mine was delicious, if a little too wet – not the easiest thing to eat tidily and not as good as Mr B’s Vongolle but it was tasty nonetheless. We followed this with a couple of coffees – no desserts as we need to stick to the diet a little bit (nearly half a stone gone now, only 1 and a half to go!!)

Unfortunately we then went to see Narnia (I LOVE Narnia) and it was stuffed full of kids who were too young to understand half of what happened and fidgeted for two thirds of the film – should remember not to go to the cinema in the afternoon in future!

But all in all a lovely day and somewhere I would go back to eat again.

Spaghetti Vongolle

Wild Boar Ragu

My very first quilt – finished!

I cannot believe it but finally, after nearly a year, I have sewn, quilted and edged my quilt! It’s by no means perfect and there are so many things that I would do differently but I love it – I’ve not stopped stroking it every time I walk past it

So we now have a lovely quilt for our bed and my brain is free to start dreaming about my next project…I’ve been thinking about opening a shop but more on that in the future!

My efforts…

 

 

Binding commences!

I cut up all my binding strips last night so hope to get onto binding over the next couple of days. The end if nigh, and this time I mean it!

I’m using a blue polycotton that came in the stash that my Granma gave me a while back, it’s sort of cornflower blue and matches really nicely with the colours in the quilt. I think it’s also fitting that I use it to complete this quilt seeing as she sadly passed away before I could show her it, I really wanted her to see what I’ve struggled to achieve. As a sewing teacher and an accomplished home sewer I wanted her to see how I was inspired by her paper pieced hexagons to make my own and, using some fabrics from her, how I’ve created something that will hopefully last a long time…oh well, maybe she can still see it

As I have not idea how to do this I’ve been looking out for tutorials for binding a quilt and I thought, maybe you guys might be trying this too, or contemplating producing a quilt – do! So here are the two best tutorials I came across, with different ways of doing it…

Crazy Mom Quilts – Hand sewn finish (or you could try Sew Inspired)

Christine Mann – No hand sewing.

Attempting to machine quilt!

Quilting the hand sewn paper pieced quilt

So very nearly there! Over the weekend, whilst trying to distract myself from Helga’s troubles I did quite a lot of quilting having finally got the even feed foot I needed for my machine. I definitely won’t claim that it’s the best quilting that I’ve ever seen but I’ve done it so it looks great to me Usually I’m my harshest critic but I’ve put so much work into this it’s hard to be objective! I do wish I had planned how the quilting pattern would look as I would have done it slightly differently but by the time I realised this I’d sewn about 50 lines and there was NO way I was unpicking them AGAIN! Room for improvement on the next one I guess…next one?!? What am I saying?!?

So a few pictures of how it’s coming along. There’s every chance that I’ll have it bound by next week. Going to get started on that tonight hopefully and then when Mr B asks if he can snuggle under it yet I can finally say yes….and move onto producing some of my other creations that I’ve had oh so many ideas for over the last few months!

The front and back

What a weekend!

Wow, I feel like I’ve been through a washing machine – frazzled, bumped and more than a little dazed!

Having driven home Friday night after work thinking how much I was looking forward to the (diet friendly) Thai meal that we had planned I decided to put the bunnies in their run before doing some Yoga…this is where it all went completely and utterly and horribly wrong

I found Helga, who had been fine the night before and when I checked on her that morning, flat out in the hutch looking only a fingers width from death. To say I panicked is quite an understatement! With Mr B at least another hour away from home I had to load her in the car and drive the 15 minutes to Henley on my own. Those 15 minutes seemed like FOREVER, I had to sing ‘Yellow Submarine’ to myself just to keep vaguely sane and not run myself (and everyone else) off of the road. It was the only song I could remember any words to at the time – not the best! I was just convinced that she wasn’t going to make the drive

But we got to the vets and I got her in there whereupon the vet told me that her bloat was so bad that it was probably better to put her down, there would be only a 10% chance of survival if she was treated…what do you do when someone says that?!? Never have I wanted to be an adult less – Mr B still wasn’t there and all I kept thinking was how she’d been fine that morning. Fortunately for Helga when I rang Mr B he said we had to give her a chance so they whisked her away for pain treatment as she was in agony and started treating the bloat. They were so good at the surgery, giving me some strong, sweet tea and pretending they couldn’t see my mascara all down my face! I was so grateful when Mr B turned up, he was so calm and settled me down. After an hour she hadn’t gotten any worse which was apparently the best we could hope for so they sent us home saying we could phone every hour for an update and that they’d phone us if she went downhill – we were REALLY hoping not to get a phone call from them!

So we spent the night on the sofa, watching Betty, terrified that she was going to go the same way (she remained ridiculously healthy though) after which we spent the whole of Saturday calling every hour and every hour she recovered a little bit more, tough little bunny that she is! But now she was really uncoordinated and kept falling over so the vet started to treat her for a parasite called E.Cuniculi – never heard of it before – and she started to improve even more.

To cut a (very) long story short, Sunday afternoon we were able to bring her home and she’s looking really well, she hates us for having to syringe feed her though (I don’t blame her, I hate myself a little bit whilst doing it) and we were up in shifts last night checking on her so I am super knackered this morning but we have a (seemingly) healthy bunny back and I am soooooo thankful! We’ve now got to treat her and Betty for a month for this parasite as apparently Betty could have it too, either through their mother or wild rabbit urine…because there’s loads of that in our garden?!? Anyway, fingers crossed that they both stay happy and healthy…and I get some sleep sometime soon

Also, to my lovely man, thank you for being perfect when you needed to be xxx

Shedd Aquarium – Chicago

I was hoping that the aquarium would be good as, other than the eating and shopping, it was the only thing in Chicago that I really wanted to do and I was thankfully completely blown away. WOW!

The Shedd Aquarium was absolutely amazing, full of fantastic features, amazing sea creatures and the biggest tropical reef tank I’ve ever seen! Plus the building it’s all housed in it just beautiful, with so much  gorgeous architectural detail, I did spend much of the time with my mouth open…when I wasn’t trying on stupid hats that is!

Everything was great other than perhaps the funniest show ever, it was THE funniest thing I’ve ever seen – we went because they had whales and seals performing but…perhaps it’s something that only Americans get?!? To be fair I think it was aimed at the kids but I couldn’t stop laughing at Santa descending in a canoe from the ceiling or the elves in wetsuits or the singing girls who looked so embarrassed! Perversely it was probably the most memorable moment of the day though so clearly I got something out of it!

I leave you with some gorgeous picture of our visit…

Sweetwater Tavern and Grille – Chicago

We were heading back from the Art Institute of Chicago, which was pretty cool I have to say – lots of gorgeous impressionist paintings, and we were so exhausted from all the walking and kind of just fell into this place on N Michigan Avenue. I’m glad we did!

Sweetwater Tavern and Grille is nothing special really. It had about 50 huge TV screens showing every news and sports channel ever which is not really my thing and our waiter was a little brusque but it was warm, we had a giant booth all to ourselves and they served a lovely bloody Mary. I was sold!

We also thought we’d share some appetisers as we weren’t really hungry enough for lunch but fancied a bite. Why, oh why did we not remember how HUGE the portion sizes are?!? Minutes later the most massive portion of Nachos and a huge number of Buffalo Wings arrived. Though having to munch through so much food did give me the excuse to have another drink Plus Mr B loved the beer names and had great fun drinking his ‘drool’.

The Sweetwater was a great place for a little (big) nibble and some interesting beers – a nice little find I think

 

Mr B's favourite - Moose Drool

 

House nachos and buffalo wings

Uno Chicago Grill – It’sa Pizza pie!

So when in Rome, do as the Romans? So in Chicago we HAD to have a deep pan pizza. I LOVE pizza but I love thin and crispy Italian style loaded with goats cheese or peppers or caramelised onions. Not loaded with huge amounts of mozzarella and pepperoni…So I came across the Uno Chicago Grill in my guidebook, opened on the corner of Wabash Avenue in 1943, there are now Uno’s all across America…would it be too  chain like? Would I feel like a silly tourist???

I wasn’t as excited about this as Mr B but I reserved judgement and…it was delicious!! They’re essentially pizza pies – not at all like the deep pan you get over here. I loved it so much I completely forgot to take a picture of it – how unusual

The other great thing about this place is how local it felt, it wasn’t ‘pretend’ US, Uno really felt like somewhere people from Chicago go to eat. But maybe I was just cleverly lied to!

LOVED the Uno Chicago Grill pizza, loved the atmosphere and LOVED their bloody Mary! Oh how I remember the days when I was allowed to eat cheese and carbs

P.S. Seriously want some pizza now…MUST keep to diet