Today I had a lovely relaxing time making these great big kiss blocks for Pippa for Sew Euro-bee an….

Fun to make, quick and easy…just the sort of bee blocks I like! If you’re interested there’s a great tutorial here.

There’s nothing quite like a little gentle sewing on a Sunday afternoon to set me up for the week 😉

Helen

I love coming home. Always. Even if I’ve been doing something really, really nice, or visiting somewhere really exciting. I always open the door and let out a big sigh and just feel glad.

Home. Where I can be me. Where I have my stuff and can do my things and where I always feel safe and cosy and contented.

I admit that I’m not all that wild about the unpacking or the laundry mountain or the sudden chaos that always prevails when we come back from holidays. I could do without having to rush straight out to pick up the cat and hit the supermarket.

But once those essentials are taken care of and I can close the door in the knowledge that come hell or high water I will not have to cross the threshold again today, I can more than deal with the mess.

I like to take things slow and get myself back into the swing of things. Light a fire, put on some candles, contemplate a simple, late dinner….. I even feel a modicum of pleasure at the prospect of cooking after a week of eating way, way too much in restaurants. Scrambled eggs on toast sounds like a real treat. Flannel pjs and a cup of tea. No make-up. An early night after a nice bath and a little read of my book.

Sleeping in my own bed.

Can anyone better that?

Helen

I’ve had my eye on things on the web made with honeycomb stitch for a while now…it looks a little tricky and I wasn’t 100% sure how to do it.

There’s a pattern for it in this book…(that I’ve been wanting to use for ages)…

It’s called VJunkie and apparently was inspired by vampire blood addicts from the True Blood tv Series. (I kid you not). I think Ms Yu and I must be of different generations or something – which isn’t to say that the pattern isn’t fab, because it is…but further than Twilight I do not go…

So here is my version of the same. Decidedly unvampirey. In fact so girly that the 16 year old I was provisionally knitting for rolled her eyes and declared that she wasn’t 6 and did I really think she would wear something like that. ‘Wait till they’re finished my dear’, said I, but between you and me, they are going to be very twee, very twee indeed. But that’s OK. I can do a little bit of twee every now and then. When you’re almost 50 you really don’t care anymore and will wear pretty much anything!

What I will say, is that what I have rechristened the honeycomb stitch is a sinch. Easy peasy and apart from miscounting rows you really can’t go wrong.

I learned something new today.

That’s always a good thing.

Helen

(Thanks again to all the peeps who left lovely comments yesterday – you are the BEST! You know that, don’t you! I don’t know what I’d do sometimes without all my wonderful friends out there in the ether!)

I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to comment about their experiences of combing working and family and going back to work after a long break….it was great to see that I’m not alone and that it’s do-able.

I realize that I have to stop trying to be supermom and super housewife, or frankly super anything. That’s a tough one because there’s a perfectionist hiding in me and I’m a big organizer, but I think I need to just let things go a bit and relax (while secretly hoping that someone else will pick up the slack….)

I certainly don’t have the energy I had 20 years ago and I know that if I overdo things the first result is pretty much guaranteed to be a migraine, which isn’t a lot of fun for anyone, me especially. So sleep is going to be high on the agenda and also perhaps trying to have one day a week when I get things done and another where I specifically don’t. I really like the idea of a day for me, when I don’t do housework and shopping, because you know as well as I do that that sort of work is frankly never done and I could so easily end up playing catch up all the time.

It’s been hard for me to realize that I can’t manage to blog every day like I have for the last few years….I keep looking at my declining stats and wincing…but maybe that isn’t such a bad thing. I had got pretty addicted to checking how many people were reading and trying hard to keep the numbers up, but at the end of the day that’s really just putting myself under extra pressure that I don’t need. I’ll probably never be one of the big time bloggers, but you know, that’s OK. I have a lovely bunch of readers and I’ll blog when I can and when I have something to say or to show – and I hope you’re fine with that.

And now I guess I’d better get back to keeping the show on the road…

Have a great Wednesday!

Helen

It’s a good one!

Helen