It's been a long, long time...........

Well. it's been a while.........In the past 12 months we have moved house, Husband is taking early retirement! and i have got greyer and more decrepit. The house backs onto a river (see a theme there?) so husband can go fishing, is nearer work for me so that i can walk instead of using the car (i'm full of good intentions) and a bit smaller than the last one. I still have my sewing room (should be a dining room, but what the heck) and the majority of my fabric is still in the spare bedroom, although i'm sure there's a bed in there somewhere!!!!


We still have quite a big garden with a long veggie patch and room for the chickens (so i can still attempt my 'Good life' dream although very small scale) and i have spent the autumn making jams and chutneys to store in my pantry. I've never had a proper pantry before and rather overdid it, using all the blackberries and apples from along the riverbank, so i have my very own jam mountain at the moment (it keeps the relatives and neighbours happy though as i keep giving it away).
I really loved the previous house but it is so quiet here, the neighbours are great, we can take the dog for walks along the river and canal and best of all.....I can still send the husband off fishing when he's getting on my nerves..............

But i need it!

Someone talk me out of it , quick. I was innocently :) browsing ebay when it jumped out at me, a FULL ROLL of black fabric. Only £40 (or offers), only 5 miles away, it must be an omen. I've no idea what i would use it for, no idea where i would be able to hide it so husband didn't see it, no idea how long it would take me to use it up, BUT I NEED IT!!!! So please, before Debbie the rogue digit does it again, TALK ME OUT OF IT !

If i see another damn chicken.......

If i see another damn chicken i swear i'll scream. I made the mistake of knitting a couple of fluffy chicks, the kind with the creme egg shoved up their bum!, for the grandsons. First it was Syd(8), "Nanna Julie, can you make 2 for my girlfriends?"followed swiftly by "can my girlfriends have some too?" (Lenny, 4). Not too bad in itself you might think but then it happened.
Syd (the really thoughtful, helpful one) decided that it would make all the girls in his class very happy if they could all have one too, and yes, Lenny had to have the same.
So here i sit, sewing beaks on these (30+) chickens while cursing the day i started knitting them in the first place.

Is it just me?

I love where i live. The view from the front window, especially in the summer, is great. We can sit and watch all the barges going up and down the canal, the people on them wave as they pass, the ducks and swans come to be fed, all in all i can't imagine a better view. So why are we about to move, you may ask? Yobs, Hooligans, Louts, Idiots, call them what you will, the outcome is the same, they seem intent on making everyones' life miserable.

In the 12 months we have lived here our van had its tyre slashed whilst parked on the street, my car was written off whilst being stolen from the drive, we have had items stolen from the garden and the downstairs corridor, eggs, snowballs and heaven knows what else thrown at the windows. The worst thing was our window being put through by a drunken yob at 2am one Saturday morning (although we were the lucky ones that night as he also wrecked 3 cars, 2 vans, another house window and wrote a car off further down the street, all on his way home! and only got charged for the one where the owner had photographic evidence of them doing it!!!!!!!!!!!!), which makes me ask: Is it just me or has the world gone mad?

Do these people have no parents, no sense of right and wrong, no conscience? Do they think it's fun to damage peoples property, have them laid in bed on a night listening for the next installment of their mayhem, climb up on their cars and jump from one to the other while their friend takes photos on their mobile (latest episode at 3am this morning) I have 2 grown up boys and they never did anything like that because they WERE taught right from wrong, they realised that actions DO have consequences and most of all they were taught RESPECT. The latter being what seems to be lacking most these days.

Anyway, rant over, i am now resigned to the fact that nothing i can do will change the mentality of these (people) so in the interests of a quiet life i am moving to a quieter area,( although my dream of living in a field with no neighbours is just that, a dream) and hopefully a place where i can have a good nights sleep for a change, although i will miss the view!

oops! I did it again !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, it was like this...........You always know it's not going to be straightforward when it starts that way. I HAVE AN ALIEN FINGER, at least that's my excuse. Picture the scene, 1am in the morning, can't sleep, nothing on TV, flicking through Ebay, browsing fabrics (you can see where it's going now can't you ?) Before i know it i'm the owner of 20 mtrs (that's right, 20 mtrs) of upholstery fabric!
One minute i'm watching it and the next my alien finger has bought, and paid, for it (do you think there's any chance my husband will believe that one ?) It's not that it won't come in handy (someday) more the fact that if any more fabric turns up the grandsons may have to sleep in the shed when they stay as their bedroom is the overflow storage from the sewing room(and do i mean overflow). So i have made a decision. From this day forward the alien finger will be called Debbie, the dodgy digit, that way if (when) it happens again i can look my husband in the eye and say with all honesty DEBBIE BOUGHT IT!

Are you bored yet?

Well, i've gone and done it, my first attempt at a blog. Hope i don't bore you to death on my first attempt. For as long as i can remember i seem to have been a magnet for waifs and strays, especially cats, hence the name 'The stitching witch' (everyone i know thinks i must have been a witch in a former life) and i love sewing. At the moment i have 1 cat, Smudge, 1 dog, Tilly, and a lovely husband called Stephen although at times it feels like i have 3 kids instead.
We all live in a cottage beside a canal, i work evenings at the local YMCA (the waifs and strays theme continues) and my escape from all things mundane is my sewing room (or Julies emporium as my husband calls it, if it's needed it's probably in there somewhere!). I'm a self confessed fabric addict and tend to accumulate remnants that i convince myself 'will come in for something' but end up stacked in piles waiting for inspiration to strike (maybe one day!!!!!!)