Half Term Wednesday

Already I'm halfway through my week off work. It's always the way. Last week dragged. This week is whizzing by so fast that if I blink I will miss it! Loads of things to do on my virtual list as always.
For those of you who don't already know ( via my other blog ), some good news about the HG's cancer.

I'd lain awake fretting, every single night, since the HG's first follow up scan on January 19th and when a letter hadn't ploppedthrough the letter box I sent Richard, our lovely Macmillan nurse,  a long rambly early morning email ( it wasn't the first ) and he always always replies so nicely and puts my mind at ease and stresses that I'm not a raving lunatic and that he's here for us anytime. Anyway, he went off and found out what was what and emailed me back twice in one day! 

So

Our response to the news was, I guess like when we got it, a tad underwhelming. We both breathed a sigh of relief and then just got on with the mundane. I texted everyone en masse, b cause I didn't want to miss people out. We phoned immediate family mind.  Masses of replies with the same messages of relief, joy, happiness just underlined the fact that we are surrounded with lovely lovely people  To be honest I think this paragraph should be on my other dedicated Kidney Cancer blog so I will just blatantly nick my own writing and copy and paste it in over there!! 

I will never fail to laugh at Mr Cutting's name. 

One thing that shows how cancer is relentless and brutal is how one of the lovely people I couldn't as a chum even though I've never met ( on Twitter ) expressed her joy at our news all the while dealing with the fact her husband has been given the news that his cancer treatment isn't working and that's it.   

Fucking cancer. 

So I am here finally getting a post to post and it's now Sunday already. I'm back at work tomorrow and we are launching straight into History week. The whole school are teeming up with another ( better off ) school and there are mass trips and visits and fun learning opportunities aplenty to keep us busy. I'm really looking forward to it. 

I've been knitting and sewing and generally pleasing myself this week.
So on Monday I casted on for my hairdresser. She's going on maternity leave and knows she is having a boy

For the first time ever, I knit both sleeves at the same time. A little bit of swearing is knit into this 

cardigan because the four balls of cotton did get super tangly a lot. But I persevered and found the perfect buttons to match in my button box. 

She was thrilled with it. I think it could have been a lot neater. So next I got out some sewing and carried on with the tunic top I'm making out of the silky jersey. I've tried it on sans sleeves - I've to do those next - and discovered two things. A. It's toooooo big and B. I missed cutting out the frill off the bottom!!! So naturally I've given up on it! For now. Plus the HG and Mr 19 would insist on coming home from work and want feeding! 

The bias binding caused me to lose my mind. Instead of saying, attach biding to neck crossing over at the V, it said a load of gobbedledy gook as per illustration. The illustrations ARE NOT CLEAR! I even brought the HG in to figure it out, who, being logically minded and able to see abstractly he saw what it was saying immediately, did so easily. This left me bristly towards this tunic. I am using it as a massive duster when it's finished!!! Or a tent. It's that big. But the walking foot on the machine is excellent and does it's job perfectly. 

I've also been fannying around with my new early birthday present that the HG insisted he buy me. I think it was part of our euphoria over the all clear. It's a fancy pants fabric cutting machine especially for quilting etc. Now I love my rotary cutter and practiced doing strips last year. I've paper pieced little hexi s that I cut out from cardboard myself and I now have ( from the sale ) a stash of pre cut shapes for paper piecing for when the mood takes me. I even bought some iron on freezer paper that makes it able to print directly into fabric for perfectly cut out shapes. I've topped that now though with this machine. I've said it once and I'll say it again. I am a spoilt brat! I know I have dear dear 

friends who live frugally and have decluttered thanks to that Maria Condo woman who will be recoiling in horror as I add to the already massive pile of stuff I have, but, each to their own!! I love my stuff! 

Anyway, it's magic! You can put up to 6 layers on at a time, whizz it through and voila! 

I got a set of dies - what they call the cutting bits - to make a Flying Geese pattern. So using up some of my stash left over from when I made the teddies, which is material I've acquired via friends and charity shops and cut price bargains ( we are quite frugal lol ) I have played about making some pieces or should that be geeses, which I think will eventually become a shopping bag or a project bag.

 I need to cut some more pieces today. Last night I was dragged from the machine by a decadent Chinese takeaway me and Mr 19 enjoyed. The HG is in Dublin on our Niece's intended stag do. We watched, on Netflix, the new show with Drew Barrymore. The Santa Clarita Diet or something like that - we found it hilarious and watched a few episodes. 

Any way here are a few shots of my Geese so far. I don't see them as Geese by the way, they are just 

triangles! 

Just playing around before I sew them into squares. 

Finally for the first time in years, I relented and relaxed my ban on having cut flowers in the house. I bought some pretty flowers to cheer up the drab left behind after de Christmassing the house. 

So on Valentine's Day when the courier delivered a box of flowers to me, I was surprised actually and I liked it! 

A huge massive decadent bunch of red and gold roses. 

I even brought out my Valentine bears! 

The flowers are opening out beautifully and I dressed the case with some sparkly lights and am pleased with the effect! 

I've also seen friends this week, read two books, caught up on a lot of cleaning and sorting. I've not done everything I planned but there's always Easter Holidays in six weeks for that! I've been on instagram a lot more and been delighted to see that my bird feeders are being visited now by lots of lovely little birds. Today's job is to clean and refill. 

There's probably loads I've not told you about. I can't remember if I told you about our trip to see Miss 22 the other weekend? I'll check back and if not, I'll show n tell ( which is what blogging basically is really ) about that. But until then, here's a canny shot of Freddie caught JUST at the perfect time. 

That's all for now 

Lots of love from 

Rachel *relaxed* Radiostar xxx