Another catch up!

Where on earth does the time go?  Last Monday when I posted a blog, I had every intention of trying to get back to my daily blogging habit.  Here we are more or less a week later and zilch!  Not to mention we have moved form August to September.

I can't believe that we are now at the end of summer and autumn is just around the corner.  The summer here was terrible.  We didn't really have a summer. I heard on the news that it is officially the worst one on record for donkeys years.  Yeah, like I needed to be told that!

The school holidays just flew by. Simon has already been back a week. This coming week will be the first one of his new 4 day week. Because of the way the school timetable works he will be off Monday one week and Tuesday the next.  Next week is a Tuesday week.  

The teachers always moan about the autumn term as they say it is a long one.  It isn't really, just a few days extra maybe.  I have always found that it flies by as it is all down hill till Christmas.  When our children were young, I would begin my Christmas planning in September.  I had to as it  was the only way to afford it by spreading the cost.

This year I have been planning Christmas since January!  Only because I wanted to try to make a lot of my gifts this year and that takes planning and time.  No way can you make loads of presents if you leave it until the last few weeks.  I am quite pleased with how this is going as I have quite a few made. 4 out of my 5 children are already sorted with homemade things.  I need to start on the grandchildren soon.  I am really loving making lots of things but just wish that I had more hours in a day.  

Today I have been working on a quilted sofa throw which is a Christmas gift.  I spent most of Thursday getting it tacked together.  The last one that I made, also a Christmas gift, wasn't as good as the previous 2 that I made. It had some wrinkles and I  ended up unpicking some and redoing it.  So this time I decided to tack it to within and inch of its life.  It took forever and killed my knees, back, wrists, hips, shoulders.....come to think of it...it killed me full stop!

I have found that the best place to do it is on my bedroom floor as there is lots of room but that means crawling around.  It was worth it though as it has turned out super smooth with no wrinkles.  I quilted it today using free hand stippling which took ages.  I am getting better at stippling.  I will take some photos and post a "Make do an Mend" blog soon.  I have loads to show of what I have done over the holidays.

Simon is continuing to work on the garage extension every spare minute that he gets. All the concrete panels are in place now and the roof trusses were delivered on Friday so I guess that is the next job.  

I had more to say but it is nearly 11pm and I am tired.  Simon is just doing some drinking chocolate so I think an early night is in order for once.  I shall endeavour to get back here tomorrow.  Hope you all have a good week.