Bits and pieces

I'm afraid this is going to be a mish-mash of bits and pieces.  Its either that or nothing and I guess its marginally better than nothing!  One day I may manage to be properly coherent.  I was going to say coherent again but I think that is making unrealistic assumptions about my past blogging habits.

We have had the most lovely weather recently.  Not the proper weather for this time of year - it has been mild and some days beautifully sunny with such soft light.

 I suddenly remembered I had never shown the pot mats I made over the summer.  I think that was an unintentional intentional slip of the mind because I am slightly embarrassed about the first two I made.  But then I thought, really, I should own up.
We had lovely new wooden surfaces put into our kitchen in the spring (its amazing what new surfaces, and a working cooker, can do for a small not hugely practical kitchen) - and I got very protective of them so decided to make some pot stands.  I also thought I'd practice some different quilting and machine sew on the bindings.
I tried covering the feed dogs on my machine (they don't lower) but couldn't get the hang of moving things through the machine so I just made things up and went with the motion the feed dogs create.  The big blue mat was the first time I'd tried a sort of stippling effect and I quite like it - sorry, its not all that clear in this photo, I'll need to try again with something bigger and be brave and have another go with the feed dogs down.  I just used up odd bits of batting so they have all come out different thicknesses and shrinkages. 
The binding on the two greyish ones is a disaster - I thought machine binding would be quicker and potentially neater - well, potentially it may be neater but not when I do it!  I think I made the binding way too wide but even taking that into account it is a dreadful mess.  The two blue ones were done 'properly' and handsewn at the back - much neater even if not quicker.
So, rather a long saga to explain my four pot stands!  But they do get used a lot and there's nearly always one in the wash....in fact don't look too closely at the big grey one as it should have had a wash before the photo was taken.
Katie and I had another visit to my Grannie, her Great Grannie, and the pair of them had a lovely time chatting to each other.  I think I have mentioned before that Grannie has dementia.  She's not really the person she once was and doesn't remember much more than her very closest relatives and even then gets very muddled but one thing she hasn't lost is her love of small babies.  I think she'd have held and talked to Katie all day.  It was so good to see her like that and for a short while it was like having the real person back again.

And here's my cheeky little Katie at 10 weeks.  I will calm down on the photos of her eventually, I promise, but its such a good way to have a record of her and how she's changing.

And with her, equally cheeky, and very proud big sister.

So, there's probably lots more I should be saying but I think that will be it.  I am missing sewing so much just now but its really not happening.  My evenings are almost non-existent.  I generally finish feeding Katie around 7.30pm but since I'm still up a couple of times, at least, each night to feed her and up for the morning guddle at around 6.30am (if Katie hasn't decided the day should start earlier) I have to head to bed not long after I've sorted out all the odd jobs that still need doing after she's in bed.  Oh well.  I've been trying to make Islay an elastic waisted skirt for the past fortnight and it still isn't finished. I have been experimenting with shirring and have discovered it is a b***** to unpick so that hasn't helped- but still, it is rather slow progress!

Hope everyone is well and enjoying the non-November weather.