Pencil Roll and Bedroom.

A pencil roll that I made as a present -and  demonstrating why I should not try to sew on fabric with straight lines/patterns on it, but because it's full of pretty colours and patterns I really like it!

We share a bedroom with Potspie and Chop - not entirely by choice - but it means the room that could be a bedroom is a study/TV/book room - and it works out OK actually!  Our house here is L shaped, 4 adjoining rooms, no corridoors, kitchen in separate room outside and a bathroom off the biggest room.

Anyway yesterday we moved a big cupboard out of our room, and rearranged beds  - then I put some letters upon the wall.  They are scrapbooking letters I got in the States a while back.

Potspie's new shirt thing.

It has been a very long time since I made Potspie anything.  So I thought I would.  We go down to Kenya for some meetings tonight, and will be there for a week and half, and it will be colder than here, so the idea is she could wear it over a long-sleeved T-shirt.

I really enjoyed making this - I had gotten stuck-in-a-rut on a quilt (that I think I will just scrap actually!) and had been forcing myself not to start anything new till it was finished.   The result being that not much sewing was happening, such was my unenthusiasm for finishing it!  So, I decided to just leave it and make something fun, quick, and that used lots of nice fabric that I've been a bit paranoid about using 'cos I like it too much and don't want to use it all up, so end up never using it. (How silly is that!) (It doesn't help that being in Sudan I really can't buy 'more of the same', or even cotton print fabric...)

Potholders

I made potholders.

They are a birthday present for a friend.  They both have checks one side and birds the other.  The birds I got from JoAnn fabric when I was in the states. I went to the fabric measuring counter to do a price check, but it was too expensive, so I was going to leave it. Then the lady behind me gave me a 40% off voucher - which was very kind of her since I didn't know her - so I bought some. YAY.

Thank you very nice lady who I don't know!

I made bread, again, many times...
because it's fun, useful and EASY!   I can't believe I had so many problems before!

1,2,3.....

1 table top  - new and bigger - (thanks to my skilfull husband)
   The old top supports the new one!

2 loaves of homemade bread  (er.. one got eaten before i could photograph it!)

3 neighbours (who are very smiley but not in photos!)

4 very old pyramids

5 days and this chair WILL be finished (and will be used as a chair instead of dump everything place!)

6 guys on the back of a pickup truck

7 flowers (made into a lavender bag)

8 legs

9 patch (disappearing) made a while ago

10 cookies

Things I haven't quite finished...

Well, I like making stuff but sometimes it doesn't quite get finished...
I'm not very good at following patterns and I think half the fun is making it up as you go along.
In fact often when I try to do straight lines, follow patterns etc it ends up looking pretty er..well rubbish would be a good description.  Here are some things that I am enjoying and have enjoyed doing....

This crochet I started about a week ago and I'm doing pretty good at keeping going with it.  I think my plan is just to keep going and see how big I can make it...

I learnt to crochet when I was about 10 for a school project, but haven't done any since then, so I sort of had to reteach myself.  I think I need to work out what the stiches I do are 'officially' called so then I can follow some of the free patterns online.  The hook is a size 'n'.  So it grows quite easily!

This is going to be a big cushion. I started it ages ago (well 4yrs ago) when i was visiting my parents in the UK. My mum let me use some of her many coloured embroidery threads so I just started sewing flowers. It's a bad photo (needs ironing etc), but hopefully you get the idea.

For a few years it stayed in England and then about 2 yrs ago it made the trip to the US and then a year ago to here!  The fabric is fake suede stuff. And I will just keep on sewing flowers on until it's all filled up.

This I also did a few years ago.  I once went to Liberty (in London) and ogled over their fabrics and bought 2 bits of Kaffe Fasset stripey fabric.  I kind of like how it looks on the stripey sheet thing (kikoy) underneath.

The trees are 3D with thread and beads. I think it will be a cushion. But it would get destroyed very quickly here, so I'm not sure what to do with it.  Anyone have any ideas?

Back to Sudan

Well the last few days have been rather busy as we have been travelling back to Sudan.

We got here Tuesday morning, having left lunchtime on Sunday. So we have been trying to get some sleep - which can be quite challenging with a 1 and a 2 yr old.

This is a picture of our main/big room.

In Sudan it's really normal to have a bed (which is used like a sofa) in most rooms. The 'front door' is at the back in the middle. The metal shutters come right off the windows (there's no glass) which is really nice in the winter.

Karaama outside our house

A couple of months ago some of our neighbours held a (Sufi) Karaama (lots of LOUD DRUMS etc and kill a sheep type thing because someone's wife got well).

It was RIGHT outside our house.

Matt politely went and sat with some of our friends (neighbours).

I stayed inside and sang 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' very very loudly about a hundred times - attempting to keep Potspie and Chops asleep/get them back to sleep.

These are pictures taken looking back towards our house.

(The white 'cage' on the side of the house is for the car)

Home in Sudan

This is our house in Sudan.

We took these photos 2 years ago when we first moved in.

It has changed a little - we have tallish trees in our yard now!

This shows the kitchen (on the left) and our front door (the white double doors a bit to the right).