Sewing bits and bobs get organized

Crafty hoarder by nature as I am, I love all sorts of tins, boxes and cases for my crafty stuff. A recent visit to a craft shop in the Daleside garden centre resulted in purchasing this lovely set of 3 metal tins :)

I just love the rose pattern on them. So feminine, so romantic, so ...Tilda or Cath Kidston ;) The labels on them are a nice feature too. They will go nicely with my Cath Kidston mug :)

It's high time to embrace that chaos I've had in my sewing stuff. The turquoise metal tin with roses does not belong to the set. I've had it for a year now, from Aldi ;) It nicely agrees with the overall rose theme

The sewing threads scattered around in various random jars and containers have all been moved into the biggest tin and already filled it up up to the brim.

The oddments of cotton threads I use for cross stitching ended up in the middle-sized box and the pins will live in the smallest pin tin.

From my past magazine subscriptions I've had these two twin wooden boxes :) Tidied them up as well.

One will hold all sorts of needles - sewing needles, tapestry/cross stitching needles, beading needles, crewelwork needles, name it all. Now it's my challenge to remember which box contains which needle type! Usually after a tidy-up, I don't remember where my things are! LOL 

Undoubtedly, I have a weak spot for the cute little tins for bits and bobs :)

The long doll making needles won't fit any any of my needle tins so they will be stored in the box compartments. Although I have never sewn a doll in my life, I came to find them so useful when I was knitting the "julekuler" balls. They will go right through the knitted ball carrying the yarn to make a hanging loop. Fast and easy and so convenient.

In my second box I arranged all my measuring tapes and row counters and some strings :)

All this tidying up and rearranging things in my boxes reminds me of my childhood. As a child I loved to rummage in my mum's two-tier wooden sewing box. It was always full of interesting objects like shiny buttons, round pearl beads, crochet hooks and sparkly embroidery threads. Actually my mum owns this box until today. The only difference is that some of thosebox items, with mum's permission of course, relocated to my boxes :) Like mother, like daughter.

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Woop, woop! Just started my 2 week Easter break and I'm planning 15 blissful days of crafing. Will keep you updated :) Hope you all have a good weekend x

In my free time...

Hi everybody and whoever pops in here for a peek :) Just a quick blog update on what I've been up to for the past few days... Well... There's been some cross stitching... My interest in making the tiny little x's on a canvas has come back after some cross stitching break (boredom?). Recently, I've reached out for some small cross stitched cards projects and I'm also currently trying to finish one of my UFOs - a set of 4 sizeable Easter cards that I've been stitching for 2 years now!

With Easter over or not, the stuff has got to be finished at some point! So I made a promise to myself that I won't be starting any new big projects untill at least some of my UFOs (= UnFinished Objects) will be finished and I've got at least 5 of them kicking around! Let the UFOs land! :) In the meantime, I will allow myself to stitch only some little projects like those little cross stitch add-ons you find attached to the  crafty magazines. They are quick to stitch and I won't have time to get bored :)

Today a colleague of mine, Andrea, presented me with another knitting book that has been given to me by her mum. The book is about knitting sweaters including the fair isle style, which I wish to learn to knit in the future :)

Love this set! The fair isle patterns are so pretty and they seem to be never out of fashion :)

Love this chevron top too! Uaaahh, I want one!

Really like the book as it's a good source of patterns. 

Thank you Andrea + Andrea's mum!!! x x x

Last Sunday I found at Tesco a new issue of Simply Homemade with these lovely goodies attached: "stitchy" stamps, mother of pearl buttons and a supa cute metal tin for pins - love it!

Think I have a weakness for pretty tins :)

Not just crafts on my mind. Been relaxing by reading some books recently. Trying to catch up with my reading targets and mind you, the statistics are always shouting that people don't read enough nowadays. Well, I'm contributing to those statistics then :)

Currently I'm rediscovering my favourite writer - Julio Cortazar, whose unique, magical, unpredictable, whimsical and dream-like short stories as if coming from the crack between the dream and reality captured my heart forever. So I grabbed my 2-volume set of book, which is a full compilation of his stories written throughout his life and I'm relishing them again. One by one. Just before my sleep. Strongly recommended :)

I'm reading the stories in Polish as the translation by Zofia Chądzyńska (Cortazar's close friend!) is a really good one and you get that thorough sense... deep meaning better :) Nothing lost in translation ;)

On my way to work I'm currently enjoying a totally different book - "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy - a postapocalyptic novel about the world facing its last days and about how humanity fights for its survival. Spooky, a bit disturbing, yet intriguing.

Well, I guess that's all news at the moment. Enjoy your evening and thanks for stopping by. x x

Martha