Caterjunes: a whaling term.

On Wednesday evening, I was fortunate enough to be able to see The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, at the Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden.

It is one of my absolutely favourite musicals, so needless to say it was a rather successful night!

The musical contains a rather large amount of audience participation, which might not be to some people's taste. That said, it can be quite easily ignored by just keeping your head down! The story follows a group of children taking part in a spelling bee, alongside a few members of the audience, where we follow their successes, failures and young romances! You may have noticed, but I'm finding it really difficult to talk about it and not babble, there is just so much to say.

If you want to check it out, I would seriously recommend it, I paid £7.50 for a standing ticket, so it is possible to do on a shoestring student budget! You can get tickets here.

Friendship star!

That is apparently what this patchwork pattern is called. It makes little to no sense to me.

I said when I posted my first square, that once I got back to uni I would have to hand stitch, due to lack of a sewing machine. So this is my first EVER hand sewn patchwork square. I hope you are all as pleased with this as I am! :-)

It was so relaxing to just sit and sew whilst talking to my housemates, Skyping the boyfriend, or watching CSI (addiction). It obviously wasn't as fast as with a machine, but doing it like this means it's not your sole focus, but more of an accompaniment to other things. I think I will hand stitch all of my quilt now, there is far more of a feeling of achievement, and it is MUCH easier to control the accuracy!

All of that said, I have recently received news that made me bounce around my house; my Grandma has bought me a sewing machine! 

It's a 3321 Singer Talent machine. I haven't got it up in London yet, but already I absolutely love it. I think we're going to be very happy together.

I'll let you know how I get on with it!

Image credit: Stephanie Robyn and www.singerco.co.uk

In times like these.

In these times of dissertation madness, I have but one thing to say.

GO!

Fabric shopping..

Just sharing some lovely fabric I picked up for some patchwork the other day.

I'm making a big sampler quilt for my first project. It's progressing really slowly, but I don't mind about that, it's just something I pick up every now and again.

I'm sticking with a floral theme, obviously with some non-patterned light relief, but I don't want the colours to match, obviously within reason. Look back at the Eni Meni quilt I posted, something like that!

I'll keep you updated.

Also, I say obviously way too much.

Image credit: Stephanie Robyn

In the spirit of love...

My favourite thing to do at this time of year is to pick Valentines Day cards. Obviously. Because it would be weird to do it at any other time of the year.

I'm a very pedantic card shopper, everything about the card has to be completely perfect, so much so, that I usually make my own. That said, the Valentines Day spread at Selfridges hits the spot EVERY year.

I was wandering through the other day, and spotted this Smythson Valentines card, which was just so lovely in the flesh.

Sorry about the quality of the image, but this is the best I could find; the text is Shakespeare's Sonnet 116.

It does come at quite a price though, I recall somewhere in the region of £10, which is slightly excessive for a greetings card, even when it is as luxurious as this one!

I think my boyfriend's reaction to the price tag has confirmed that I won't be getting this in the post on Monday! 

You can shop the Selfridges card range here. Share the love!

 Image credit: www.smythson.wordpress.com

Success!

I have actually completed something! It somewhat took over my life, but the feeling of achievement is just sublime.

At the expense of my dissertation, and everything university related, I started this cross stitch pattern that my Granny dug out for me.

I'm very proud of this.

I was a bit daunted at first, I wrongly assumed that everything would be as easy as possible and the colours would be on the fabric already, I would essentially just have to 'colour it in'. Ha. No.

Once I'd decided where on earth to start it was relatively easy and I couldn't put it down. It's now hanging proudly on my bedroom wall!

I would tell you where you can find the pattern, but I have absolutely no idea, I think it's quite old.

I'm going to try something more challenging next, but only after I have at least 4000 words of my dissertation! I'll let you know how that goes...