Sunshine!

Today, Scotland has been lovely! There really is nowhere nicer to be than Scotland in the sunshine. It was so nice that I took my makey materials outside:

And I made a whole heap of stuff! I made a neck cushion, to send away for injured troops:

You can find more information on this here. I also made this flower, all by myself!

All right, FINE, my sister had to give me a step-by-step-by-back-a-step-by-back-again read through on how to do it. My sister is truly a magnificent person, although she's a bit annoying. Here is a list of things she does that are annoying:

- she grows her eyelashes really long. 

- she has lovely long, thick blonde hair and she is a very slim beautiful person, the polar opposite of me (I'm a curly brunette, who could at best be described as dumpy)

- she is good at jewellery making. Her blog can be found here, go and say hello

- she's doing FORENSIC BIOLOGY at uni, and she's very clever.

- she's an exceptionally patient person. As proved by this conversation we had recently:

Me: Teach me how to make that flower.

Her: OK. *hands me wool and a hook*. Right, first you make a slip loop...

Me: WHAT'S A SLIP LOOP?!

Her: I'll show you. *she shows me*

Me: I CAN'T DO IT! I'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO DO IT! I'M RUBBISH AT EVERYTHING!!!!

Her: No! You can do it! Come on!!

Me: *suddenly motivated because she's so good at motivating folk* Ok-doke, maybe I CAN do it!

Her: Right. Right, you're doing really well . It's just...you're not really making a loop....but it still looks nice, what you're doing!

Me: *throwing the whole lot across the room* This is RUBBISH! I HATE THIS!

Her: No, it's fine, I'll start it for you...

Me: I DON'T EVEN WANT TO LEARN IT ANYMORE! DON'T SPEAK TO ME!

(I should point out that she recently turned twenty, and I'm six and a half years older than her but I'll leave the maths to you. In my defense, I'm only thirteen in my head.)

Anyway, after a lot of gentle guidance (her) and stomping about (me), I finally learned! Or rather, she finally taught me! She's wonderful, even if she does smell.

Right, parcels! Oh, so many lovely parcels! First, fabric for myfriendsnephewsquilt, which I love very much. It's a combination of cloud9 and Michael Miller, which is the best combination in the world if you ask me:

although after a lot of deliberation, I decided not to use the starry one. Instead I ordered more red and I am happy with the way it's all coming together. I got a very, very exciting other package too:

tied up with string and everything! And inside it was:

Her Maj!! Well, a jelly mold of her head, for the Jubilee. Isn't it WONDERFUL? Husband was so thrilled* by this, he had to lie down for several minutes** before coming downstairs to shake my hand*** and thank me profusely**** for introducing such a magnificent item into our house******

* frightened
** run upstairs to check the joint account, to see how much I'd paid
*** yell 'you paid TEN SCOTTISH YEN FOR THIS?!'
**** shake his head in disbelief
***** 'bringing even more junk in here' sez he, which I found a tad unkind. Luckily, I was too busy pretending to be Betty the Second to pay attention to him properly.

And that's this week! Whatever will arrive in the post next week...?