I've been eBuying

Bumbaleerie Mansions was built in 1932 and I love it with my whole soul. As soon as we stepped over the threshold, I felt that the house had been waiting for us. Probably to paint over the lurid yellow the previous owners had in the living room, but that's neither here nor there. It still brings a tear to my eye, the memory of finally shaking hands with Steve 'Wide Boy' Estateagent, making small cuts on our index fingers and becoming blood brothers with the bank, signing our names in tears on the contract and skipping merrily to OUR (original 1930s) front door.

It's hard to say when the obsession with buying 1930s stuff happened. LIES! It started the minute I saw the house for sale on RightMove! Hahahaha! So now I'm on eBay roughly every four minutes, bidding for what I call 'Nice Stuff' and Husband calls 'What is this doing in my house?'

Here are some things I have bought from eBay for Bumbaleerie Mansions:

A sideboard for a FIVER! 

(Husband says I should tell the truth about this magnificent bargain. And I AM telling the truth, but he wants me to add that we had to pay £70 to get it shipped from Wolverhampton or somesuch so it TECHNICALLY didn't only cost a fiver. But actually, it did.)



Four Govencroft Jugs for a varying number of bucks. Don't want to be too accurate because I don't think I ever told Husband how much they were, and I really am too fatigued to get into THAT now.

Handy, isn't it? It's a bookend, a knitting needle holder AND a jug all in one! It's the Optimus Prime of the jug world.

A picture of a dog, from I think 1935 which turned out to be not only hideous but also very scary and sinister. It is now in the loft.

A postcard from Blackpool, dated 1932 from one lady to her friend. I love this very, very much due to my obsession with handwriting and also with 'things what are old'. It is the perfect combination for me.

Anyway, the point of this is: if you, like I do, simply type '1930' into eBay and gleefully scroll through twenty bah-millzon pages of unadulterated BLISS then sometimes you find yourself bidding on what others might call 'have you lost your senses?'. BEHOLD:

 Or, to put it another way:

A hundred million old hankies! Some with roses:

A lot with lace:

A couple of mad ones:

and a very special one INDEED:

a KING GEORGE VI CORONATION ONE!! FROM 1937! Can you even IMAGINE my excitement? I was BESIDE myself. I immediately summoned Husband, who refused to acknowledge the magnificence of the moment, apart from nodding and muttering 'Oh nice', which I don't even think he meant.

Listen, I have to confess, I was a bit worried about coming across an eighty-year old bogey but it didn't happen. They were all as clean as an eighty-year old handkerchief would be.

Now! Some making news! Due to not being able to start myfriendsnephews quilt, I decided to crack on to making a hexagonal one. Ooooooh, I hear you say, a hexagonal quilt? You must have nerves of steel! You are the bravest person I have ever even HEARD of! Yes, that's true, I am.

Well. I'm also pretty lazy. Making a proper hexagonal quilt takes ages because you have to cut individual paper templates, then pin them to the fabric, then tack in the seams, then overstitch them BY HAND, over and over and over again. And I obviously COULD do it if I wanted to, OBVIOUSLY it's not that I COULDN'T do it, which I COULD but maybe I think life's too short. So I am machine stitching mine. And I am cutting the fabric in piles. And I am not top stitching anything. Here's how it's going so far:

 The sharp-eyed will have noticed that there is not a picture of the hexagons sewn together. That is because the sewn together bit possibly does not look as good as the rose-tinted vision of perfection that my inner eye conjured. But it might if Husband irons it, which he is refusing to do.  I tried to explain that probably no-one had ever thought of doing this before (not true - there are millions of tutorials online, but Husband doesn't know that), and PROBABLY even just ATTEMPTING such a project made me some kind of VISIONARY in the making world, and PROBABLY HRH Michael Parkinson HIMSELF would want to come out of retirement just to interview me, but he won't have it. And it's not going to iron itself, so it is resting quietly in the sewing room until my next bout of creative genius.

The one in which I hate the post office.

Over the last few days I have been waiting on some very exciting packages to be delivered. One, ordered on Monday, arrived at work on Thursday. One, ordered on Tuesday, was delivered on Friday. One, ordered on Tuesday, came this morning. Two, ordered on Tuesday, have not arrived. One, also ordered on Tuesday, was not delivered by our postman this morning, because 'it is too big to fit through the letter box.'

Now.

I have a few issues with this. The package is relatively large because it contains enough fabric and wadding to make my friendsnephewsquilt. But it is only fabric and wadding, which, as I'm sure you're aware, is bendy and not heavy. Part of me finds it really hard to believe that the postman carried it ALL THE WAY to Bumbaleerie Mansions, tried to no avail to squeeze it through the letter box, and then valiantly carried it ALL THE WAY BACK to 'My Local Sorting Office'. Also, Husband and I were in the crib when the post came - would the Brave Knight Sir Postman not have just left it in the garden for us? Ah-ha, I thought to myself, he hasn't even bothered lifting it! So, I phoned MLSO and here's how I got on:

MLSO: Hello, ________ Post Office
Me: Hello, could you tell me if there's a package waiting for me?
MLSO: *suddenly inexplicably angry* NAME?!!.
Me: Em... Baroness Pilkington-Smythe the first
MLSO: WHEN was it DROPPED OFF?!!?
Me: Probably this morning, I got a red slip through the...
MLSO: Well, if it was THIS MORNING that you got THE SLIP then it WON'T BE HERE YET, WILL IT?
Me: I dunno, I thought I would check. I'll phone before you close to check again. Thanks for your....
MLSO: *sound of the dial tone as they have already hung up*

Me, to Husband: The post office have STOLEN from me! I am the victim of a CRIME! Phone someone!
Husband: I'll collect it on Monday.
Me: That's NOT THE POINT! They are the ROYAL MAIL! Do you think the QUEEN KNOWS ABOUT THIS?!
Husband: Em, well, she knows about the post office probably.....
Me: Someone should TELL HER! I bet SHE wouldn't stand for this!
Husband: Well, they close at 12.30 so phone again at 12 and maybe it'll've been dropped off.

At 12.05:

MLSO: Thank you for phoning _________ Robber Mail Post Office. Our opening hours are, Monday: 3.01 - 3.06, Tuesday : Closed,  Wednesday: 4.18.00-4.18.31, Thursday -
Me: They've gone home EARLY! My package is sitting abandoned and they won't give it to me! They have left it alone! I need it! They've stolen it!
Husband: *has given up trying to rationalise with me and is outside painting the shed*
Me: ...and they PROBABLY take the stamps home too, and they PROBABLY are having a good laugh at the people they have ROBBED, AND they'll have a lovely weekend doing things THEY like and I've got to WORK with NO SEWING to do! One day I will OWN My Local Sorting Office and THEN THEY'LL BE SORRY! They'll be SORRY when I'm in charge of the Post Office and I CLOSE IT DOWN!

I am still furious. I hate the post office.

What I talk about when I talk about making

Granny Matchy (not her real name) has her quilt! And what a dodgy quilt it was too. But I think she was pleased, even though it was so OBVIOUSLY handmade, as opposed to charmingly so. She wasn't so pleased when I gave her the invoice for the five (FIVE) needles that HER quilt had wasted, but that's another story (and also, not a true one.)

And THEN, my friend gave birth to the most beautiful baby in the entire universe so I made her a quilt too. Here is a rubbish picture of it:

  

It's such a rubbish picture of the quilt I was actually most proud of. It's Cloud9 and Rachel Riley fabrics, bits of it, and I really, really liked it. I wanted to keep it but husband put his foot down with a firm hand and I gave it over. And I was glad I did because I think my friend liked it.  Or else, it's doing a good job of lining her bin so win/win! AND another friend asked me to make one for her nephew so I got all the fabric ordered and now I'm in the horrors waiting for it to get here in case it is minging and un-matching and too baby-ish. It's no fun, this quilting lark.

AND THEN, I went charity shopping, after being spurred on by Loo at Jumbles and Pompoms, and got a fantastic-shmantastic pile of junk. First, an Accessorize clutch for £2.50:

Unt a pile of fabric-y type things:

Oh, nice! And I can't remember where I saw it, but I saw a picture recently of a patchwork blanket but the patches were all knitted. And I thought to myself:

Me: Eilidhbelle?
Other Me: Yes? What is it? I'm busy.
Me: Oh sorry. Sorry to interrupt. I was just thinking, that'd be a good use for the wool-pile.
Other Me: What wool pile?
Me: THIS one:

Other Me: I can put my hand on my heart and SWEAR I've never seen this wool-pile before.
Me: Husband can't hear us.
Other Me: Oh, yes. Of course. Good idea, Me! What a good team we are.

That isn't even all of the wool-pile, sadly. Here's some more:

And that's not all but I couldn't get a good picture of the rest of it. But you know how sometimes you have a fierce need to buy ALL THE THINGS related to your new hobby? And then you get them but you don't want to use them because then you wouldn't have them any more? And then you get a new hobby? And then you have to have a special sewing room to house all your crap? And then your husband makes you tidy it up, even though you hate tidy things? It's RUDE is what it is.

Right now I am waiting for four wonderful parcels to come in the post. I will be blogging about them when they arrive, but I'm not telling what they are so that when I write about them, you'll be like: That is quite literally the best thing(s) I have even seen in my LIFE! If I had ordered that(those) I would never let it(them) out of my sight! I wish with my whole soul I had that(those) item(s). Tell me, where does one purchase that(those) purchase(s)? And I'll be all: Here's where to get it(some). And you'll be like: You spent (insert insane number of Scottish bucks here) on THAT(those)?!?! Are you MENTAL?!

And I'll be all: Helz yez, I did!