Bed - My Favourite Place....

Did you know you spend a third of your life sleeping?

My family would probably say that in my case it is more like half as I do like a good snooze. An afternoon nap is one of my favourite things.

I sometimes curl up on my bed with the intention of having five minutes alone and a game of Candy Crush when the next thing I know one, other or both of the cats has curled up next to my face and their gentle purring has made my eyelids heavy....

I started having a nap when the boys were babies - instead of ignoring the age old and oft repeated advice "sleep when the baby does" it became my motto (though I did once put the youngest down for a nap, fell asleep myself, W didn't wake up after his usual couple of hours and we were half hour late picking up the eldest from infant school - he was crying in the school office, I considered reporting myself to the NSPCC!!)

I still love my bed. I love bedding. Some women have a thing for shoes, I have a thing for duvet covers.

I have lots. I am a bit like The Princess And The Pea as they must be 100% cotton, no poly cotton for me thank you very much.

Give me crisp white or pastel cotton. A floral print. Hand embroidered pillowcases. A vintage eiderdown and a fleecy blanket. Pouffey feather pillows and duvets....

For Christmas I got a lovely, cosy brushed cotton set from my Sister - exactly like the vintage ones of yesteryear (in fact I keep spotting the same pillowcases on "Call The Midwife"!!):

My bed is lovely too, it's an off white vintage style bedstead and I hesitate to say it but it is one of my favourite places:

We used to have a black one but when I redecorated with the Cath Kidston paper and pastels in the above photo I found the black just a bit jarring and so I decided that a white bed was the way forward and we treated ourselves to a new one. It looks so much better, see?:

I definitely think that white beds are much better suited for the shabby chic vintage style home and there are some lovely ones available:

Traditional bedstead very similar to mine

Ornate white metal bedstead

 

Day bed style with useful trundle under

I do love a bedstead but if I had a little girl I would have gone for a day bed style I think like the last picture.

We currently need a new mattress, the one we have is over 13 years old and rather sorry for itself. You can feel the springs and there is an odd hump in the middle. So that is the next thing on the agenda I think.

Many thanks for reading....

Hugs,

S x

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GIVEAWAY!! Custom Embroidered Portrait of Your home!!

I've decided to have a special giveaway - for the winner I will do one of my special hand and machine embroidered portraits of your home:

These make fabulous gifts for new home owners or just a lasting keepsake of your home.

I work from a photo and also Google Street View to draw a sketch of your home, picking out all the distinctive details. From this I cut the fabric pieces to make the basic shape of your home -I use quality fabrics including Cath Kidston; Tilda; Tanya Whelan and vintage.

I then free hand embroidery the fabric to the background using my machine. The picture is created by using the needle to free hand draw the details on to the fabric.

I had smaller details such as the windows, drainpipes and so on and then it is time add some hand embroidery in the form of flowers, trees and bunting.

I can add "fantasy" touches (that are not really there on your real home) such as windowboxes, wisteria or rambling roses, picket fences and so on - use your imagination!!

I then carefully pad and frame the work and it is ready to grace your wall.

If you are not lucky in the giveaway can commission your own portrait - prices start from £40 for an unframed embroidery.

To enter the giveaway you need to be a follower of my blog and to leave a comment below. For a second chance to win pop along to Facebook to like and share my Homebroideries page.

The draw will take place on the 15th February the winner will receive an unframed embroidery of their home. Open to both UK and overseas.

Good luck!!

S x

 

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Ireland - January 2014

Back in September my BFF Vicky had a baby with her lovely new husband (ish!! They've been married coming up three years) and so I booked a trip to visit in October. Unfortunately due to a catalogue of disasters with renewing my passport meant the trip had to be postponed.

So a couple of weeks ago my Mum and I set off for County Leitrim to spend a long weekend with Vicky and her family.

Vicky's middle daughter Rosie made us a lovely welcome sign....

Mum and I stayed in the "garage" (a maisonette attached to a garage in reality!!) belonging to Vicky's friends that we had stayed in before as a family - it's on the edges of Lough Allen, is almost as big as my house and has the most amazing views.

I was so looking forward to spending time with Vicky and all her family - we've known each other since we were 15 and when we were kids I was constantly at the cottage hotel that Vicky's parents ran and so they seem like my family too.

And I got to meet the gorgeous Lily:

Here she is with my Mum - she's wearing the little top I knitted her.....

We were only there for four days but we spent lots of quality time together drinking tea, knitting and reminiscing.

On the Saturday evening Martin and Eilish (who own the "garage") invited us into their amazing house for dinner:

Love that girl!!

We had a yummy meal rounded off, naturally, by Irish coffees:

On Sunday we drove down to see Glencar Waterfall and took some lovely photos:

As Baz Luhrmann says in one of my favourite songs "The Sunscreen Song" as you get older you need the people who knew you when you were young and so I'm very lucky to still be best friends with the best friend I chose at school.

It was the loveliest whirlwind few days spent with my Bestest Friend In The Whole World and it was over all to soon....

 

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