This is not a craft blog #2

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After our broadband fell over on Thursday lunchtime, it has still not been fixed. I have been provided with a cheery text message for BT advising me that they aim to fix the problem by 5 p.m. on Wednesday. Yes WEDNESDAY. That’s nearly a whole week without access to the internet at home. I haven’t yet managed to get through to an actual person at BT to explain calmly and rationally how much of a complete an utter embuggerance this is. Not only does it mean I cannot work at home, I cannot do internet shopping, check my bank balance, or do a myriad of other things, including Facebook, blog reading etc. 

However, rather than focussing on the negatives of all this, which would be very easy, I have been considering the positives of our internet-free weekend. Not only have we not had access to the internet all weekend, but the planned entertainment – trip to the Science museum on Saturday afternoon, followed by dumping of children with their Uncle in Earlsfield while the Husband and I went to a party – also fell through as Pink developed some alarming stomach pains on Saturday morning. Of course it all amounted to nothing, but by the time we had worked that out, we had decided that it wasn’t worth risking the trip – especially as one of the options we were presented with by the out of hours GP service was appendicitis. I am the most unsympathetic person I know if you're talking coughs, colds and grazed knees, but serious stuff gets me all on edge...

So instead of cramming all the jobs we needed to get done this weekend into a couple of hours on Saturday morning before we left, and on Sunday afternoon after we returned, no doubt hungover and grumpy, we have had a leisurely stroll through the washing and housework tasks, and even got round to some other things.

Now, as I have said before, this is not a craft blog, but I managed to not only clear out our spare room and reorganise my various stashes of material and sewing bits and pieces with which I might one day produce something glorious, I did manage to complete 2 projects that have been on my mind. I made a curtain to act as a pull across to go underneath Pink’s high bed:

And a matching cushion. 

I made them out of left over curtain material, and I was particularly pleased with the cushion cover because the material I had left (from the material I had left - if you see what I mean) after making the bed curtain was not quite wide enough but I managed to extend the fabric by making a trim out of a purple ribbon that I found stashed away. Oh the multiple benefits of having a clear out.

I’m not going to tell you what I did because both are a total cobble – I couldn’t get online to check out any tips from the lovely craft bloggers out there – but on the whole I was pleased with how they turned out.

I’ve also managed to do some more work on my quilt. Some of you may remember that the Husband gave me this in kit form for Christmas, and it was one of my goals for April to finish it. Well, it’s probably no surprise to learn that it’s still not finished, but I have been plodding away at it and I have now hand quilted round all the flowers – all 25  of them, and am on the second seam of the border that I am going to quilt. Once I have done that, all I will have left to do is the binding round the edge and it will be finished. 

So bets on this time next year then.