I seem to have lost my blogging mojo!

It's been 12 day's since my last blog entry which doesn't sound very long but in blogging terms that feels like forever! I seem to have temporarily lost my blogging mojo!...

Rose and I made a last-minute trip back to Dorset for Easter as Ray was working for the whole of it. So I was away for a few day's and then just busy for a while, the trouble is that the longer you go without blogging... the harder it is to find the motivation to then sit at the laptop and put a post together!

Sooo... Rose is upstairs having her afternoon nap and Ray is being a brilliant husband and is busy cooking a roast dinner in the kitchen (they say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach but this is also very true in my case as well!) So I'm taking the opportunity to sit down and get typing! :-) I always feel so good when I've clicked the 'Publish' button so I just need to get on with it... I'm sure blogging is better than some types of therapy!

We had lots of lovely little trips out while I was back in Dorset, on Easter Sunday afternoon my cousin Josie and I took Rose to Abbotsbury farm park. Both of us used to get taken there when we were little and it is Such a lovely place to take young children. 

There are all sorts of animals for the kids to see and feel. Rose even got a chance to feed a baby goat! (Admittedly, it did end up being me that was holding the bottle... not that I minded!) My auntie Lettie used to  live on a Small-holding and it brought back lovely memories of  my cousins and I going down to feed the baby goats/ lambs before going to school! :-)

On another day we went with Nan and Grandad to the Subtropical gardens. We spent a lot of time in Abbotsbury over the weekend! There were some beautiful plants there and I couldn't resist taking some photo's.... so prepare yourself for a lot of flower photo's! 

I've been trying to catch up with my time on the laptop and have been going through my emails. I had a shocking amount of old emails that needed going through... I went from 2651 down to 19 and that was just in one inbox! I'm now working my way through my replies to comments. I'm sorry I haven't been very good at getting back to people's emails lately... life kind of just got in the way!

I've been using Instagram a lot lately... if your on there I'm countryrosecrafts. I only have the iphone 3GS at the moment so am extremely excited about getting my upgrade in August sometime! :-)

It's good to be back!

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Just a few photo's and a bit of a natter.

I don't really have a better place to store all of my craft books so that they're out of Rose's reach, so this is what my front room ends up looking like pretty much Every day. I'm already using our tall book case to store all of my crafty bits and bobs and I definitely can't have that all in Rose's reach... Another reason to have my own craft room one day! Or at least a bigger house with some more shelves!

As you can probably tell, I've been having a play with my camera so I've taken quite a few photo's today!

I've just finished crocheting and knitting the flowers and leaves to sew onto my tea cosy, so it shouldn't be long before I have a FO to show you.

As you can see Rose gives a helping hand... well, just eats everything really!

I've finished all of my thank you cards from Christmas today and they're all in the post, off to friends and family. It's taken me a good three day's to get them done as it's a real 'sit-down' job and it's hard to get much done with a little one tugging at your leg... 

I've been admiring my paper garland in the utility room, it was a Christmas present from my best friend from home and I love it. I haven't seen her for such a long time now as she's living in Wales but we're going to be visiting them in March and I really can't wait. Rose and I may see her when we go back to Dorset for her birthday though which would be so lovely.

I can't believe it's now the 10th of January! Rose is nearly one and to be honest, I'm feeling a bit emotional about it all. The last year has just gone so so fast, it feels like only yesterday I was holding that brand new baby that smelt sooo amazing. I guess it's something to do with her being my first baby... did anyone else feel the same..?

 

Rose has been practicing her walking a Lot, staggering up and down the length of the kitchen over and over again... she looks like something between looking drunk and like a zombie. It's quite amusing to watch!

I had my friend who lives a couple doors down round for tea this morning and she brought her little girl who is 17 months with her. The two girls were enjoying playing with these crochet baby blocks, my Mum made them as a Christmas present for Rose and so far they've gone down very well! 

Right, off to cook Rose her dinner and then it's Slimming World time. I've been so bad at sticking to it this week and have eaten anything and everything! Tomorrow will hopefully be a completely fresh start... looks like the Haagen Daz ice cream in the freezer will have to be polished off tonight then!

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My new baby has arrived!!

I came home early this afternoon having taken Rose to a playgroup in the morning and I had a lovely surprise waiting for me on the coffee table, it had come a day earlier than we were expecting it!

Luckily (it's so frustrating when you have to wait to be able to pick up a parel from the post office depot) Ray had still been in when it was delivered to our house and he had wrapped it up for me (as a late Christmas present apparently). I really do have such a lovely husband. :-)

I had to put the battery straight on charge and then I was kept pretty busy with Rose (I think her molars are coming through on one side... her cheek was bright red!) so I didn't get much time to play with all of the settings and look through the instructions manual. So as soon as she went down to sleep, I hopped on the laptop and I have been looking at all sorts of tutorials online and I think I May have got the gist of some of the basics now! I think...

I seriously don't think I've been This excited about something since I had Rose! haha

It's going to be such a pleasure to take photographs now and I'm sure I'll be posting a lot more now that I'll have some nice photo's to show you all.

I hope you've all had a lovely day.

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(I just thought I would ask in case anyone can help me... I'm trying to complete Rose's quilt at the moment in time for her birthday on the 24th and I'm at the stage where I have basted all layers together and I'm ready to free-motion quilt over the top.

I've not got a very fancy machine but I was able to free-motion quilt a couple of smaller items a little while ago so I wonder if I'm just doing something wrong...

I'm using a quilting needle and some good quality quilting thread but everytime I go to start sewing, the top and bottom threads don't seem to be looping together to create the stitches. I'm ending up with a line of holes where the needle has gone through the quilt but no stitches are left until a random stitch does work and then it goes back to just holes again.

Could it be something to do with tension or how I'm fitting the bobbin? Or something else untirely...?!

What number should the tension be set to when your doing free-motion quilting? Please help! Thank you xXx)