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Sometimes taking photos of my makes is hard work. Sometimes it’s fun!

I know it looks a little like Ikea threw up in here but I am delighted with my new sewing/craft room. I already had one set of drawers and the wall shelves but then I had the bright idea to buy another smaller set of the same drawers plus a table top to put over the top, leaving space in between for my chair. Swipe to see the set up without me in the way. It’s long enough and just about wide enough for cutting out fabric and my new pegboards mean everything is within easy reach. If you need me, this is where I’ll be. See my stories for the before and after. Shelving - Svalnas Pegboards - Skadis Table top - Lincoln Sets of drawers - Malm All #ikea. Wearing - #memade #soicoratop as a dress

When Athina @akpatterns chose me as one of her testers I knew right away the Sheona dress was the one I wanted to make. She was asking for more testers to sharpen up her patterns and gave me this one free in return for my feedback. This simple jersey dress is a joy to make. I added cuffs to mine as I like that finish on the sleeves and lengthened them to full instead of 3/4 length. Athina has over 20 hacks on her website so you can make your Sheona your own. Made in a thick jersey I bought from the Knitting and Stitching Show at Olympia last year, from @guthrieghani I think, it’s already turning out to be a weekend favourite.

I made this one for my sister’s birthday this year. This is the first papercut I’ve done from real life (rather than from a cheeky internet silhouette), swipe right to see her cat Oscar. In other news I went swimming this morning at 6.45am! This is very uncharacteristic but I barely do any exercise because I generally hate all of it. I don’t mind swimming and the pool is 5 minutes from home so hopefully I will keep it up. Question though: when does it start to make you feel energised after exercise? This morning I just felt exhausted and a bit sick. Although also mighty pleased with myself!

To round off January and my series of blog posts about organising yourself at home I’ve been thinking about self-care. The phrase that is used a lot these days and I’m a bit uncomfortable with it. To me it suggests you need an excuse to be a bit selfish or to spend money without feeling guilty. But why should we feel guilty at all about doing what we want to do? So I’m not calling it self-care, I’m not calling it anything just getting on with what I want to do! This month I’ve reorganised our home to make it easier for me to peruse my hobbies but harder to have guests to stay, booked two craft workshops and shelled out a huge amount of money on something potentially life-changing. No guilt. ⠀⠀ For some no nonsense advise in this area I recommend author Sarah Knight. If you need someone to give you permission to let go of perceived demands upon your time and mental space look up her first book The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a F***. I took this photo of her new book Calm the F*** Down at a book event last week, where Sarah gave us the benefit of the wisdom that only someone who has given up their job to go live in the Dominican Republic has learned!

With a completely empty diary this weekend I made up some size last night ready for two days of marbling fun. I have two new different types of powder to the stuff I used last time and I made up all new paints. It just hasn’t worked the same! All the colours have bled into each other with undefined edges. Still quite pretty but I wish I knew what I was doing wrong. I suspect it’s the paint rather than the size... Don’t you think number four would make a fabulous dress fabric?

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