And on the 7th day She rested

I have plans. Big plans. Well for today at least. As many of you know I like to keep busy. There's always something going on and I feel like I should always be doing, learning or achieving something, otherwise I feel guilty that I'm wasting precious time. But my plan for today is to do absolutley nothing. That's right. Zilch. Nada. Zip.

Yeah right!

The chances of that are fairly slim. What's more likely to happen is I shall be treating myself to doing something I enjoy. No doubt making another one of these cheeky little fellows

Sock Monkey Family

That's right - Sock Monkey Fever has hit the Rainbows & Butterflies household with these little darlings springing up all over the place. Much to the surprise and (poorly-hidden) delight of Mr P. I finally got a sewing machine waaaay back in March for my birthday but due to house moving and (I have to admit) pure terror, it had yet to even have it's box seal broken. But, I am pleased to announce that it was finally unpacked and after spending the best part of an hour and a half attempting to work out how to insert the bobbin, it was finally ready to rock. Full marks to Mama Rainbows who explained to me over the phone how to do it - no doubt using mother's intuition rather than my cryptic explanations  ("Well there's a wee bit sticking up which is next to a kinda hinge thing and a wee bit at the top which kinda has a little slit which is a bit covered up with a flat bit, if you know what I mean"....she did, thankfully).

Despite only using a sewing machine briefly at school around 15 years ago, there was no way I was going to waste time practising. So naturally I jumped straight in with my first project (obviously still on a high from taming the wild bobbin).

I had a nice yellow wool tank top which I'd worn a few weeks back when I dressed up as a bee (best to not ask why) and, for some reason, I'd shoved it in the washing machine along with all the other clothes on a normal 30 degree wash. Forty-five minutes later out comes tanky...shrunken and turned into felt instead of wool. So as I find it impossible to chuck anything away coz I am always convinced things can be turned into something new, I'd already ear-marked it as a new cushion for our sofa as we have two sofas and only one cushion. So tanky got turned inside out and got stitched right across the arm pits. Then got stitched about 9/10ths of the way across the bottom, turned right way out and stuffed with some of the inside of an extra pillow we had and then hand stitched the last wee bit to fill the gap. All in all it took under five minutes and turned out surprisingly ok...not to mention very soft and comfortable. Not bad for a first attempt!

Tanky. Now renamed Cushy

So now I've been collecting all sort of random things to stitch into new and fabulous goodies. I've already made the above three sock monkeys who have now all gone to new homes, I've turned a pair of Mr P's very ripped boxers into a tiny peg bag (using the fly opening to extract the pegs - genius!) and I have on standby a colourful doggy fleece from a chariy shop which will soon be re-born into a chicken door-stop....just as soon as I've worked out how to sew on a zip.

So maybe today wont be a day of nothing after all :D