Spring flowers

The prolonged cold snap in January and February has made everything a little later this year. Whilst there are plenty of snowdrops and crocuses still around (including a magnificent display in Somerville College which I must try to photograph) there is hardly a daff to be seen yet. Two years ago I was able to rhapsodize over them on March 1st. In fact there's something a bit wrong about St. David's day with without any daffodils.

Still, with some iron on patterns and a bit of embroidery floss I can have my own spring flowers (or rather the friend to whom I'm giving these as a present later today can).



You can tell they're hand-embroidered because I stitched the one with the blue flower (bottom right) on the wrong side!



These are the first things that I've embroidered using the patterns out of the Sublime Stitching pad that Abby gave me for my birthday back in February and they were so much fun to do that I started hunting out all the scraps of plain fabric in the flat.



I can't quite decide if this is meant to be a jelly or a trifle or a cake but it's fabulous whatever it is.

I have a tiny bit of slightly incompetent make do and mending to show you.



One of the button slides that I bought at Handm@de Oxford in November came apart a few weeks ago and the pieces have been sitting on the coffee table waiting to be glued back together ever since. Spot the difference? One of the slides has a slightly larger and more cream-coloured button in the centre (or rather off-centre) now after I superglued the original button to the paper I was using to protect the table. Could have been worse though, I nearly glued it to me (in fact I have a slightly gluey patch on my left thumb as I type which is going to take a few days to wear away I think). I'm much better with a needle and thread than I am with glue.

A darn good job

I'm pretty firm with work colleagues who angle for me to darn their holey elbows and catch up the edges of their frayed cuffs but you can't really say "no" to family, in this case my brother, especially as I bought him the sweater in the first place. I'm a bit nervous about how it will hold up as the fabric surrounding the hole was fairly worn but at least it will keep out the draughts.

I actually really enjoy darning. Quite apart from the aesthetic pleasure of creating a neat criss-cross of tightly woven threads where before there was a gaping hole there's something deeply satisfying about rescuing a favourite garment, turning something worn-out into something that's wearable again. It's only practicality that keeps me from offering to patch Dave's elbows or sort out John's cuffs. In an office of seventy people if I let it get about that I enjoy mending other people's clothes I'd never have a minute to knit.