Coincidence?

Randomly named?

What more can I say?!!

Linking with the lovely Cindy et al, well I will later, as my MacBook is having a random moment too! xxx

Me me me!

Two weeks and counting!!

Well I know it is hard to believe that there are people don't know who I am, but I guess being a legend in my own lunchtime is not the same thing as being distinguishable from 135 other sewists in a big room!

I wrote a post for last year's Retreat - and quite frankly not a lot has changed in the last 13 months, although I have somehow gone from 41 to 43 already!

So if you really don't know me, check that out, but briefly, because I am not all that exciting, here's the deal...

My name is Hadley, after Ernest Hemingway's first, and best wife, thank you for asking.

I am a mummy of twin girls aged 6 and an 8 year old son; wife to a husband who is not really looking forward to holding the fort for two nights, (or is that just me, fearing the carnage I will find when I get home?); I am a part-time Civil Servant, and full-time sewaholic with a re-invigorated passion for all things fabric and stitchy, and I have been blogging and enjoying the social side of sewing for almost 3 years.

I am a member of possibly the best Bees in the world and wouldn't be without my online-slash-real life crafty friends!

I hate having my photo taken, but look like this...

When it comes to photos, I find safety in numbers!

... and I will be wearing this (well not just this, good lord no!)...

I am in love with Liberty, Denyse Schmidt and Heather Ross to name a few; I am very picky with my fabric likes and dislikes, so let's just call brown bad, and leave the weedling out those few and far between good ones to me, it's safer that way. 

I like making quilts, bags and embroidery amongst other things.  This is my favourite make ever...

Liberty+ Marcelle Medallion

You will find me in Joanna and Julianna's Curved Piecing session; Lynne's Touchdraw masterclass; Portholes with Lu and Cathedral Windows with Brioni, and I can't wait!

Last year I was suffering and a little distracted with a severely burnt arm; I came fully medicated and surgically-dressed and spent a lot of the time just thinking 'oooooouch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'; so I am hoping for a far less frantic night-before-Retreat and pain-free time.

I am really quite shy, unlike others who just claim to be, but once I am relaxed and with friends, I can be properly loud.  I tend to do the thousand yard stare-unfriendly face thing when I am thinking, please, not to be confused with ignoring you, and with the new glasses I am getting this weekend, I will probably be swearing, bumping into things and unable to thread a needle, again not to be confused with being very drunk, because I don't do that, (any more!).

So that's me, linking up with all the other Retreaters, and starting to get a bit nervous and anxious that I have forgotten stuff already, worrying about what to wear, too hot, too cold and loving every minute!

No show, no snow!

Snow? Pah, rain rain and more rain round these parts.  But cold though, so I wore my new scarf all day.  Except for eating.

It is such a lovely huge size that I was in fear of it becoming a bit like Mr Twit's beard!  And because some of you asked so nicely...

After all the family-type business of the day, party drop-offs and a trolley dash round Tesco, I got on with the things I needed to get done, namely finalising my second Sizzix design, in the loosest sense of the word, and then cutting all the pieces...

I made one block up, after I had cut all the pieces, just to make sure it looked OK, I think it works...

On a roll, I then stitched and pressed the rest of the 100 HSTs too.  Even with the very loose weaved fabrics, those HSTs were perfect every time.

It is going to be a very white quilt top, but as balance to my mega-patterned #scrappytripalong, it is quite a refreshing must-make!

So that's my day, we are now going to relax and watch a DVD, well once the kids stop running about upstairs.  

Oh please let it snow in the night so I can shove them out the door at dawn!

Pre-FQ London Linky Party!

Well I am not the first to the party by any means, but I am here now after an exhausting day 'doing it for the Queen' - more on that tomorrow.

So as is the case with many of the Retreat-goers, it took all of one sleep to purchase my ticket after they went on sale at the beginning of December; (I just checked my emails - tickets on sale notification 2pm on the Thursday, hotel reserved before 5pm, and ticket bought before 7am on the Friday), so to say I was eager to be there is a bit of an understatement!

I have literally been counting down the days and can't believe this time next week I will have met so many of my online friends for the first time!!!  I have only met Terri out of any 'friends' that are going, and she is the only one who has met me ;)

For those who are popping in for the first time today, I look a bit like this...

OK, maybe more like number 4's Mum!

I actually hate having my photo taken!

I am 41, have a long-suffering husband who is also my best friend and will be responsible for keeping the kids, (7 year old son and 5 year old twin girls) alive all by himself for 36 hours!

We live in a pretty village in West Sussex, (fortunately for the small folk, it has a Fish & Chip shop, Tesco Express and other necessities for survival), and I will be coming to Retreat by train early on Saturday morning, meeting Nicky on the way.  Hello Nicky!

I have been 'preparing' for months, literally...

Look there's snow in the background!

I will be wearing this...

And I am still trying to figure out just how to get all this...

...plus my old sewing machine up to town in the least ridiculous manner.

I have been sewing since school, Dress 'O' Level to be precise, stopped whilst I had way better things to do like drinking and travelling, but took up quilting and making lovely things, or maybe just buying lots of fabric, almost 2 years ago.  I had to make a few samples for my C&G Interior Design and got the sewing bug again.

I work part-time as a Civil Servant, but you are likely to find out that I can be most uncivil and will probably be found swearing in a corner with Susan and being asked to 'keep it down a bit'.

Can you believe we have not got a single class together, I cannot think why!

I am a Brit Bee and proud, also a Stitch-Teaser and all-round gobby cow, (well, when the nerves have subsided).

I will be paper-piecing with Kerry, embroidering with Aneela, making a Union Jack cushion with my old mucker Lynne and finally making frame-purses with Katy (which reminds me, our idea of fancy dress and jubilee hats seems to have fallen by the wayside!).

I am equally excited and silently freaking out about being there, I know I am not alone in that.

I am staying at the Radisson, and kind of thinking they do not have a clue what is about to descend on their beautiful hotel!

I just need to try and work out if I can email/blog/upload pics to flickr and here by phone along with making a few more bits and pieces, going to work, packing and shopping for some clothes that won't make me look like a Russian Eurovision entrant, even though I love their aprons!

So that's me xxx

Most Amusing...

Today, please pop over to my lovely friend Annabella's for a change of scene.

She lives in Morocco, don't you know; makes the most vibrant and amazing quilts, photographing them and her awesome surroundings and in turn, making those of us in less exotic locations rather green with envy.

I go everywhere by-plane!

I flew over for a chat, (oh how I wish), and she, in best journalistic tradition, recorded one of our private conversations and has plastered it all over this here interweb!

Cheeky!

Good Day Sunshine...

I had a lovely day.

All kids in school, and a non-volunteering day, so straight home before 9am for an hour and a half of gardening in the most amazing Spring weather.  I don't actually garden per se, but I gathered up a wheelie-bin full of dead stuff, so it is starting to look less bedraggled, and that's the main thing.

I then completed the piecing of my Stained quilt top.  Have you seen Susan's?  I love her wider border, so I sat in the sun and unpicked the two sides I'd already done, and then got the rest sewn up...

I need to order some more white for my BIG borders, as I want a continuous strip on the longer sides which is more than I have on hand, but no problemo.

Then I sat in the sun for an hour before going back to school.  My kind of day!

So now I have company again and things aren't so peaceful, but that's OK too; it's amazing what a bit of me time can do!

More from me...

If you pop over to the Knotted Thread today, you'll find me there as part of Jennifer's Follower Friday series.

I have been bumping into Jennifer over the last few months on flickr and in blogland; she is super lovely and one of the merry band of Mouthy Stitchers too.  You must check out this awesome cross-stitch she currently has on the go.  Thank you for having me Jennifer x

And for those of you who complained as if it was my fault asked so nicely, you will notice that I have taken off the ridiculous new Blogger word verification; I will keep an eye on the recurrence of spam and see how it goes.  Spam-magnet that I am, I have already chosen not to publish a couple of comments that tried to be posted on older posts.   NB. when I am back at work, there will be a big old window of unchecked time, so please excuse any random comments that could appear for the worst part of a day.

Finally, here are a pair of purses I whipped up after tea last night for a couple of the girls' friends...

About as simple as it gets!

Now I've just got to finish the ironing mountain, and I am set for the weekend!

7 things about a Stylsh Blogger...

A great big thank you to lovely Verity of Miss Ginger Makes - she has deemed me worthy of a Stylish Blogger award, how about that!

So, the name of the game is that I now tell you 7 things about me, and then pass the award along to others, then these recipients do likewise...

I can't promise interesting, but these have sprung randomly to mind...

1.  I like Katie Price, and I'm not sorry.  I know that's not stylish, and sometimes she can be downright irritating with a mouth that fires off before her brain engages, but if you saw last night's Let's Dance for Comic Relief, you'll see why!

2. I own every Smiths single, ever.  In my youth I was such a total 'fan' - now I don't think I could name anyone in the charts, except Take That!

3. I don't drink anymore.  Since having the children I have had a real aversion; I probably had more than my fair share before though!

4. My girls favourite story is the tale of when I got a stone stuck in my ear!

5. I hate tangled coat hangers!  The noise, the random and impossible untangling is just my idea of hell!  Arrgh!!!!

6. I once got picked up when hitch-hiking in New Zealand by a couple of girls with guns in the boot of their car!  We let them drop us off anywhere they wanted!

7. I've been slowly eating my way through most of my children's Easter Eggs from last year - they had so many they haven't noticed - there are still 2 remaining which survived the move!

There are so many blogs that I love and follow that I could just put a link to Google and let you find them all yourselves, but that is just too easy.  So I decided to narrow my choice to just 4, otherwise I really would just list all of my Followers blogs and all those I Follow.  Please please please don't take offence if you are not one of the Fantastic Four.  Maybe one of my '7 things' should have been that "I am paranoid about offending the people that matter to me!"

So in alpha order...

http://adventuresinquiltingandsailing.blogspot.com/
http://auntyhennys.blogspot.com/
http://merrymadequilts.blogspot.com/
http://slikstitches.blogspot.com/

Spreading the love to Marguerite, Helen, Rebecca and Benta xx