(Our camera is currently being mended so unfortunately all the photos at the moment come from my phone. Mind you, considering they’re from my phone, they’re pretty good.)

So for my birthday (which I will blog about very soon – lots to blog about the birthday!) W and I went away for a few days, and we had a wonderful time.

One of the reasons it was a wonderful time (one of MANY reasons), was that we got to go to Get Knitted – to the actual shop – which is a pretty amazing place, where you can make coffee (well W made coffee), and eat free sweets (yeah we both did that ;), and while I was there I bought some fat quarters of Amy Butler fabric.

Today I used them to make this bag.

(Aside: We were there for at least an hour. And that didn’t seem to be unusual for anyone there. It’s that sort of place. <3)

So, anyway, I needed a new bag that I could stick a magazine (or my notes – more on that later) – in. I have a fairtrade co-op shopping bag, which is fine, but the handles are too short to stick over your shoulder.

So, having not used my sewing machine in months and months, i cleaned off the dust, made space in the (better but still) messy workroom, and sewed this after work today.

Check out the lining:

Very cute. 🙂

And this is how it looks with my new wrap dress:

…handily accessorized with my new bump.

Yes. W and I are grateful to announce that I’m 16 weeks pregnant, and we’re expecting our first child in early October.

It’s the main reason why this blog has stayed so quiet for so long – we found out really early (back at the very end of January – which was a wonderful birthday present for W, but then a worrying eight weeks for me), and so we didn’t tell anyone (apart from a tiny group of very very close friends), for weeks and weeks.

But we had the 12 week scan, and everything was fine, and I went to the midwife today, and got to hear the heart speed along, as well as thumps that might be kicks, or hiccups (she wasn’t sure. 😉

It’s a very exciting time. 😀

Oxford Kitchen Yarns will still exist, in at least it’s current form (I’m loathed to grow it too much until next year, so that I don’t create a rod for my own back when i’m seriously juggling.) In fact I was hoping to get a large indigo dye session sorted this week, (which will probably now be next week), and I’m starting to think about putting in another order for more stock, so really it all going good. 🙂

And I have a new bag, which cunningly is a perfect fit for my favourite magazines, as well as my blue medical folder of notes which comes with me too all my appointments.

W and I have slept in almost all of the rooms you could use as bedrooms since he bought this house, back in 2002. For the first two years we were only here on weekends, and our room was the tiny boxroom I now use as a workroom/office. Then when we moved here full-time, we had the bedroom downstairs, which we painted a soft turquoise.

Eventually – not long before we got married, in 2005, (when all the other housemates moved out) we FINALLY moved into the master bedroom, and there we have stayed.

I’m pretty sure that the day we moved in, I announced that we needed to decorate. And – TWO AND A HALF YEARS LATER – we have!

It’s not that i didn’t like the colour. Oh wait… no it IS that i didn’t like the particular colour. I like green. I like green alot (which is hilarious when you know that one of my best friends HATES green with a passion). I just didn’t like that green. It was too dark, too opressive.

Housemate!J had already put her stamp on the room by painting two of the walls cream, but all the paintwork was a dirty apple-white colour, and overall the room just didn’t work.

So we made it not work even more, by mis-picking colours, and daubing them on the walls. THAT has been the view from my pillow for two years.

Now my view looks like this:

The tester squares are gone, and the dark green is now ‘antique’ cream. Much airer!

This is the opposite wall, (as it was).

And this is the other side of the same chimney pillar. Urgh.

And this is what it looks like now: yes, basically I used a softer green (though the camera phone, and then time of day, makes it look darker than it is), and switched the colours of all (but one) wall. So everything that was green is now cream. (THREE coats, of breathable crown paint).

And all that was cream is now green. (Apart from that one wall by the wardrobe – because that would look weird.) The woodwork is all white silk emulsion. (Though I think W is right – It will need a proper gloss, but that’s not going to happen for the next year or so.) And the inside of the wardrobe is a soft velvety purple.

(But I can’t get a good shot of that, and anyways, you’ll see it when we paint the tv room, since we decided it would work well in there too. 🙂

Much softer, and calmer, and more relaxing. So much so, that i’m working from in here today, (given that the office is still full of stuff that is not going back into the bedroom, and needs new homes.)

And with that, I’m back! 🙂

More very soon.

I’m out of town from tomorrow till thursday, so I’ll put any orders that come through over that period in the post on Friday.

🙂

Have fun.