Gas Street Moorings, Birmingham

Just looked in my Drafts thingie and discovered that I hadn't actually published my last post. Sorry!

Not much has been happening around here. We had two lovely days with Spring in the air, but it seems to be back to normal today, overcast and cold.

The weather will probably get worse now, as we are hoping to start out on Friday after David's visit to the Hospital.

The brickwork around the basin is in a terrible state after all the ice and snow. Some major trip hazards out there - hope BW are well insured.

Now, back to the Saga... Being in the Army, we didn't really have any furniture of our own, so downsizing for the boat was fairly easy (well not if you don't go around buying 6' altar pieces it isn't). But it did mean that after 25 odd years of marriage we had never had to chose a colour scheme or style of crockery.

As a massive fan of William Morris and the Liberty store I finally decided on the curtains. Well it was a start! I went for the light blueWilliam Morris Strawberry Thief. The rest of the boat would follow through. I had always made my own clothes so curtains should be a breeze. I enrolled for a curtain making course at Liberty - one day sewing in the Directors' Board Room - all wood panelling taken from a ship and portraits. Where else would you want to learn to sew curtains? I received a 10% voucher for a discount on materials, but had to buy it that day, so I bit the bullet and bought enough Strawberry Thief to make the top side of a fur-lined blanket. I would get the rest of the curtain material in the sale.

Then disaster! Turned up on 26th December for the sale to discover that my lovely blue Strawberry Thief had been discontinued! Only a few metres left. S***!!! I bought what they had. Rushed off the Osbourne and Little and bought what little they had left and then to the two John Lewises in London and managed to get some more which they had in their depot. But it was still not enough.

So thinking cap on. Bought some blue chintz to match and with careful cutting I managed to make a central panel for each curtain of the Strawberry Thief and with blue chintz strips all around, mitering the corners and pink piping between the curtains were the right size. A pig to make, but the final result was quite pretty.





Finally, some cards. The first one with a picture of children on the roof of a boat. Personally, I found children wearing life jackets very photogenic - sad or what? I matted the photo onto silver and blue card. The yellow card was Cuttlebugged using the Birdsong folder before matting it onto more blue card and then they were both fixed to a light blue card base. Then the three blue circles were stuck along to top right hand side.








This second one, the photograph was matted onto silver, dark pink and more silver card.

The base card was white and I wrapped some dark pink ribbon around a piece of card the same width as the card and then wrapped gold thread around it several times before fixing it to the base card.

The photograph was attached with sticky pads and the silk flower was stuck in the right hand corner.