Red glass rules!

Since I have previously admitted my love of candlesticks in the bathroom I thought now would be a good time to confess my love of old red glass.

The mantelpiece in the living room is full of it.........

Can you believe that the lovely wooden fireplace was taken out of a friends neighbours house and they were going to burn it before we offered it a new home.

The dog loves to curl up in her CK bed and be as close to the fire as possible.

The downstairs toilet also gets it fair share of mostly red glass. the patterned pieces are Victorian pickle jars, and as we are not overlooked i choose not to have curtains, but have glass shelves with them on - it looks lovely when we actually get some sunshine through the window.

The yellow candlesticks came from the charity shop last week and cost £2 for the pair, a real bargain :-)

MM xx

Are 20 candlesticks too many for one bathroom?

One of my favourite rooms in the house is the bathroom. When we renovated the house we combined the toilet and bathroom and 'stole' some of the landing to make it large enough for the roll top bath I had always wanted and a seperate walk in shower.

My clever stepson was tasked with making the wood paneling and the little shelf above was always designed to hold tea lights.

Recently my Mum gave me 4 old candlesticks and I have since added to the collection from Charity shops.- - but are 20 candlesticks too many, or should i keep adding to the collection?

Tidy workroom!

I have recently claimed the small bedroom as my workroom and have been able to get boxes of 'stuff' out of the loft and unpacked. Once unpacked the room looked a mess so a trip to Ikea was required to get some more storage ideas. The chest of drawers is full of fabric and crafty bits.





I picked up the old kitchen cupboard at the weekend and it is perfect to keep my fabric and buttons in!
The wooden chests came from Mum's family and are full of fabric, and the cream boxes hold felt and completed items.


all of the red boxes have fabric in them, i i have even got them in colour order! The old tins contain buttons, again i have them in colour order.




old glass containers hold beads and felt scraps


the cake stand came from the local charity shop and holds all the tiny fabric scraps i can not bear to part with.


wire heart with cards and notes




And I still have room for the daybed, and it will still pull out to become a double bed if needed. It has huge drawers - perfect for hiding more fabric and felted jumpers......

I did manage to make these napkin rings yesterday, they are going to be part of a wedding present OH thinks they will need a note with them to explain what they are!

More ways to hide fabric and ribbons........

And finally the view from the window, how lucky am I :-)


MM xx

Scottie dogs and Grandma's patterns

I found a lovely book at the CS last week called Good Design in Soft Toys, it was published in the 60's and includes some nice patterns but also has a section on designing your own toys. Here is my first toy, a Scottie dog made from felted jumpers. I have to say it took ages to work out the pattern but I am delighted with the result.


Later in the day she had some puppies :-) I have made them into little brooches and they will be up for sale in my shop soon.

I proudly showed my latest creations to Mum and she talked about how she used to make soft toys with her mother to sell to raise money for local causes. Then she opened a drawer and out came the hand drawn patterns and instructions!. My Mum never ceases to amaze me, she is in her 80's now and my Nan was born in 1892, but she has kept these patterns safe for all these years AND knew exactly what drawer they were in!

Now all I have to do is decide what toy to make first and what fabric to use - I think these deserve something special so I may dip into the fabric mum saved from making dresses when I was little.

Thanks Mum for being a hoarder!

Mxx

Fabby Swap - its mine all mine!

Today the most ENORMOUS box arrived from the lovely cooltrikerchic her blog is here the swap was from the shabby chic cafe forum group. Cath Kidston was the theme and every item in the box is very CK

It was full of purple tissue with a handmade card nestled amongst it. Look at how lovely the handmade heart cushion is and the blue bear is so sweet and CTC has added a little flower on him.

More lovelies with scented pillows and a sweet little round tablecloth - the bear refused to move and wanted his picture taken again!

Here is another pic of the tablecloth and a fab tea towel.

The blue of the tea towel is just perfect in the kitchen as i have just painted a little shelf unit in the same colour, and it has what looks like a hand crocheted border - how clever is CTC!.


And there is more............ this is my favourite of all the bits, a wall hanger with lots of pockets in it, so useful and look how well it goes in my bedroom!

Smelly heart has already found its home on the newly painted shelf unit along with the one Little Gem made for me :-)

And the teddy has found his perfect spot in the sun - he needs a name so suggestions are welcome
I am such a lucky one to receive so many lovely things, and i know CTC was nervous about sending this out, bliddy silly if you ask me coz its all yummy, thanks you so much I would not change a thing.

M xx

Lunch at Le Manoir

I was very lucky to be treated to lunch yesterday at Le Manoir Aux Quat'Saisons. I was a late birthday treat for me and a early birthday treat for a friend.

It it a spectacular resturant owned by Raymond Blanc and has 2 Michieln stars.

Whilst it was a treat and i did not see the final bill it has to be the most evpensive lunch i have ever eaten my main course was £42 but was the best venison i have ever eaten.

The staff were very attentive and the buildings and gardens are just super.

I felt very special and if any of you ever have the chance to go then jump at it. OH and i have decieded we will not eat out for 6 months and then go back for his birthday.

I forgot my camera but picked up a couple of postcards for you all to enjoy

The Raymond rose

Wordless Wednesday - almost!

A chance to show of some of my pretties

Recent birthday pressies

Fabric wrapped chair with patchwork cushion

The AGA when we first bought the house

Same view of kitchen when it was a work in progress and the AGA had gone to be renovated

with the AGA back in place and the kitchen enlarged, but without all of my pretty bits in place

I love the kitchen and the AGA and we spend most of our time in this room.

I am off out tomorrow for a late birthday treat of lunch at a 2 michelin star restaurant - report will follow!

Thanks for all of your comments on previous posts.

M xx

Trash to treasure

From this

To this

All it took was a bit of sanding and 3 coats of paint to cover the dark brown!

It is now on my bedroom wall and i can lay in bed and admire all my pretties. The big jug in the middle came from the charity shop for £3 last week along with the little flower posie

The other china was Auntie Veras so belongs to the house. The purfume bottle top right was a Christmas pressie from DH and the other 2 are from a dear friend who worked for Bristol Blue Glass - everything is still hand blown and amazing to see them in action - they use gold to make the glass go red :-)

The sweet little frame was a gift at a friends wedding, she had made them for all of the ladies, it is extra special as we made the trip to South Africa to be at her wedding

Such a lovely proverb

Enjoy

Mx

Look what the postman delivered

Like most of us I love getting parcels, so was excited this morning to open one that was wrapped in lace and looked very Cath like. I thought it was my swap from the shabby chic forum so rushed for my camera before opening it any further

What a surprise I got when I opened the card and a cheque fell out, now as you regular swappies will appreciate it is not normal practice to send hard cash out with swaps! It took my little brain a few moments to compute that this was not my swap.

What it was in fact was a pressie from the lovely Lace Threads, now this was a total surprise as all I did was sell her a duvet cover, hence the cheque. She made me a fantastic fabric bucket, and I have had them on my 'to do' list for ages (OH did prance around the kitchen with it on his head saying the hat was to small for him!) and a cute bookmark that is already in use.

I had a smile on my face all day thinking of her kindness, well most of the day as I was quite frustrated for parts of it as I spent ages taking creative pictures of the bits i want to sell and then loading the stuff onto Folksy and etsy and setting up the shops. - (any feedback on the items, prices etc would be appreciated.)

So thank you Lace for making my day

M x

first problem....

Ok - first problem, the pictures are not showing on my last post and I don't know how to make them appear......... need to feed OH and then i will come back and investigate, and tips welcome!

Day one of Blogging for real, ummm not happy with the layout/ style of the blog at the moment but not sure how to change it, need to have a poke about the web to get some inspiration and how to's.

Today the Sew Hot Mitmot logo was born

When i was little Elephant was far to big a word for me to pronounce so for some reason i decided to call them mitmots, this has stuck and they are now forever know as mitmots.

I have been lucky to visit mitmots in India and South Africa. I had an amazing time staying at a mitmot orphanage in SA for a couple of days were the rooms are above the sleeping area for the elephants, it was amazing.

I also spent the day on a bareback elephant safari, it was such a special time being so close to these amazing creatures, words can not convey this fantastic life experience.

I am trying to get some crafty bits made so i can 'open' my online shops on etsy and folksy - I also need to spend time working out how to make the shops look nice, work out pricing and postage. Making stuff is just easier than working out computer stuff!

M x

Hello World!

I have pondered starting a blog for ages, but never quite got round to doing it. It raised so many questions:
My spelling and grammar is not too hot and i am much better at talking rather than writing
Will I have anything to say?
Will anyone other than me ever read it?
How can I make it look pretty like so many of the blogs I follow?
Will I get round to updating it?

In the end spurred on by friends on the Shabby Chic forum I have created this first post, we will wait and see if any of the questions above get answered!

Mary