bee handmade

summer swansong

A trip up north with friends to my favourite place. Kippers from Seahouses for breakfast - scrumptious.

The wedding of friends. Sort of village fete meets hoedown (raspberry buns made by me and my mum).

Detail of the bride's dress. She looked beautiful. The dress was very 'Thomas Hardy Tess' and suited her prefectly.

Hog roaster made from scratch by the very talented groom (the rotation is powered by bike). The weather was absolutely glorious. Memories of the day include delicious crackling, setting off flying lanterns at dusk, a superb bluegrass band, very pokey jam jars of 'moonshine', chatting in the sun with friends, coconut shy, a fairy light and bunting filled village hall and, most importantly, a smiley bride and groom.

This is the card I made for the bride and groom. It was inspired by Katie cupcake's love note.

It's my birthday today and I'm off work, yay!  So I'm off to have a nice day in town and then dinner with my husband.

weekend

Well a busy weekend of late Friday night sewing, camping, a wedding and preparing for a kitchen refit!

I finally finished the wedding present. I have to admit that a modicum of sewing was being done in the car on the way to the venue! I hope they like it. Although I really enjoy making gifts I still feel quite anxious about actually handing them over. I harbour a certain reluctance about inflicting my homespun offerings upon people. But yet I still do it - hmmm.

The front

The back

Details

On to the wedding. There was an extravaganza of glorious bunting. How could a person fail to be in a festive spirit?

We topped the night off with the romance of flying paper lanterns (which were watched with some trepidation in case one landed on a tent). They looked so pretty floating upwards into the night sky. We made wishes as we released them. I'm not telling what mine was though!

Our tent withstood the rain AGAIN and is still drying out. I think it deserves a present and I know just the thing. A tea light chandelier from Bell Tent.

ice cream and petals

What with a recent anniversary and this beautiful delivery from Twigs and Honey I've been thinking a lot about weddings.

 

I literally couldn't resist this piece of deliciousness, my justification being that I can use it to titivate dresses I already have. I could even hang it on the wall as art as it's so pretty to look at. A confection of froth and fancy reminiscent of ice creams, petals, macaroons, autochrome photography ...

I'm going to three weddings this year and I can't wait. Fun filled days of happiness and good will and hopes for the future. The colours of my beautiful belt inspired me to surf here, here, here, here and, of course, here to feast my eyes on some pretty dresses.

 
images courtesy of sarahseven, liza rietz, Leanimal, frolic and  snippet and ink

Aren't they all delightful? The trouble with having a sartorial interest in weddings is that, depsite being really happy with my own choices, it's terribly hard not to idly look at pictures thinking ooh I could have had THAT one, no THAT one .... I think that basically translates as perhaps gleaning too much enjoyment from looking at pictures of dresses!

I would do it all again in a heartbeat, I loved every minute. The excitement of spending a day with my favourite people in my favourite place, seeing P standing waiting for me with a smile on his face, ceiledgh dancing for hours, listening to the waves, wearing a dress I loved, drinking homemade sloe gin, seeing the delicate northumbrian sunshine break through the clouds, going over all the details with P marvelling at how quickly it all dashed by, eating fish and chips on the harbour with friends the following day ... I could go on and on.

brilliance

Sorry for the long absence but I reckon that a wedding and a honeymoon are a good excuse. It was a shiny, happy day (hence the title of the post). I loved every minute of it and am hugely grateful to my parents for working so hard to make sure the day went swimmingly.

As promised here is the bunting in action.

Here is me

My dress was made by Jacqueline Byrne and my headband is from Twigs and Honey by Myra Kim. I had a lovely time wearing both and wish I could do it all over again. It's quite overwhelming having so many friends and family members in one place. I don't think I've done so much flitting in my whole life! The bunting was accompanied by another set made by my friends Joanna and Mee-Lai for my hen weekend. Each paper pennant displayed a picture of me or associated with me. Ingenious and thoughtful - I couldn't not use it in the marquee.

These are the homemade cakes provided by friends and family.

All in all a brilliant day and I'm sure I'll be boring you with many more details in the near future.

a small corner

I've never lived anywhere with enough room to allow me not to have to pack away my sewing machine after each use. Until now ... The spare room is taken up with a sofa bed and my other half's significant vinyl collection and computers. I have a corner of our bedroom and it still feels like a luxury. As you can see it's a tight squeeze but I'm not complaining, well at least not that often!

The bunting marathon is still underway. I'm boring myself even talking about it. If you want to know what an insurmountable task looks like then visualise about 500 fabric triangles. And D day is 2 weeks tomorrow! It still feels surreal, like I've managed to convince myself that I won't be freaked out by approximately 100 people staring at me. Hmmm.

Time for another list, my current top 5 biscuits. Yes, I really do think about these things.

dark chocolate Leibniz, Tunnocks tea cakes, Tunnocks caramel wafers, dark chocolate gingers and shortbread.

Hopefully in my next post I'll be able to show you a picture of completed bunting rather than moaning about making it.

April showers

We've had snow, sunshine and hail so spring is tantalising us but never quite arriving. I'm just hoping it is saving itself in order to produce a glorious May as the 17th is the 'big day'.

This is where we are getting married. One of my favourite places in the whole world.

I've been trying to plough on with the bunting mountain. As you can see there is still a long way to go. I'm feeling quite intimidated by the pile of fabric waiting to be cut and sewn. Metres of bunting completed = 0, metres to be completed = 80.