The corner chair

When I am at home I like to sit in the corner chair.

Here by the window in the armchair with the light streaming in.

The chair closest to the window and closest to the radiator.

With the door propped open I can hear the ebb and flow of family life. I can hear the laughter, I hear the piano, I hear the questions and the answers.

I sit still yet things change around me. Brothers move in and out, the tv is off and on, newspapers are pulled out and then folded away.

Sometimes I am joined by the cat who snuggles close into my legs asking for affection.

I sit in my favourite chair watching and listening. Watching the world pass outside the window. Watching the light change as the day passes.

The room starts to feel smaller as curtains are closed as lamps come on and the heating fires up.

My favourite place to go when I want to be still. In the hub of everything the chair is an island.

A place to read for hours on end, a place to knit and feed soft yarn over the needles, a place to doze.

The corner chair. My favourite place when the clocks go back and the days get darker.

What is your favourite place? xxx

October summed up.

I cannot believe it is the end of October and we are soon to approach those dark mornings, cold winds and November bonfires. How the months fly!

October has been a very busy month, looking like this...

Enjoying family time in half term. The adventures of two boys and very very sour sweets. Hilarious.

Watching the season slowly turn. Autumn has to be the most beautiful.

Visiting the boy and my best friend at uni. So good to put names to faces etc and very interesting to see the life of a student!

 Visiting Sherbourne with the other gaps on our day off. Stunning.

lots of sewing and a lovely finished quilt.

 Visiting a quarry with the year eights on their field trip. Surprisingly beautiful and the size of those dumper trucks! phewww!

More crafting with material. Tutorial to follow.

What has your October looked like?

Loves xxxxx

Things learnt from quilting on a major scale.

A while back I tried my hand at quilting. It was a small first attempt but I was happy with it despite the fact that the littlest brother still refers to it as a "foot blanket."

Maybe I was naive or just very unrealistic but this half term I decided the time was ripe to try a full sized quilt. Yep, one to cover my whole bed.

There are several lessons learnt from this experience.

1. You need serious arm muscles to feed a single duvet sized quilt through a machine. I had no idea how heavy it would get!

2. Be careful. When quilting with such large pieces of material it is vital to go slowly. I ended up having to unpick all four sides of quilting because it was gathering up all over the place simply because I had not taken the time.

3. Pin to an inch of the quilts life. It will save so much time later.

4. When sewing keep checking that the machine is actually sewing. I got to the end of the longest side having happily chugged along, when I realised that the bobbin had run out and the machine had sewn precisely two inches. cue expletives and much shouting at the machine for not informing me of this.

5. Although quilting ( going across each square on the patchwork) seems to take an age, the end result is so worth it.

6. Thick batting is a love hate relationship. I hated working with it. It was heavy, puffed up, didn't lie flat and was generally annoying. That said it hid a multitude of mistakes and has resulted in a very thick and warm finished quilt. Bonus for when I live in Durham I think.

7. Machine sew in the day and handstich in the evening. That way Downton Abbey and quilting can be combined. Result.

8. No matter how much you talk to your little brother he will insist on calling this quilt the "body blanket." Hmmm.

Honestly though, it was such an adventure to make. For the first time I made a quilt using a set of fat quarters rather than material I had chosen. This was so much easier because the quilt is coordinated, has similar colours and all the same weight material. I am no expert but learnt so much through trial and error. The next step...double duvet sized?? Or not.

What crafty things have you been up to recently?



Loves xxx

10 things on the 11th?

So, I am a day late with Shimelle's challenge; to post ten things on the tenth but hey, that I posted at all is a miracle.

My ten things could be titled "out of the mouths of babes" " Ten funny things children say or do" or perhaps "overheard in the staffroom." Either way these are all true, all have made me laugh in the last month and have to be written down.

Trust me, you are witnessing the beginnings of a bestseller. Count yourself lucky.

1. A year four class, we are looking in a thesaurus for other words to use instead of "old". We are describing a building. One little girl  pipes up with "The building was advanced in years."


2. I am getting a group of four year olds changed after swimming. This has been a long and difficult affair as none of them can stand still long enough to be dried. We finally have them all dressed and all looking fairly smart. I check the floor for towels etc and find... a pair of pants. One child has got dressed without underwear. Panic ensues while we try and find said child.


3. " Miss Beach, you are the best mummy." me; "But I'm not a mummy." The child: "but you're a grown up." Gosh, how to shoot down a four year olds logic!


4. "Miss Beach how are twins made?"


5. We are at supper and discussing how old parents are. One bright spark tells a story of a girl who was very young and had a baby. The smaller child asks if she was married. Apparently not. The small child then looks at me " but, it's impossible to have a baby and not be married!"


6. I come into the dorm to find a girl dressed in a dressing gown, shawl, towel over her hair and shower cap holding it in place. When asking who she was she replied without a shadow of a doubt, "Mary of course." (That is the virgin mary unless it wasn't obvious!)


7. The "Virgin Mary" (See above) Then proceeded to give an account of Jesus' life with Jesus illustrated by cuddly toys. Call be a traditionalist but I had no idea Jesus was born as a hedgehog and ended his life as a pink teddy bear.


8. "That was unsuspected" Translation: "That was unexpected."


9. Whilst on the hockey pitch,  "Miss Beach, the other girls say I don't like hockey, but I do." me: "so why are you standing still?" The little girl: "because I'm bored!"


10. "Miss Beach, I love you."

Thanks for stopping by

loves xxxx

I'll always be the girl

Time is limited at the moment and that means that I get far more reading of blogs done than I do posting or commenting. This is I think an unfair balance of my time on the web but it does come with advantages.
One of those is that I can collate a lot of ideas about my next blog post when I will eventually get time to sit down and write it.

I think it is safe to say that one of my favourite blogs to read is Stephanie Howells. If there is such a thing as a blog crush, hers would be mine. Her blog is light hearted and funny and was also the first blog I ever found.

The other day she wrote this post and I knew I could create something similar. You know when you have an idea and it simmers for a while until you feel you can write it down? Yep, it was like that.

Because from a new place and a new environment I have come to realise that wherever I go I will always be the girl...

who worries far too much other the smallest details.

Who likes to plan and organise and manage and create rotas. who in short likes to know what she is doing. (I found this out after arriving at my new work place and for three days not having a timetable, to say I was stressed is putting it mildly)

I will always be the girl who has to sit down when she laughs too hard and no sound comes out except wheezing. Guranteed you know someone like this.

who enjoys a night in with chocolate and a duvet far more than hitting the town.

I will always be the girl who is loyal to those closest to her and likes to take time to talk.

I will always be the girl who finds it far easier to talk and far more difficult to listen.

who tries to put on a smile each day even when she is upset, yet is rubbish at not crying when feeling unwell.

I will always be the girl who cries at soppy films and laughs uncontrallably at good comedy. Who can devour a good book in a day and has to read at least a chapter of something before she can fall asleep.

I will always  be the girl who takes far too many pictures and cannot bear to delete them because one day she might just need them for something. Who plans so many crafty things in her head that she cannot remember them when she has spare time

I will always be the girl that appreciates family, who will take the time out to go back home or enjoy sitting in the lounge one evening playing games together.

I will always be the girl who dreams, who comes up with unrealistic but exciting schemes (involving the boy and her ) until she is told that they might not be possible and  begins another.

I will always be the girl who loves Jesus Christ and has as much chrisitan music on her i-pod as secular stuff.

I will always be the girl who works hard and appreciates a few free minutes for a cup of tea.

This is me.

xxx