A Chilly Start

Well, hopefully we wont continue the year as we've started! Everyone, Missy included, has the cold and generally suffering from January Blues, so I'll focus on the more upbeat moments of the week.

We saw in the New Year with friends and it was a real struggle to get to the bells. Missy gave up and was happily asleep for most of the night and we grown ups all decided to meet up again when the fatigue of Christmas had worn off for a take two of the evening.

Walk wise its been rather chilly and staying to the usual dog walks - we're hoping to get properly adventuring next weekend. We weren't stealthy enough with Christmas so Missy overly worried her paw and got an ear infection - thankfully that's mostly cleared up now so I managed to get Missy out for a photo shoot to model her Christmas gift from her aunty:

Every dog needs a Biggles inspired hat! Perfect for the cold weather adventurer! And if the doom and gloom brigade are right, we're going to have lots of snow again this year, so we may well need it.

The first week in January marks my eldest nieces birthday - shes (shock horror) now 14 and wanted a Stitch (from Lilo and Stitch which is officially her favourite Disney film) birthday cake. Knowing that she is truly of the Instagram generation, and that she had been up-selling her cake to all her friends, I knew my work was cut out for me:

I'm rather pleased with it! In addition to baking, I also decided that this was the week to blitz through my sewing "ignored-for-eternity" pile - we all have one, you know, that bundle of items where someones asked you to adjust something they could easily have done themselves, or you've bought something cheap and it needs tweaked a bit or previous projects that you hate the result of and need to just get away from it for a bit, that pile. Well, mines had gotten out of hand, so I decided that this was the week to get a dent in it.

Two dresses adjusted, a complete refit on a hi-vis coat for Missy (it was on sale for £5, it looked big enough for a pony but it was only a thirty minute job to fix!) and a reworking on a completely failed project. Background; I'd gotten excited about pinny dresses, I had a super cute fabric and was overconfident in my ability to self draft a pattern. The result was horrendous, it was like wearing a potato sack and was about as flattering as one. So I shoved it aside and vowed to get back to it.

Well, that was...two years ago? Must be. So I dug it out, popped it on my dress form and just took the time to see what was wrong and reworked the pattern. I added a waist, button side closures, tucked it in and shortened the hem and I'm pretty pleased with it (and totally regretting not taking a before photo! You'll just need to believe me about how awful it was).

Tada! And apparently they are coming back in fashion, so a double win!

Hopefully next week we'll have some adventures to share, so until next time!