February 2016 – Oh Sew Lagom

The Laundry Nook

So, as promised over in the blog, here is the post on the Laundry Nook (I call it that because it’s not quite a room but it has a door and it’s under the stairs!)

Below you can see it’s a mini disaster – and all my bags in the background (hopefully I will post on tackling these tomorrow) – and my beloved wire baskets. They have been so neglected with absolute rubbish – but now I hope they will only be adorned with dirty clothes! I do have a little shelf system in the corner above my baskets, but to be honest, they don’t quite cut it for a laundry nook – so hopefully I can convince hubby I need some better shelves…

Muchos love and happy cleaning! ❤️

Almost forgot…

Some of you may have been wondering what happened to the tv! Well, after lovely hubby came back he took it off the wall for the very lovely people from Currys to come and pick it up! They fixed it and exactly a week later it’s back on the wall.

I used to shop for most of my tv/household appliances somewhere else, but I can honestly say I’m converted to Currys customer services. I must remember to call them tomorrow to say thank you!

On another note, I’m also posting this because I’m now super excited that I’ve found the app and can post updates on my phone! Which means no more connecting my screen of death laptop to a computer to see what I’m writing to you lovely people who dare to venture in to the depths of my mission to organised and etc!
Until the morrow xxx

Organise Organise Organise…

So, this week has been interesting! Lovely hubby came back from his trip away (and brought me some lovely fabric from a little quilt shop in Vancouver – yes I send him to quilt shops…), and his parents have come to stay for a while.

Whilst my mother in law and I agree that we don’t necessarily see eye to eye on everything, we have reached a really harmonious medium, and whenever they come to visit they are invaluable in the things that they do! Bo’s room is now finished (apart from me painting the bed) and she tidies everything which is a huge weight off my shoulders.

I’ve been discussing with her how to solve some of my laundry “issues” – which is something I also very frequently discuss with my own mum when she comes to visit. I have decided to try a new method in the madness of my laundry. I have three wire baskets from (you guessed it) Ikea, that are placed next to my washing machine and dryer. In my original genius, I had decided to use them for the clean clothes so that I could then sort and fold etc… How naive I was. The clean laundry could lie there for days, even weeks, and if something clean was needed we went straight to the wire baskets. Nothing got folded and put away neatly, unless my mother came to visit – when she would tackle all of it.

So, for the revelation. It might seem so simple to some, but to me it was like a stroke of genius on my road to tackle the laundry nook! Instead of keeping the clean clothes there, I am using them to sort the dirty clothes. I bring my laundry bin out to the nook, and sort the clothes in to the wire baskets. That way, I know I have a full load ready to go when everything needs swapping over. If I then fold the things out of the tumble dryer I get two bonuses – 1. they don’t wrinkle and 2. they get put away instantly (ish – still working on it).

Step 2 of the laundry nook will involve tackling the insane amount of shopping bags I seem to have amassed throughout a few years. That and the rest of the house!!

As usual, photos will get a little post in Tips & Tricks!

So, until next time my lovelies! xxx

Folding the kids clothes…

I’m not sure about you, but a lot of the time the kids clothes have just ended up thrown in to the drawers. Yes – it saves a huge amount of time in terms of doing laundry if you don’t fold your clothes, but I find it ends up being such a higgledy-piggledy mess, that it then takes forever to find the right clothes and when you do they’re all scrunched up and wrinkled.

My dearest mum takes the clothes out of the tumble dryer and lays them out neatly on the sofa before folding – I tried this but found I very frequently got distracted (most probably by Pinterest of some other social media platform). I therefore figured that I pretty much need to fold them straight away. I’m there about 90% of the time, and the other 10% the clothes get left in the tumble dryer for too long, and inevitably are wrinkly when I get them out. Sigh!

My youngest (2) only has a little dresser. One deep bottom drawer, one normal top drawer with a sort of hidden insert drawer. I’ve found, that all her clothes fit inside this drawer with the following method of folding. I have also chosen to remove any “hanging” clothes and put them in her sister’s wardrobe. Along with all of this, I have decided to do it on a seasonal cycle, so that precious space isn’t wasted with shorts or vest tops when we are during the colder months. That one goes for the whole family!

I hope you find the following pictures useful!

Long sleeved t’s: If I fold them this way, I get them really neatly in to the IKEA Skubb boxes. You can pick up a set of 6 for £6 in various sizes.

Pyjamas: With pjs I fold the top the same way as above, and then wrap it in the trousers. I find that this way it is easier to keep the set together and I’m not constantly searching and trying to match sets up just before bedtime.

Leggings: Same as with the long sleeved t’s, I find that if I fold the leggings like this I can fit them neatly in to the skubb boxes, however as I have run out of boxes (I feel another IKEA trip coming…) I have chosen to stack them in the same “hidden” drawer as the pjs and tights.

For the love of Quilting!

Quilting. What can I say – I caught the bug quite easily! My mum’s old next door neighbour once asked me to photograph some of her work – she is incredibly talented – and I marvelled at the beauty of her quilts. So much so, that when she asked what we would like as a wedding present the answer was simple! And she didn’t disappoint, we received a beautiful quilt in reds and blues that we proudly use.

Years later, I decided to give it a go myself. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why my seams never matched up, and everything was wonky. This is before Pinterest, and I never thought about looking videos up on YouTube. We then went to see her in America, and she was more than happy to teach me the ropes – and we went shopping. Boy did we shop – rotary cutters, mats, rulers and best of all… Fabric! Yes I confess, I am a fabricaholic.

I hope you find my musings entertaining, and I hope to put some of my work on here soon – along with maybe some tutorials if I get round to it. But as stated before, for now I am mainly “mumming” and my sewing has to take a back seat to my kids and family!

However, I did want to share something with you in the meantime. This is a little mini quilt that I made for the UKQU (UK Quilters United on Facebook) mini swap in 2015. I really enjoyed “stalking” my partner on various social media, to try to figure out what she might like and then make it for her.

I might search through my libraries and post some old work on here every now and then, that is until I can make some more things!

Until then my lovelies xx

Half Term…

Half term! It’s nearly over – just one more day to get through and it’s back to some sort of normality. It’s been an interesting one too. Last Friday, shortly before bedtime, the tv broke. I honestly can’t tell you how disheartening this was just before a whole week of my oldest at home. Luckily, we had a spare one in the bedroom – not as good but it’ll do until Dad gets home. Perhaps I forgot to mention, he’s away! The lucky guy is snowboarding in Canada, and although envious, I have gotten a lot done!

It’s been a week of birthday parties, trips to town (and IKEA – you will probably soon realise it’s like my most favourite place, ever!) and organising.

On the topic of organising – I have been sorting through the kids clothes. Mountains of them. Realistically I know they really don’t need that many clothes, and we seem to wear the same ones over and over again. In fact, so do I. Why can’t I let go of the ones we don’t wear? Give them to someone who needs them more? I honestly can’t tell you why. Anyhow, I decided to sort through Harley’s chest of drawers (I forgot to take a before picture… sigh) and I just wanted to share my new method. Hopefully, this method will stick!

See, even though I’m not very organised, I like things to look neat when they are organised. A bit of a catch 22 for me, especially seeing as I’m lazy. But if it’s visually pleasing I feel good, even if it’s hidden away in a drawer, one that probably only I open on a regular basis.

I shall now continue on my quest – that, and keep going in the kitchen. Adding to the list of things I need to get done – next week’s meal plan, food shop for said meal plan, make sure school uniform is clean, find the school shoes and so on!

Much love xxx