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Welcome

Welcome to the Toadstool Cottage Crafts blog.

Hi I'm Pip and this is my blog about the behind the scenes goings on of my business - Toadstool Cottage Crafts. I've always loved craft and sewing but last year I thought I'd see if I could make it into a business.

This blog is a way of sharing my journey with you the ups and downs the successes and disasters (and there have been a few!). I know it will at least give you something to laugh at, but hope it will provide you with tips and inspiration for your own craft endeavours! If you have a question or something to say just leave me a comment.


Tuesday 24 March 2020

Isolation Day Eight


Finally my husband has sorted out his medical appointments. The doctors' surgery didn't phone this morning so he phoned them and they said he should go in, so he drove himself down to the surgery and apparently he was the only patient there. Probably because we have all had text messages to tell us to stay away! The consultant's secretary got back to him to say the consultant was self isolating so wouldn't be seeing him on Thursday but would contact him by telephone. Phew.

The neighbours sent us clips of their CCTV video of the person opening the back of our car and he doesn't just open the back he opens both of the front doors and gets inside the car and sits in it for several minutes! He cycles along the pavement past our drive then turns around comes back and rides down our drive, gets off his bike and has a look at our car, opens the boot, closes the boot, steps through the fence and checks out the neighbours taxi but can't open the doors, so comes back to our car opens the driver's door and gets in, goes around to the passenger's  door opens it and gets in, finally gets out gets on his bike and cycles away!
My husband has now discovered that his CDs and ipod are missing.
The police rang me back and asked me to send them the video clips in the hope that the local police might recognise him. They also suggested that we keep all the car keys inside a metal tin which will prevent thieves from accessing the signals which unlock the car, so I'm off to find a tin.

The weather today has been gorgeous and I washed a sleeping bag and had it out on the line, when I brought it in, it was covered in little black specks which I thought were from the trees. I then discovered that the little black specks were crawling! It reminded me of my younger daughter's first car, it cost her £50 and it was a bright yellow original Mini. She drove it 16 miles to school every morning and I drove it  home and then drove it back to school in the afternoon and she drove it home. It was a lovely little car, a genuine Mini with sliding windows and those string door handle pulls, the only thing wrong with this bright yellow Mini was that it was always covered in thousands of black crawling mini beasts.

Today I thought I would start to sew the bright orange bag but it didn't go to plan. My new sewing machine has 3 different tension adjustment points and it must have taken me over an hour to get the tension adjusted correctly and then I discovered I was using the wrong thread and would have to start all over again. I think I'll do it tomorrow.

I have finished another crocheted baby blanket, I like to do something when I'm watching the telly, it's too dark now to photograph so I'll post some images tomorrow.

Monday 23 March 2020

Isolation Day Seven

This post has to include Days 5 and 6 because our internet was not working properly, I expect the world and his wife were all trying to use it at the same time as me, how dare they!

Anyway I have long since forgotten what I did and in what order I did whatever it was I did.

I removed all the unwanted covers from all the leftover cushions and have made several more new covers, unfortunately every time I turn around there is another naked cushion and I'm bored with cushion covers now.

I am bored with trying to catch up with the washing.


Not my image.

I am so bored with the cooking and washing the dishes. My husband and I used to take it in weekly turns to do the food shopping and the cooking. It was absolutely great, having spent the majority of my life meal planning, food shopping and then cooking the stuff, it was bliss to get every other week off. However since he hasn't been able to participate in anything really since Christmas it has all been down to me. And I'm fed up with it, and to top it all I have forgotten to take anything out of the freezer for tonight! Plus a few weeks ago he decided that he couldn't eat anything but white fish and mashed potato, thank goodness we have now passed that stage.

Also not my image. I wish my white fish and mashed potato had looked like this!

Oh and today the dishwasher appears to have broken! It washed the dishes last night with only about half of the soap tablet, the remaining piece was left in the flappy thing. So this morning I removed the soggy tablet, cleaned out the flappy thing and inserted a new tablet and waited the one and a half hours it takes to wash. Heaven only knows why it takes so long. But when I opened the door to remove the clean dishes the tablet was lying untouched. but soggy, on the bottom of the dishwasher. So I washed everything by hand. So much quicker and probably much cheaper.
Another image which is not mine.

Yesterday was Mother's Day and the girls sent me text messages and my son deposited a lovely bunch of flowers and a card outside my door, he said there were no chocolates as the shops were sold out. But at least they all remembered.

Today all three children are working from home and I have received various images of them sitting in front of their computers working.

This morning the next door neighbour called round to say that someone was breaking into our car last night! The neighbour has CCTV and he has images of someone actually opening the back door/boot of our car! They had also tried to get into his taxi. What we can't understand is how they opened the back of the car because it was locked. Interestingly our daughter in law who lives around the corner said the glove compartment in her car was open and everything had been taken out of it, but she too had locked her car. I have reported it to the police but there was no damage and nothing was stolen which is the most important thing.

Once again our celery soup friend left a couple of packs of paracetamol and a homemade banana cake in our front porch. It's getting to feel a lot like Christmas!

For the past two or three weeks I have been arguing with my husband about whether or not he should keep his appointment at the GPs and then at the hospital. He has to go to the GP to get his blood taken, so that when we go to see the consultant at the hospital he has the blood results infront of him. Well its been like talking to a brick wall. Today he finally rang the surgery and was told it was perfectly fine for him to go in to have his blood taken??? Then he immediately got a text from the surgery saying they would ring him in the morning. He has left messages with the consultants secretary regarding the hospital appointment but as yet she has not replied. Possibly because her answer machine is choked with other people asking the same question. Then suddenly he received a message from NHS Coronavirus Service to say that he had been identified as someone who should stay in! But he is still contemplating going, I understand that he feels he needs to go because he needs the treatment, but what about catching the virus - I have given up arguing and he has gone to bed for the moment.

On a more cheery note what else can I say, well the weather is lovely it is really sunny outside and quite warm, but I won't be going any further than the washing machine in the back of the garage. The road outside is eerily quiet in fact I actually can't hear any traffic noise at all.

And yet another image that is not mine.

Today has not been very productive, roll on tomorrow.