Icelandic Volcano


After the Icelandic Volcano eruption, which has grounded every flying object in the UK, I looked out my window this morning to see the most awesome cloud formation. (click on pic to see full-sized) When I first looked out my window at about 0830 there was not another cloud in the sky except from this one long blanket that took up the whole of the horizon to the south. By the time I'd got up got dressed and walked to the park to get past the houses and stuff for a decent pic it had already moved on about 20 or 30 miles and this was all that I could get a pic of. In hindsite I should have just run out in my PJs and baffies and clicked it right there and then :) lol

Balado was grounded too, much to my husbands dismay. It's his day off today and had been looking forward to going flying all week. Oh well Hopefully it'll have all calmed down by the weekend, fingers crossed there aren't any further major eruptions to worry about.
Posted by Picasa

Brilliant Weather, Brilliant Weekend!



Saturday and Sunday were glorious. Saturday less so than Sunday but still the sun was out and the rain stayed away, what more could we ask for.

SATURDAY: was warm and sunny and although a bit of a wind it wasn't anything to worry about. DLH had been up flying with a friend who wanted to take a few aerial photos of his campsite and off road driving track.

On the ground people were talking about flying over to Strathallan for a cuppa and a bacon butty. I was sooo up for that so as soon as DLH had landed I was begging him to take me up for the fly-out, I was sooo excited! The lovely Jeannie had already agreed to watch my Beautiful pink and blue splodges so I was good to go. DLH was a tad apprehensive however as the last time I'd been up for more than 10 mins I ended up throwing up on him mid-flight (oops) I had a set of those seasickness wristbands this time though and everyone swore by them so I was sure they'd work (fingerscrossed)

Strathallan was amazing, NO landing fee as long as you buy a cuppa (of course) Awesome action from the skydivers who fluttered out the sky every 5 mins and great food at the canteen too. Such a happy, busy, adrenaline packed place. Everybody was really friendly, ATC were really accomodating and the nicest part was on the way out he radioed to us and thanked us for our visit and he waved at me as I hung out furiously waving down at the ground on departure :)

SUNDAY: The sun was out again, in force! It was scorching and by the time we all got there Brent already had the BBQ on and Wilma was heading out for another BBQ and more rolls. Pink Splodge and I went along for the ride coz Wilmas car had the top down and even the wind at 70mph was roasting :) The Splodges had their bikes with them at the airfield and there was about half a dozen other kids there to play with too so a good day was had by all. The BBQ was washed down with Non Alcoholic Elderberry Wine out of plastic Pint pots - aaah the CLASS - perfect!

The picture above sums up the weekend, no wind, high clouds, loads of sun and beautiful views - WHAT A WONDERFUL WEEKEND!
Posted by Picasa

Bear Hugs

Bear Hugs was a pattern I found when I was looking for a simple pattern to make out of my sons woof-woofs (muslin squares). I was initially looking for a doggy pattern but then I fell across this.

The one in the picture was a practice run that I made out of some gorgeous pink patterned flannelette that the pink splodge was always telling me was very pretty. The face is hand embroidered using double thickness sewing thread as I didn't have any embroidery floss to hand.

The website is beautiful and alot of love and good has come from this pattern so if you do make one try making a spare and giving it to someone who will appreciate it :)

I wanted the simple pattern to convert the Blue Splodges Woof-woof into a real teddy but more importantly so he would have a smaller area of muslin that he could suck on as I was starting to get worried about his teeth and dental problems that could arise with him constantly chewing and sucking on nearly half a muslin at a time :( This pattern I thought would be perfect because it's all stuffed except for the ears which are flat so I though that that would be better and it would still allow him to have the feel of the muslin in his hands and to cuddle into.

I'm glad I did the trial run on the pattern as there are a few things I'd like to improve, the size of the ears for one but I'm not sure on what else... I'm sure I'll find other things as I start to play around with it.
Posted by Picasa

Muddy Puddles!


This weekend was supposed to be the Easter BBQ and Camp-out at the airfield but as you can see from the picture it wasn't weather for either!

We went to have a gab and a catch up as some of the club members had gone for a curry in protest at the weather the night before. We'd hoped to have been able to get some flying but it really wasn't open cock pit climate today so we were huddled into the hanger and were provided with some light entertainment from pink and blue splodge and a muddy puddle!!!

The two of them didn't care that it was really throwing down rain or that the clay type mud in the puddle will probably never come out in the wash but they were delightfully occupied in that puddle for the best part of the whole day :)

N.B. the suits they are in are completely waterproof and thermal lined so although wet and freezing outside, they were dry and cozy warm on the inside and the best part was that we were able to strip them of their suits before putting them in the car and it was like they'd never been near a puddle..... almost lol
Posted by Picasa

Sunset Ending!

I love sunsets, I love flying and I love my Darling Luffly Husband so safe to say that I LOVE this picture :)

I've not been taking photographs long really, I've only had my Canon 350D for about 9 months, but I love taking them just to see what I get. I love that on my 'tiny' 1gb card there might be only one photo that is worth saving and that the rest are so-so but not worth showing off.

This was one of those photos, 200 clicks then THIS!

It was taken at Balado Park Airfield (TinthePark Land) and it's my DLH flying his Flash II Alpha in to land with the last of the dying light. What a days flying we'd had, it was brilliant, It was a cold day, pink and blue splodges were wrapped like fleecy eskimos and everyone was in their flight suits... on the ground... lol... but it'd been one of those days where you didn't stop laughing and the picnic had just enough food into to last the whole day :) This Photo reminds me of a perfect ending to a perfect day.
Posted by Picasa
I made the move to blogger, pure and simply, because I didn't like the templates at Wordpress! On Blogger I'll get to design my own so expect it to change regularly as creative motivation hits me :)

The thing that sold me over to Blogger is that now it's in Cahoots with Google and I recently started using Picasa instead of Flikr (200 photos isn't really alot as it turns out) it's all alot easier to make blog posts if I can do it straight from the Picasa Software then maybe I can go back to blogging more often :)

there are a few ways to do the transfer, different programs do it but they all miss something, like publish dates or comments or whole posts but the method I choose I thought quite ingenious and was quite proud of myself for thinking of it.

I exported the WXR / back up /.XML file from Wordpress and then used this web based WXR2ATOM CONVERTER page and then changed it to an ATOM / blogger recognisable .XML file and simply imported that and here we are, DONE!

It worked a treat, took 30 seconds and it's like we've always been here! Publish dates, comments and all WOOHOO!

DIY Onbag




DIY OnbagOriginally uploaded by BobbinD


First of all I'd like to give all thanks to Sarah at Onbag for allowing her pattern to be used for personal use for those of us that are Sewing Machine inclined :)

I used the same fabric as I did on my DIY-tai and I love that they are all matchy matchy :D

All the hems are rolled, rolled hems are a new technique to me and it almost put me off starting it but after I'd done just the first couple of inches and got round my first corner I was really comfy with doing the rolled hem and even stopped pinning them after a while and just rolled on the stop/start instead (I hate pins anyway so any excuse really) It too me ages inbetween the kids and getting other stuff done but I still reckon I put about 25hours into it and every second was worth it and I'm now planning my next one... I think it might be purple :)

I love bags but I don't really DO bags lol all that having to hold on to something and remembering to pick it up if I put it down somewhere so I don't lose it :( (I've lost loads of stuff by leaving it at my bum :() anyway no probs there with this bag, it's really comfy on the shoulder, it can be a rucksac too if I wanted and the best thing is, I love it so much I could NEVER forget about it YAY!



The red bit is the original, bonafide, the real thing Onbag DIY label available from the lovely Sarah herself :)



This is the bottom of the bag, I put an extra hem that looks like a rolled hem between the bottom of the side pocket and edge of the bag bottom to add some extra  structure to the bottom of the bag :)



I made the front flap 3 inches wider and 3 inches longer to give better coverage to the front of the bag but also so I could get more of the lovely dolphins pattern in :D