Birthdays, Messes and Little Plays

Did you celebrate this weekend?  It was my birthday and I'd like to thank the nation for providing me with a weekend of bunting, pageants, concerts and flypasts - I'm sure the Queen doesn't mind sharing her jubilee with my birthday!  Three of the aircraft from the flypast flew right over my house this afternoon, they must have been on their way to line up. 

I don't really do big celebrations for birthdays, but I had a lovely meal on Sunday with some friends (whose husband also has the same birthday as me) and they bought me this little Victorian stool - isn't it just gorgeous? 

It's for sitting on down by the pond, so I don't have to sit on the mossy rock anymore (not the most comfortable of seats and often slightly damp!).

I had coffee on it on my birthday morning whilst watching the tadpoles - they have tiny back legs now.

But I'm afraid that for much of the rest of the weekend I've been ensconced in my study, as it had become rather untidy (that could possibly be a rather large understatement) and I couldn't actually work or sew in the space that was left!  This was it before I started to tidy up on Sunday afternoon (I do wish I was naturally tidy and that mess didn't accumulate around me!):

This was it by Monday afternoon (that awful "I wish I'd never started this" stage):

And this is it now - finished, and very organised!:

By throwing out loads of old paperwork I managed to clear enough space to put all my fabric on the shelves and not in piles on the floor.  It also gave me the chance to go through all the fabric I was fortunate enough to acquire via a friend of a friend on twitter the other week (but more of that another time).

Part of the reason for the tidy up was that I bought these Amy Butler fabrics from John Lewis on Saturday.

and now I actually have the space to make them into a dress and a skirt.

But I'd hate you to think that I've just been tidying - I've also been playing.  With this little lady, and her brother and sister.

Don't panic she's not mine, my neighbour breeds Abyssinian cats, and they need to get used to being handled and played with before they can be sold - it's a tough job, but someone has to do it!