Marriage Preparations

Tomorrow morning John and Steph are flying off to Spain to make final arrangements for the The Marriage Part Two.

The Marriage Part One takes place in this country on 1st June (just them and their two witnesses) and then 25 of us are flying out to a little whitewashed village in the mountains of Andalusia looking over the Mediterranean to a villa where they will have a ceremony.

John has hired the villa in Sayalonga for nine days and is providing bed and breakfast, so to speak, for all the guests. So we all get to spend a week in the sun instead of a rushed few hours in dodgy weather.  The whole thing will cost them much less than a 'do' in this country lasting only a few hours. That's with the villa hire the wedding planner and all her paraphenalia,  breakfasts, wedding food and drinks and all the do-dads and gewgaws that you have at weddings.

So over the next four days they are meeting the wedding planner and caterer, checking out local amenities and hairdressers and generally making sure everything is going to go smoothly.  We'll all fly out on or about the 19th June ready for the ceremony on 23rd June.

I'm staying at their house until Sunday with the boys but we will keep in touch via Skype for updates. It's the longest and furthest they will have been away from the boys so I hope they are all ok.  The weather looks good for this weekend so we will spend plenty of time in the garden. Ben will be at school on Thursday and Friday so Max and I can play to our heart's content!  I'll pack my bags today and be there, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for 6.45am tomorrow. I'll bake  today for the class on Thursday night and have all the patterns prepared by tonight.  Steph's Mam is looking after the boys while I teach on Thursday night and then again on Sunday afternoon so I can come back and get some things done, or I'll have no clothes for work!

I spent a happy couple of hours on my June Mini Quilt - I just need a bee button to finish it.

My hand cut wooden ones are too big (from my tea cosy - I have a few wooden ones left to paint)

I can only see some pretty naff plastic ones online so I'm going to see if the local laser cutter can make some little buttons for me. They are too small to hand cut. I've got a few designs for buttons, including strawberries, bunnies, pumpkins and beehives, so watch this space...

I don't think I showed a picture of the May Mini Quilt so here it is.

It all came out a bit paler than I intended. I'm getting the patterns together so that they can be downloaded in pdf form, but that will have to wait until I'm off work for a few days. I'm just wondering whether I can take my laptop to Spain for my early morning sessions before the world gets up.

July will be on the design wall soon. I thought I had a little wire hanger that would be suitable for them all but the little wooden dowel is too thick to use pegs on and I haven't sewn any sleeves on to the back of the quilts.  At the moment they are pinned on to another mini quilt on my beehive display hanger

but hopefully when I get the little buttons done I'll be able to make some pretty pegs to hang them on to a wire hanger.  I get so frustrated that there isn't enough time to do all the little design ideas I have.

On the logo front I'm getting on quite well

It took me ages to 'countrify' the heart. When I first did it the shapes were completely even and I wanted it to be asymmetric like the original. It's almost there.  I'm using the experience of drawing mottled backgrounds for future projects.  I loved doing the little patches.

So now the plasterer is here and I'm sitting my the bed so I don't breathe in the dust. Lordy I get paranoid about breathing pollution. Scented candles, air fresheners, spray products are all on my list of banned products! I even keep my mouth clamped shut when I'm mixing icing sugar!

2pm will come so quickly today. I hope the plasterer finishes in time to allow me to go shopping or I'll have to do it when I have finished work tonight. Actually I think I might bake at John's tomorrow when Ben is at school and then he can help me ice the cakes when he gets home.

Well I better make a shopping list and gather my things together, although if I forget anything I'll just pop Max into his pushchair and walk up. I suppose that's the good thing about living close by.