Out with the old and in with the new...

The old knackered ironing mat thingy I had on my sewing table...

...has been replaced with a rather nice (imo) ironing board:

Yes, that is a different iron in this image...dropped the one in the last photo, resulting in an untimely end.

I used this tutorial which was excellent. She calls it a 'pressing' board. I call it an 'iron the b*gger out of it board' but it fulfils the same purpose. The only thing I did differently was not using the canvas she used as the outer covering. I didn't have any, so instead I used a scrap of home decor weight and it seems to be holding up fine.

Then it was out with old childrens clothes...

Sold on Ebay = nice pot of money in Paypal account

 ...and in with Loulouthi, Anna Marie Horner's new line:

Bought with aforementioned pot of Paypal money. Guilt factor = big fat zero

I originally bought a couple of fat quarter sets from Hawthorne Threads but they are so gorgeous I needed wanted more. So I bought a half yard of the complete set from Fabric Palooza. I've never ordered from Karen before but she is to be recommended. It came in two parcels, both of which were tied with a long piece of fabric (since gone into a string quilt I am working on) and in each package she also included an extra surprise piece of fabric. A nice touch.

They didn't stay gathering dust for long:

And my cutting mat.

It lasted six years before it stopped being self- healing. I have no idea if that is good, bad or OK but I clearly had a penchant for 15 inches as that is where the first hole appeared.

This is completely off topic but we had computer problems this week. The man who came round to fix it wanted to check the sound was working properly so he went to his 'go to' video that he uses on Youtube. You know when you think something is so naff you actually start enjoying it. I think I've reached that moment, along with the other 30 million that have already watched it.