I'm back!

Hi! I'm back from our holiday! We were only away for a week, but I feel like I've been away from the blog and the sewing world for so much longer. On Bloglovin I had 434 unread posts!

We had a fantastic time. The weather was... dry. Which is pretty good for the East Coast of the UK. I can't say my bikini saw the light of day, but then neither did my cagoule and that makes for a good holiday in my book! We went crabbing, the (wee) boys spent a lot of time digging up and moving around stones, we built sandcastles and ate ice cream. We went to a food festival, we had BBQs, the (big) boys did a brewery tour, we bought art and we went on a 90 second long ferry journey. My nearly-2-year-old niece finally said my name ("Lele" - so cute), we went out for dinner and we walked along the harbour to see the lobsters in the tank at least once a day.

I've just reviewed our photos and most of them are of children - we were away with my sister and her family, my brother and my parents, so 7 adults and 3 under 4's. I won't share these as there is nothing worse than photos of other people's children, however here are a few that you may like.

As you can see, no sun! But no anoraks either! :) And the last 2 photos bring me to my first refashion on this blog... the skirt!

I bought this at some point during MMM13, from our local charity "boutique" for £6.50. It's a simple dirndl or gathered skirt, originally from New Look and the print, which you can't see clearly from these photos, is a stripe, mixed with a kind of vague Venice-y type print (gondolas/boats and bridges/viaducts). I loved the print, the colours (I'm totally in love with orange right now) and the style of skirt, so bought it, thinking it would be perfect for my holiday. Now, this is not a refashion that I could remotely compare with the likes of Miss P, or her current Refashioners challenge. This was a straightforward, perfect as it was skirt, just a couple of sizes too large. The refashion was a simple matter of unpicking the waistband and the gathers. Regathering the skirt, cutting the excess off the waistband and then reattaching it. Simples. It took me 2 evenings to do - actually no, 3, as I did the unpicking on the train back from Leeds the other week. But then I am a really slow sewer. Someone like Miss P could probably do this in 30 mins. In her sleep.

Anyway the result was a great, wearable skirt, which, as you can see, I wore on holiday, regardless of the fact that the sun did not shine and it was actually rather windy. But it looked great accessorised with my new sunnies, 3 layers on top and my peely-wally Scottish legs! Not forgetting a convenient butter-cup strewn field in which to run through...

One last photo. We stopped off at the Angel of the North on the way back up the road. I have to share this photo because I love this sculpture so much!

OK, so it's 2 last photos, but who's counting?

P.S. The eagle eyed among you will spot that the is the same location as is in my profile pic at the top of my blog. Spot the difference. (clue look at the size of the Small Boy?!?)