Triffids, chairs and a row of houses...oh, and a baby photo too!

Look at the 'triffid' which is busily flowering outside my door...

This bowl of houseleeks used to be planted up to display our house number, but the plants seem to like the position and the neglect they get from me and have long since filled out all the space. And every year they put on this rather alien display for us!

In the run up to the birth of baby Sophia, Mr U-t-B and I had been on an internet search for a nice nursing chair as a gift for the new mum.  Because of the vagaries of ebay combined with a poorly functioning website on which we had seen the 'perfect' chair, we ended up with two!  First we got this one on ebay...

 It's ever so dinky, not quite reaching the top of my (shortish) legs, and Victorian.  It's in pretty good condition, upholstery-wise, but it does have a slightly musty smell, and I feel it would benefit from re-upholstering - I'm seeing it in something nice from Vanessa Arbuthnott...

 Then the 'perfect' chair that we thought was already sold, due to a glitch in the website on which we'd seen it, became ours too.  Sophia's Mummy is probably Cath Kidston's number one fan, so you can see why we thought this was the one for her...

The chair in situ, after we delivered it yesterday, just after the new family had arrived home from hospital.

And I can't resist including this photo...

Happy Dad and happy baby!

Finally, a bit of stitching.  You may have seen these fabrics before...

I just adore the little cottages on the right hand one and wanted to create some needlecases inspired by the fabric.  

Maybe a bit of subsidence here...

I was pleased to be able to use the machine's scallop stitch on the roofs 

The flowers are mother-of-pearl buttons 

I'm getting better at using the machine to help me speed up in making things these days.   All down to having a rather more reliable, clever and understandable machine, so thank you again, Sheila, if you are reading this!