Photos from our week

One of the best things to keep the girls quiet and absorbed together for an hour or so while I get dinner on: a bowl of cornflour and water! It looks awful afterwards, but because it's only flour it's easy to clean up. And if you've never experienced the weirdness of wet cornflour, try it! It seems in the space of a breath to veer between solid and liquid and back, very peculiar.

Milly is still obsessed with putting everyone to bed: last night I found this little scene on the table, she'd found a crushed shoebox for Piglet to sleep in, all tucked up under his cardboard blanket!

And here's a scene Jessie had set up before she went to bed: I found out this morning that they are all gathered around Eeyore because "he is sad". Aw. It shows how she craves order because she's made sure each type of animal is with its own kind - even Tigger has been put next to the zebras with his stripes!

Taking Lucky for a walk in Looe

The sea was cold and grey so we didn't explore very much, but it'll be a good spot to return to in the summer, lovely heaths overlooking the shore.

A rare photo of Mum with her girls! Looking lumpy. I did have to shove the camera at Jude for him to take it, but at least there's some record of my existence rather than always being on the other side of the camera!

And this is Jessie's look du jour (well all week really): crazy princess! Well, it's more crazy old witch, but this is the only costume she has... She is wearing a floppy crown I made for her third birthday, which is pretty, but quite impractical as it was cut out of fleece scraps. I want to make one for Mil as her birthday is coming up, but I think I'll use proper felt this time.

And the cushion cover is slowly taking shape. I added a little white border to the patchwork to help break up the design a bit; it was a bit fiddly (mainly because my lines are never straight!) but I think it works well. I quite like an idea I saw for a cushion back, where someone had cut out an old shirt and used the existing buttonholes to fasten the cushion, but I think for this I'll have to stick to a pillow opening, as I want to use the same fabric as the front, this lovely peacock blue. Originally this was an amazing full-length hand-made coat with a funny cape around the shoulders, which I'd bought in a charity shop years ago but never found a use for. I had intended to alter it so that it was wearable (back in the days when I used to wear outrageous clothes!) as I always find it so difficult to tear clothing up if it can still somehow be worn - a bit like writing in or ripping up books, something in me feels it is deeply wrong! So I'm glad that it has finally found a purpose, and hopefully it will give me the courage to tackle the boxes of old clothing I've kept but never dared to tear up for patchwork...