Home again!

Slowly slowly we're getting back into the swing of things at home. We had a lovely time away staying with family, despite the girls' various ailments which all seemed to come at once and in quick succession over the Christmas break. Jude's mum said that her four were always ill during the holidays when she went home to visit her mum too. Nice to be back though. I appreciate our space when I see it with fresh eyes again. We enjoyed the last of Jude's holiday by going to the Eden Project today, which was a wonderful way to while away a ropey old grey blanket of a day. There was a storyteller in the Mediterranean biome wearing the most marvellous patchwork coat, telling an old Cornish story of Jack and a Giant called Burdock, which the girls enjoyed. Somehow it always feels as though you've been away in another world when you return to the misty Cornish country roads after a visit to Eden.

The fantastic storyteller in his patchwork coat

A gorgeously scented shrub - the fragrance wraps around you in the cold air - winter flowering Jasmine I think, but not sure.

I think this is the stump of a tree fern - I love the intricate pattern 

The dancers in the Mediterranean biome

 

 

I'm busy working on some new baby projects: a multi-coloured crochet blanket out of my stash of recycled yarn, and a patchwork quilt out of a pair of funky curtains I found in a charity shop in town. So far I've made up two squares just to test materials, but I may have to actually buy some co-ordinating fabric for once rather than just use random scraps. I think if you're using a very boldly patterned or coloured fabric throughout a quilt, it only really works with a set number of plain colours, or at most one equally vivid partner. So that may have to go back on the shelf for a while. As you can see in the pic, I'm pretty rubbish at getting my seams to match up neatly; I don't know whether it's me or my machine who is at fault - as I know little more than how to thread the thing & press the pedal - but my perfectionist side has to just take a break when I do something like this. Same with crochet: to get it done at all I have to accept the wonkiness and just take note of things to be improved upon next time. I can't be doing with unravelling and re-doing every single mistake - except for the size of the red/pink square on the second strip below, which I have now extended slightly to balance the squares up a little. The orange square next to it is overlong but I can't face unravelling that much! Baby won't mind.

Somehow my belly snuck into both pics...

On the plus side with the creative stuff, my homemade gifts were well received (now those I DID re-work to get absolutely right!) Here's a photo of Aunty Boo in her new head wrap thingy on Christmas Day.

And our few sunny days in winter always warrant a trip to a beach:

One of our gifts this year from Jude's mum was National Trust membership for a year, which is thrilling... when anything re-opens that is. 

Here's a random photo of an enormous tree in the grounds of Stroud's Stratford Park - sadly I don't know what breed of tree it is (though I could probably look it up)

And just by way of scale, here's a pic of Jude and the girls beneath it - I couldn't persuade Jude to climb it, sadly.

Happy New Year to you all x

The tree is up!

We had a second dash round Plymouth for the last couple of pressies yesterday afternoon and I sat next to a lovely lady on the bus back to the car park who quite rightly admonished me for not having put a tree up for the girls yet. She lightly touched my arm and said "Do it tomorrow". So...

The girls had great fun decorating it, and I resisted the urge to interfere as the tree proceeded to be dressed and undressed over the course of the afternoon/evening. I had to re-glue one bird beak but everything else has survived intact so far! We only have a titchy plastic one this year as we're not around for the whole break and it seems needlessly wasteful to have a live tree in an empty house, but I am glad I finally got round to it.

So that's it! Everything is wrapped, we even got stocking fillers for the girls which I'll wrap tonight, and cards are sent. The last thing I have to do is a table runner I decided to make at the last minute for Jude's mum which so far looks like this:

I'm not even that sure how to put it all together or what to back it with as I've never made one (or even used one) before - I'm guessing I should put some kind of batting in it. We shall see how it turns out - it wouldn't be a creation of mine if it wasn't slightly wonky! Plus, now I've seen it in bright light I'm not too sure about some of the colours....

One of my birthday treats was going out for dinner and a film with a friend to Plymouth Arts Centre: the food was lovely but the film we watched, The Future, was poor, despite a promising start with a few giggles from us (though we had had a glass of wine before the film started). It was a great venue, particularly because they allow you to take your drinks into the film with you - very civilised! I dressed up for it too:

Thought I'd also share a pic of the girls enjoying their costumes on Milly's birthday!

Happy holidays!

And a Very Merry Christmas to You Too

Seems like a long time since I last wrote here as I haven't felt I've had much to say about anything, but as that feeling could end up carrying on indefinitely I decided to break the silence and dive right in....

We are heading inexorably into the festive season, which for me always brings a strange mix of heady childish glee coupled with an increasing sense of alienation from all the joyless hurrying hordes, shopping their little hearts out every weekend. Don't get me wrong, I've spent many a year scurrying along with the best of them, my hands twisted out of shape by the plastic strings of bulky carrier bag handles. The older I get however, the more I struggle with this rampant, ugly consumer frenzy.

http://joshybug.com/2011/11/22/tis-the-season

An example of this is last weekend when we all took the Park and Ride into Plymouth to do our Christmas shopping. On the return journey, I watched as every single passenger struggled on board the bus clutching armfuls of enormous packages, each in a separate plastic bag, as I sat with our total purchases that day contained in two small paper bags. At home I have a pile of plain white tissue paper with which I intend to wrap our presents, which will no doubt be decorated by me and the girls with painted snowflakes and glitter. I bought a pack of cards from Jess's nursery featuring a snowman she'd drawn herself, any more that I need I will make myself. I have made as many gifts as my new-found craftiness and six-month-pregnant-looking-after-two-little-ones state can manage.

By no means am I saying that I'm leading some single-handed crusade against consumerism, I know there are many others who feel the same way, I think it just hits me harder when I do venture out into the tide of humanity because living as we do without TV and in quite an isolated rural situation it is very easy to build your own little world without being constantly bombarded by the need for material things. What I find most frustrating about this whole season, apart from the sheer quantity of crap that is heading straight into landfill in a few days' time and the senseless, guilt-ridden pressure to buy crap for people who just don't need any more crap in their lives, is the almost complete lack of warmth in the whole process - which is what the whole festival should be about.

This is how I probably look when Christmas shopping

In the bleakest, most dismal part of the year, a festival of twinkly lights and fires and colour which brings everyone together in warmth, love and companionship to share food and gifts and have a laugh together is surely a quite brilliant idea. Instead it has devolved into a grotesque mockery of a party, where people feel pressured to spend money they don't have on all this stuff. We've lost all sight of what we should be enjoying most and I don't see any way out as long as people continue to let themselves be sold the idea of Christmas and Santa's bulging sack.

The girls and I were in a charity shop last week and the elderly lady behind the till loomed over Jess and yelled "Are you looking forward to Christmas dear? And what have you asked Father Christmas to get you this year?" to which Jess looked at me then back to the crazy lady completely dumbstruck. Not only does she not have a clue who Father Christmas is (am I a bad mum? She's only three) but she wouldn't have the faintest idea what to ask for anyway. All she absolutely totally needs is to watch her daily three episodes of Charlie and Lola on BBC iPlayer for her little world to be complete.

http://www.luxist.com/tag/illumination

Birthdays and celebrations on the way

We've been busy this week, starting our Christmas decorations:

And the present-making continues apace... in the end I decided to make both projects - at once!

Gap-tastic cowl above, lacy headband below

Milly squeezing the cat & me in my lovely handmade headband - thank you Lisa! :)

Milly's birthday is fast approaching - as is mine, which I feel very ambivalent about - so I have been secretly building up a stash of gifts for her. It's very hard trying to explain how to keep secrets to a 3 year old though - she's dying to tell Milly what she's got! Luckily she's not seen the main things - a cute monkey costume, which I think she will LOVE and facepaints - YAY!! I bought some for Jess too so she doesn't feel left out. I also ordered some helium balloons something I've never done before, which is really exciting. As usual I've spent my birthday money on gifts for other people, but I did treat myself to some overpriced but very yummy Cath Kidston hand cream.

So this week I have lots to get done - well for me anyway - birthday cake and card to make, finishing off knitting projects before their owners-to-be arrive for Mil's birthday this weekend, so I can stash them away and try to resist the temptation to get them out and show them off! Granny and Grandad AND Aunty Boo AND my sis are coming to visit which is fantastic - my sis lives up Lancaster way so it's a treat to see her, and we don't often see Aunty Boo either. Then Granny is taking Jess back with her for a couple of nights, which will be the first time she's stayed away from home.... she'll have such a good time! I had hoped to get out to the new River Cottage restaurant which has opened in Plymouth for a birthday meal this weekend but sadly it was not to be, fully booked. Bangers n'mash in the local pub instead methinks!

Have a lovely week!

Patchwork cushion

Front

Back

All finished! That's another pressie crossed off my list.... just a few more to go. Next up is a cowl-neck scarf OR a headband, I can't decide.

Both patterns are free downloads, but the headband looks a bit more of a challenge! I have only ventured tentatively out of the scarf knitting box, and that was to make a little bag, which to be fair, was also square, so I'm hardly out of beginner needles yet. Still it's good to stretch yourself a little!

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...

Tra-la!

A finished project! Yay!

I'm really pleased with this little basket, it took a day to make from selecting the fabric to finished piece. Now I just have to decide who to give it to for Christmas! If I had planned everything properly I'd have made some pretty little soaps to put inside, but there you go.... looks like a visit to Lush is in order...

And here are a couple of pics of the process to show just how easy it was:

All the pieces cut out

Stitching the patchwork panels in a line to save thread!

We all had a lovely day out to the Eden Project on Sunday - well I say day, but we didn't get there until about 3pm so it was brief but lovely! They are offering Cornish and Devonian (?) residents annual membership for £5 which is fantastic so I'm looking forward to going back many times over the next year. It's really nice to be able to do things with the girls during the week when it's less crowded - it was packed on Sunday which was a shame as there were some great kids craft activities going on but there were too many people. And as it is one of my favourite places to go anyway, I don't need much excuse!

In the Mediterranean biome

And here's my next project to start:

It's going to be a patchwork cushion for my sister... yes, another Xmas present! I was quite happy with this layout until I started playing around with some bits of yellow and green silk to make it a bit more interesting, then realized I'd have to find something to stiffen the silk up with - interfacing maybe? - or it will drive me crazy sliding all over the place and I don't think it would work in conjunction with the sturdier pieces. So maybe I should just keep it simple.

Nice to be sewing again after so long!