Recent Stitches and Fred-Style

There have been a few projects being finished recently, and as usual rather more being started. I still haven't finished several gift projects that are way overdue, but I did manage to make this dress for my friends little girls second birthday.

The fabric is called 'Summer's Basket of Flowers' by Moda. I bought it to make a dress for her first Birthday, but by then she had been handed down a dress I made for another friends daughter, so I decided to wait until she was a bit bigger. 

The pattern is basically the 'flowergirl dress' pattern in Heather Bailey's Weekend Sewing, just mucked about a bit with.

I am yet to deliver it, but will attempt a photo once it is on it's intended recipient. Fred did want to have his photo taken wearing it, as I used him as a rough dummy, but his brothers strongly protested.

The other recently completed projects were Fred's Birthday trousers which I posted pics of here.

We get through trousers in our house, what with mud and paint and the occasional potty training accident they are in great demand.

Fred got a pair of pirate trousers to match Jack's, and these lovely soft green cotton ticking ones. I love ticking for the boys trousers. It is just so soft yet hard wearing.

The pattern was again from Weekend Sewing, and was a roughly enoughly version of the Huck Fin Pants, although they didn't go up large enough so I upsized them considerably and added a lot of length as the originals were more like long shorts. As I've said before, if I am going to make something, especially for the smallest one, I'm going to make it big enough to last a while.

The tank top was a birthday gift from the friends who's little girl the dress above is for. He LOVES it. We are washing and wearing it, and he keeps fishing it off the clothes horse and changing into it.

This is Birthday outfit, Fred-style!

A Baby Warming Sling

My very good friend, and owner of the Share Harvest Farm I work on, had her 5th baby last year. Olivia is only the second girl in the clan, but that is still two more than I have managed!

On a visit to my house when Olivia was still but a wee scrap of a thing, my friend spotted the sling I made for Freddie, and I offered to make her a girly one for her baby warming present.

In my defence, she did say at the time "oh don't worry about it straight away as she's still a bit little"

So here she is, over a year old, in her finally finished baby warming sling!

What does every girl need to go with a pretty new sling? Smashing new shoes of course.

The Eight Month Jumper

So here it is, a doggy jumper for the littlest boy.

It really isn't that I knit overly slowly, although I am no speed knitter. It is more just that you have usually got to be siting down to knit, and I sit down very rarely. I say 'usually' as I have been known to knit in a variety of other positions. I have spent many hours bouncing up and down on the spot, with a baby strapped to my front, resting a 'needed tomorrow' birthday gift, or a 'so nearly finished that I just can't bear to stop' piece of knitting on the rounded cloth covered little being in front of me.

I have knitted in many unusual places from train stations and soft play areas, to woods and moorland.

I like to think of myself as a guerrilla crafter!

So Freddie's Christmas jumper. Started in April, finished on the 23rd of December!

It is a Zoe Mellor pattern, photocopied from a well loved book belonging to a friends Mum. I always knit a size up as they always seem quite attached to a Mummy made jumper, and are disappointed when they become too small,  and to be honest, I am aware of how long it takes me to finish a whole jumper!

I learnt after I was about half way through that Zoe Mellor patterns always come up large..."so always knit the size smaller than you need dear"! Oh well, too late!

The fact it looks like a dress just seems to fit with the fact that everyone thinks he looks like a girl. I don't care if he doesn't!

His lovely friend in these pictures are from Bluebells.

Satisfying

It is satisfying to have such a well stocked chest of dressing up supplies that a forgotten about 'come as a fairy tale character' day can be easily accommodated. He wanted to be a pirate, so a pirate he was. I don't mean to brag but a prince, knight, elf, Robin Hood, wizard etc etc would have posed no problem either.

The only shop bought item was, fairly obviously I think, the pirate hat. Everything else had been made or commandeered for the purpose. The grey waistcoat was actually Finley's 'Great Escape' costume. Made for him from a cardi by a good friend when he was just 4 and it was his favourite film.



And it is very satisfying when you spot that a bag, made for a very good friend for Christmas, has become her 'bag'.

That's warm all over glowing satisfaction, that is.

Six Times Around The Sun

All children are born unique, and for some children their uniqueness is subtle, but others are obviously and magnificently different.

Jack has always been utterly unique and in a world of his own, and although when he was younger that often took a little extra working out, he is now just such a joy to be around.

Not that he really notices



a whopping 6 fairy baskets on his birthday tree



We took him, and a couple of his friends, to the Milky Way. A huge corrugated iron building with a soft play area, a death slide, a farming museum, dodgems, and a number of other bizarre attractions which seemed to be all manned by one guy called either Greg or Captain Cosmic, depending on which attraction he was currently spearheading.

The boys thought he was great

This was a particularly important bit of creating I finished in time for his birthday. I had nearly finished before his Birth-Day, but not quite!

 I planned and cut and sewed this during the days leading up to my due date six years ago. I hid myself in the dining room with a portable gas heater in the dead of winter, and I was still sat at my sewing machine, determined to finish, when the real rushes of labour brought the whole enterprise to a frustratingly premature halt.

 And that was the last time I had worked on it, until a week ago.

It had been intended as a cot bumper but six year old boys have little use for a cot bumper. Instead I put looped bias tape at intervals along the top and strung it from a piece of doweling.

It is now hanging from the side of his bed, but once I have painted it will hang on the wall beside his pillow.

I can't wait to paint!

Christmas was

A lot of time spent lighting, tending and gathering around this.

The heart of the home. We finally managed to get a log delivery through the snow on Christmas eve!

A good covering of snow.

Oh how the white snow makes the house look even greyer!

So much snow. When Simon decided to try to dig the car out and make it to Torrington he asked our neighbours if they needed anything. As he was going from house to house the ones he had asked came out with spades and snow shovels and dug our car out.

A little wolf.



Some home made gifts



Some saved from the tip and brought back to life gifts

Some 'maternal glowy feeling at being right and knowing my little boys so very well' gifts.

A few (too few) wanders in the snow to marvel at the dirty looking sheep.

A smidgen of sledging between coughing fits.

And a lunar eclipse.

 Trust me, behind those clouds is the point of full eclipse!

And so so much more. Family food cooked by everyone. Expeditions through the snow to let loved ones know how important they are. The strengthening of ties through both friendship and community. So so much hand work and home made love, more of which I will share as I untangle myself from the holidays and get back into normal life.

And now to this new year. Now to grow with the light, and go boldly into the depths of winter with the promise of spring.

Easy Bunting- for Victoria

                                                                           picture by Jack!

We recently made bunting as a present for two little girls. It was truly easy peasy and I really loved the fabric we used to make the ones shown above.

This is the finished bunting for Honey. I love the colours of this one!

And this is Phoebe's, although you can't see the lettering so clearly here.

The fabric I used for Honeys came from a market near my Mums place in France, and I phoned her and asked her to pick me up some more if there was any left. This she did the following morning, then made her way to Victoria's jewelry stall. Victoria is getting married later year and was sat at her stall making bunting for her wedding.

End result- I get a phone call from my Mum on Victoria's phone from in the middle of a market in the Dordogne asking me if I can tell Victoria how I make my bunting.

So this, Victoria, is for you!

Easy Bunting-

You will need, quantities dependant on how much you want to make of course,

Fabric, cut into 9 inch wide ( or however long you want your flags to end up) strips,

Bias binding, long enough to accommodate all the flags plus enough to be able to tie it up at each end.

Thread to match the binding, if you're worried about the little details!

you will also need pinking shears.

Very faint chicken scratch diagram explained-

Step 1- measure 8 inch (or however wide you want your flags to be)intervals along the top of your fabric, stagger along the bottom by measuring in 4 inches first, then 8 inch intervals. Using your pinking shears, cut between the mark to create your flags.

Step 2- Lay the bunting, right side up, along the inside edge of your bias binding and pin in place. Sew along the top of the bunting to join the flags to the binding.

Step 3- Fold the top of your bias tape over and pin in place. It helps to iron it flat at this point. Sew along the front of the bias binding, right side of flags to finish. don't forget to sew all the way along the tape to finish the ties at each end. The back of the bunting will have 2 lines of stitching at the top, while the front will just have one.

It is possible to run step 1 and 2 together by folding the bias tape in half and ironing before hand, then placing the flags in and pinning in place. You would just have to be more careful, and it can be tricky to keep the flags in place as well.  

Happy bunting!

A Bit Distracted

Well, I seem to have been a bit distracted this week. Nothing huge or momentous, I have just been focusing intently on a couple of projects.

Frankie and I, with the help of the Bluebell parents, are holding an 'Afternoon Tea with Compassion' in aid of Compassion in World Farming. The preparation involved is predictably huge, although it is also enjoyable, so I have been very busy making posters, writing press releases and canvassing for help. I even did the pictures on the poster my self! I know they look like I got Jack to do them but I was still quite pleased that they were identifiable!

Simon has been having a trying week at work which has meant spending a little more time than usual making sure I've got him covered.  It has also meant a bit of a no crafting zone being imposed in the evening, well, a 'no sewing machine so I can actually hear what I'm trying to watch' zone anyway!
I have had an other sling project on the go as well (pictures to follow), this time as a birthday present for my good Friend Sneji, so the evening watershed has been inconvenient to say the least.
As a result (her birthday is today!) I have been sewing in fits and spurts during the day. As anyone who has ever tried to complete a sewing project with a sewing machine next to the family table, in the family play space (for now), with the whole family awake will understand, it takes commitment and patience previously only exhibited by those who have taken holy orders.

I am also preparing myself for re-starting my evening classes next week, so my available extra thinking time has been fairly taken up by that.

In a week or two things will settle down again and I won't be so occupied.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I love how many times a year I say that! Been saying it for at least the last 6 and it hasn't happened yet! You've got to love the chaos!

W.I.P Wednesday - a dress and a sling

I seem to go in fits and spurts with making things. Until recently all my crafting time was being spent knitting, but about a week or so ago my focus shifted to sewing. I recently received the most amazing package, by post, from a very old friend of my Mums. This wonderful friend is a seamstress on the island of Guernsey, and she packaged up and posted over a large quantity of material she had left over from various jobs.

I can't even begin to describe how exciting unravelling that parcel was. It really is no exaggeration to say it was like all Christmases come at once.

And in amongst the treasure trove of fabrics there was a length of an Anna French fabric called Merry-go-round. I can't say in all honesty that I was blown away by it on first inspection, but looking at it, it did seem perfect for one thing and one thing only.

And so it became this dress. You see? The perfect thing for a fabric called Merry-go-round. This dress was a birthday present for our friends daughter on her fifth birthday (see 'Birthday in the Woods).

Clearly not done with sewing for this week, I then decided at about 9.30 last night (always the wrong time to start a new project) that I really needed to make a sling!

To be fair, the need is real. We leave for France on Saturday to stay with my Mum for a week, and we are flying SO budget that we really can't take the backpack with us as it would count as a separate piece of luggage and cost us more than it's worth to get it there. And if anyone has ever tried to navigate a street market in the Dordogne with a push chair, they will know why that is not an option. We do have a fantastic wrap around carrier but it is slightly stretchy which was brilliant up to about 1, but now just means that the weight of him causes so much bounce it quickly becomes very uncomfortable.

So I decided to make myself a Mei-tai carrier out of yet more of the fab fabric.

I finished it this morning, and both Fred and I are chuffed to bits with it. The fabric is an upholstery sort of weight cotton, and the pattern is roughly the Frankenkozy pattern which I really liked as it uses thicker straps more like a wrap around sling to distribute the weight more evenly.

I think we look rather fetching in our new 'strolling around a French market in the early morning sunshine looking for our new wall clock' sling.