Snowdrops, the seaside and sewing

Half-term here has come and gone. The girls had ten whole days off school
and I think they've enjoyed themselves and have rested and recuperated. They
kept me busy most days. I had felt tired and frazzled at times and had craved
for some quiet time on my own during the day, but that was all off set by lie-ins
in the morning. the alarm clock not going off at 6:30am (hurray!), and doing fun
things with them like going to the cinema and meeting up with friends. It was nice,
actually, the whole half-term, and now that they're back at school, the house
has felt unusually quiet this morning. I miss them.

The weather was mostly rubbish throughout the school break. We were
looking forward to the sunny and mild days that were forecasted but what
we got was rain, grey skies, cold weather and on Thursday, the storm Doris.

When the sun did make an appearance, we tried to make the most of it. The girls

played outside and we went for walks down in the woods. We were on the look out

for any spring flowers on the ground and were disappointed to find only one clump

of snowdrops in bloom. Maybe in a few weeks there will be more of them flowering

and other flowers will appear, too. What we saw, and we keep seeing, are brightly

coloured crocuses in front gardens and we're a bit jealous. If I get myself organized

this year and have some bulbs planted in the autumn, we'll also have some colourful

blooms in our front yard next spring. Hopefully.

Tuesday last week was one of those rare dry and sunny days and we decided
to go on a day trip to Whitby. We love a day at the seaside, even if it's just
a short one. We played crazy golf, had fish and chips on the pier, mooched around
the Shambles and bought some kippers which we had for breakfast the next day.

Mostly, we stayed at home and pottered. I showed the girls how to sew one
rainy afternoon. They were very keen and were quite stoic with needle pricks
which surprised and impressed me.

It was Markie who first wanted to learn to sew and she specifically wanted to make

these felt birds. I was happy to oblige. I learned to sew when I was about her age, from

watching my mother, and then we were taught in school when I was about 8 or 9. It

pleases me that they're interested and they're both actually really good. Lulu, who's

four, now knows running stitch and straight stitch and 'gets' how buttons are sewn.

Markie pretty much did most of it by herself, including the buttons.

They're planning to bring their finished birds to school this week to show their teachers

and classmates. I'm all for it. I think they did a great job and should be proud. I'm

looking forward to making them pancakes for tea later. We'll have sweet and savoury

toppings, although I have a feeling Nutella, their latest favourite, will be most

in demand.

I hope you enjoy your pancakes too, if you haven't already. Thanks for reading

and for the lovely comments on my attempts at tapestry crochet. I have made progress

with the second pattern and I'm looking forward to showing you next time.

Have a great day!

Lenten Stitches

It's that time again in the Lenten season when small squares
of fabric are collected from parishioners in our church and made
into a patchwork 'Fabric of Suffering'. Each piece of fabric represents
our worries and anxieties and sewn together and brought to the altar
on Good Friday, symbolizing our unity in suffering with Christ. It's a
tradition I find moving and heartening and has made Lent, especially
Holy Week, an even more special, hopeful and meaningful time for me.

And it's now a little tradition for me to embroider the fabric that we
bring to church.  I don't really have to but I like sewing by hand and
 I always love the quiet moments when I'm stitching and I think of
what this fabric means to me and my family. This year's embroidery was
inspired by Markie's school project which was a collage of the four seasons.
I thought it was very fitting - day in , day out, through the changing seasons,
we pray that we stay faithful, that we are happy, safe and healthy. It's all our
hopes, plans and dreams for 2016 in this small square of fabric.

I started by cutting out a paper template of a tree and traced this
on to the linen, chose the threads and stitches and did the sewing.

I used stitches I know well - back stitch, long and short stitch,
lazy daisy stitch, French knots - and one that's new to me -
cable chain stitch which I used for the snow in the winter tree.

The new stitch was from this dictionary, a beautiful and useful book
 I found in a charity shop ages ago. I'm always inspired whenever I
have a look at it and hopefully I'll have another stitchy project to
work on later in springtime or the summer.

I really enjoyed making this from start to finish and I am looking
forward to bringing it to church later in the morning. School breaks
up on Thursday so we can all go to church on Good Friday. We'll
see our fabric make up the garment with everyone else's. It will be
moving and beautiful and as always, I'm grateful that we can take part.


I hope you're all having a nice, relaxing weekend. It's cold again and
if it's the same where you are, I hope you stay warm and cosy today.
See you soon.



(You can see the previous years' Lenten stitches here and here)

Making in 2015

I'm having a look back at all the things I made last year. I think
 I did well. I didn't manage any dress making as I'd planned to do
at the start of 2015 but there was still some good sewing. I made costumes and I hand quilted my patchwork blanket. Both tested and improved my sewing skills and I learned a lot from making them.
I'm also very pleased to have made a tea cosy. I still use it everyday
and it's certainly one of my favourite makes from last year. My crochet
got better too. Amongst my crochet projects were shawls, pot holders and several cowls but I'm most proud of my bear bag. I adapted a triangle pattern for the ears but the rest I just made up as I went along.
My crochet confidence grew from from making that little bag. It's
another favourite from 2015.

As always I feel lucky to have had the time and resources to make
all these things. Getting crafty and being creative bring me a lot
of enjoyment as well as comfort, pride and satisfaction and I hope
there will be more in 2016.

Wishing you all a good week. It's back to work today but school
doesn't start till tomorrow for the girls. They're playing nicely at
 the moment so fingers crossed I can do some crochet this afternoon.
My unfinished blanket is calling out to me. See you soon!

Baby Bunting

Thank you for your comments about our robin Christmas cards.
 I'm really glad you like them too. I've finished two more presents this
past week, one for a lovely lady I've met through Instagram and the
other is this bunting for a friend's baby girl. 

I haven't done much sewing lately, I think I like working with yarn
more at this time of year, but I did enjoy making this, especially
 hand sewing the appliques. Our friend requested for the colours - purples and greys with a little bit of pink. I don't use purple much
in my projects but I think they all go well together here. I'm
 particularly pleased with the pink binding. I think it just lifts it a bit,
 making it a little less too purple.

We went to see both new mum and baby last weekend and
they're both doing well. And I'm pleased to say that the whole
family likes the bunting. It's going on the wall next to her crib
and I like to think that she will be looking at it when she's a little
bit older. And when she does I hope she'll like it too.

I just have one more Christmas present to finish and that's it.
School is breaking up for the holidays today and I'm really looking forward to a couple of weeks of just staying at home with the girls.
We'll be making more Christmas cards this weekend and it's the
Strictly Finals tomorrow. I cannot wait!!


Thanks again for your lovely comments.
Enjoy your weekend!

Skeletons, Hedgehogs and a Pop Up

It was a crazy, busy week around here last week. It was the end of

autumn term, lots of school stuff going on and then Saturday was

my husband's pop up restaurant at the city farm cafe. Exciting, scary

and very, very busy. I'm so glad we got through it all and now we have

 another week ahead of us and it's half-term. Yay! No school runs or homework, no plans really. We'll just take each day as it comes and 

see what we'll feel like doing. I'm really all for not doing much and

 taking it very easy this week.

But first a little look back at the best bits of last week. The quieter,

slower moments when I've had a chance to breath, enjoy and 

appreciate the simple, lovely things around me.

:::One morning while the girls were at school and nursery I made 

double chocolate cookies. I do enjoy my time alone at home now.
There is always housework to do but there's also a fair bit of making
and pottering which, for me, is always a pleasant way to spend a morning or afternoon at home.

:::I made a skeleton costume for Markie. Well, the bottom half of it.
After pirates and mini beasts last school year, it's all about skeletons
this time and as usual the term ended with a special dress up day.

I found a glow-in-the-dark skeleton t-shirt and got her plain black
leggings which I appliqued with felt bone shapes. I know I could have
just bought a ready made Halloween outfit from the shops but I do
like making these things. I enjoyed stitching those appliques and
there's always the extra joy when she likes what I've made her and
she did!

:::It was also Arts Week and Lulu was keen to show me what she had
made at school. Cue a walk outside to gather some leaves and doing
 my best hedgehog drawing. Then there was gluing and sticking
and a bit of colouring in.

 Ta dah! Lulu's autumn-inspired artwork. It was fun and easy and kept
her occupied for awhile. Love a pink faced, leaf covered hedgehog,
don't you?!


:::Thursday morning my husband and I went for a walk at Yorkshire Sculpture Park after dropping the girls off at school. It was lovely to
see the park at this time of year and also to have that time together.

We talked about Saturday and all the stuff we had to do to get everything
ready. There was A LOT to do but talking things through and making
lists helped us get our heads round everything and made it all just
a little bit less daunting. It was a lovely autumn morning to be
outdoors and I'm glad we went there for our walk.


:::I had a good play with washi tapes and these bottles on Friday afternoon followed by some flower arranging.

Someone once said flowers are sort of like a smile and it's true.
Add to that some washi tapes and I was in colour-filled bliss for
about an hour. These were our table decorations and it was a job
I was pleased to do and would certainly love to do again next time.


:::After lots and lots of organizing and preparing, our pop up restaurant
adventure finally happened on Saturday night and I am so pleased to say that it was a success! Hurray!

This really was my husband's idea and it's what he'd love to do
as a job one day. Neither of us has done anything like this before
and it was very stressful and scary but I'm glad we've done it.  We've learned a lot from the experience. We're also lucky to have found a venue at the farm cafe and people who've been supportive from the start.
They've already invited us back and we're already planning for the
next evening in November. Our hope has always been to make this
into a monthly event and it looks like it is going to happen. Yay!!


Thank you for all your lovely comments about my crocheted
bear. I haven't started on the new one yet, still can't decide over
a cat or a fox.

 Hope your weekend was fun and half term is going well.
Enjoy the rest of your week!

Baby Bunting

It's been a long while since I've had a finished project to share
here with you. The last ones were my apple bags back in July,
a long time ago now, really. But I did make and finish something
over the summer school holidays and it's this bunting. A friend of
ours asked if I can make one for her friend's baby and I was more
than happy to oblige. I haven't made a bunting in ages but I've
always enjoyed making them. From choosing the fabrics to sewing
the appliques and adding the binding, a bunting is always a fun and satisfying project to work on.

 I usually attach the appliques by machine but as it's been awhile
since I've done any machine embroidery, I decided hand stitching
would be easier, even quicker this time. I do like a blanket stitch and
 I think the ones here make a nice, colourful outline to the letters and elephant shapes so I'm pleased I decided to do them all by hand. My
 friend was really happy with it, especially with the little elephants.
 I think they're rather sweet too. A happy, enjoyable project, all in all.
Hopefully Baby Albie and his mum like it too!

A lovely and warm Tuesday evening to you all. See you soon!

Apples for the Teachers

School finished for the summer last Friday and these bags were our
gifts to Markie's teachers. I was busy making them last week, hand
stitching the appliques and then sewing together all the bag pieces.
I always enjoy projects like these and was very glad to be able to make
these presents to show her teachers our appreciation for all their
hard work. They've done a fantastic job making learning fun and interesting for the children and it's really thanks to them that Markie
 has had a good first year at school. She's learned so much, has made
many friends and most of all, she's really enjoyed her time at reception.
We are grateful to her teachers and it was a real pleasure making them
these gifts. Fingers crossed she'll be just as happy in Year One next
school year. But we're not really thinking about that yet. We're too busy
enjoying the summer holidays at the moment. We're off to the seaside
this Saturday and we're really looking forward to a whole week in
Robin Hood's Bay. A whole week! Can't wait!

I hope the summer holidays have started where you are and
it's going well. Whatever your plans are I hope you enjoy them.
See you soon!

A Patchwork Blanket

This is my patchwork blanket. It's taken me awhile but here it is
finally all quilted and finished!

It was back in February when I started piecing together my fabric squares. I used two Moda charm packs called 'Marmalade' by Bonnie
and Camille. This was the part that I enjoyed most. It was easy and
relaxing to do and it didn't take me long to stitch them all together.

The next step was basting the quilt top, batting and backing material together. I used normal safety pins for this and didn't have much
trouble doing it. Now I can start hand-quilting but this stage didn't
go as smoothly and as problem-free as the previous two.

Quilting is basically just running stitch worked through all three
layers to keep them together. But even with a no.9 quilting needle,
the longest in the set of six that I got, I really struggled to do this.
I thought the batting, which was leftover from other projects, was
perfectly all right to use. I didn't expect that it would be a little too
thick for quilting. I didn't want to change it though so I had to find
 an alternative to the (useless) quilting needle.

I tried a curved one. It went through the layers easily but it was very awkward to hold, making it difficult to make even and straight stitches.
I gave up on this too. Then at the suggestion of a lovely old lady who
 runs a haberdashery in Whitby I decided to use an embroidery needle.
It's as thin and as sharp as the ones for quilting but it is longer so can
 be held easily while working through the layers. This time it worked! Finally I was able to make progress with the quilting. Hallelujah!

 My stitches are not small, even and perfectly straight as quilting
 stitches are supposed to be but they are neat and effective enough.
And after all that kerffuffle I was just relieved that finally I managed
to get the quilting done.

When it came to adding the binding, I found I didn't have enough
blue bias binding to go round the blanket. It was Markie's brilliant
idea to use two colours instead: dark pink and blue. Well, why not?
It's a bit unusual but again it worked. One of the many things I've
learned from this project is that sometimes you have to think outside
the box or in this case, outside the square!

Despite the quilting hiccups, I'm still glad I kept going and didn't
give up on this blanket. It's actually not very big but just perfect
for covering my lap or both girls' laps when they're watching tv.
The backing material is vintage brushed cotton. It is super soft
and cozy, I'm very sure this blanket will be very popular around
here when the colder months come.

 One other thing that pleases me about this project is that once again
 I made something from materials I already have. It is always so
satisfying to be able to do this. Plus the fabrics are just gorgeous.
I'm actually really happy with this blanket. I love it!