Made Something!

Finally finished something!

One of my favourite blogs is tiny happy and I love the foraging bags Melissa made for her little girl. She completely rocks delicate embroidery and natural-looking style but when I made something similar for Sam I didn't really pull if off (looked a bit rubbish).

Needless to say, despite its randomness, he loves his treasure bag and it is full to the brim with pine cones and feathers and stones and charcoal and crumpled leaves and forlorn flowers and bits of stick and shells and... well, all the things that he has to keep forever and ever.

My design has evolved somewhat to be rather more primary coloured, boxy and appliqued and has become my go-to choice for birthday presents for all small people of my aquaintance. Enough people have been delighted with these gifts (not plastic tat, hooray!) that when a new shop opened near us called 'Look What Mum's Made' I decided to make a few samples and see if they would like to sell my Treasure Bags. Got to be worth a try right?

It's taken rather longer than I expected but I have finally finished 4 bags to take along in the next few days and see if they would like them. Fingers crossed...

mini yumminess

Bought my first mince pies of the season. Love love love mince pies. I don't normally buy them, because J doesn't like raisins and then I have to eat them all and that's never good.

But this year I have two little boys to help share the burden and they definately like them.

November is of course, far too early to be doing such Christmassy things but when they put them right there at the entrance to the shop I simply can't resist.

Cup of tea anyone?

We had a week in Centre Parcs a few weeks ago and had a super lovely time walking in the woods and splashing in the fabulous pool complex.

And we brought back an enormous quantity of pine cones, thinking we'd do something crafty with them (Sam's idea). I had an idea for an autumn wreath but very few things with which to make it - and no intention of buying anything. So I cut the centre out of a raffia-type table mat to make an outer ring and Sam glued (with 'no more nails'!!) pine cones around the edge. It looked a little bare to tell you the truth so I collected the fallen leaves from our Acer (beautiful feathery red) and stuck those on as well.

So it's on the door; could be better, but even when I'm not thrilled with the result, I'm pleased to have done it!

Lots of pine cones left of course, plus more of the gorgeous red leaves so they've been put in a vase. More pleased with this actually!

still here

not a lot of point starting a blog if you don't actually post anything...

i read a lot of blogs and it inspires me hugely; so many things I'd like to make, so many people's lives to take a look at, so many ways in which I would like to be better. But reading is NOT doing. I have a list of sewing jobs to do this evening, which I'm just about to go start doing, but first, a post.

And yet, what to say? On Mondays I look after my friend's little girl, which until a few weeks ago, meant 3 children under 3 (Freya turned 3 in October). We've had this arrangement since Freya and Sam were about 8 months (she has Sam on a Friday) and it has given us a whole day of free childcare to allow us to go to work. I took a break for a couple of months when Jack was born but basically it seems like it has always happened.

Safe to say, Mondays are the hardest day of the week. However, I have to say that today was a delight. There were no tantrums, no fighting, no weeing on my floor, all three children slept for an hour AT THE SAME TIME in the afternoon, and Freya called me Auntie Pam for the first time ever.

Until maybe 2 weeks ago, this little girl has only ever referred to 'Mummy', 'Daddy' and 'Sam' by name; all the other significant people in her life she refused to name. Actually pretty hard for the Grandmas and Grandads, and just a bit hard to discuss what's happening day to day if she won't tell you who she saw etc.

Still, it never really had any impact on me, although I know her mum found it infuriating and even concerning. Anyway, one day she decided to start and will now happily tell me about the hat knitted by Granny, and seeing Auntie Vicky. And today I was Auntie Pam (not really an auntie of course, but I think important adults in your life should have a little formality so we've always referred to ourselves as Auntie Eleanor and Auntie Pam). Can't explain why her saying it for the first time should make me feel so delighted though! It really did make my day.

Right, bags to make and jeans to hem.

Back soon.

Tractor Bag

We went to a 1st Birthday party today - lots of party food and cake! Plus wine for the grown-ups which makes it a really good party as far as I'm concerned...

Birthday boy William is a couple of weeks younger than my Fred and his brother in only a few weeks younger than my Sam so Emma and I have had pretty synchronistic pregnancies!

Anyway, with a second boy, you know that they probably don't need/want any more plastic toys and while my usual choice would be a book, sometimes it's nice to make something useful, and since, in my opinion, you can never have too many bags, I thought I'd make a bag for boys's stuff.

When I was doing the boys' bedroom, I bought a single duvet on ebay with loads of transport vehicles on and used it to make a blind for the window and a sort of blind to cover the built in bookshelves that I didn't want to have to clear out.

From the leftover fabric I cut out a tractor and fused some interfacing onto it to give it some shape. Then I cut enough blue canvas fabric to make the bag and zigzag stitched around the tractor to applique it onto the front of the bag. A couple of lenghts of canvas to make the straps (folded in half, stitched down the side, turned inside out and a line of stitching down each side) and a useful bag for boys' stuff.

Hope they like it!

Key Board

I love a system and I love a bit of organisation. Needless to say, I don't always follow the system or put things where they're supposed to be but if you don't have something to at least aim for then chaos will be the result.

Take keys. The system is that keys, especially car keys, go on the worktop just inside the back door. Easy, first thing you do when you get in. That way, if I need to move J's car to get mine out I can. And vice versa. However, you will quite often hear someone yelling "where are your KEYS? Why aren't they here?"

And shopping lists. I seem to need to go to the supermarket every other day. How can that be? I write a comprehensive list, buy everything I need, and yet, two days later... Anyway, the thing about the list is that it's a random bit of recycled paper (envelopes normally) lying around that I have to search for to add something new.

So, today's project was to combine these two things into one wall hung piece of organisation. Here's how I did it.

You'll need:
An old picture frame, ideally in a co-ordinating colour

Card to fit - also co-ordinating

Something to hang keys off - I used simple nails

Silver pen or other embelisher
Bulldog clip/peg

Take the glass out of the frame; you won't need this. Hammer the nails (or screw little hooks) in to the bottom of the frame, evenly spaced.

Write appropriate comments around the card or decorate in your preferred fashion. Attach the bulldog clip to the card - I used velcro in case I want to remove it, but you could just glue it on. Assemble the frame, hang on the wall and admire your handiwork. Then hang the keys, and make a start on tomorrow's shopping list.

And done in the time it takes to make tea!

So today's project was to combine these two

The beginning

Ooh, my first blog post. Really quite daunting. I had thought that I should think it through a bit before starting but then just decided to sod it, start typing and see how it goes.

We bought our current house mainly because the loft had been boarded out and had a couple of velux windows (view a view of York Minster if you really stretch!). J used it as a games room for the first few years but at the beginning of this year I took it over as a sewing room. So much space, so much opportunity to make stuff. I dug out all my random bits of fabric and half finished projects and vowed to try and actually USE some of it - instead of saving it for who knows what. And there seems to be a LOT to get through.

The world of craft blogging has been great at giving me ideas for what to make - I'll put up a list of my favourite sites soon - but sometimes I spend more time doing this 'research' and planning things than actually doing... So I figured starting a blog might give me the motivation to produce more. We'll see.

So, intro over, I'll see about doing something I can talk about tomorrow.