Opinions please

I have to confess to loving my Traffic Jam bunting. It was one of those designs that worked just as I'd imagined and I enjoy making it. I don't, however, particularly enjoy batch cutting and sewing, and the vehicles are pretty fiddly given the number of windows. So, I've been trying to rejig the pattern to reduce the amount of cutting and sewing involved but I wonder if the quality or design is suffering because of this. Could you give me your opinions please?

This is the bus as I currently make it:

and these is my proposed new design. Please bear in mind that I did this in about two minutes flat, so the zigzagging would be more even:

Thanks for your help!

Edit:

OK, following all your really helpful comments, here's my compromise which I think might do the job. I've taken on Martina's suggestion of the strip of felt under the zigzag and next time I cut some bus shapes, I will take on board the comments from my big sister about making the bus "chubbier":

The genius that is Kitschycoo

They say sibling rivalry or envy is a bad thing, but I'd like to disagree on this occasion.

It's all down to my niece, who celebrated her first birthday this weekend with three (yes THREE!) parties. So this time a year ago I had a lovely time cruising round Folksy looking for presents for the first girl to be born in our family for 13 years. And after eight years of only buying clothes for boys, it was such a treat to look through Kitschycoo's shop, selecting just the right tunic and booties for a girl.

Obviously they were a hit with my sister as she has now bought a coat pattern from Amanda at Kitschycoo so that her mother-in-law can make a funky orange bird-patterned coat for my lovely niece.

Which is all lovely for my niece and my sister, but frankly I was feeling a bit left out. After all, Amanda is my friend (albeit only in an on-line-y, twittery kind of way) and it was unfair that my family didn't have any of that amazing Kitschycoo style in our house.


The best thing about Amanda is her great talent for rooting out the most amazing fabrics. I'd seen this one (left) on a t-shirt in her shop, but I wanted MORE.


My Littlest Helper has huge blue eyes, and I knew that this was the fabric for him. So for only the second time in my life I commissioned a piece of clothing (the only other item was my wedding dress) and it is truly gorgeous. Really I don't have words for it, so just look at the pictures. All I need to say is that it arrived on Friday lunchtime, and although it hasn't been worn in the bath or in bed, it has been worn at all other times and with great pride:

So please, if you have boys or girls, go to Kitschycoo's website. This lady has a huge designing future ahead of her, I'm sure (I hear that ladies' coats are in the pipeline) and I can't wait to see (and maybe buy!) more of her designs.

Grandmothers

I have just returned from delivering Charlie to my mother-in-law. She lives 160 miles away in Bath, so we arranged to meet half-way in Hampshire. Charlie's excitement grew as we got closer to the rendez-vous point, as did his worries about how he might change cars in the middle of the motorway. It was lovely having him to myself for a couple of hours and we chatted about how I had been to stay alone with my grandmother at about the same age. My children are at the age now that events such as this will remain with them, as similar experiences have stayed with me.

I imagine that my parents dropped me off at Grandma's house in Hertford, although I know that when my older sister went to stay there she travelled by Grandma's favourite mode of transport: the Green Line Bus. We didn't see Grandma very often; this was in the days before the M25, so circumnavigating London to get from Sussex to Hertfordshire was quite a trek, although I imagine the trips might have been more frequent if my grandmother and mother had got on better. Whichever grandparents we were visiting, we were always wearing our best clothes and would always stop in a layby just before we got there to have our hair combed and our faces cleaned with lick and Kleenex.

I do remember feeling rather nervous about staying there on my own. After all, this was not someone I knew particularly well; I did know that Grandma was quite bossy and I certainly wasn't sure about keeping up my good behaviour for several days. But the memories of that visit are happy. I remember that we walked into the town centre to buy my birthday present from Woolworths. I chose a red, blue and yellow plastic saxophone. How Grandma must have loved me serenading her for the rest of my time at her house!

I stayed in what had been my father's bedroom and remember lying there looking at the wallpaper covered in trains (or were they planes, perhaps?) trying to imagine Daddy as a boy. It seemed such an impossible and funny idea.

I clearly remember Grandma asking me if I liked custard and I must have pulled a face, thinking of the thick-skinned yellow slime of school. But the tinned Bird's custard she extracted from the larder was a revelation: smooth, creamy, sweet and delicious. Grandma's larder was a wartime hoarder's dream. In those days which predated "best before" dates, it was anyone's guess how long those tins had been there.

When I think of Grandma, she is a tiny, old, rather querulous lady. And yet she had the patience to have small girls to stay with her. She let me choose my own present, even though she must have hated it. She always made us tangerine jelly with segments in because we loved it. And most of all, she sent me letters like this:

In this one she hasn't signed off with her usual XOXOXOXOXOXOXOX (dozens of kisses and hugs) but I love the way she has stuck all those shapes on, licking and sticking each one individually, in those days before sticky stickers.

I hope that my children will have dozens of memories of all their grandparents. The way they interract with them is so different to the formal, best-dress, best-behaviour relationship I had with my grandparents. I am sure that it helps them to feel an integral part of a huge family of all ages and better equipped, therefore, to communicate with all generations.

Phew!

I am gradually coming back down to earth after the last week of June. It's the same every year. My middle son turned 6 on 23rd:

and my oldest turned 9 on 29th:

(do you think they were excited about their presents?!)

and of course they're still at the age when presents and cake are paramount, so a huge amount of energy has to go into thinking about presents for us and wider family to give them and then buying them and wrapping them and then baking cakes for school and cakes for home, and organising parties........

so you can see why I've needed a bit of a break. And oh, did I mention we had the school fete in the middle there somewhere? And I had a stall? Which went pleasingly well, incidentally, particularly as I was selling bags and bunting rather than my normal cushions and hot water bottles.

Just in case you haven't seen enough of my children's tonsils, here's the youngest, not wanting to be left out:

And finally, a useless piece of personal information following on from these revealing photos: my favourite word in Spanish is Otorrinolaringólogo. Sounds great, actually it means Ear, nose & throat doctor. So now you know who to ask for when your child inserts a peanut up their nose on holiday (no, that's not how I know!).

Elderflower

There is a divine smell in my kitchen - we are making elderflower cordial. My helper today is Charlie, and so far we've picked about 150 heads of flowers, enough to make litres and litres of cordial. Slightly worrying is the 10kg of sugar we've used, but it all gets diluted and the smell and taste of the elderflowers is so pungent that we never need use much of the concentrated cordial in each glass to release the heady memories of late spring.

We'll leave the elderflowers and citrus fruits to steep overnight and then strain and decant the syrup into the many plastic bottles I've been hoarding over the past weeks. It's lovely to know that we'll be enjoying this delicious essence of spring for months to come.

Tagged

I've been "tagged" by Amanda from KitschyCoo (just the coolest kids' clothes around) and so I have to fill in these lists of eight things and then tag another eight bloggers. I'll happily do the list, but I don't really read that many blogs, so I'm afraid I won't be passing it on. Here goes:

Eight things I am looking forward to.....

1. Having the children at home for half-term next week.

2. The children going back to school after half-term (see – I’m thinking ahead).

3. Thai take-away from the van for supper tonight.

4. The philadelphus (mock orange) on the drive coming into bloom. The most divine smell on earth. First bud spotted today.

5. Going to the Heathfield show tomorrow. Pigs and tractors. Yay! (such a country girl).

6. A dry summer (ha!)

7. My lovely friend Penelope coming to stay in July. I miss her and her beautiful family.

8. Going to see Joseph with my family next Saturday. Reminds me of driving to family holidays in the 70s – no car stereo, just three girls singing the entire musical from the back seat…..how our parents must have loved it….

Eight things I did yesterday...

1. Made a pitiful attempt to clear up my sewing stuff.

2. Started making a mobile version of my traffic jam bunting.

3. Pretended that using a foot pump to pump up car tyres and bike tyres was as good as a work-out. Yeah, right.

4. Ordered 40 bags of horse manure for the garden.

5. Queued with the children for delicious ice-cream at our village’s new sweet shop. Proper strawberry ice-cream that tasted of strawberries. Yum!

6. Spent two hours trying to find a babysitter.

7. Went to the Charlston Festival to see David Lodge speak. Felt very young compared to most of the audience. I’m not a great fan, to be honest, but it was good to do something cultural.

8. Got lost on the way to and the way back from Charlston, but it was such a beautiful evening – East Sussex lanes and the Downs at their best – that it didn’t matter. Must get a new map that WORKS! (or practice map reading).

Eight things I wish I could do....

1. Be tidy (or at least tidier). What I wouldn’t give to have Mary Poppins’ finger-clicking skills.

2. Control my hair. I think my sisters & I keep Frizz-Ease in business in this country. Any other recommendations?

3. Raise one eyebrow. My younger sister can do this brilliantly. She is a barrister and uses her eyebrow lifting to very good effect, I am told. I am very jealous and have spent years practicing, but it’s no good. I just can’t do it.

4. Recognise different birdsong. I think I’m a bit dyslexic about this. Currently cuckoo, owl and pheasant are about my limit.

5. Somehow clone each of my children so that they can continue to grow, but I could also have them stay just as they are right now, aged 2, 5 and 8.

6. Learn to live by the maxim “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.” I am a terrible prevaricator.

7. Successfully persuade my children that not EVERYONE needs a Nintendo Wii, Playstation, PSP or whatever the current favourite is. This is a losing battle, I know.

8. Have lunch like this every day – eggs Benedict made with bantams eggs.

Eight shows I watch....

1. Seinfeld. Probably the best sitcom EVER made.

2. Eastenders. What a terrible admission. Sorry.

3. Location, location, location. Middle class property porn.

4. ER

5. Desperate Housewives.

Er… that’s it. Does radio count?

6. The Archers

7. Woman’s Hour

8. Open Book

Badges

I've never really been one for hand sewing: too fiddly, too many knots to tie, never sure if I can see better close up with or without my specs. However, I had an idea in my head last week - you know, the sort of idea which makes your fingers itch to get started in case the idea floats away before you've captured it. And you know what? I think I love hand stitching.


This week I went to visit three of my friends' new babies and deliver the mobiles I've been making (see here) so I thought I'd like to make a little something for the older siblings to make them feel special too and so it wasn't all about the babies (even though it was really!).


It started off with a little friend of mine who had her 4th birthday last week. I wanted to give her something she would love, I knew it had to be pink and shoes are a bit of a theme with me at the moment (more on that later). I'm pleased now that I've been hoarding all those tiny offcuts of fabric and felt:

I'm really pleased with how this has turned out. I love how the tiny seed beads mimic the cut-out pattern of Startrite shoes. I made another of these (but with turquoise shoes) for the sister of one of the babies but knew I needed something for the boys too. And show me a three-year-old boy who doesn't like tractors:

I'll be making more of these soon (definitely a space rocket one) but first I need to invest in a thimble. Ouch.