nickynackynoo

Morning

2010-06-22T06:37:00.000-07:00

This is the view I currently get as I go downstairs in the morning.

It brings light to my heart.

I love peonies and their endless tissue-papery layers.

Precocious eating

2010-06-05T08:04:00.001-07:00

Some days I despair of my sons' eating habits. The older two are like Jack Sprat and his wife and enjoy completely different bits of each meal. And then the youngest manages to like all the things that neither of the others would dream of eating. I have days where I long for them all to eat pizza; never going to happen:

Son 1: "Too much cheese!"
Son 2 "Too much tomato!"
Son 3 "Is yucky!"

but then when we go to Carluccio's they will hoover up a plate of antipasti with enormous relish. How can they love marinated anchovies and yet retch at the mere mention of tuna? What have they got against peas? How is it that one of them loves only the insides of baked potatoes and yet won't touch mash - IT'S THE SAME THING!!!

So lunch today brought a happy surprise. Here is Guy (3) learning to love taramaslata. I'll just have to accept that they are precocious eaters.

Ten things I hadn’t expected to learn this week

2010-04-26T05:35:00.000-07:00

I can get from my front door in East Sussex to the Intensive Care Unit at Wansbeck District Hospital in Northumberland in 6 hours flat. Not a fact I’d ever planned on knowing, and certainly one I never want to verify again, but it’s been a hell of a week. My parents were on holiday in Northumberland when they were involved in a serious car accident. My father is being discharged today after exactly one week with a broken hand, injured wrist, cracked rib and extensive bruising. My mother has been moved from Intensive Care to the High Dependency Unit and is making great progress. We can’t wait to get her back to Sussex.
It is approximately 200 paces between the Critical Care Unit at Wansbeck Hospital and the Orthopaedic ward, Ward 6. I have walked that corridor many, many times this week.
I never again want to hear the phrase “Given the velocity of impact…..” Too frightening to think about.
I am more of an optimist than my two sisters, although I think there were moments last week that it seemed more like denial than optimism. I am hoping, however, that my optimism was justified as my parents are both making an amazing recovery.
Laughter really is the best medicine, at least when your ailments aren’t physical. The three of us sisters have laughed a LOT in a last week, and I think it has kept us sane.
My mother’s life doesn’t stop being busy just because she is lying in a hospital bed. She has been terribly worried about missing appointments or letting people down. She has scoured the pages of her diary hundreds of times this week in an effort to make sense of her current circumstances. There were times early on when in her head she was out shopping or on her way to pick up her grandchildren and however many times we told her not to worry, that everything had been sorted out, she still couldn’t let go. While many people would relish the idea of sitting quietly with nothing to do, my mother is certainly not one of them.
My parents don’t travel light. The charge nurse in A&E who dealt with my parents when they were brought in by ambulance said he had never met anyone with so many things in their pockets as my father. Not only did he have a lot of pockets, there were objects in every single one of them which all had to be inventoried. When my sister went to clear out their car, it was the same story: every eventuality had been planned for – sun hats and warm hats, smart shoes and walking boots, fleeces and formal jackets, snacks and drinks, maps, guidebooks, reading books and newspapers. I suppose that after decades of travelling together they know exactly what they need, and what’s the point of being without it if you have room in the car?
Having a rather expensive goose down pillow at home is lovely, but it pretty much guarantees a cricked neck when using hotel pillows instead.
I rather like supermarket clothes. Having thrown a few things in a bag, it was a relief to have a 24-hour Asda near the hospital. Somehow it was easier to buy new clothes than work out how to find a launderette.
I have full confidence in the NHS. I’ve always had good experiences with the NHS anyway (and we’re lucky to have an excellent GP in the village) but the care my parents – particularly my mother – have received this week has been outstanding. We were asked so many times by my father’s nurses about my mother’s progress and vice versa and we would also hear that their doctors had been liaising – it all felt like a very holistic process. Knowing they were receiving such good care certainly made a terrible week slightly easier.

I’m sure I’ll learn new things this week too. I just hope they’re really mundane and boring and don’t involve those horrible adrenaline-fuelled lurches of dread and fear that we had so many times last week.

The meaning of flowers

2010-03-23T14:58:00.000-07:00

For so many years a bunch of primroses would remind me of Mothering Sunday: lining up with all the other Brownies in church to have our bunch of primroses blessed before giving them to our mothers. Now, when I see the first tiny palest yellow buds in the garden, they always bring to mind this most precious of moments:

the minute my parents brought our older two boys back home to meet their new brother three years ago today. The boys gave me two lovingly gathered posies - more precious by far than all the bouquets of exotic flowers we received in the following days.

Happy Birthday, lovely Space Ranger. 3 today!

Bibs

2010-03-18T06:31:00.000-07:00

I've been really pleased with my new range of bibs (note, it's heavy on the boy bibs. Wonder why?!). I found the beautiful dark navy polka dot fabric in the remnant bin at a fabric shop and can't stop using it. Thankfully I've now found a new supply as it is my current fabric of choice and seems pretty popular with customers.

I do have plans for some bibs without spots, but, I don't know, the spots are just such fun to sew with. I'm also updating my range of t-shirts, which sold really well over Christmas. Sewing them's not a problem, but photographing them on wriggly children is a whole different story!

Winter visitors

2010-01-08T08:17:00.000-08:00

We thought we were done with the round of seasonal visitors, with Christmas and New Year all wrapped up and packed away for another year. And then today, sitting on the window-seat in the kitchen after lunch, we had a visitor we had never seen here before. A redwing.

Hanging over the fence from our neighbour's garden is this truly amazing tree (I'd love to know what it is, by the way). It's one of those marvellous plants that excels in every season. It is still covered in red berries - so beautiful in the snow - some of which I "borrowed" to decorate the berry-less holly tucked behind the picture frames this Christmas. There are so many berries on there, we were convinced that the birds didn't like them, but from the numbers of redwings we've seen today (and also thrushes and blackbirds) it seems that one family of birds at least are partial.

I wondered if these birds had a collective noun, as many species do, my favourite being a charm of goldfinches (with which we are indeed charmed in our garden thanks to a large clump of teasels), a parliament of owls (such pomposity and wisdom!) and an exultation of larks. Unfortunately I could find no collective noun here for redwings, but maybe to myself I will know them as a surprise of redwings.

Apologies for the rather less than sharp photos; the light was going and I didn't want to startle them with a flash.

On the bright side

2010-01-06T13:00:00.000-08:00

Today has been one of those days that you can deal with in two ways: ranting-and-raving-isn’t- life-unfair-why-me, or becoming like Pollyanna. I read Pollyanna when I was about eight and like to think that some of her “I’m so glad, glad, glad” attitude has stayed with me. I know it drives some of the people around me mad but really, there are times when there is nothing you can do to improve a situation; getting cross just makes it worse, so why not just try to look on the bright side?

1. I suppose it all started with the Little Helper’s chicken pox. It was inevitable that he’d get it some time now he’s at nursery, although I expected it would be during term time and not right now, given that he hasn’t seen any other children for weeks. Still, at least he incubated it until Christmas and all celebrations were well and truly over. It made the school run a little tricky on Tuesday, though. In the end, I dumped the older two at the lollipop lady’s crossing and didn’t even need to get him out of the car, then at pick-up time I bundled him up and headed for a deserted patch of playground, in between all the groups of chatting mothers (ahem, actually this is what I normally do anyway, call me anti-social…). Perversely, or so I thought, he’s decided that this would be the week that he would finally get to grips with potty training. Nutter, I thought, you don’t feel well, you’ve got chicken pox, this will never work. But, in fact, it’s perfect, we’re not going anywhere anyway, so no embarrassing accidents, and besides now we’re onto number…..

2. The snow. So we’re not going anywhere because of the chicken pox and the potty training, and even if we wanted to we can’t actually get out of the drive because of the snow, so it’s all good. Except that we were expecting the lovely Ocado man to deliver our shopping today and he rang to say he’s stuck in Newhaven and can’t bring us our food. Bother. Except…

3. Not to worry, nowhere to put it anyway, the fridge has decided that today is the perfect day to break down. We’ve got plenty to tide us over and it gives me the impetus to clean out the fridge and use up all those little end bits of everything around the place. Might as well do the cupboards too. Bulgar wheat with a sell by date of 2006 anyone? No-one? Just as well, because I’m cooking it all up for….

4. The pigs. When I fed them this afternoon I used up all the pig-nuts in the bin where we keep their food. Looked around the shed for the next bag. None there. Stomped back up the garden to look in the garage. Nothing. Rang H at work. “Please tell me there’s another bag of pig-nuts somewhere”. “There is, it’s in the boot of my car”. Oh, yes, that would be the car abandoned at the station 5 miles away, up snowy hill and down icy valley to which I don’t have a key? Err, yes. Not to worry, we’ve got bulgar wheat, we’ve got wholegrain-risotto-rice- that-takes- 1 ½-hours-to-cook-that-was-on-special-offer-3-years-ago, we’ve got half a packet of pearl barley we only use once a year in turkey soup, we’ve got the cereal no-one actually likes…..

….those pigs are going to have a feast tomorrow. Not actually sure what we’re going to eat, but no doubt tomorrow will throw all sorts of other little surprises our way. Will I be able to deal with another day with such equanimity and Pollyanna-like poise? Hmmm.

Just for pleasure

2010-01-05T06:35:00.000-08:00

A comment I read earlier today made me realise how little time I have spent in the past year sewing for pleasure. It's not that I dislike sewing for my business - of course not, otherwise I wouldn't do it, it's just that sewing for pleasure has become something of a luxury. Bizarrely I managed to find time just before Christmas to do just that - I sewed for pleasure and made a few things that made me happy this Christmas (incidentally the only Christmas for a long, long time that I made absolutely no handmade presents for anyone - I just bought them from other people instead).

For our first Christmas together, H and I bought what I thought of as a "Starburst" for the top of our Christmas tree from the Conran shop (ah, those were the days, lie-ins, weekend shopping, espressos along the way). It was a lovely pointy shiny star made of different coloured foils. I've since discovered that it's called a Polish Porcupine and there are instructions for making one here. We've used it every year since but sadly bits have been breaking off it and we decided that this year we needed something different. Thanks to a button and felt stash that needs some serious re-organising, I spent the weekend before Christmas putting this together:

it also featured on our Christmas Eve party invitation, although that was before I mounted it on the red and white background which it needed for it to be noticed way up there at the top of the tree:

Then, on Boxing Day, with the party and the Day under our belts, I got itchy fingers and knocked out a couple of these for the younger two boys. I know they're not going to want to wear Christmas t-shirts for much longer, so I'm making the most of it while I can (they drew the line at the mistletoe t-shirt I made last year. Kissing? Uggggh!):

This little helper now has chicken pox, cleverly mirroring the spotty pudding, don't you think?

So, a New Year's Resolution? Well, apart from the one I've made for the past 30-odd years (yeah, yeah, yeah, be tidier, more organised, hmmmm) maybe I need to do a little bit more sewing, just because I want to.

Opinions please

2009-11-18T05:02:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-09T04:24:00.000-08:00

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

2009-08-30T08:34:00.001-07:00

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!

2009-07-03T15:14:00.001-07:00

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

2009-06-06T09:38:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-22T06:19:00.001-07:00

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

2009-05-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

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.

The traffic these days....

2009-05-07T11:28:00.000-07:00

Look at all the vehicles I've been cutting out today, queueing up to be made into bunting and mobiles. Now think about all the button wheels I have to sew on...... toot, toot!

Boy meets bluebells

2009-05-02T07:37:00.000-07:00

I grew up in an area renowned for its bluebell woods so for me this is a special time of year. That nature can produce such intensity of colour and scent takes me by surprise every bluebell season. We love to walk in bluebell woods in the late afternoon when the flowers seem to glow in the dimming light.

This year our Little Helper noticed them for the first time. He's already showing some of his Daddy's love of wildflowers (lots of daisies and dandelions proffered in his grubby chubby fists) but witnessing his first awareness of bluebells was a special moment.

Odd

2009-04-12T02:44:00.001-07:00

I've been sorting out the children's clothes drawers and tackling the Mount Everest of laundry that lurks in our house in preparation for going on holiday tomorrow. Now, I'm confident that I've washed and sorted everything that needed washing and sorting and yet there are still these...

...the Little Helper's odd socks. 15 of them! How did this happen? Where are all the others? I suppose it doesn't help that clothes in our family have been handed down and down and down the children (my nephew is now 16 and I'm fairly confident some of these were his) so the Little Helper is the sixth child to own these socks. Nor does it help that I am congenitally incapable of throwing anything away, but.....15! My husband confidently tells me that he's sure some of them are in the garden. Hmm. I wonder what it will take for me to finally accept that I am never going to find the other half of these pairs and actually throw them away.

We're going to Cape Cod tomorrow, so off to find some actual pairs of socks to pack.

The cutest thing on my ipod

2009-04-04T12:06:00.001-07:00

This is a story about a tractor making hay in the snow as told by my middle son just before his 3rd birthday. He is now 5 and this reminds me that I should record them more often. They grow up too quickly.

Bags

2009-04-03T09:33:00.000-07:00

Following my post earlier this week, this is what I have been doing with my lovely fabric haul.

I've been working on my "perfect tote" pattern for a while now. When I say "perfect", I mean perfect for me, i.e. that it is big enough for my stuff and a nappy change for the little helper, the handles are long enough to go over my shoulder even when I'm wearing a coat, that I can open it wide enough to actually see what's in it. I find with a lot of bags that I have to scrabble about blindly without being able to see the bottom. So I knew I needed something with a gusset (I have a friend who would stop reading this blog this second just because of that word!) but that wasn't too tricky for me to sew. Also, I now know from experience that bizarrely I find it easier to make a lined bag: I am not one of life's neat sewers, and the lining lets me hide lots of mess (can I somehow employ this technique in my kitchen, I wonder?)

The most enjoyable part has been choosing which fabrics and linings to use together. I love this bird print with the red polka dot lining:

I've been really careful about cutting the gorgeous shoe fabric as it's just too good to waste, so I've made these little bags for girls - maybe not quite big enough for everything I haul about with me, but certainly big enough for a purse and some lip gloss.

Satisfaction

2009-04-01T05:36:00.000-07:00

This is the bottom of my ironing basket. I hadn't seen it for months.

Fabric

2009-03-31T04:58:00.000-07:00

I had such a lovely time in the fabric shop today. We popped in to look for curtain material for the middle cheeky boy's room and came out with a bag full of totally inappropriate (for him) fabric instead. We also bumped into two friends, so the Little Helper was happy hiding behind some curtains with his little girlfriend. I had to pretend not to see the Bob the Builder fabric he was so interested in.

So, tea, shoes, polka dots, pink.....I reckon if I throw a few buttons into the mix I could make most of the female population happy with this haul!

Lunch

2009-03-28T09:03:00.001-07:00

It was always going to be a difficult meal.

Our lovely pigs went off on Monday: a journey we always knew they were destined for but tough to deal with nonetheless. They looked rather bewildered in the trailer but not upset and they left together, unparted since birth.

The pigs when they first arrived

These pigs had the best life we could give them: a varied seasonal diet - apples, acorns, garden cuttings, grass and vegetable stalks and roots supplemented with pig nuts; ample room - their enclosure is about 60 square metres with a lovely sty, plenty of straw, logs to rub against and lots of tree roots to snuffle around; and company - it was the boys' job to feed them after school in the afternoon and they would hang around with them, scratching their backs and chatting to them (the pigs probably found out more about their school day than I did). The only thing the pigs didn't like was the electric fence, but they learned to respect it, particularly after the Great Escape when we put it on a higher setting.

Look how tiny they were!

It was only once they had gone that I realised how often during the day I watched them from the window: opening my curtains in the morning, getting the boys' breakfast, while talking on the phone or sewing. And I really miss them. It's only been a week, but they had become an important part of our lives. I grew up with pets (a donkey, hens, cats and goldfish) but we've never wanted pets here. I don't have time for a dog and we have too much lovely birdlife to risk a cat. And now, given the choice of any pet, I'd choose the pigs.

The Piggies three weeks ago

We never lost sight of the reason for keeping them. From the start we decided not to name them. They were simply known as "Piggies". We explained to the boys early on what would happen to the pigs and they have been fine about it. It's been interesting exploring our feelings about animals and food and the ethics of meat-eating while keeping the pigs. The other aspect we're really proud of is the food miles of these pigs: they were born 3 miles away, went to an abbatoir 5 miles away and then to the butcher 1/2 a mile up the road from us. So in total they have travelled less than 10 miles.

This morning at 7am my husband spent two hours in the role of butcher's boy and arrived home with boxes and boxes of pork. Half is now in our fridge and freezer and the other half is currently being delivered to friends and family. We have been staggered by the demand for our pork. It just shows that, given the opportunity, people do want to buy fresh, local meat from animals that have led a happy life.

So, back to lunch. Sausages. While my husband and I were still gearing ourselves up to eating a bit of "our piggies" our 8 year old just tucked in. He loved the pigs. He looked after them. He was sad when they went. But they were the best sausages he has ever eaten.

Happy Birthday

2009-03-23T14:48:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to my beautiful little helper, 2 today. Presents, friends to play, endless love from his brothers and cousins, Daddy at home for the day, party tea and not a proper meal in sight. He's had the perfect day.

Something I have learned from my mother

2009-03-16T10:11:00.000-07:00

My mother has a "less is more" approach to bringing flowers from her garden into the house and it is a tradition that I love to follow. Next to the chair where she sits in the evening is a table with a notepad, a coaster, often a dish with sewing essentials in, some chocolate and usually a small vase with a single flower stem. It is a lovely way of focusing on one flower, looking closely at stamens and petals and seeing details that would be lost in a bunch of flowers.

My favourite this time of year is the hellebore above - just look at the markings on the petals - but I also love these: the yellow forsythia for its colour, the white winter honeysuckle for its divine scent and the flowering currant for its shape and the beautiful mix of green and pink.

But I am still always bowled over by the cheesy romance of a big bunch of roses! These were given to us by some friends who came to stay last weekend. Thank you J, E, L & J xxx

Batches

2009-03-12T06:34:00.001-07:00

Today I have been rustling up a batch of fairy cakes. Obviously these are fairy cakes which don't involve me burning myself on the oven (again) and although I don't get to eat them I find them just as rewarding to make as the conventional edible cakes. This batch here is for the latest batch of friends' babies. I have three friends locally who have produced three baby girls in the past 10 days so I am planning to give each of them a mobile made from these fairy cakes. Sweet dreams Camilla, Hannah and Holly.

An influential book

2009-02-17T14:44:00.000-08:00

I love looking at lists of people's favourite books. I used to swap lists of my top three with people I met, without which I'd never have read In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje or A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, both of which will stay with me for life. Both authors are inspiring story-tellers (and tell inspiring stories) and write beautiful prose. Both write of aspiration and despair but don't leave you feeling hopeless.

So it's strange that the book I write about here, which I love above almost all others, is so incredibly simple. I was reminded of it a few weeks ago; the Little Helper has discovered our family's love of books (he is currently asleep in his cot upstairs with four board books), and the books that we (and my parents) read to him most are the Topsy and Tim books. I don't know how much he understands but he will sit absolutely still and with utter concentration as we read them to him. He loves Topsy but doesn't seem to have much time for Tim and won't mention his name.

My favourite of this series (and by the way I am talking about the books as I first read them in the 70s - not the redrawn and rewritten editions of the 80s and 90s which I find boring and mediocre) is Topsy and Tim's Friday Book. There is just so much to love about this book: a Party invitation! Dressing up! Burnt cork moustaches and pretend earrings! Party tea! Prizes! It sums up the best of my childhood. We did all of these things frequently. My mother organised the most marvellous parties and created delicious teas (oh, the sophistication of party dip and crisps!) with homemade cakes made to look like Dougal from the Magic Roundabout, individual jellies with the colour from the hundreds-and-thousands melting across the surface and tiny pink meringues. My father made up amazing games - eating crisps noisily through a microphone or filling in the noises in a story. And then there was Hunt the Smarties - dozens of small girls in long party dresses (this was the 70s after all!) scouring the house for hidden stashes of Smarties to fill up empty Smarties tubes.

So here are my favourite pictures from the story:

I love this picture - Mummy in her lovely dress at her sewing machine making dressing up outfits for Topsy and Tim and what I like most is the yellow ric-rac she's sewing on the waistcoats (I had an identical waistcoat and matching trousers in royal blue, but with red ric-rac). I like to think that maybe this picture inspired my love of sewing for children.

Here are Topsy and Tim on their way to the party, and there's Mummy, always in her hat and gloves, and look, there's Tony Welch dressed as a box of matches. Incidentally, it is impossible to say the words "Wait for me" to me or my two sisters without us completing the phrase "...called Tony Welch's voice, I'm a box of matches". I know it must annoy everyone, but it invariably makes us laugh.

And my favourite picture, the party tea. See, none of your cut up carrot and cucumber sticks or cherry tomatoes here. This is what party tea should be - sticky, sweet and an unadulterated treat.

I love this book because it makes me happy. It makes my children happy. It is uncomplicated and true and I will never grow tired of reading it.

Taking over my life

2009-02-05T15:17:00.000-08:00

More of my current obsession - bunting. I just can't help it, I love it. I love creating it in my mind, I love sewing it, I love seeing it hanging in my kitchen.

I still think the traffic jam is my favourite, but this comes a very, very close second. It just makes me feel happy - lovely cakes without the guilt of eating them! And those lovely shiny button cherries. I've always been a push-over for gooey fluorescent glacé cherries, and the buttons are just like them.

Can I take this opportunity to apologize to my husband though: he waits patiently for months for a button to be sewn on his shirt (and no, he really can't do it himself!) and I keep putting it off, but give me a pile of bunting and my lovely tin of shiny buttons, and I can't get my sewing box out quickly enough. Maybe he just has the wrong sort of buttons on his shirts?

Bunting, bunting, bunting

2009-02-02T15:08:00.000-08:00

Those of you who know me will already be aware that I love bunting. Directions to my house usually end with the advice "Ours is the only house in the street with bunting". The thing is, I put it up for a special occasion and then it doesn't seem worth taking it down, because after all there'll be another birthday along soon, or a party or, well wouldn't you know it, it's Christmas and we'll need the bunting up then.....and now it's just grey winter and it would be too sad to take it down just when we need a bit of colour in our lives, and anyway it'll be the Little Helper's birthday next month. Before you know it it's been up for a year, and well, frankly, it just makes our house easier to find, and I'm rubbish at giving directions.

So, I've had this idea in my head for weeks for making bunting with a difference. I've spent ages trying to figure out if it would work, then designing patterns, cutting out, finding the time to make it and finally putting it all together today surrounded by three over-excited children, all of whom, by the way, covet this for their bedrooms.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out - I love the colours and the buttons, the proportions seem right. I like the way the vehicles sway slightly with any movement or breeze like they're revving up at the lights. I've got so many more ideas along these lines, I just need more felt and buttons....

Shopping list inspiration

2009-01-19T11:24:00.000-08:00

Such a great start to the week! My lovely print-making course has started again: it's just two and a half hours on a Monday morning when I'm probably at my lowest ebb when it comes to inspiration, but it really gets the week going.

Today, there we were, six of us escaping for a short while the ritual of school runs, shopping lists and broken hoovers, feeling slightly guilty that we were enjoying ourselves in the cramped, untidy metalwork room of our local community college, when we all probably had ten more worthy, less self-indulgent things we should be doing. The pressure was on - new paper, new inks, even new students, but I felt the burden of the backlog of undone post-Christmas chores - I still haven't been to the bottle bank (too embarrassed), I haven't rung up about the hoover warranty, and I really should have been at the supermarket. And bingo, inspiration! So much worrying about the shopping and I produced a whole trolley-load of vegetables.

Red cabbage. Citrus fruit (above). And artichokes...

OK, so they weren't really on my shopping list, but they're such a lovely shape, and I was so pleased with how they turned out as I'm not very good at drawing so I need a good, bold shape to use.

I'm not the only one using vegetables for inspiration. The wonderful Pippin Designs has created this quirky brooch:

And next week, maybe I'll use a different aisle for inspiration. Maybe the cleaning aisle, as on this fabulous apron by Iris+Lily Handmade:

Anything to put off the actual shopping!

Seeing stars

2009-01-16T13:25:00.000-08:00

So this is what I've been up to today - stars in my eyes. Who knows where inspiration comes from? Am I all red, white, blue and stars because of Obama-mania? Am I starry-eyed because of the Golden Globes (don't even mention Kate Winslet to me)? Or could it be the telescope my eldest son was given for Christmas? Actually it's something for the Little Helper's bedroom. I will let you know when it is finished.

New supplies, new blog

2009-01-15T05:55:00.000-08:00

This morning found me hopping from foot to foot waiting for the postman. The reason? Kirstyfish's blog yesterday showed her heading off to the post office with a bag full of parcels, and one of them was for me!! The joy of receiving parcels is incomparable. I delayed the moment of unwrapping - two loads of washing, a bit of filing, emptying the dishwasher - and then, the joy! It was like Christmas all over again - parcels within parcels, excitement, colour...

Here's my little helper enjoying himself too. I have great hopes for him as a craft lover...

Now, before I stumbled across KirstyFish's shop I didn't really get buttons, other than their basic keeping-things-closed function. But then in my first order, this savvy seller enclosed a few freebies, and PING! Lightbulb moment. Buttons are great! Shape, colour, texture, fun! So here are the buttons that arrived in my order today, and in their lovely new tin:

So, lovely buttons, felt balls, felt. Now I have to get down to work and turn the felt into something. Hmmm. Have to wait until the Little Helper is busy elsewhere. Can't wait though.