on the last day of the holidays

How to make a window box on the last day of the summer holiday.

1. Find all the buttons, glue, pieces of felt, scissors, tape, shoeboxes you can find. Cover the table entirely. 

2. Make some playdough (first ever solo trip to the shop to get the cream of tartar optional here). 

3. Press down and fill the shoebox with playdough. Observe dyed-brown fingers. There may be some reminiscence about making playdough in days gone by. This is ok.

4. Make some flower stems from tightly-rolled tissue paper. Draw some petals on felt and cut them out.

5. Choose a button. Negotiate with the button owner. Re-negotiate. Glue the button on to the petals with a gluestick. It falls off. Glue it back on with PVA. 

5. Chat about school, about new beginnings. There are butterflies.

6. Display with pride. Over the coming days it's fun to water the playdough soil. It's less fun to wipe it up. 

I hope summer is ending gently for you and yours. Good luck with all new starts.

Scooter girl

I may have mentioned that I find dressmaking a bit of a teeth-gritting battle. But if the pattern is simple and quick I love it. 

Danish pattern company Minikrea has been a great discovery for me. I found out about them at Raystitch. I am so lucky to live a bus ride away from this beautiful shop.

I bought this fabric ages ago, perfect for my little scooting girl.

So much that is interesting and beautiful comes out of Denmark doesn't it? My friend Ane for one. The pattern was very simple, just two pieces sewn together. My kind of dressmaking. I've bought the trouser pattern too.

They design the garments so they can be dresses, tunics or tops. I am hoping, with a little alteration, this can be all three.

Every time she wears it she gets compliments. But every time she wears it, being three, she screams and protests. Sometimes I wonder why I bother.

From the same pattern I made it as a long sleeved blouse for her big sister. Another piece of Liberty tana lawn from the sales.

She is so elegant, this one. This does not come from me.

I can see this being made again and again. Maybe in chambray, or denim, or needlecord, or gingham...

Pinafore dress

My amazing aunt found me an old Cloth Kits pinafore dress kit. 

Burgundy needlecord, size 6-7. Perfect for Eva. I finished it off in the Welsh snow over Easter. 

For me, there is always a bit of teeth-gritting involved in dressmaking, even with a kit where the instructions are so beautifully explained.

Gratifyingly, it has been a hit. She calls it her pinaform dress and has rarely been seen without it.

On reflection I prefer pinaform to pinafore. It works much better don't you think? 

Through the looking glass

This week's offerings:

1. Hairbands. Made from an old H&M blouse and some Liberty tana lawn from the stash. A nice excuse to fire up my overlocker. I traced the shape from an existing hairband, cut two pieces and used some thicker material to line the middle. At the same time the audiobook of Alice in Wonderland has been on heavy rotation round the house. Alan Bennett's voice is a thing of rare beauty.

2. A work-in-progress blocking on the ironing board. Quite excited about this one. Blocking is the very satisfying moment at the end of a crochet project, when the crumpled up bit of wool fabric becomes fluid and smooth. I used to do a complicated move involving a towel and a large cutting mat to create a blocking board. Then I realised that the ironing board did the trick brilliantly.

If you are interested there is a great blocking tutorial here. 

3. A jellyfish made of rick rack, felt and some buttons. Her (of course she is a her) name is Jellina. I think it suits her. 

Felt: the best craft material in the world. Discuss.

4. The shop became a shop again! We got the awning down and held a children's art sale for Comic Relief. On sale were greetings cards - blank for your own message - and canvases.  

It was all the big girl's idea. She raised a small fortune thanks to a winning combination of very loud sales patter - thereby making her impossible to ignore - and cuteness.

A quilt for the baby

The other thing I have been making in my time away from the shop is this little fella, baby Nathaniel born five weeks ago:

The embroidered fish piece in the last post made me think how nice it would look as a square in a quilt. At the same time, a good selection of yellow-y fabrics began, as if by magic, to build in my stash. Like, all by themselves.

A trip to Whitstable last summer led to a bit of this:

Which in turn led to a very satisfying and definitely best-done-in-private bit of this:

(I posted these on Instagram hence the filters. The comment was 'I miss my blog'. I really did).

...And before I knew it I had enough for a cot quilt. I always look to Alicia Paulson for spiritual guidance when planning a quilt, and followed the technique she used in her Ollalieberry quilt. 

I went for fabrics that had a bit of a narrative, like this lovely Heather Ross 'Princess and the Pea' (below) from her Far Far Away range. And the Hansel and Gretel fabric. Not sure what the story is with the Mexican dudes but I'd sure like to know it.

I copied Alicia and used Warm and White wadding this time, all natural and made from hemp and not too artificially light feeling. Perhaps it would also aid sleep...

Nat in progress visible here. The choice of wadding makes it a bit thinner than usual but I am pleased with the result:

A boy! He's a bit small for it yet, in fact he's a bit small for most things yet; but when he graduates from moses basket to cot, the quilt is ready and waiting, with love.