Tiger, Tiger

Last weekend I finally got to unpack the many boxes marked 'craft stuff', as the little room which was P's temporary bedroom is on its way to being a workroom/office space. In other words I spent a relatively peaceful afternoon untangling random balls of yarn (not as many as I thought as it happens) and trying to find ways to sort and store a lot of scrap and resuable fabric (lots more than I thought). With this yarn/fabric lack of balance revealed, along with all my sewing notions and box of threads, I've been inspired to get some sewing done this week.
A lot of what I've done has actually be useful, round the house type stuff (I seem to remember that this was meant to be the plan for the first three months of the year...oops! Better late than never!) I'll post about that soon. In the meantime, I wanted to share this little bit of fun.
Actually, sewing with 'fun' fur isn't really fun at all, even when using a floating embroidery foot. But the good thing is that there's no need for hemming, so the tasks of adjustments in shape of hat and length of trouser leg are just a simple snip, rather than unpicking and resewing.
To make my little tiger's legs, I simply folded an existing pair of jogging bottoms in half and used them as a template, rather like the way Amanda Soule describes in 'The Creative Family' when she makes old t-shirts into trousers- my Christmas present cutting wheel was invaluable for this. I ended up doing a bit of unpicking as amid the family chaos around me I forgot which seam to sew up first, and chose the wrong one. Spend a moment thinking about it and it's really not that hard. Also, having made a nice long tail out of a long tube of fabric, I forgot to sew it into the back seam, so a bit more unpicking. I had to handsew the tail into this seam as four layers of fun fur just don't go through my sewing machine. I made a simple elasticated waist so he can pull them on and off easily (useful fo
To make the tiger hat I dipped into the delights of a belated birthday present from my sister, Oliver + S's 'Little Things to Sew' (buy it, it's gorgeous!). I used the pattern for the 'Cozy Winter Hood'. Knowing my little boy's rather large noggin, I chose the largest size, forgetting that, since I wasn't lining it, it would turn out even bigger. In the end I made a tiger hat that would even fit C, the originator of the big noggin genes. Still, nothing a bit of trimming and off-piste dart making couldn't fix.
I realise, looking at this post, that it reads like a farcical list of errors made by mother trying to sew amidst an ever-curious toddler, a squeaking baby and getting the tea ready. Actually, that's about the size of it. But the thing that is fun about sewing with fun fur is that it's very forgiving, covers a lot of mistakes and pretty quickly gives the results that any toddler would be happy with. Catching a tiger for a photograph on the other hand, is not so easy...

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savour and remember. Inspired by SouleMama.

Every Last Scrap

Waste not want not in these frugal times! I wanted to use up some bits and pieces of sock yarn in a sweater for M (P's sweater is still not finished, but since he doesn't like any knitwear at the moment I'm not in any great hurry to be honest, plus I haven't ordered the extra yarn I need). When I say bits and pieces, I mean that in the sense that there really wasn't much of it. I made it a simple top-down number in my current favourite for baby knits, k3 p2 rib, and having made it just about long enough in the body, I was down to the scraps for sleeves. Hence these teeny weeny balls- two of each colour, so that I wouldn't knit one sleeve longer than I could match with the other. In the event the sleeves ended up elbow, at a push bracelet length and the body...well let's just say it's more suited to a warm but not too bulky layer underneath dungarees. Still, I like the effect, it's cosy and comfortable for it's wearer and it didn't cost a thing but time.

If you love something, polish it

When I was planning the room we were going to decorate for our children, I knew I wanted a big, heavy chest of drawers. Something to hold all their clothes, something too high to climb on and too heavy to pull over (I have lively children, can you tell?!). I knew it wasn't going to come from a chain store, much as a well-known Swedish chain has come up trumps on a number of occasions for us. We were trying to work out how we could arrange to get to an auction house for a viewing, buy something and transport it back here with two little ones in the car with us when my mother in law pointed something out. The farm she has moved to, a huge, beautiful, half Tudor, half Victorian place which has been home to her new husband's family for four generations, was at one point in its deeply ingrained history been home to ten people. All those lives lived have left a certain amount of debris in their wake and as a result there are whole rooms full of furniture that is never used- dressing tables, wash stands and chests of drawers. With retirement on the horizon and no-one to take on the tenancy, the house will have to be cleared. As my mother-in-law pointed out, it made sense for us to give a home to one of these great lumps of what could otherwise end up firewood, landfill or charity shop donation. She didn't have to ask twice.
I will draw a veil over the efforts needed to get this beauty to our house. Suffice to say, while the room was being decorated it sat, slightly sadly, in our garage, still wearing the layer of dust and paint speckles it had gathered through its wilderness years in storage. One drawer knob resided inside the drawer, its fixing long gone. Two of the runners on its nevertheless solid, if simply constructed drawers were off or nearly off. My mother in law asked my reassurance that I'd measured the space it was going into and that I'd be painting it in a nice light shade. I could promise her the former at least!
It wasn't exactly a pretty sight, even I had to admit, but a combination of sentimentality about the unique spirit and history of the home it had come from and something inexplicable meant that I was already in love. It was time for a makeover.
I began by lining the drawers, using some shirt stripe wallpaper I'd been given a roll of some years back. This was reasonably simple, although not helped by the, ahem, 'unique' features of each drawer, where the measurements at the back didn't match the measurements at the back. I found that glue stick was the best way to fix the paper into the drawer bases.
Fixing the runners back on was just a simple matter of strong wood glue. Then I added a rubbing of candlewax to help them run a bit smoother. The knob presented more of a problem, as although the inside of the knob had a thread, there wasn't much chance of finding a wooden screw to match. Instead, I cut a short piece of dowel that fitted the hole snugly and added a little wood glue to help it out. The hold in the drawer was slightly larger, so I used matchsticks to help wedge the end of the dowel tightly, along with more wood glue. It doesn't exactly look pretty, but it does the job of keeping the knob fixed tight.
Finally it was time to polish. I'm one of those slightly obtuse individuals who really enjoys polishing. I find a lot of housework frustrating as it feels like as soon as you finish it's time to begin again. However, polishing gives an almost instant, gratifying result with a bit of staying power. Not to mention how soothing it is, in a knitting/kneading bread/handsewing kind of way.
The finished result (which does fit the space, by the way!) is still slightly battered, slightly paint speckled. But it holds all the children's clothes, is safe from their climbing instincts, has heart and soul and I love it!

Hang out the flags

Three years ago I made these bunting flags as we prepared a bedroom for our first, gender then unknown, baby. Grandmothers-to-be chipped in with other handmade goodies, including these beautiful beach hut curtains (my mother's creation). P duly arrived and it became his very own seaside-themed bedroom.
However, when he was less than a year old the world in general, then our world in particular, was rocked by the financial meltdown. C's place of work closed down and everything, flags included, was packed into boxes as we moved out of our first little family home to go to where he could find work.
We count our blessings that we were much more fortunate than many, even in those challenging times. C found a new job just in time for the redundancy money to stretch. We had to move a few times, but this included a summer at the farm with my wonderful in-laws, which was a joy and an education as well as a financial necessity. It also included a period of renting a house which turned out to be at the other end of the street from the family we now count as firm new friends. In terms of the area, it's only a little further North and West of where we wanted to end up eventually and of course we have the splendour of the Lake District on our (affordable) doorstep. Last but by no means whatever least, M has arrived into our lives!
All that said and done, however, it hasn't been an easy or settled couple of years and the fact that, not through our choice, this is the fourth bedroom P has had in his 2 and a half years of life illustrates the point. The fact that it appears that we have navigated the choppy waters for now gives a particular joy to the sight you see above.
When we came to visit this house last year, the back bedroom needed a particular amount of imagination to see its potential. Heavy dark fitted wardrobes were on three walls, taking up a good third of the floor space. Thick paint was slapped onto grotty textured wallpaper and the carpet was thin and grubby. About a month back, after C had destroyed and removed the wardrobes, revealing more hideous wallpaper and large holes in the carpet, my mum came to stay and taught me how to hang lining paper. From then to now, all available evening and weekend hours have seen me (mostly me, with C on babysitting detail) attack the room from top to bottom. Skirting boards and windowsills sanded and painted, wallpaper stripped, lining paper hung and painted, torn and stained ceiling paper removed and ceiling painted (this last yukky job to the accounts on the radio of earthquake in New Zealand and revolution in the Middle East, I'll never look up without thinking about the madness of Colonel Gadafi!). Finally, yesterday was carpet day and last night P's first in his new room (M will join him when she's a bit older).
While there was a certain satisfaction in tearing off nasty old paper and seeing smooth new paint going on, the best bit was undoubtedly dressing the room. The chest of drawers was a spare one from a roomful at the farm, polished up, drawers lined and repaired where necessary (a story for another day) and lugged up the stairs by C and I. The photograph is one my older sister took and gave to me years ago and the print is of my favourite Ben Nicholson painting at Tate St Ives. The lampshade was from our local B&Q and the curtains, as I mentioned before, were my mum's creation. Then last, but not least, there are the flags. Dug out of the box, ironed (an amazing fact for anyone who knows me well!) and hung up in celebration- of a lovely new room for our lovely children, of a house that's becoming more and more of a home for us and of a life that's hopefully going to mean staying put for a while.

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savour and remember. Inspired by SouleMama.

Queen Bess the First

This is the first version of a sweater pattern I've devised for M. I've named it 'Queen Bess' due to the influence of Elizabethan fashions on the design- hence the ruff-style collar, puff sleeves and smocking. It was actually quite pleasingly simple to knit, despite its quite intricate looking finish, with a top-down construction where the only fiddle is expanding the smock stitch into the increases round the yoke. It also has the advantage of being cosy without being bulky, thanks to the k3 p2 rib it's based on.
As I have the possibly over-ambitious plan of publishing the pattern on Ravelry I'm now having to do the maths to work out how to make it in at least two more sizes. To this end, I'm going to try out the next size up so that M can have it for next winter and rather than the usable but dull acrylic I found in my stash for the prototype, I've invested in some rather beautiful Dazzle DK from the Natural Dye Studio (colourway is 'Wisteria', a kind of pinky-purple and I got it here). British Blue Faced Leicester, dyed without heavy metals or other nasties. Yum! Yes it's handwash and yes, it's for a baby but following reassurances given by other online knitting mums, I'm going to go with the theory that its easy enough to swoosh a few handknits in the sink with wool wash every now and then, and that if its worth my care and attention to knit, its worth knitting it in nice yarn.