Egg

More poetic types than I could, and no doubt have, waxed lyrical about the simple beauty of eggs. This particular egg is beautiful to us though, as it came from our own lovely Penelope and was rather unexpected.
Poor Penelope has not had the easiest time in the last year or so. Her life partner and leader of the pack Beyonce passed away last Spring and due to the uncertainty of our housing situation, we've yet to replace her (soon though, we hope). Then she had to cope with not one, but two changes of location, ending up some 300 miles or so from where she began her egg-laying career. At three and a half, she's not exactly elderly in chicken terms, but after a fairly sparse and unreliable egg-laying season last summer we had quite accepted that she would be pet rather than provider in future.
We were delighted then, when with total seasonal appropriateness on Easter weekend, she began to lay again! So far we've had four perfect pale brown and freckly eggs in four days and I can't tell you how nice it was to make P's lunch using just about the freshest egg possible. The yolk was a dazzling yellow. Maybe Penelope likes the new food we've got her, or maybe she's appreciating the end of the long, cold winter as much as we are. Whatever the reason, it's amazing how homely it feels to have eggs from the garden, not to mention giving a great excuse for cakes, meringues, custard, mayonnaise, lemond curd etc. etc!

Bump and baby pillow

Here as promised is the reason for all those lovely, juicy coloured fabrics. Despite the temptations of all the scans I'm having for this baby, we still don't want to know whether it's a boy or a girl. This obviously means that I can't start sewing or knitting in girly colours as there's a 50:50 chance it's a 'he'. However, since borrowing a certain Kitty B's feeding pillow back when I was feeding P, I've been meaning to acquire one, and was only really put off by the price, which always seemed a bit excessive for what it was. This pregnancy I had two thoughts- firstly, why the heck didn't I make one as it would be cheaper and secondly, as I'm a girly, why can't my feeding pillow be girly-coloured, even if the baby turns out to be the non-girly variety?
So here's what I did:
Selected some of my favourite zingy coloured scraps and random fat quarters, then lined them up in an 'artfully hotch-potch' way, pinned, tacked, then sewed them together.



Then, using a paper template kindly provided by the self-same Kitty, and with some- ahem- 'help' from the big-brother-to-be, I cut what appeared to be two boomerang shapes from my hotch-potch pieces.




Slightly smaller boomerangs were cut out from some brushed cotton and sewn together to make the inner layer, leaving a hole for filling later.


I'm very proud to report that by taxing my little grey cells I managed to set in a vintage zipper on the inner curve of the outer layer, before sewing the rest of the seams.


There followed a short wait for these to arrive in the post. I had originally hoped to stuff the pillow entirely in the spelt husks, but found that 500g made for a rather floppy pillow. By the way, as if jam funnels weren't useful enough in their intended role, they also prove to be invaluable for feeding spelt husks into pillows! Anyway, to solve the floppy problem, I used a layer of natural wool from a fleece I acquired and washed last year to make a peg-loom rug. It's created a nice effect in the end, with a bean-baggy, fit-to-your curves effect on one side of the pillow and smoother, sproingy softness on the other. At this point I would think that, when feeding, the bean bag side will be on my lap so that the baby is on the more stable and less rustling side. Until then, it's going to be getting some use as a bed-time bump support.

Girly? Yes. Full of bright, summery loveliness? Definitely. Boy or girl, I don't think the baby will mind. Although it does need an iron, when this tired pregnant lady can be bothered to!

Cake!

I'm posting this at the risk of spoiling the surprise, but in the hope that a dodgy internet connection means the intended recipient won't be reading this. It's either a birthday cake or, if there are too many of those about, an Easter cake. Whatever the official designation, it's a big lot of chocolate yumminess!
I used Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Fudge Cake recipe from Nigella Bites. I halved the ingredients as, despite her claims that if dumped you could eat this yourself in one sitting, in my experience, the full monty feeds a lot of people. I also substituted the dark chocolate in the frosting for white chocolate, partly to ring the changes, but mainly to achieve the correct colouring for the sheep. A little extra melted white chocolate for the legs and to stick the sugar flowers on and some dark chocolate for the face completed the effect.

A good Wednesday

Wednesday has a bad reputation round these parts, for reasons I think I've grumbled about before. Today was a happy exception. I knew even before I opened my eyes, as in the midst of a week of a windy, wet and cold return to winteriness, there was sunshine coming through the window (it didn't last!). Not only that, but I was opening my eyes at a time I chose, since P was contentedly playing with his bag of 'good morning' toys, chattering away to himself as he had been for maybe an hour (!) without any apparent need for me. Okay, so I discovered when I went in to see him at a comfortably later hour than normal that he had also been munching the spine of a book. Why, when left alone with them, does he eat books? What is lacking from what appears to be a healthy, balanced and generally home-cooked diet?! Oh well, doesn't seem to be doing him much harm and I really enjoyed my lie-in.
Once we finally got ourselves up and breakfasted it was time for me to do some work on the results of a slightly stressful painting session yesterday afternoon (suffice to say, grumpy toddlers who haven't napped are not best combined with paints). I made an egg template and used it to cut shapes from the best bits of his daubings, then let him loose with some crayons to add further embellishments. Actually, he mainly broke the crayons in half and tried to eat them, which makes me more motivated to invest in some nicer, and possibly more nutritious ones (!). We bought these for a friend's second birthday and I've been meaning to get some for P since then.
Anyway, with embellishments added, I cut a slit at the top and added some dotty ribbon I had stashed to make a hanging loop et voila Easter cards for various family and friends.
As for this...


...I couldn't resist sharing my delight in the project I've more or less finished during naptime today and this evening. It's something I've been meaning to get sorted for ages and now that I've got on with it, it hasn't taken too long to complete (just waiting for a delivery from Greenfibres now). Aren't the zingy colours just the thing to drive back the last blast of winter? More soon.

Carpe Diem

According to the weather reports, it seems we've been a bit fooled by the signs of Spring. Next week promises colder winds, lots of rain and even snow. This makes me even gladder that we've been getting out and about as much as we have recently. It also spurred us to go out this afternoon, despite the need to continue the big sorting out job we've begun on the house (a move is imminent, we hope, so we are trying to reduce our possessions before we have to pack and move them). Yes, Tarn Hows is becoming a bit of a predictable choice for us, but when you just need to get out and catch that last little blast of Spring weather predictable and easy fits the bill.
We found a little sunshine...


We somehow avoided the promised showers that glowered picturesquely from those beautiful hills...


We met some of the local residents...



...and did some of the stuff you just have to do when you're a toddler and there are sticks, puddles, stones etc...

Holiday

No posts this week as we've been away on a little holiday. There's also a distinct scarcity of pics, as we were just too busy having fun! However, there is this slightly blurry evidence that not did we catch our first ever glimpse of a red squirrel, but we had them right outside our door, posing in every Beatrix Potter-esque pose imaginable! I also saw a woodpecker this morning and last night, coming back from a very rare night out together (the joys of staying with another set of parents is tit-for-tat babysitting favours) C and I saw, and avoided stepping on, crested newts.
The second pic doesn't even come close to showing just how much fun P had spending the week with a little pal who was equally keen to jump in, and closely examine, puddles wherever we went. Not to mention run full pelt around our cabin, giggling, squealing and generally being full of joy. And that's without even beginning on the fun we had at the on-site swimming pool complex, with water slides, wave pool and so on!
Beginning and ending with drives through the spectacular Kirkstone Pass that not even my galloping heartburn could spoil, a good time has been had by all.

Swimming cover-up

Okay, I know the photo is terrible, but this was truly an evening's project and now it's late evening so the available light is artificial and poor. But all the same I'm really pleased with my little improv project.
It's in honour of the upcoming adventure this week- swimming! P has been a few times since he was quite small, but hasn't really had a proper go recently. This week, following the purchase of a float suit- which he currently insists is a 'hat' and wears to ride his trike around the living room, incidentally- we are going to get him making like a fish, we hope! As he's a slippery little so and so when he's wet I wanted him to have some sort of poncho or robe for apres swim but couldn't really justify the cost for what was in some cases a glorified towel. Plus I can't resist a bit of hand-made for the boy. So...one bath towel, size chosen because when folded in half widthways it should cover him but not trip him up.
Then, with the towel folded widthways still, I cut a slit in the middle, and then another halfway across the first slit and at right angles (forming a 'T' shape basically). I did this by trial and error, checking on the intended wearer to get the hole big enough for his head but not so big that it will slip off his shoulders.
I then used bias binding tape all the way around the neck hole to finish it and stop it fraying.
Finally I cut a simple boat shape from some scrap fabric and sewed it on the front. I could have done proper applique at this point, but in the end I just back-stitched about a half cm in from the edges all the way around each shape, as I quite like the idea of it being a little bit frayed and rough (no, that's not just an excuse for a short cut!). I may regret this if fraying gets to falling off, but if that happens I'll go back and do the proper applique thing.
It honestly looks better in real life than the photo. As to whether it fulfills the function- well, we'll see this week. First job is to persuade P to take his swimsuit off his head...