my time stamp

whatever the change to BST seems to have done to the nation's body clocks it seems to have fixed my time stamp... I think

Mothering Sunday

If you give it its proper name, at the very least it avoids the "where does the apostrophe go" dilemma!! Nice link about its origins here.
So, while the carrots cook for lunch, my day so far...
Breakfast cooked for me, (not in bed though, we're running out of room for everyone to be eating in our bed these days ;-)
and a huge haul of lovely stuff that they've all made for me - that's what's in the picture! Keyrings, candles, bookmarks, cards, loads of lovely bits, hand made truffles, flowers...mmm yummy. Then off to church for the Mothering Sunday service, Ruthy was singing which was lovely, and back to do lunch. Mr Fibre~fairy peeled the veg while I had a peaceful G&T and I'm just finishing off lunch now (cooking I mean not finishing eating!) ThenI think I might knit a bit, or finish the zip in the bag I made myself on Friday. More later, possibly :-)

Chablis & Kettle Chips

that's my supper.. oh yessssss.... the KC are saltless, if that wins me any points
I'm enjoying an uncharacteristic interlude in which all four children are asleep, now what I *should* be doing is finishing Ruthy's costume for her school play. Thankfully she's only a villager. What do I mean *only* -she's a vital villager with lots to say - kind of Shop Floor Manager type villager, but I mean " only" in the sense that it doesn't involve a great palaver of a costume... I quote, " croppped trousers and a plain T shirt" Just the thing for a sojourn in Sherwood Forest wouldn't you say? No mention of colour. ( she's getting dirty brown with artistically space dyed green grassstain-a-like blobs, didn't think purple embroidered quite cut the mustard)
Can you tell that none of these teachers have children?! Parents have to be psychic these days...
The great thing about villagers' trousers is they don't need hemming... :-) No, really... there were no coverhemmer machines in 13C Nottinghamshire.
Did I mention this play was something to do with Robin Hood?

Mr Fibre~fairy is back in the country! Where's he been this time? Oh yes, Switzerland, he's not too chuffed with being called Mr Fibre~fairy though, no more than I would with being called Mrs Petrol Head or something similar, but there you go!

~~~~
brief interlude ended - Ben woke up and took 15 mins to settle again, I finished R's trousers and hope they past muster with the teachers! and now I really ought to go to bed... tomorrow, as the great Mizz Scarlett said, is another day.
There's something wrong with my time stamp and I can't fix it... it's showing an hour earlier than real life.. I'm not that sad as to go to bed an hour ago.. honest...

Reading the papers

I managed one section anyhow!

he doesn't get it!

she does

Anyone would think it was spring...

oh yeah, it's supposed to be isn't it..
It's turned a bit warmer here today ( you know, like it's not snowing!) and the sun's out, so the children have been playing outside on their bikes, I got called to watch..brrr not exactly tropical, but Kate was happily running round in a strappy top. Mr Fibre~fairy has taken them all to the shop to buy cake for tea, so it's gone all quiet round here! I s'pose I ought to unpack my boxes from yesterday and start taking pictures but then again...

Craft Fair

Back from the Craft fair today - managed to get a reasonable table of stock together! Last minute as ever... it was a good day - sold a little, not vast quantites, but pleasing!! I made some progress on the little bag I was knitting too, and lots of comments about knitting on 5 10mm DPNs! I had intended to start my long awaited Booga Bag from Black Sheep bags as my reward for getting done for today but I went for " work" knitting instead. Hey ho...

no sewing or knitting tonight... supper with friends and beaucoup de vin :-)

and another...

catching up here.. in my dreams haha...
this one is a wee bag - second picture shows truer colours but is pre blocking, the first (flash lit) shows the shape much better.

finished product

so here it is, knitted up & felted and ready to sell -hopefully along with some friends! I'm doing a craft fair on the 18th -eek ! what was it Douglas Adams said about deadlines? - something about loving them because of the whooshing sound they made as they rushed passed..
anyway onwards and knitwards... and I need to sew some too :-)

this tangle of colour is 400g of wool dyed with KoolAid - a drink powder from America that has a double use as a dye for animal fibres ( inicluding human hair should you fancy a new look!) I've been playing around with it for a while now, and took the plunge to dye a whole load! I used 5 sachets on this lot - pink lemonade which gave the pale candyfloss shade, black cherry - the deeper pink, blue lemonade the pale aqua and blue berry the turquoise, and grape for the purple.












and here it is de tangled, balled as a WIP. I'm quite pleased with how this turned out, nice soft spring colours, the knitting up is pretty fast so the next stage ought to be posted soon enough;-)

How come it's October?

Every year I get to October and wonder what on earth happened! This one is no exception, and more so, for reason shown above! Last post was just after Valentines day for heaven's sake and here it is almost our wedding anniversary! ( Oct 21st in case you're interested! 10 years this year)
Baby number 4 was born in July (and there, you were just thinking I was a bit fat in that New year photo! own up;-) ) He's 9 weeks old today and oddly I've sewn more since he was born that I have all year -not all for him either.
It's all in fits & starts though at the moment, often with him in a sling, and I haven't mastered NAS (Nursing at the serger) and probaby won't!
My biggest goal at the moment is to tidy up my sewingroom, honestly you wouldn't believe the mess! and to get stuck in on my tracing & sewing list - we all need new stuff having variously grown shrunk, changed shape or been born recently.
DH showed an astounding lack of faith ( or should that be astounding astuteness) by visiting Marks and Spencer one lunchtime .... I keep threatening to make him some jeans, he just goes shopping...wise man. Right,I'm off to change a certain young man's nappy and then I'll do some picture updating here.

Chinese silk brocade bag

I've fancied a bag like this for a while
now, and so I tracked down some fabric and embarked on drafting the pattern
(not too hard ;-)!) and constructing my own with pockets to suit *me*!
The only thing I'd change is to maybe do a zipped
inner pocket (the large inside pocket (on the front wall) is fastened with a
magnetic snap.)I've had a bit of a sewing slump recently so this has been my
reward in between getting back into work sewing!

I'm rather pleased with myself and this bag I have to say!

30cm x 25cm appx, own pattern

close up of inside pockets and key tie

adjustable strap detail

piping close up - I kind of cheated and used ready made bias strip to make the piping -the original idea had been to make my own with the lining fabric -but actually the navy looks really nice and I saved myself a lot of work - though it was enough as it was!

Happy New Year!

Suffering from total & utter lack of sleep here! Got to bed at around 2am yesterday, but we have small children remember... yawn! It would have been fine if there had been a decent " curl up under a blanket with a box of chocs" film on in the afternoon... but there wasn't :-(
Sleeplessness compounded by being up with one of the aforementioned small children screaming with earache for most of last night :-( poor lamb (her not me...really!)

Anyway -back to sewing, it's an appalling picture, but believe you me, the low level "taken by a 7 year old" ones were worse! This was my End of Year sew for me.

This started off as Jalie 2005 -but as you can see has changed a lot along the way! I lengthened the sleeves and made them bell ended, lengthened the whole top to tunic length, adding in ease & shaping over the hips & bum! curved the bottom hem and gave it tennis tails. I redrafted the neckline totally to make the curved notch look -and it fits!. I mad ethis up in cotton interlock -kind of medium weight -and then dyed it made up.
Neckline close up

Off for a bath...

me, in a moment !
It's been a good two days, 12 rellies on Saturday and 10 today, and I think I deserve a long soak! DH has been a star with all the washing up & drinks serving, and the children have behaved wonderfully, despite late night on Friday and needless to say a fairly early start on Saturday morning -not to mention the chocolate fueled excitement later on!!
The PJs were a great success - Ds kept saying " mine blue...SNOWW"
and the proof of the pudding was in the wearing as far as the girls' dresses went! They've worn them 2 days solid now :-)

The Nephews like their stuff too... well #2 Neph is only 10 mnoths so his mum did the liking for him! #1 Neph was very chuffed with his Thomas/James hoodie and left wearing it... I foresaw problems getting it off him later!

The bath awaits...
Merry Christmas

ps to avoid the leftover turkey tyranny.. cook Chicken! smaller , nicer and barely any leftovers! (leaves more fridge space too!) Goose for NYE...

Christmas Dress #1 for DD1, just finished and in need of a good press and sleeves hemming (she's asleep!) but it's done!! Whoo hoo only 2 lots of sleeve hems to do in the morning and then I can get on with tidying & wrapping :-) Not bad when you consider how behind I was at the weekend.
This one is PRR bias plaid from last year, dyed dylon hand violet.
the plaid matching on the back took an age - it's not a totally even print.. but here's as good as I got it

Christmas dress #1

yes it's the 23rd and yes this in only the first Christmas dress! but it's done -all but the sleeve hems -but DD2's not here so I can't measure them right now -my excuse and I'm sticking to it!!
PRR honeycomb cord, dyed raspberry procion, a tad deeper colour IRL.
and apart from the woeful pattern matching (I forgot LOL!) I was rather proud of how well this zip went in -first time and flat :-)

3 Pairs of Christmas Pjs -all in snowflake PRR knit :-)
They're a mix of KS and Ott patterns, bottoms all converted to no side seams, nice loose ribbing to edge... yummy... I want a pair but I only got 4yds!
They're dyed with Dylon CW - no soda ash to give a slightly faded look which I like, 1 tin per pair, purple vine, french navy & ultra violet L-R

Nephew #2's Christmas Sweat pants - PRR dino dyed Dylon CW moon blue -I've done him 2 pairs in two different sizes cos he'll probably grrrooooowwww soon!

nephew #1's Christmas hoodie -yummy royal blue sherpa and TTTE embroidery, he's a bit of a Thomas nut....! and here's a close up of James

Almost there...

I'm not very good at this blog thing...! I'm either too busy to update or it's too boring to document!!

How did it suddenly get to be a week to Christmas? I'm had a bit of a sewing drought this autumn, mainly doing bags and catching up on custom orders.. nice to be busy :-)

I'm in the thick of pre Christmas sewing at the mo though... Just completed the Nephews' Christmas presents, and am doing my children's Christmas PJs now, and then it's time for their CD outfits... a stocking to sew up for a friend, and then if that leaves any time I was going to redo stockings for my 3..... just lost a week though due to them all being ill.. and now I have a cold (sympathy please) Term ends today -so do I gain the time I normally spend on the school run, or lose time cos they're all in my hair! When I was teaching I couldn't break up early enough -now I wonder why they can't keep them till Christmas Eve... no I don't really but it's tempting!!

Dh is taking the older 2 to the cinema on Monday.. I shall be doing my own Mrs Incredible impression at home. In the mean time... cards to write (failed miserably last year and no one got one at all, they probably all think we've fallen down a drain or got buried in the foundations of the extension -mind you they wouldn't have known we were having that done as there were no cards....) things to plan, stuff to sew....

Oh and we have to get the tree this week too, the children are beginning to ask where it is?!
If I had my way it would wait till the 24th, but needless to say I'm outvoted on that one, and to be honest there's more than enough going on on the 24th anyway! Good enough that we never do it before the end of term :-)

right I'd better get on...

Yes, I'm catching up!!

These wild trousers were made this weekend for my nephew -a rather belated birthday present, they're lined in flannel which I dyed to match the turquoise fabric, so they're yummy and warm... you can get away with this sort of thing when you're 3! They'd just make my bum look huge. That said my brother (not the little lad's dad... t'other brother!) fancies a pair of chefs' trousers in this fabric... maybe no flannel lining for him though...kitchens get rather hot!

STOP PRESS!!!
I just won an embroidery machine on Ebay!!! WHOOOOOOO:-)
a Janome 5700 for those who know these things... watch this space!!