Quilt while you're ahead

some days

 
Some days I have more energy than others.

I invite friends for dinner, as if three children weren't enough.

I get dinner ready in the morning.  I make jelly. 

I bake chocolate muffins,

 

And vacuum the downstairs, and clean the bathroom.

I finish the last twelve rows of a pair of sock that have languished in the UFO piles for months. (Seriously, months.)

 

I can even crochet a little brooch to match my scarf.  Just because.

and make a pink one as a present. Because I'm nice.

But I know it's only matter of time before it all comes crashing down.  It never lasts.

And there are cracks appearing already; yesterday I got the boys to open tin no 1 of our advent calendar... yes, I know, yesterday was still November.  I know that NOW.

It's going to be ugly. 
 

it's in the little things

An easy Sunday.

Mr M is in New York on business.  When we visited together we bought this painting

(Jaberwocki, by Peter Ostuni)

I love the patchwork of colours and the mistery creature hiding inside.

The boys are in the kitchen.  Behind the tapping of my computer keys I can hear No 1 slaying enemies on the computer - he's a child of our time through and through; I can hear the other two discussing the fate of a cardboard box and miles of sticky tape being ripped from the dispenser - I daren't think what might be created, but I've been banned from the kitchen for a while.  I might regret agreeing to this.

I came into my studio with great intentions of tidying up but I got distracted...

by the pattern and colours of a vinyl coat hanger 

for which I have no use but I couldn't resist.

By this potholder I just finished

 

which reminds me of the ones my mum had when I was younger.  Strange how certain small things can stick to your conscious mind for so long.

It's raining, we've got a cinema trip booked for later. With popcorn.

I's in the small stuff, people.  Have a good Sunday.
 

Advent calendar

I don't know about you but I have a strong dislike for those 'chocolate' (I use the word in its loosest meaning) advent calendars that supermarket have had on display since October.

And it's not because I'm against giving my children a tiny morsel of chocolate after breakfast... that stuff it's not even chocolate!!!

It's more to do with how ghastly they look (what's Ben10 got to do with Christmas???) and with what to do with them for three weeks... it's clutter! 

There's nothing wrong with counting down to Christmas... hey that's the fun part... but I resent being told how to do it by the marketing team of Disney and the like.

So this year, I got organised and did my own calendar.

I collected 24 tins from kind and bewildered friends.  I painted them - the tins, not the friends.

I then hired Mr M and the boys, armed them with scissors and old magazines and told them to find lots of big numbers. (They're used to strange requests by now so got on with the job quite admirably).

I filled the lot in secret with sweets and little toys and stickers and chocolate and coins...

 

closed them with coloured tissue paper tied with white string

 

and now the boys can't wait to start.  They speculate on the content, argue about who's opening which number, try to shake the tins behind my back...

Surely that beats some cardboard and pretend chocolate shapes!
 

a-door-ned

... no? don't you like the title?... oh.  I thought it was so clever...

Anyway, growing in the garden in front of my house there's a holly bush/tree that's grown so fast and so much in this past year it virtually forces people to step into the middle of the road to walk past our house.  Action was required.

Action was taken in earnest when large quantities of berries were noticed on aforementioned long branches.

Action caused another action and a Christmas-y wreath was created in no time at all!

No 3 said the hessian was too scraggy (which I thought was a good word for a 4yrs old with a slight slisp so I forgave him).

No 2 said it was too skinny (I disagreed and ignored him).

I asked No 1 if he'd noticed it anything new on the front door, he said 'yes' then got himself something to eat. 

Whatever. 

I didn't expect a medal or anything... just a little bit of enthusiasm... geesh.

It's almost Christmas, people!!

Oh acually HAPPY THANKGIVING to you all across the water... love the time with your family.

Christmas table runner

I hate having to mention the 'C' word again, but it's kind of the focus of all the activity around here.  We're going to spend it very quietly this year and I'm really really looking forward to it.  Ironically, given that not many people are going to see it, I'm really in the mood for decorating the house top to bottom... so watch this space.

This table runner was made as a 'teaching tool' for the beginners quilting course I've just finished teaching.  It was a six week course (2hrs each time) run at the gorgeous studio of my lovely friend Kirsty of Five Valleys Design.  By the way, note for your diary, Kirsty will get delivery of every single new Amy Butler fabric in January... don't forget to check it out.

It was my first time teaching and I loved it!  In January I'll run a day workshop on foundation piecing so if you're interested (and you live in/around Gloucestershire) drop me a line and I'll tell you all about it.

We covered the basics and had fun.  How to cut fabric, matching seams and corners, half square triangles and quarter squares, simple nine patch, log cabin, pinwheel and Ohio Star...  We all worked from the same fabric and it was really interesting to see how the resulting runners were all different from each other...

Don't you just love quilting??

Now I need some sort of centre piece... I want candles and pine cones... but in a modern style... any idea?

yesterday...

  all my troubles seemed so far away...

- take an early start, and a fabulous friend.

- take some Christmas decorations to get you in the mood

- take a bear with paper fur

- and a wise old hare

- take a deer with huge antler tangled in yarn

- take a skirt of broken blue china (... Alice? are you there? this is for you...)

- a chandelier of recycled plastic

 

-  take a divine crochet blanket

and then another one (not too mention the chunky knit one... sigh)

- take a stuffed cloth tree

- and an amazing yo-yo blanket

- take a gorgeous chair

- and a beautiful lampshade

- take lots of laughters, great food, an obscene amount of shopping...

Shake it all up and pour it onto an ordinary Saturday and you get the most fantastic day.  You should try it.  It's a good recipe.

Thank you, Ali.

hats

 
The boys demanded hats.  Warm hats.  With stripes.  "... but not itchy..." hats.

We spent hours in the yarn shop talking about colours - sparkly? perhaps not.  Fluorescent red acrylic? went to the whole static problem with them blah blah blah and then they discovered baby alpaca... and that was it...

Out of the window went all the ideas of rainbow hats/spotty hats/green pom pom hats.  The softness of the wool won them over and we left the shop with a much lighter wallet but a few balls of heaven.

No 2's hat:

No 3's hat:

No 1 decline. He never wear hats. 

I used the 'Kim's hat' pattern in 'Last minute knitted gifts' and they were very quick to do, a few hours each and I'm a slow while-in-front-of-the-tv knitter.

Baby Alpaca (king cole), 5mm needles

so very very soft.
 

 
 

glimpse 3

... and another one...

Rowan Little Big Wool, olive green, 2 skeins. 5mm needles.

Something is doomed to happen... this level of organisation is out of character, highly unusual and cannot be sustained. 

I'm scaring myself.
 

glimpse 2

more knitting for the holidays...

I'm on a roll, people, get out of the way.....

Christmas... 'idees'

I don't speak French.  At all.  I can understand it a little because of its similarity to Italian and I'm learning by osmosis through No 1's homework (I'm very good with the days of the week and numbers up to 12!).

This lack of knowledge has never stopped me from religiously buying Marie Claire Idees season after season, and the latest number is brilliant.

Check this out:

those little birds on a branch... and the scrappy ribbons...

Also I'm a firm believer in seasonal wreaths:

felt, buttons, ribbons and little pincushions; what's not to like?

simple, green and with origami paper stars

very sophistiscated... felt leaves and flowers... (gotta find me some decent felt)

of course this is the boys' favourite... but it wouldn't last long, me thinks...

candy canes decorations... genius

and what about a simple hanger full of gorgeous decorations?

I HAVE TO DO THIS!!  how cool is that? a wrapped door? (Mr M is looking at the ceiling wishing time to skip to Dec 26th...)

washing up cloth animals? why didn't I think of it? they're the cutest stocking fillers!

And these are just my favourite pages... seriously if you find this issue, grab it, it's brilliant.  I've been stalking my newsagent for days and even so I just about managed to get my paws on the last copy.

What are you waiting for? get going!!

lights, camera... action

This is what was in the hallway a couple of days ago.

 

No, I don't take my blogging photographs that seriously, you'd be right to have me interned if I ever did that.  The think was my house (MY HOUSE) was being photographed for a magazine...

I KNOW!! How crazy is that?

A few months ago I was contacted by this lovely lady (hi Hazel) who reads my blog and happens to be a journalist and who asked me to send her some pictures of my house and the whole thing snowballed from there.  So sometimes next year my little home will have its moment of glory.  I'm disproportionally proud about this.

I spent days de-cluttering the place and filling the garage with all sort of stuff.  Stuff that is still in the garage, stuff that nobody missed and that most likely will end up being taken to the charity shops in town. (I recommend doing this... it's quite scary and a little sad to see how much we surround ourselves with things we don't need at all...)

And then the photographer brought all sorts of 'props' with him.

(pak choi and tomatoes? enough to make my kids running away from home!)

But it was fun.  Lots of fun.  And kind of strange too seeing my house through somebody else's eyes/camera.

(the orchid in front of the fireplace? not my idea.)
 
 

glimpse

Hi.

Still here.

Crafting but in secret.

Shhh...
 

Rome

Rome is beautiful.

We were guests in a convent right next to the Colosseum and the Forum.

Right. Next. To.

See? Told you.  I don't lie.  Not in Rome... Too close to the Vatican.

The view from the other side of the garden was this:

Not bad either, me thinks.

The convent itself was 1900 years old.  It was the palace of the emperor 'Domiziano' and it's been a Franciscan convent since the 1700.  Big numbers always make me feel small.

One of the friars is a famous contemporary artist and he's got the most amazing 'atelier' on the top floor

But let's talk about my little brother and his most amazing day:

Actually, I don't know what to say.  It was moving, and real, and surreal.

And humbling. (he's the one of the right, flashing his calf)

The boys are demanding their dinner now, I'll have to go, I'll just leave you with images of Rome...

and just for the fun of it...

Can you smell the lions from there?
 
 
  
 
 
 

 
 

 
 

all roads lead to...

Rome.

I'm off to the eternal city for the weekend.  My brother is becoming a 'professional' monk (in the words of No 2) and I want to be there with him...

I'll tell you all about it when I get back.
 

a rethorical question

Have you ever started a project and subsequently abandoned it for whatever reason (including boredom, lazyness, life, stupidity etc.) and then when you started it again you finished in no time at all?

And wandered what was all the fuss (and boredom, lazyness, life, stupidity etc.) all about?

Today I finished covering my kitchen chairs cushions.  All 4 of them. Yeah I know, huge number.  Four.

I didn't have to make the cushions, cheap IKEA ones who were supposed to washable.  Well they 'are' washable allright, the stains just didn't wash off... or maybe it's my children that produce particularly resiliant stains... either way, they were disgusting and needed covering.

Enter lovely-piece-of-bark cloth-which-looks-perfect-against-the-wall found at the local car boot sale... in May.  Yes, May. 

One chair got covered fairly swiftly, still drunk with excitment and enthusiam.

As I said before the last one was done this morning.  In 15 minutes (don't look too closely and the craftmanship). One five.

Doh.

Guess who feels like a wally.
 
 

half term

So... how are you filling your half term days?

we're enjoying the crazy colours

 

and the woolly socks come out to play (grazie mamma!)

we're playing football in the park till the light fades

 

we've discovered the pleasure of card games and absolutely love throwing pigs around...
 

and you?
 

 

  

a week away

and now we're back. 

The boys had a week off school and so we took a little family holiday in Tuscany to see my parents.

Relax was the name of the day and nothing much was done.

We walked a little

in the cold Autumn air

 

We, well I, shopped

and went to a concert with my sister

 

We discovered a wonderful restaurant

(and if my camera hadn't died I would have shown you the food.... oh how glorious... sigh)

We spent time together, we laughed, we played, we saw long lost friends.

We woke up and smelt (or smelled?) the roses...
 
 

baktus - modified

It goes without saying.

New winter = new scarf.

 

in shades of blue (Colinette, 1 skein from the stash)

 

stockinette stitch with regularly spaces purl rows

like the sea.

A shallow triangle

or a vase

???
  

 

  

small things

football, tennis, cinema, walking

 Autumn leaves

in a jug

eating, washing, laughing, playing, sleeping

quilting

rugby, partying, reading, homework,

raining

 

Beauty in the small things.

  
 
 

there are no shortcuts

Quilting is a lot like life.

For example, the old adagio: 'measure twice, cut once' ... what it basically means is think before you act. Agreed?  Good.

Now reflect on this for a second and admire the only remaining branch of my beloved Japanese maple (victim of an anonymous stray rugby ball... the case is still open)

So today, when I found myself with some precious time to spare I sat down at my desk and started cutting fabric and sewing fabric and .... aaaarrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhh

In my haste to tackle the UFO - now upgraded to WIP - of my previous post I completely ignored any measurement and elementary mathematical functions and basically made a huge/enormous/gigantic mess.

Take a moment, like I did, to mourn the loss of precious fabric and the temporary and hormonal loss of any rational mental faculty with a delicious (and posthumously regretted) chocolate biscuit

 

This brings me to my next point of simili:  there are no shortcut.  I wanted to finish this project quickly and what I did achieve instead is a big fat juicy waste of time.  Doh.  I wanted to ignore the little voice in my head pointing me to the right direction because it meant slow progress and fiddly sewing.

How many times has this happened in real life too?

So, no shortcuts is my new mantra.

Even if this means endless rows of little borders... 

I'll get there in the end. 

 

And I'll smell the flowers