Friday, 29 February 2008
Time on my hands...
Wednesday, 27 February 2008
Lack of time and award time...
Lisa of U-handblog loveliness - the wonderful bag-making alone would be enough to make my day, but she is also an inspiring non-shoulder-padded ethical businesswoman and her Craft Boom posts are full to bursting with the most wonderful tips to help others succeed in setting up their own small businesses...if only they can find the courage! And she's lovely, which is the most important bit.
And Jo from Today We Are....Delightful (my own variation on her blog title), because I'm always so happy to see one of her posts waiting in my bloglines. And because I feel we worry, procrastinate and delight over similar things...which is a great comfort. And she makes me laugh a lot.
Jo from French Knots for the wonderfully English feel that she has to her blog, the lovely things that she makes and because so often her posts inspire me and make me think.
Monday, 25 February 2008
Dinosaur fun
Dinosaur-boy wanted to make a meat-eating dinosaur, and Zebra-girl, a plant-eater. I drew dinosaur silhouettes onto some card and then cut around them about 1cm wide of the template, so that they could glue on the other side and afterwards I could then trim them so that they didn't get bits of overhanging material around the edges.
Thursday, 21 February 2008
A cold hand...
Sunday, 17 February 2008
Teaching Zebra-girl to knit
One of my aims for half-term was to teach Zebra-girl to knit. I was slightly apprehensive about this project as I am not a good knitter - my tension is always wrong, and I always leave projects half-finished...but I did really enjoy it as a child, I just seem to have lost that skill along the way somewhere. When I was small all of the mummies would come into the tiny village school that I attended and we'd sit around in little knitting circles and create small coloured squares that were eventually sewn together into large blankets for the PDSA to keep donkeys warm (it used to be the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals...but I see that it has now morphed into 'Pets in Need of Vets'). This really caught my imagination and as the grown-ups chattered I would excitedly think about the soft grey poorly donkey that might be warmed by my holey square. Once the donkey-project ended (well, maybe it carried on, but we moved to Australia at that point) I don't remember knitting again until I was about 10 years old, when I suddenly became quite prolific in the manufacture of knitted glove puppets and I remember being particularly delighted by the creation of a grey elephant with a tubular trunk shooting out of his face.
So, with all this in mind, I thought it was essential that my little Zebra be taught (I told my mother that it had the potentially added bonus of her being able to make me all the clothes that I want, but lack the ability to knit once she is older...she said that sounded like I had 'sweat shop' intentions for her. Oh dear, how easily one's ideas can be misconstrued....).
Zebra-girl is very gratifying to make things with as she is always so enthusiastic and her excitement had her leaping round the house when she saw the wool that I'd chosen for her. We decided to make a blanket for her bear. Never having taught someone to knit before, I don't know whether she was slow or quick to pick it up, but I felt surprised and delighted that by the sixth row she was able to hold it all by herself and knit away, slowly but steadily. So...I thought just in case anyone else is thinking of teaching their small ones, I might make a list of things that we found helpful (not least finding the most wonderfully knowledgeable lady in my local yarn shop).
- When I was initially trying to teach the steps that form each stitch we found the best way of sitting was in a little boat so that I was directly behind her and able to hold her hands to guide her through the actions.
- I gradually reduced the amount of steering that my hands were doing on hers, until eventually they were just there to give her confidence, by the sixth row she didn't need them there at all....and we could return to sitting normally.
- For various reasons I think a thick yarn is good to start with: the bulk of it helps the child see progress being made more quickly, it's less fiddly and the inevitable holey bits can be fluffed over slightly more.
- But even though I chose a thick yarn I tried also to pick one where the strands didn't divide up too easily (not entirely successful).
- I chose a wool that has a graduated colour...this really made a difference to persevering - Ours blended gradually from pink, to red, to orange and Zebra was so desperate to get to the orange bit that this became almost as exciting as the prospect of the actual item being completed.
- I bought children's knitting needles - they are a little shorter, and have a nice character on the top.
But what have I unleashed? Some sort of knitting addict. My little one can barely stop to eat she loves knitting so much. We have been teasing her that by the end of the week she may have created a giant knitted tea cosy to go over the top of our entire house. She giggles at this and carries on clickety-clicking.
This morning we sat in bed knitting next to one another (which seems wonderfully companiable and grown-up) and she suddenly exclaimed 'it's so funny, I actually look like a real old person knitting when you look down at my hands. I'm just like an old lady!' - she was so delighted by this that one can only assume that she has no issues with the aging process.
Below is a picture of her progress so far - you'll see she has gained a few stitches along the way...but the blanket could probably have done with being a little wider, so we'll look on that as a bonus. She went to bed an hour later than usual tonight and 'just one more row' has quickly become a familiar phrase.
Saturday, 16 February 2008
Peppermint hearts recipe
Ingredients:
1 Egg White
Icing Sugar (unlimited amounts!)
Lemon Juice
Natural Peppermint Essence
Pink or Green Food Colouring
Water
1.In a bowl mix an unspecified amount of icing sugar (a medium-sized mound is the best way I can describe it) with the egg white and a generous capful of peppermint essence (I think you may need less if your peppermint essence is of the more synthetic variety) and the food colouring (I tend to be quite restrained here as I love my peppermint creams to look as melt-in-the-mouth as they taste). At this point we carry out essential testing and check that they really do taste pepperminty enough - we like ours strong!
2. Once these are mixed, put your spoon to one side and let the eager little hands begin the work of bringing the ingredients together to form a large ball. If there isn't enough liquid in the mix at this point I add lemon juice (make sure it hasn't got 'bits' in and substitute with water if it's getting too lemony!) until the consistency is just right (you want the ball to be stuck together smoothly and quite dry).
3. Sprinkle icing sugar over your work surface to stop it sticking, put your ball on the worksurface and then sprinkle a little icing sugar over that too, and then let the rolling begin. We make our creams about 1cm thick.
4. Use your choice of cutter to make shapes. You may need to keep re-balling and then re-rolling to get the most out of your mixture. Take plenty of time over this section - if there are children involved it should fulfil all your children's play-doh needs until the next baking session (allowing those nasty tubs of carpet-ruiners to stay at the back of the cupboard).
5. As the creams are made I put them onto baking parchment (to stop them sticking) until they're properly hardened.
Thank you for all your lovely comment on my A Change of Heart post. Hope you are enjoying the weekend. x
Thursday, 14 February 2008
A change of heart
Wednesday, 13 February 2008
A gift and a meme
So, onto the Meme - thank you so much to both Ginny and Ali for very kindly nominating me for this. The rules are as follows:
Archive Meme Instructions: Go back through your archives and post the links to your five favorite blog posts that you’ve written. … but there is a catch:
Link 1 must be about family.Link 2 must be about friends.Link 3 must be about yourself, who you are… what you’re all about.Link 4 must be about something you love.Link 5 can be anything you choose.
Tuesday, 12 February 2008
Bear gets half-dressed
Bear was happy to model the PJs during nursery hours...his owner was less than happy on his return to find that his mummy had forgotten to remove the offending items from the bear's body after she'd finished her photo shoot though!
Postscripts
Thank you so much to everyone who has wished me better! I am feeling rather guilty now at the amount of (lovely!) well-wishing I have received...almost as though I have created some equivalent of a 'man-cold' for myself!
I have been really slow in replying to emails over the last couple of days - sorry! Normal correspondence will be resumed just as soon as I've stopped dabbing at my nose with Bear's PJs (that was a joke by the way). x
Monday, 11 February 2008
Postal loveliness...
So what was in the parcel? The fabricy goodness pictured above. My picture doesn't show the variety of prints (there are actually six or seven pieces in there), but it does show my two favourites - the top one I recognised as being an Ikea fabric, which is such a treat, as our nearest Ikea involves a trip on a motorway...so it might as well be as far away as Scotland I'm so unlikely to ever get there. My other favourite was the third one down - which is heavyweight and slightly retro looking - gorgeous! And I love the ribbon too! You can see my 'prize-winning' apron here when I blogged it back in December. I made it as a gift for my grandmother (who squirted tomatoes down it on first wearing....but she told me delightedly that it 'washes well' and that all trace of the incident is now gone!).
NB: As I post this I realise that I am shocked that I have won something...but you may just be shocked that I have written a post that doesn't take ten hours and whole packet of Hob Nobs to wade through. It is because I 'av the cold of Claude and so am off to snuggle under a large blanket and read the weekend newspapers.
Sunday, 10 February 2008
Sunday climbing
I hope that you all had lovely weekends too, and most especially Mrs Birthday Girl, Ginny. x