Vicarious Crafting

Well, we are half-way through week two of a seven-week summer holiday. D is four weeks old, K is 4 & 3/4yrs, and it's raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaining. Again. So my happy little dreams of taking the baby down to the park and letting her kick about on a rug in the sunshine whilst big girl climbs and runs to her heart's content have been pretty much shattered. S'what I get for being optimistic. Sigh.

What can you do in such a situation? Only craft, of course, and since D spends her time clamped to my chest one way or another, my hands aren't all that free. I'm working on a couple of long-term projects; one of which is to restock the shop with Mr Suns asap and the other is a granny square shrug adapted from The Crochet Bible which will feature the three squares I received from Izabela last year. Both of those are...well, kinda boring as they're repeated patterns with not much variation and only the finished product is worth photographing. Another two projects I can't show you just yet - a birthday amigurumi is diving into the post today, so that can't be revealed until the recipient has seen it, and I'm not quite finished stitching the new fringe onto my plain black sling. I'll do a proper write-up of 150 Crochet Trims when I get that done.

So much for my own work. I'm very carefully not mentioning the large heaps of yarn I've just ordered to make two items from Cute Crochet for Tiny Tots for K, nor the jacket from Crochet in No Time and cardigan from The Crochet Bible, neither of which I've finished yet for D. Ahem. In the meantime I'm living la vida crafta through the hands of K, who's been very busy this week, bless her.

Thomas The Tank Engine

A cheap and dirty trick to while away a wet Friday afternoon; we picked this kit up in the pound shop last week. K painted the larger areas and I completed the detail simply because the paint was so rubbish it would barely go on. Lesson learned (again) - cheap kid's craft sets are 100% crap. But she's happy with her work!

Black & White Baby Mobile

 I recently bought The Social Baby, having enjoyed the toddler version with K - despite being pretty darn good at understanding baby communication (if I do say so myself - three years of experience teaching baby signing now!), we've found it quite useful and it's been a good refresher for these early weeks. I also got their Baby Shapes books for something for the girls to interact together with before D is really ready for toys - they've proved a real hit and K has made this fantastic mobile of black & white shapes which hangs over the nappy change station. D is certainly appreciating it and I loved K's reply when asked about the wiggly lines: "They're secret messages for D".

Berk, Drut and Boni from Trap Door

Lastly, this morning's creations - thanks to some wonderful salt dough from our friend Kirstine - Berk, Drut and Boni from the TV series Trap Door. One that A and I grew up with and K has loved ever since she was tiny. Long may the Globbits continue in this house!

If you go down to the woods today...

...well. If you went down to K's preschool yesterday morning you'd have found the whole class picnicking away in the hall, since it's wet and horrible! It's her last week of preschool (and we have had much wailing about it), so there are lots of events on and Wednesday was their Teddy Bears' Picnic. K is much more obsessed with cats than bears, so we had to scrabble in the toybox a bit to find one. All we could find was a little one of just 8ins tall - and this was after I'd opened my big mouth and suggested I may be able to make something from Crochet for Bears to Wear. Oh dear. I do like to destruct-test patterns from time to time, and although the book is designed for toys of 18ins tall, there's a very clever conversion which means you can resize the outfits. I have to say I was extremely sceptical as to whether it would work, given that I was changing not only the size of the bear but the yarn and the hook as well - but it did!

Bear-y Pickin' Dress

It's a near-perfect fit. I'm not quite sure about the shoulders as it's a little too large, but given that D was going into her first growth spurt and feeding like crazy as I was trying to count rows, it's probably my mistake. Otherwise, it's absolutely spot on. And so very satisfying to make something so quickly!

Of course, when bear has a pretty dress, K must have a pretty dress too. It was quite by chance that she picked the bear's colours before remembering that she had a dress in the same lilacs and greens, so all that remained was to whizz up another quick hairband to match. 

The full outfit!

 Close-up hairband and scowl

If you'd like to make this hairband, download the pattern for free from here or from the Free Patterns page above where they all live. Just the thing for a party or a picnic!

I've been a bit busy making something...

...well, someone, anyway!

This is Danika, my youngest daughter, at four days old. Isn't she a peach? She took her own sweet time coming but was a wonderful home waterbirth. It's been honestly hell being pregnant in the summer time (K was born in November so a very different experience). I've not had the energy to do anything at all, really - a bit of listless crochet here and there and I made a start on her birth sampler, but absolutely everything has seemed exhausting.


I don't really have any crafting plans at the moment but I do have some new books to enjoy - A bought me two drawing books for my birthday in May (How to Draw and Paint Dragons and Draw Faeries), and in desparation at going over dates I treated myself to three new crochet books.

These are:

Cute Crochet for Tiny Tots, which I've had from the library before - I've actually bought it to make a poncho for K but will have to upsize the pattern to size 5-6 myself, eek!

Crochet for Bears to Wear - Jessie Cat (our Sing & Sign mascot) will be getting a whole new wardrobe next year!

150 Crochet Trims: Designs for Beautiful Decorative Edgings, from Lacy Borders to Bobbles, Braids, and Fringes. Whilst pregnant I bought a nice green maxi dress and promptly got grease all down the lap, which will not come out of the microfibre fabric, so I plan to hack it to tunic length and hem it with a pretty crochet fringe (mostly to cover the inevitable sewing machine cock ups, I'm hopeless with clothes!). I love this book and I want to put edgings on absolutely everything I and the girls own now! My one concern is finding somewhere I can buy perle cotton by the ball rather than the skein or it's going to be an expensive obsession (since when are my crafting whims ever cheap?).


Anyway, it's taken three days to type this post one-handed with a sleeping or nursing D on my arm, so I'll love you and leave you here before she wakes up again!

What We Made For The Cat Swap!

Aah, our parcel has arrived safely in Scotland, thank goodness - and all in one piece, phew! See what Kirsty & Devin thought of what we sent here. Kirsty's pictures are much better than mine so do take a look!

What I made for Kirsty

Clockwise: Coraline picture, amigurumi cat, cat-themed ribbons & buttons stash, cat cross-stitch keyring kit.

I'll talk more about the picture in a minute, but just wanted to mention that the cute kitty is made from a pattern by The Ole Attic Chest on Etsy - it was one of the first things I ever bought on Etsy and although I've been wanting to try it out for ages it just never made it to the top of the pile. In a way it's been a good thing, though, as I've built my confidence on yarn substitution quite significantly over that time. Mine isn't as fluffy as it's "supposed" to be, but the Stylecraft "Caberet" yarn really made me think of how cats aren't always sweet little kittens...this fellow is a teenage cat bristling with magic and adventure.

I included the cross stitch kit as I knew Kirsty was interested in trying different crafts and I figure these little kits are a great way to sample something without the fatigue factor which often comes with cross stitch.

Coraline Page

I was really pleased with how this came out - and by how much it was appreciated! It was one of those ideas that came to me in the middle of the night (which I see a lot of, being heavily pregnant now!) and took quite some experimenting to get the exact combination of water and ink stain which would make the page look age-faded/charred rather than as though I'd dumped a pot of tea over it! I'd also considered using a page from Rudyard Kipling's The Cat Who Walked By Himself, which I've always loved, but knowing how much Kirsty liked Coraline it was an easy choice. I may make one for myself, actually, though the copy I have of Kipling isn't as nice as I'd like it to be in terms of the font and layout.

What we made for Devin

Definitely a joint effort, this one - K made the card entirely by herself, she's getting really good with scissors now. Everything else she either did part of or had all the creative input for. She painted the bottom coat of the cat mask herself - and how we grinned when a blank version of the same mask arrived in our parcel from Devin - she's already part through a Wilbur from Winnie the Witch mask and now she's keen to raid my yarn box to make a ginger cat too! She was very definite that the cat mask should look like a Jellicle Cat - we got the new Axel Scheffler-illustrated version of TS Elliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats last time we were at the wonderful Seven Stories and it's a firm favourite.

Jellicle Cats are black and white,
Jellicle Cats are rather small;
Jellicle Cats are merry and bright,
And pleasant to hear when they caterwaul.
Jellicle Cats have cheerful faces,
Jellicle Cats have bright black eyes;
They like to practise their airs and graces
And wait for the Jellicle Moon to rise.

The yarn was unbelievably fiddly to work with, so I ended up doing a lot of the glueing part myself, but she did supervise!

What else...the amigurumi Pocket Cat is from Amigurumi World, so I made it as K is not quite up to crochet yet, but all the decisions on colour and so on were hers. Ditto with the cat toy, which we made for Devin's gran's cat Clyde :D I mostly made up the pattern for that but major props to the user Windy on Something Awful - probably not a place you'd expect to find a big bunch of people armed with hooks and yarn but the world is an unusual place to say the least! Tomsk very much enjoyed the prototype I made beforehand even though he was obviously poorly at that stage, so I'm doubly grateful to Windy for the idea.

K also chose the cat stickers, of course, and was instrumental in helping with the chocolate lollipops (yes, we did a test batch for her first!) - kit for making those was bought from Jen's Chocolate Making Factory on eBay, who I'd definitely recommend for speedy service! We borrowed the edible glitter used for the eyes and noses from my mum, a long-time cake decorator. They're great fun to make and I think we'll probably do this sort of thing instead of party bags - at least, I'd love to *think* we will; whether we'll have time when Little Bump comes along I don't know!

So there you go - much fun had in the making and receiving of another swap. I doubt I'll be able to do another in the next year so I'm glad it was such a good one! Many thanks to Chrissy of Spoilt Pig for organising and to Kirsty & Devin for being such great partners.

Happy St George's Day!

Download the pattern for this hairband!

Small girl had to go to preschool today "dressed in red and white" for St George's Day. Blimey. It was wall-to-wall England shirts in there when I dropped her off! Madam herself chose red and white spotted socks, red trousers and a red and white striped top. Yesterday I whizzed up this quick hairband for her (because, you know, she's four and everything has to match!), and I thought it would be a nice thing to share with you.

It's dead easy to make so the pattern should be fine whatever your level of experience, custom fits to your child (or you!) and takes maybe an hour or so - it's only three rows of treble but the way it's put together gives it a nice neat edge and allows the natural stretch of the yarn to make it a good fit. It uses Patons 100% mercerised DK cotton but I think the method of fitting will probably allow you to use any yarn (do let me know if you try it out!). You could also easily make this in blue and white for St Andrew's Day, or any tricolour flag you fancy - why not try gold, white and green for Ireland or red, white and blue for France or America?

Have a go and let me know how it goes for you! Download here or from the Free Patterns page above where they all live. And have a great St George's Day! :-)

Cat Swap Sent

A plethora of parcels

Photographed in a bit of a hurry as we rushed off to the post office today, but here is our cat swap ready to go! It was so hard to arrange everything into the tinest bit of sunlight we had and you can barely see the big, flat parcels underneath everything else - of course it's beautiful now, typical. Anyway, the red parcels are for Kirsty and the green for Devin. We hope they'll like them - we had lots of fun putting it all together! Pics of the contents to come once I know it's been received safe and sound.

What to do now? I'm struggling to do any cross stitch at the moment as I can't get the frame close enough due to the bump, so that's all had to be shelved for the time being (also, have you ever tried to stitch whilst sitting on an exercise ball? I don't recommend it!). I have an almost-finished birthday commission to put the last touches to, but I'm in a bit of a quandry as to how to complete it. Time to speak to the person whose idea it was, I think!

I'm really tempted to take part in the Stitch Yourself Event that Stitch London/Science Museum are running - given that the closing date is around the time I'm due I'm thinking a very very very pregnant amigurumi me might have to be made. That's eight weeks off. EIGHT WEEKS!!!!

And of course there's Little Bump's cardigan to be getting on with (and the washing and ironing of all the other clothes). Ho hum...

In Memory; and Cat Swap Received

Tomsk, aged about 3.

Firstly, the sad news that our beloved moggy Tomsk passed away this weekend. He was just 11 and it's been a big shock to us all; he'd been recovering well from his bladder problems but took a turn for the worse on Saturday. We got him to the vet in plenty of time, but sadly his poor little heart couldn't take the strain of the operation. We were able to go and say goodbye; his last hours with us were spent snoozing in the sunshine. Thank you to everyone on Facebook and Twitter for so many kind words, it means a lot. He was a big old soppy daft fool of a cat; always kind and very popular with visiting children because he was so patient. We called him "our bear of very little brain" and he was rather Pooh-like in his innocence and gentle nature (although he certainly knew how to work those great big eyes like Puss In Boots from Shrek 2!). Even Ash, our grey cat, seems to be missing him, though they were never really friends - she is sleeping a great deal at the moment and being very affectionate when she's awake. Goodnight, sweetheart - I will always remember you trying to chase the snowflakes through the window, you daft old thing.

On to some crafty things: many thanks to Kirsty & Devin from Feline Dream for their immaculate timing - the parcels arrived safely today - and for their patience as we're going to be a few days late posting out due to all the happenings this weekend. I happened to look at their blog this morning and saw all the gorgeous wrapping - and amazingly the postman knocked just ten minutes later. Of course I had to wait until K was back from preschool before I could dive in!

K's parcel from Devin

A lovely card, Hello Kitty Pez and iron-on patches for clothes, cat stickers, bookmark, two great fridge magnets and a wooden cat mask. K says "It's lovely! I love everything!". Naturally the Pez are her favourite at the moment :rolleyes: but she's already given the magnets pride of place on the fridge and is brimming with ideas for which clothes to put the patches on and how to decorate the mask. So thank you very much from K!

My parcel from Kirsty

How fab is that! Two mosaic coasters (which are backed with pink jaguar-print felt, no less), three sheets of big cat print felt, two packs of buttons, an origami card (I MUST get the instructions for that!), some paw-print stamped labels and a silver Scraperfoil. I haven't done one of those in yeeeeeaars...I think I will stash it safely away to do when Little Bump is napping (fingers crossed) and K is at preschool; I'm currently making a pile of books and small projects to do as I found it very helpful to have something for me that wasn't baby or housework when K was small.

Thank you so much to both of you and to Chrissy from I Love Spoilt Pig for organising - we are not too far behind on finishing our parcel so hopefully it'll be dispatched in the next few days.