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.

Sun, sea and smiles

Just look at that. My feet, in the sea. I can't tell you how happy our little holiday made me. All three of us, out in the sun from morning to evening, not burning, not overheating, just going a delicious pale brown, like new-baked biscuits. This is new territory for us as we usually hide from the sun, being very pale of skin, but slap on the factor 40 and give us a northern beach and we're set.

How perfect is that? I've no idea whose the dog is - just a local who came rushing in to greet the tide on my last snap of the day.


Mind, there's no way you can't have fun with Little Miss Sly Winks along...


Craft? Er..yes, this is supposed to be a craft blog, isn't it. Well, I actually didn't do a great deal - all those wide open skies seemed to lend themselves more to reading, talking and meditation, so I managed probably only six rows of my blanket cardigan (though do bear in mind each row is 170 trebles..!) and nothing else. Since I've been home, however, my long-anticipated copy of Soulemama's The Creative Family has arrived, which both A and I have really appreciated, and I've been bashing away at the sewing machine. It also occasioned a wonderful family trip into Manchester on Saturday to collect crafting materials. We visited Abakhan Fabrics for many projects such as the 1:12 replica of our own house for K's Christmas present (floor plans currently being drawn up in a huge, good quality sketchbook by A and interior designing/soft furnishings to be done by me) - we've got carpet and curtains sorted and I happen to have some fat quarters in which are exactly the colours of our bedding. Fabric too for a "cuddling blanket" for K (red spotty fleece she picked herself), and some bits and pieces for clothing experiments.

Fred Aldous, too, was paid a visit - love the new layout of the upper floor, very clean and light, although I suspect if they redo the basement too I'll really miss the Aladdin's Cave effect; I've been going to this art shop since I was a student and it will always be very special to me. Good quality sketchbooks for A and K here (I have a lovely one already!), and a further packet of bells to finish a skirt trim - now standing at 112 tiny silver bells on the crocheted trim; the skirt has been shortened and all that remains is to apply one to the other - eek!

Most of Sunday was taken up with the sewing machine for myself and sketchbooks for A and K - I am very pleased with a pair of pencil rolls made from single fat quarters and some rather clever folding, if I do say so myself. Some pics to follow when the sun makes an appearance again.

Been Busy

For the last couple of weeks, two projects have kept me really busy: the decorations for my Sing & Sign Summer Picnic (since the weather's filthy, we had it indoors) and the bookshelves for K's bedroom. I haven't done a stitch of sewing!

Here's the picnic - this is actually afterwards, but you can get a good idea of how the walls looked. I did the grass and some bushes all the way round the room; a couple of trees as well (next time I think I will do another couple of trees, they looked great). The grass is painted wallpaper, the flowers are origami and stapled to green straws - they are not fixed so some of the older ones had great fun "picking" flowers! There were 25 butterflies, 10 rabbits, half a dozen each of bees, ladybirds, caterpillars, spiders and birds, and lots of balloons up the walls. The babies *loved* them - some of the ones who've already done a term with me were toddling around the room signing "bird" and "spider" and giggling at everything they could see. The new ones were just goggling and taking it all in. It was really fab and I'm so glad I took the time to do it all.


K's picture book shelves, our joint project, went from this:

then after two coats of primer and two coats of green paint and stencilling, to this:



Unfortunately we forgot to take a pic of the stencilling until it was in situ, but you can get a good idea from this:


The stencilling looks great, I think (you can't see the daisies too well in this pic but they have come out well after having been hand-painted on), though this pic does serve to show just how bendy the walls are in this house - it isn't the shelves, it's the wall! A is of course not happy with the rails across the front (bloody perfectionist, but I can see his point), so there will be some metal reinforcements happening at some point. However, the most important person, K, is very happy indeed to have all her stories within reach!

Bored

I've been stitching at Geisha now for aaaaaages and to be quite honest I'm getting bored with it. I've done a lot of nit-picky details recently and it's all at the bottom of the picture, which makes my hands and wrists really ache. I wanted to finish this bottom quarter by now, but there's still quite a lot to do. I'm also tired of the colours - I'd forgotten that they're all rather muted and dull, which is a bit strange (it's not just the photo, they really are that boring). I think I am going to take a break and do something else shortly; my supply of stubornness (I WILL finish it) is running out drastically right now. For reference, by the way, the design area is well over a foot long. It has come on well, though, so I think I'd be justified in putting it down for a bit and leaving it alone.

What to do next, though? I think I would like a complete change for a bit; the weather's getting more and more unbearable and I have a sewing machine I still haven't unpacked, a large piece of lovely cool printed cotton and the idea to make a very very simple wrap-around skirt. I'm not very good with machine sewing, though; the hem could well end up out of shape. Still, it's a learning curve, and let's face it, that material's been hanging around so long I may as well get on with it, or give up and chuck it in the charity bag! I am very tempted to get hold of a copy of Yeah, I Made It Myself: DIY Fashion for the Not Very Domestic Goddess before I start, though. I feel a bit of a doofus when it comes to dressmaking, having made only one thing before which didn't go exactly according to plan. It was wearable (in fact, I wore it to a wedding) but I definitely got the armpits and neckline wrong!

In other news himself and I are working on a joint project for K's room - a set of picture-book shelves, the flat ones you get in school libraries where the books are displayed with the covers outwards rather than the spines. A has built the shelves from MDF after much swearing and chopping and banging, and I've put two coats of white primer on - MDF doesn't half suck up paint on the cut edges, sheesh. The next job is to paint it lime green (it's not as violent as it sounds!) to match her bedding and curtains, and then stencil up the sides with daisies. I may even do the inside back, it depends how it looks. K chose the daisies herself and we managed to get the stencils and paints really cheap in B&Q.