Goodbye Christmas, Hello Birthdays.

Just about got all my Christmas present making done (by the skin of my teeth), so now we are back to birthday cakes.
Matthew has had a long standing request in for a robot cake; “not a cake with a robot on it, but a cake in the shape of a robot”. Got it?
So here it is – from inception – Matthew’s sketch (about 11:00 this morning) to completion at about 9:00pm.
There is nothing you cannot do with a lot of chocolate and enough silver sugar spray!

Bit busy

I seem to have been caught out rejoicing over the return to school, and still haven’t achieved anything like as much as I thought I would by now. Apparently weekends are full of family activities, while weekdays are challenging, and full of Robin, even if Piper is at pre-school part time. Christmas? What Christmas? And as for ever finishing off the decorating – well that needs Robert and I to find curtains that we can both live with.
On the plus side we had a lovely cold wet holiday in South Wales, with lots of family.
And my own personal golden moment – watching Matthew do actual sewing for his homework.
My inability to photograph finished projects before they leave the house has struck again, but the objective was to clothe a pirate model (which he had made) using different materials – e.g. soft, strong, waterproof. This is Matthew sewing up the fake leather trousers. We also equipped him with a red t-shirt and a waterproof poncho. It was great.
I also made another phone case, and sent it off to its new home without photographing it.
Now I really am focusing on Christmas (and decorating), honest!

Leaving Home

If only for day. Today my Mum and I are going to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace, which means that Robert has be Full-Time Parent for 24 hours.

This of course meant that I had to do every thing I would normally do on or by Saturday by 6pm on Friday so that I could catch my train. But this week, on top of making sure that the children all have sufficient clean clothes and meals available to them while I am out of the house, I had to add making a birthday bag and accessorising a fancy dress costume as Matthew has a party to go to this afternoon.

The plus side of all that drawstring bag making is that I managed to rattle out a couple of stripy drawstring backpacks one afternoon – and I only need one this week!

Having found a bandanna, a shirt, and a belt and sash (for Matthew to choose from) I felt compelled to make him a proper pirate hat using a tutorial I found online. I already had a worn out black vinyl coat ready to cut up, and absolutely no time, so what could be better?

Hopefully Matthew will wear it as gracefully as Rupert the coat-hanger.

Christmas? Done!

Of course, it is not my Christmas that I have finished, just somebody else’s.


That heap of festive fabric I showed you in the last post turned into this:



← Which are actually 50 of these.
The purpose of this was to provide, lighter, re-usable and more durable "Shoe Boxes” for a local organisation called Hopestonia to use to send Christmas presents to the children they help in Estonia.
This was a fairly slow moving project, mainly through procrastination, but also due in part to trying to work out what fabric to use, and how to reduce cost as much as possible. Then my lovely (and now closed) local Salvation Army shop had an unexpected donation of LOTS of Christmas stuff (in May/June) including lots of small remnants of fabric. They gave me everything I needed. All I had to do was launder it, unpicking the existing seams and iron all the fabric.
…And then work out how to cut all the slightly random bits of fabric into fairly consistently sized bags, actually cut them, sew them up, fold and sew again, thread the ribbon, stitch it down and hand them all over!
Now I just have to work out what I am doing about our Christmas.

Back to school!

Which I have discovered also means back to productivity! I was so relieved – after a very busy, but somewhat underachieving summer (at least in terms of sewing) I was beginning to worry that I would never be able to complete a project again.

Apparently all it really took was space to work in again (now the lounge/dining room is back) and a severely reduced number of children around the house during the day. Matthew and Piper were back in school for 2 days during which time I was able to set up my work area again and actually make a long overdue birthday present – just in time for needing to actually give it to my sister in law at the weekend.

I am now working my “big project” which I have been organising for months, but have just got to grips with (which is just as well, because my deadline is the end of this month).
More to follow once it is complete!

August…

You might have thought from my extended absence on my blog that I had been enjoying the summer holidays and making the most of the sea-and-country-side in which I live. Not so.
Our August project (while the children had a holiday with their grandparents) was to strip out our lounge and repair all the damp related damage before redecorating. In our plan this was going to involve about a week of very hard work. Instead, having done all the prep and most of the remedial work (replacing joists and floorboards) it turned out we were also going to have to re-plaster immediately.
What with the plastering (which is beautiful) and Robert having to go back to work it took until the 31st August before we had the new laminate flooring down in this room, and properly September before we actually had furniture in it. This meant lots of eating in the garden or in the kitchen, and cosy rainy afternoons, snuggled up on my bed with the children, watching “Herbie Rides Again”.

We still need to paint, but that is going to have to wait for real life to recede again (and for us to make our minds up!).

Holiday anyone?

About 47 practice buttons holes later I finished off my cushion commission. Apparently I didn’t photograph the finished articles before sending them off, but they looked like this, but with more cushion-i-ness (and slightly greener).
	After that I rushed to complete my niece’s birthday bag, which I also forgot to photograph, but it was great.

Then I had a holiday, so of course I travelled around London with cake making paraphernalia and produced this (with a little help from my sister).
And now we are home, and resting. Kind of.