Post Apocalyptic Catch-up

Apologies for the protracted silence from this blog - it hasn't been intentional.  The madness that is Christmas and New Year and the merry-go-round of travelling up and down the country to visit one set of relatives and then tolerating a different bunch of them down here has been more or less non-stop.  We have had a lovely 2 day hiaitus with just the kids which will come to an abrupt end tomorrow when my immediate family descends for a further 3 days. Although I love my family they do annoy the heck out of me.  My parents in particular bring decades-old family politics with them that I frankly can't be a*sed with.

My family.  NOT.

I should update you on the Christmas Fair, which was 3 weeks ago but somehow seems like a thousand years ago.  It is one of those odd things that I am glad that I did, to get it out of my system, but that I won't be doing again.  Here is my little stall:

I am grateful to all of the people who advised me to make lots of little things as parents are only willing to spend so much at school fairs.  This was entirely true as I sold lots of mini stockings, quite a few trees and sachets, and surprisingly quite a lot of hairbands (once one Y3 girl bought one and wore it, others came looking for where she had bought it).

I sold none of my big stuff but happily I had already earmarked it all for my lucky relatives and godchildren etc so I don't have a big pile of stuff left - everything has gone to a new home.  The remaining mini stockings and trees are on my Christmas tree right now.

The thing that I learned most was that whilst I enjoy sewing for its own sake, what I really enjoy is creating whatever it is that I feel like creating at that moment in time.  Doing the prep for this Fair turned it into a job instead of a hobby.  That's why I won't be doing another Fair!

As soon as the Fair was over, I started thinking about what *I* would really love to work on, and by coincidence (ahem) look what came in the post:

Spoonflower fabric yum yum yum .... I think I may make a Slouch bag out of this....

Echino purple Wish fabric ... this is going to be a bag too ... maybe a Nikki tote ...

Fun Matryoshka fabric ... only a FQ of this but I thought it would make a fun journal cover?

Ashland dress pattern from Sew Liberated ... I think I may shorten it to a tunic but this is exactly the style of top I like to wear.  And it's about time I did a bit of dressmaking.

Of course I haven't got started on any of this because of flippin' Christmas!  But at least the world didn't end.  So hopefully I will have time in 2013 (once my relatives b*gger off).

G x

Nihongo o benkyoushimashou!

One of my lesser known talents is that I can speak conversational Japanese.  Post-school but pre-children (in that lovely interlude where I could do anything I liked), a friend asked if I would enrol on a Japanese GCSE course to keep them company.  And, in their words: "because you will make sure I don't jack in the course early, because you're such a swot.  You know, like Monica in that episode of Friends when they go on a reading course".

 

(Scroll forward to 4.40 and that's me in class apparently)

Since I was in my 20s with boundless energy and plenty of time, and because I am a swot, of course I said yes.  And it was really quite fun.

The Japanese writing system has 3 layers - 2 phonetic alphabets plus 1 pictorial system called Kanji (essentially nicked from Chinese characters and bastardised a bit).  Today I am going to introduce you to some Kanji:

Tree: ki

Wood: hayashi

Forest: mori

And now here's my sewing version:

Tree:

Wood:

Forest:

Unfortunately I can't quite remember how to say "I can't wait until this &*@%£*$ Christmas Fair is over" in Japanese.

However, if asked at the Christmas Fair whether I will do it again, I will reply "chotto....".  We should have this expression in English.  It literally means "a bit", but in reply to a question it can mean "No, and I am not going to give you a reason why, and you can't ask me the reason why either because that would be unacceptably rude of you".

We were taught this in the context of how to say no to being asked on a date or something.  How much easier would it be to say "chotto" than to think of rubbish excuses like washing your hair or visiting your Great Aunt in Cheltenham?  Although now that I am old and grumpy (and in no danger of being asked on a date), I am perfectly happy to just say "no".

G x

I love a deadline, me

Yes there's nothing quite like a deadline to scare you into finishing something:

This is a Christmas Angel (looking a bit casual, admittedly - maybe it's her day off) for the LMQG 2012 ornament swap.  Maybe I should give her some wings.  However given that it is quarter to midnight the day before the swap, perhaps it's a bit late for that. 

I am looking forward to the LMQG meeting tomorrow but I always feel terribly guilty for leaving my young family behind for the day.  Although the meeting itself is only 2 hours, once you add on the travel time it is more like 5 hours.  I know shouldn't feel guilty because I have the little anklebiters all day every day, but I know how tiring they can be and I feel sorry for my husband who is not as used to having them for prolonged periods.  I never used to understand my mother's permanent state of feeling guilty but now I do.

G x

Mojo sighted

I'm not sure if my Mojo is completely back, but there is a glimmer of hope.

Today I did my shift at school and then came home and just sewed like the clappers for the Christmas Fair:

I whipped up this 14" cushion in under 2 hours - it is made with part of a panel from La Petite Ecole and trimmed with mini pom poms from The Village Haberdashery.  A big thank you to Angela at Fussy Cut for this excellent tutorial of how to attach pom pom trim to a cushion.

Then I moved onto more mini stockings, because if I am going to do this Christmas Fair, I might as well have things to sell:

...so now I have 36 mini stockings, which I will be hanging on a 3 foot artificial tree that I got from Tesco.  The tree cost £2.44.  How on earth do they make stuff for nothing?!

Anyway, when I set off on the school run I was feeling invincible.  Raaaaaaaah!  Wonder Woman! 

 Me on the school run this afternoon

But somehow, like a tyre with a slow puncture, over the past 6 hours my Mojo has quietly slinked away and I am feeling deflated again. 

 Wonder Woman's Mojo after she has looked after my kids for 6 hours

I think it is partly because I need to finish my Christmas Decoration for the LMQG Ornament Swap on Sunday, but right now I am all Christmas deco'd out.  Come on, Wonder Woman - one last push!

Sneak peek (and partly because she doesn't have any legs yet)

G x

Zero

Zip.  Zilch.  Nowt.  Nada.  Diddly squat.

This is how much sewing I have got done since my last post (unless you count sewing name tapes into a pair of school gloves).

  

This depresses me greatly but I am trying to accept that it comes with the territory of having young children, who not only eat my spare time when they are well, but also have the bad manners to get ill quite a lot.  I will spare you the details of me getting covered in semi-digested bolognese at 3 a.m. on Saturday night apart from to mention that it was my toddler's tummy bug rather than any sort of drunken overindulgence on my part.

I hope this is not going to become one of those blogs where I just have to entertain you with other stuff I have read on better blogs than mine, but until I do some more sewing, you might as well have a chuckle at this old post from Hyperbole and a Half.

In the meantime, if anyone spots my mojo, please let me know.

G x

Other people's work

I can't take any of the credit for any of the work in today's post as they have all been done by other people!  But they are also all pretty so I thought I would share.

First, look what loveliness Mr Postman brought for my eldest daughter:

...expertly knitted by my mum.  I first saw this tunic dress on this blog post by Sandra Cherry Heart and in my typical impulsive way immediately went online and bought all the supplies.  I'm glad I did because (thanks to my mum) it is fabulous.

The pattern is Rye from Beresford Beach, a children's knitting pattern collection by Louisa Harding.  I bought the book and the yarn (SMC Pertinio) from Laughing Hens.  It is difficult to tell from the picture but the yarn has a very fine metallic thread going through it, so that when the light catches it shimmers ever so slightly. 

Next on the list ... a bit of long overdue Christmas shopping.  Look what I found in John Lewis!

It's only a notebook in Flea Market Fancy by Denyse Schmidt!  This is going to be a stocking filler.  In MY stocking.  Hands off, family and friends!

Hmmmm I have just spotted that Flea Market Fancy is on sale here at the Village Haberdashery ... hello credit card, I may be needing you.

The third and final thing that I can take no credit for whatsoever is this:

 

Hopefully this will be winging its way to me from Spoonflower in the next couple of weeks.  I noticed a few people have been ordering recently because of the "Free Shipping Anywhere In The World" offer they had on.  Good offer!  I just hope I don't get stung on the customs duty.

The pattern is called Vacuum Tube Retro.  Unsurprisingly, this is because the design is based on vacuum tubes, which in th'olden days looked a bit like this:

Thank you Wikipedia for the photo.  Massive old computers used to have hundreds of these but they weren't known for their reliability and so computing moved onto transistors and then microchips.  But they look good!  I am a sucker for dusty purples and pinks so this fabric is  right up my street.

I have ordered a yard of this in the heavy cotton twill with the intention of making a bag out of it.  I have so many intended bags now, I am in danger of turning into Christine, who calls her prolific bag-making "like a disease".  But at least Christine actually makes her bags instead of just thinking about it.  If I still haven't physically made a bag by 31 December 2012 I shall be giving myself a stern talking to.

Yay!  A whole post where I didn't mention the Christmas Fair.  Until now.  ARGH!

Belated Bee Blocks

Those of you who with good memories may remember that I signed up for a Bee earlier this year.  Some of my readers are in the same Bee and have had the good grace not to point out that, despite an enthusiastic start, I am now running behind on my Bee blocks.  Once again I am laying the blame squarely on the Christmas Fair.

This morning I wondered what I should make for the Christmas Fair but instead mutinied and chose to do my October Bee blocks.  I already had all the instructions printed out, and my chosen fabrics fussy cut and ready to go, so I decided to see if I could get them done this morning.

Two hours later:

These are Polaroid blocks for Twinkle Toes Jo - the outer block measures about 10" across the top.  The inner image + white frame are exactly Polaroid sized.  Jo says she wants to arrange the blocks in a 'scattered' formation, as if the Polaroids have been chucked onto the quilt.  I can't wait to see how it looks!

Now I might go and get started on my November selvedge blocks for Dandelion Liz.  God forbid I might actually catch up before the month is up!

G x