New skills

I've talked before about how a nap time is proving to be just long enough for me to pick up some sewing, and about my friend's belief in the power of cumulative action.  So on Thursday, when it was close to but not quite close enough to the end of a week of busy Spring Fair planning, and I was in need of some light relief, I decided to pull out my sewing and see if I could finally nail a skill that had stalled two of my current projects: buttonholes.

I was a more than a little afraid of buttonholes.  The need to sew two parallel lines of closely spaced stitches and then snip a hole in your work without cutting any of them, or, most importantly, the little bars of stitches at the top and bottom.  It rather brought me out in a cold sweat.  My gran assured me that the buttonhole function on her sewing machine was fool-proof and that, once I'd tried it, I'd never be afraid of buttonholes again.

I found some scrap yarn and tried.  It started well but then the stitches began bunching and eventually the machine was just jogging on the spot.  I stopped and tried again.  Same thing.  I fiddled with the tension settings.  I fiddled with the pressure on the foot.  I fiddled with the feeddogs.  The machine seemed stiff.  I oiled it.  It helped a little but not much.  I tried doing some simple straight sewing.  The machine laboured.  It clunked.  It whirred.  Then it jammed.

Oh.  As one of the characters in my daughter's favourite TV programme say, "That is not very good".

I dismantled the bits of the machine that I could get to but nothing seemed to co-operate.  Clearly this called for someone who actually knew what they were doing.  I rootled around on the internet, hoping to unearth a sewing machine repair shop.  There were a few, but none particularly close to my corner of London and none who would collect the machine from me, and the closest one wasn't answering the phone.  Just when I was resigning myself to a drive into Battersea and to not doing any sewing for a couple of weeks while I tried to fit in driving back to collect the machine again, I spotted a link to a mobile sewing machine engineer.  The site looked presentable enough and he seemed to have lots of experience, plus a good reference (albeit a few years old now) from a local shop.  What the heck.  I gave him a call.

Which is how on Thursday evening, a little Lithuanian man was sat in my study, servicing my sewing machine (Hubby insists this sounds like the start of a porn film... I think it is the term "servicing") and how, on Thursday evening, I was finally able to do this:

and this:

You might not have noticed the buttonhole in the middle of the cow's head on the pocket flap...

and my sewing machine now runs like a dream.  Part of me feels £50 for the 20 minutes he was hear is rather expensive, but then he has a skill that I don't have, he came to me and he was with me within 4 hours of my call.  Plus I doubt any of the other shops would have been noticeably cheaper and all would have been noticeably more hassle, so really, what's not to like?  His card is now in a safe place for the next time (which he laughed and suggested would probably be in a couple of years).

Of course, I'm still a way off actually completing anything. This is probably why, rather than starting another project when I hit the buttonholes of the dress, I should have bitten the bullet then, but hey-ho.  I did try to remedy that last night by sewing the buttons on the dress.  Unfortunately, I discovered that I mis-measured and my buttonholes are slightly too short, so there will need to be a little jiggery-pokery tonight to fix that and I will need to remind myself of Tim Allen's mantra on 'Home Improvement': "measure twice, cut once".  But the important things are (a) I conquered my fear of buttonholes and (b) I think they look pretty good.  I'll finish the dress so that Baby Bird can wear it tomorrow and hopefully by next weekend, she will be skipping about in a pair of crazy cow print trousers.  The material is pretty bonkers I will concede, but I love it and firmly believe that if you can't dress in bonkers prints at 18 months, I don't know when you can.

The time just keeps on going

Another week, or rather, ten days, have passed me by in a bit of a blog-less blur.  I guess I'm a bit too busy living at the moment to talk to you about it.  My volunteering job is manic right now as we are busy organising our Spring Fair.  If you happen to be in Ealing on 19th May there will be some fun happenings to enjoy.  I'm also feeling thoroughly inspired on the sewing and knitting fronts and rather than methodically taking pictures of things so that I can share them and working carefully through one activity to completion, I'm flitting backwards and forwards amongst half a dozen different projects.

I'm so close to finishing a little sundress from Making Baby's Clothes (just need to figure out buttonholes and find some buttons - in fact, I'm only a moment of impatience away from just adding poppers and calling it good.  The only thing I need to do to show you the lovely little dress (Tutti-Frutti from the same book) I made her for our friends' wedding (which is already, unbelieveably, a month ago) is take some pics.  Maybe I can get that sorted over the weekend.  Especially if it really is drier as forecast.  I've also cut out and started sewing some cute trousers from the same book (I really love Rob Merrett's designs and instructions) in a very funky cow print that has to be seen to be believed (but as I bought a remnant and my Google-fu is failing me, I can't show you that until I take some pics either.

On a completely different sewing tack, I've planned a couple of easy baby projects thanks to the lovely Purl bee blog.  So, I have some terry cloth and gorgeous tana lawn lined up so that I can make a few of these fab Liberty bibs  and some more tana lawn and some organic bamboo & cotton fleece lined up to make a lighter version of this easy-peasy baby blanket.  Once my new walking foot arrives, these will all be winging their way across the pond to a very lovely little girl who has recently joined the world.  But this sewing mania (and the obsession with the Purl bee) was all sparked by these spring napkins which were mentioned in Mollie Makes a little while back.  I saw them, I loved them, I had to make some.  Which is why my sewing table is now piled with two bundles of fat quarters (one plain pastel, one bundle in the same colours but with white spots) and miles of white rick rack.  All I need is to find some spare hours in the day and, I discovered this evening when I sat down to do some work, some sewing machine oil.

I've also been buying patterns from Backstitch and Colette (at long last my Colette Sewing Handbook arrived from Amazon!) and generally drooling over the endless possibilities.  And I daren't even tell you about what's been going on in the yarn cupboard...

On that note, I'm off to find a glass of wine, an episode of Grey's Anatomy and to pick up that Siivet I've been working on.  Yep, no pics of that either.

Where did the last 6 weeks go?

I have absolutely no idea.  One minute I was blogging whilst cooking dinner and getting quite into everything, the next it was the middle of April.  It's all been a bit of a blur really.

Things were really starting to get on top of me the last time I wrote, and I couldn't really figure out why.  I think it is partly the fact that I have forgotten some of the techniques I used to use at work to keep myself straight.  Things like using my diary, and making lists, rather than trying to store everything in my head.  Things like prioritising, allocating time to particular tasks, breaking down the big jobs into smaller ones.  All that good stuff.  Carie reminded me with her tips on my last post.  I guess it seemed a bit over the top to approach my current life in the way I used to approach life as a solicitor, but actually, being a house-wife/stay-at-home mum is no less of a job than being a solicitor and involves just as much juggling and attempting to appease imperious foot-stamping children...  Especially when you take into account my voluntary job (which is proving way bigger than I imagined... or at least, it is that way I have been trying to do it so far - changes will be attempted on that front) and the fact that I really want to keep some sense of myself outside my role as home-maker and family caretaker.

So a fair chunk of the last few weeks has been spent trying (and largely failing, but hey-ho) to organise myself a bit better, trying to bring some discipline back into things, and trying to (a) bash through some of the backlog on my voluntary role and (b) figure out exactly how much time and energy I am prepared to devote to it and marshall my resources accordingly.

Then on the more fun side of things, there was that glorious weather in late March and the small matter of a trip to Somerset and Devon for the long overdue wedding of two good (but rarely seen) friends.  We might only have been away for three nights but boy did we cram a lot into that trip.

We broke the journey to Bampton, Devon down by stopping for pizza and then stopping for a run round Stonehenge.  I appreciate this may not be the traditional way to view this revered ancient monument but it was Baby Bird's preferred approach and all we could really do was try to keep up.







The next day involved a trip to Minehead to play on the beach, and
cream teas for all.  Clotted cream was, unsurprisingly, a big hit.

We then headed on for a nice pub lunch on Exmoor before spending the afternoon at Exmoor Zoo.  This is a fantastic little zoo and we are already planning to go back, as we didn't really have time to see everything.

We did get to watch the penguins being fed though, which was great fun.









The day was rounded off by a family trip to the Bampton Fish Bar, where Baby Bird was introduced to curry sauce and mushy peas (can you tell that one of her parents is from the further north than the other?).




It was all a bit much for some of us.

Saturday was, predictably, the only day that actually looked and felt like the end of March, so unfortunately, the wedding was somewhat chilly and overcast, a fact made all the more disappointing by the fact Saturday was flanked by two stunningly warm and sunny days.  Still, the wedding was lovely, the bride and groom looked fantastic, and Baby Bird was very well behaved for her first big occasion.

There will be more about this particular day later as I want to show you the dress that I made for her to wear, and I am very much hoping that the photographer will have got a good shot or two of her since we failed miserably.

Sunday we packed up and headed home, after running off a bit of steam in the nearest park, stopping off for the obligatory Little Chef lunch.  I don't know about you, but Little Chef features strongly in my memories of childhood trips and I wanted to get Baby Bird off on the right foot.

Spaghetti & meatballs wasn't on the menu back in the day, nor was the smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on toast that I had, but the pancakes that we all shared for dessert most definitely were and it was a jolly way to finish our hols.  People screw their noses up at Little Chef and places like that.  I say it's horses for courses: as a family-friendly spot for a bite to eat on a long journey up the A303, this was perfect.  We didn't want or need fine dining; we needed clean, easy and providing crayons.  Job done.

Easter was altogether quieter as all three of us managed to get sick (to varying degrees) over the course of the week either side of the holiday.  However, that did give me some time to do a spot of knitting and also some sewing.  I'm looking forward to showing you what I've been up to.

A Little Bit Stuck

I'm in a bit of a funk right now.  After last week's flurry of blog-posts, and general feeling of creativity and action that they seemed to generate within me, I'm just kind of treading water this week.  I think it is partly that I got struck down by some lurgy or other on Saturday night and, despite feeling much better yesterday, I seem to be having a bit of a relapse today and so am feeling tired, sluggish and just generally unwell.  I think it is partly that the list of "work-like" things that I have to do has grown significantly since Thursday night's committee meeting (I can't remember if I mentioned that I have just started chairing a local children's group) and I came out of the meeting feeling pretty deflated by how much there was to do.  I think it is partly that it is month end for Hubby and so I'm spending large amounts of time on my own (never a good thing when you are sick).  I suspect the ever-growing list of things that need doing around the house doesn't help: the general feeling that we are back-sliding horribly; a sixth of the year gone and little, if anything, ticked off the long-term list of things to do as the short-term list keeps spiralling further and further out of control; and we're about to hit spring (assuming I can delude myself that it hasn't already arrived) and I still haven't quite made it out into the garden to clear up the mess from last year...

Gosh, just writing it down feels depressing.

I've spent most of the week picking stuff up, looking at it, sighing and putting it back down again.  Do you ever get days or weeks like that?  When you know you should be doing something, but everything feels a little bit too difficult and you can't quite figure out where to start.  Or where you dive in with initial gusto and work and work at something, only to look back several hours later and wonder what you've actually achieved.  Saturday was like that - Baby Bird took a two and a half hour nap, Hubby went to get a haircut (which took considerably less time than that, I hasten to add) and I headed up to the Temple of Doom, as our attic floor is currently known.  I folded laundry. I sorted piles of clothes that no longer fit.  I put things away in the loft.  I rearranged.  I made notes of things that need to be done, storage that needs to be bought, projects that need to be completed.  I sat down for lunch feeling like I had spent a really productive morning.  It felt great to be finally making a dent in some of the many, many "to-dos" that have been nagging away inside my brain for months now.  I went back upstairs after lunch to survey my work and figure out what to tackle next.  You couldn't even tell I'd done anything.  I'd barely made a dent.  I couldn't figure out what to do next or what would make the biggest impression on the general mess that lurks up there.  Feeling deflated, I trudged downstairs and made myself a cup of tea, reached for the biscuits and wondered why I bothered.

A walk in the park with my lovely little family, and watching Baby Bird chase her football around did perk me up a bit that afternoon, but all the same, I am left with the overwhelming feeling that, at best, I am treading water with stuff right now, and, looking at the chaos into which our home seems to be descending, that seems rather charitable.  Not quite sure what to do about it.  Anyone got any suggestions for some easy wins?

One nap at a time

I have been promising myself for years now that I will start sewing more seriously and really get to grips with it. The same obstacle always seems to get in my way: time.  However, since talking to my friend Carie about how she fits in so much sewing and other crafting around a very demanding job and a (I'm sure equally if not more demanding) feisty toddler, I have decide that this is really an excuse and not something I should let get in my way any longer.  Carie introduced me to the idea of what she called cumulative sewing, i.e. you do a bit here and a bit there and trust that, if you do that regularly enough, finished items will result.

I tend to leave sewing until the weekends, on the grounds that daylight is better to work in and the evenings are still too dark, and that I can then get an extended period without childcare responsibilities so that I can really get stuck into something.  This is partly because I need to set up my sewing machine and all my other bits and bobs as I don't currently have a permanent home for them, and partly because I have always thought it wasn't worth doing just a little bit here and there and that I would spend more time figuring out what I was up to than I would doing anything.  However, our weekends are busy affairs and, while some me-time is very much on the weekend agenda, there's always a million and one things I would like to do with that me-time, and a million and one family things I would like to do to (as well as the slightly more humdrum but necessary household activities that are also more easily accomplished at the weekend).  This all-or-nothing approach to sewing hasn't really resulted in much activity and means that I am still more likely to pick up my knitting needles than my sewing needles, despite loads of ideas and a fair few pattern books and piles of fabric.

After my little splurge at the start of the year, I'm having a re-think.  Baby Bird takes a fairly consistent mid-day nap now, which usually gives me a clear hour to focus on something (with time for some household faffing either side).  So, last week and this week I have indulged myself and one nap each week has been a sewing nap.  I'm pretty pleased with the results.

It turns out that one nap-time is long enough to plan, trace/transfer and cut a garment for a little person who wont stop growing and needs a dress for a wedding at the end of the month.  It also turns out that, with a bit of careful planning, you can get two dresses for a small person out of one 76cm remnant, a fat quarter and some scraps, meaning both dresses combined will have cost around £10.  You have to love small people.

Two nap-times in, and I have two piles of neatly cut pieces awaiting sewing and I've pinned the simpler dress together ready for tacking and fitting (...well, sticking it on her quickly to make sure it isn't too small before I even start - I don't propose to be more precise than that at this age!).  I think sewing the simpler one will take two nap-times (mostly because I've never applied bias binding before and I also need to learn how to make buttonholes) and the other one will probably be two or three.  Either way, I'm pretty hopeful that there will be two new frocks in Baby Bird's wardrobe by the end of March.  That's one more than made it into her wardrobe in the whole of the previous year, so not a bad effort in my book.

Next challenge on the sewing front: unearthing the spare room and office from the huge piles of junk that currently inhabit them so that I can set up a permanent sewing corner.  Then there will be no stopping me!

Pottering

Today started early.  I was loathe to complain about Baby Bird's insistence that 6 a.m. constitutes morning since she has mostly been waking at 4:30 a.m. in recent weeks and spending an hour and a half awake alternating between being quiet and happy whilst cuddled and crying inconsolably whenever she is put down until returning to her bed half an hour before Hubby and I need to start the day.  That leaves me broken (and Hubby eating breakfast alone most mornings), so 6 a.m. wake-up was a blessed relief.  However, it did leave me slightly concerned that our usual 10 a.m. playgroup might be a bit of a stretch.

Still, I pressed ahead, preparing pancake breakfast for the three of us.  7 successfully tossed pancakes later, I sat down feeling quite impressed with myself and tucked into maple syrup and lemon soaked pancakes with an enormous cup of tea and a glass of juice.  I looked across at Baby Bird's plate and confess I wondered if she could really be our child: the banana had been carefully picked out from the pancake pieces and consumed; the pancake itself was untouched.  She did grudgingly consent to try a small morsel, but mostly demanded repeated renditions of her favourite song and to be allowed to play (her latest baby sign and word).  Oh well, it happens.

I cleaned her up and then began the battle to dress her.  All clothing options were met with a furious shake of the head and she sprinted off at any opportunity.  After about an hour, during which various tactics were deployed, including abandoning dressing in favour of other more popular personal grooming activities such as hair brushing and teeth brushing, I had succeeded in wrestling her into a vest and jeans.  Socks and cardigans were flatly refused.  I showered, I got ready, I tried again.  Socks and cardigans again flatly refused.  I generally allow Baby Bird to choose her own clothes (from within a handful of options I've put together) as I find it makes her feel more involved and so she co-operates better).  Maybe she didn't like the outfits I'd chosen.  I tried different cardigans.  After offering her every cardigan she owned, I eventually chose one for her and put it on her.  She simply sat and shouted at me, whilst tugging furiously at the offending garment (buttons are, for now, elusive).  At that point I told her, in my sternest "mum voice" that, if she didn't stop messing about we would not be going to playgroup.  My happy, smiley baby returned.  She chirped "okay" and climbed on my lap, sucking her thumb.

So, by 9:30 this morning, she was falling asleep on my lap as I read Incy Wincy Spider to her (a really lovely take on the story that was a present from her American godmother), and now, two hours later, she is still asleep and I have unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, fired up the breadmaker, tidied the kitchen and am currently stirring a pot of split pea and carrot soup that will make a tasty (and hopefully toddler tempting) lunch.  Yes, for the second day in a row, I am blogging while stirring something, only it is green and orange flecked and smells delicious today.  We will gloss over the fact that I am wearing the apron I bought for my six year old god-daughter to wear when we are baking, and we will definitely overlook the fact that, asides of it being about an inch too short, it fits rather well...

Where does the time go?

It turns out that it is rather harder to write a blog than I realised. Well, no that is not quite true. I expected it to be hard, but lulled myself into the false sense of security that comes with thinking that, since everybody else manages to fit it in, it must not be as hard as I think. This was a mistake. I have renewed respect for all the bloggers I know and/or read regularly, especially those who seem able to post several times a week. I seriously do not know how they fit it in. I have great intentions but find that between regular family life and the voluntary group that I recently began chairing, there is barely enough time to DO the crafty things that I want to write about, much less write about them.

Hence I am currently typing on my iPad with one finger, whilst rhythmically swirling a baby vest in a bowl of pink dye. It needs twenty minutes of stirring to start things off and I really want a long-sleeved vest in hot pink to go with the dress that I am currently sewing for Baby Bird to wear for a wedding at the end of March. I don't really want to spend twenty minutes just daydreaming (well, that is a complete lie, I would love to, but I also know that rambling thoughts like that will start to fel like blog-posts and I will get annoyed at not being a le to get them out there; plus I will feel like it is twenty minutes that could have been spent more productively and that will spoil my enjoyment of swirling one hand round and round in a bucket of warm water, which I am rally rather enjoying) so I thought I'd try to multitask a bit.

Why not just buy a hot pink vest you ask? Why indeed. Well, firstly I want to match the colour, which can be tricky, especially if you look online and I really don't have the time to wander round the shops looking for one. Secondly individual ones are expensive and multipacks can be hard to find in bright colours and when you did there is always at least one you hate, which is a waste. Thirdly, and for me, most importantly, we already own lots and lots of white vests that fit just fine but are suffering from several months of a toddler's enthusiastic but often ineffective self-feeding, so I'm hoping to breathe some new life into them by dying them some in colours. This should deal with the general slightly grey malaise they appear to be suffering and also mask the few pesky stains that never quite come out (carrot and banana, I'm looking at you). Oh, and it's also rather fun.

So here I am, swirling my hand in a bucket of bright pink water, but it's ok because I'm being productive and telling you, whoever you are, all about it. All I need to do now, is figure out other ways to multitask and squeeze a bit more blogging time out of my day. Any suggestions?