Winter days...

... can sometimes be fun. Not always, and I'm not really a winter person, but at this time of year sometimes there are days when the sun comes out and you get a hint of spring in the air. It never stays, because it's really far too early, but nonetheless, it's a bit of warmth and light in this grey season.

The last time this happened, a few days ago, we spent a happy couple of hours in the garden, and there are signs of life! Bean spotted a ladybird, and we all went round to spot all the fresh green shoots of daffodils and bluebells and the little white flowers of the snowdrops.

Then I tried to take a few pictures of the lads so I could get a canvas print done for my dad's birthday. It didn't go so well...

The little monkeys have decided to become photo-shy...



I'm doing a knitting update soon, but it's been so dreary that it seems just impossible to get a decent photograph of anything.

Ten on Tuesday...

... well, Ten on Friday, really.

Since I missed last Friday (it's been a crazy couple of weeks) I thoguht I'd use the 'Ten on Tuesday' prompt to list a few more of my current favourites.

I'm really into family, vintage, and design blogs at the moment. Probably because I'm STILL shuffling things round in our house. Hey! It's only been 4 years or so since we moved here and considering we still haven't finished doing the house up I think I'm doing OK. Brought a whole stack of picure frames downstairs today, washed the fine black dust off that's covering everything upstairs in the attic ever since we had the lath and plaster ripped down in one of the rooms up there, and have started putting new pictures in. I'm envisioning a kind of collage of lots of small pictures with artwork in them in the lounge above the sofa. We'll see if I can convince D, since it will be him who will attempt to put the necessary nails in our brittle walls. Our walls are terrible, which is why I'm not permitted to play around with hammer and nails - every time you knock those walls too hard a chunk of plaster seems to fall off. I guess that's what you get when you cut corners (and save money) and just put a skim coat of plaster on some really rubbish walls...

Anyway, as I said, design blogs are IT right now. I'm still reading my regular blogs, but I thought I'd share some of my new (and old) favourites. Here we go:

Soulemama - this is an old favourite. I just love everything about this blog. The writing, the photographs, how inspiring Amanda's take on life and family is.

The SleepyTime Gal - beautiful photographs, inspiring stories and ideas.

Made - it celebrates BOYS this year. I happen to have to of those at home. Need I say more? ;-)

Procrastination Mama - lovely blog, interesting links to other places on the web (MORE design blogs, heh!)

No Monsters in My Bed - again, lovely blog, pretty photography, interesting links

A Beautiful Mess - Vintage, yay!!

Design*Sponge - I've liked this blog for quite some time. It's a good mix of new design, vintage, revamping of old things to give them a new look, and it always has good links to all sorts of design websites and shops online.

Bluebirdbaby - inspiring posts with beautiful photography

The Coffee Lady - quirky, funny and thoughtful.

Prairie Mouse - crafts AND food. Need I say more?

Drago[knit]fly - crafts, sowing, quilting.

(Picture is of Kipper, lounging on a fence top, surveilling his territory)

Blog Inspiration Friday...

I was organising and tidying up my sidebar today. So many dead links... it makes me sad how so many beautiful blogs have disappeared over time. It shouldn't be, but it's always a shock to me how temporary everything is on the internet. There one day, gone the next. I like things to be constant, solid, possessing an object nature, a physical presence rather than this etheral lightness and lack of permanence.

It's made me think that I also need to celebrate what is there, and what I love now, today. So every week I want to post a link to a blog that inspires me, makes me think or act or that simply makes me happy.

I've picked Schlitzohren for today's post. There were many others I could have picked, but this is a new find and it was mainly this post that resonated so much with me, with what I've been trying to do these past days and weeks, sometimes succeeding more sometimes less, but always trying. It's always worth it. x

Once upon a time on a rainy and cold Sunday afternoon in mid-winter...

... we took our new go-cart out to Bridlington. And you know, it's amazing how a homebuilt wooden cart with two lads in raingear can bring a smile to people's faces. We had at least 10 people comment on it, reminiscing about the carts they used to have when they were kids. Nostalgia is alive and well in Bridlington! ;-)

D couldn't resist squeezing into the cart himself together with Tick to race it down the ramp to the beach promenade.

Building sand castles at Bridlington South Beach.

Father and son...

Some Time Alone...

... can be something very precious indeed. With two little lads, our lives are full - gloriously, industriously full of play and laughter and business. It's wonderful but it's also exhausting, and it can be difficult to have so little time for each other and for yourself. D and my evenings are sacred. Once the lads are in bed we sit down together. Sometimes we talk, or watch TV or read, but we always treat it as time together, spent as a couple. It's important and it's precious, looked forward to every day.

But there still isn't much timee to be alone. Before we had children, D and I used to spend whole weekend days doing whatever we liked most... D would build or fix something in the shed / garage, and I would knit, sew, draw, read... We always had some projects on, there was always so much to do, and we used to 'meet up' for coffee breaks and lunch to tell each other about what we'd been doing.

Today, there is little time for that, so a while ago D and I agreed with Grandma that every few months or so the lads would have a Grandma day while we just... tinker. There is a real sense of decadence in those rare days - to get up and immediately launch into something and to know you don't need to stop until it is either done or the day is coming to a close.

Today, I decided to get the oil paints out. D got an easle and paints for me about... 2 years ago?... and ever since then they've sat in a corner of the dining room, waiting for that one day when they'd finally get unpacked and used. Since this is really nothing you can do with little ones around it's taken a while. ;-)

Now, I've painted before, not for a long while, but I used to love it and used to dabble in it on and off. Never with oil paints, though, so this is a completely new medium for me, and I was VERY excited to finally get to try. These two projects were supposed to be just starter experiments to see how I'd work with oil, but I'm actually quite pleased with them:

#1 Wakeful

Oil on canvas. Painted wet over wet. A red bird in her nest, wakeful and diligent in the silence of the night.

#2 Doodles

Oil and mixed media on canvas

This was really just that - doodling. The way I tend to doodle while talking on the phone. Just with oil and bits from the kids crafts box and a few pieces of ribbon. I didn't have a particular project in mind and just kept on filling in the blank spaces until it was - full.

Afterwards it ocurred to me that it looks a leeeeetle bit like the art of Mati Rose McDonough. I still have a print of hers somewhere, waiting to be framed. I wasn't conscious of this while painting it but maybe my subconscious was inspired by her?

And while I was so busy inside, painting and getting high on paint fumes, D was in the shed, making this:


A go-cart! How cool is that! It's entirely made from scrap, found in the shed - old bits of wood and bicycle wheels. The lads were so excited when they arrived back home earlier. D needs to finish up a few things this week, but next weekend we'll take it out for a ride.

Ten Favourite Childhood Games

Curtesy of Carole Knits.

1) Clue - I loved this game as a child. The gardener did it with the candle holder in the library...
2) Monopoly - I used to play this for HOURS. Honestly, I wanted to play this game all the time and for as long as possible. Nobody in my family shared my fascination with it or my stamina.
3) Rummy - I used to go on a skiing trip with my gran, and my two great aunties once a year around Easter time. During the day I went to a skiing school for kids and in the evening we played endless rounds of card games. I used to be very good at this - now I can't even remember a single one of the rules!
4) Nine Men's Morris - again, as above. One of the games we played during our annual skiing trip. I used to beat the old ladies all the time. ;-)
5) I Spy - kept me entertained on endless car journeys
6) making up stories - I used to make up endless stories on long walks and entertain (or bore) my family with them. And I used to play a Tell A Story game with my gran on the phone where we would each have to think up a story and tell the other. We spent hours on the phone...
7) Make Believe - I used to love 'becoming someone else'. With friends I used to spend whole days being detectives, or indians, or farmers, or doctors and patients, or pirates,...
8) Dressing Up - my great aunt had a box full of dressing up stuff. Alternatively my mom's ball gowns and high heels would do too... ;-)
9) Reading - I was fanatical about books ever since my early childhood and used to spend whole nights reading under the duvet.
10) Mensch aergere Dich nicht! - a German board game that is fairly similar to the game Sorry! I think... We played this quite a lot when I was little.

It's done...

... actually, it was finished a few days ago, but I didn't have time to upload a picture. It was immediately hogged by the lads, which is kind of nice. They like to snuggle under it as they watch TV. :)

In terms of craftmanship this isn't that great. It's wonky in places, there are a few creases, and the trimming is pretty terrible. I forgot all about how to do this properly and fudged my way through it. The corners would make any seasoned quilter run away screaming. I don't really mind, though because this is not a gift - it's just for us to love and use. And it's already getting a LOT of use here from both the lads and us grown ups. I'm considering stitching a few more colourful hankies on top of the others to brighten it up, but for now I'll leave it as it is I think...

I am shocked...

Well, colour me shocked. My last post was in 2009, when I had just finished the Primeval socks. So much time has passed, Primeval is actually on TV once again.

I declare, things will have to change. I acknowledge that with two very lively little lads and a busy job I don't have a lot of time for lengthy posts, but since Bean, older of the two lively lads, is developing both a crafts and photography addiction I should have ample opportunity for photoshoots. We may have to remodel the blog a bit - make it into more of a communal project rather than a solo enterprise, but that's an exciting change, no?

So, more photos, slightly less writing. There is also less knitting going on these days. Not none, but time is limited, and I'm doing a lot of crafts and mosaicing and painting with the little ones during the day and also some sewing at night, so things progress somewhat more slowly around here than they used to.

This is the plan:

1) posting approximately 2x per week. I have two days with the lads, so those might be my posting days.

2) one progress / crafts photo per week (we do a lot of STUFF)

3) one snapshot of our week (a still with very little comment) - everyone has those moments every day. Moments that you want to capture and that require very little commentary. So you'll get one of those

There may be more, but probably not every week. I don't want to overburden us with plans that we might not be able to live up to. Busy lives and all that.

So to start this off, here is my WIP right now:


This is my handkerchief quilt, made from old family handkerchiefs that I have kept and/or have been given over the years by members of both my and D's family. I kept them because I always rather liked those dainty little fabric square, some of them with quite exquisit lacework, others more utilitarian and plain, but each of them with a story to tell, with intricate monograms in the corners, mended patches, fine and at times brittle fabric. A little scrap of history, every single one of them. Not knowing precisely what to do with my little stack of handkerchiefs it ocurred to me that they would be perfect for a quilt, so I sewed them all together and backed them with a length of blue paisley fabric I had in my stash. Not finished yet, and far from perfect (turns out that handkerchiefs are really awkward to sew together - all that brittle fabric...), but very much anticipated as a snuggle blanket by the whole family.

Primeval Socks finished!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you...

* drumroll *




Tada! My Primeval socks.

Ok, so they don't really look primeval, but they were knitted while watching Season 1 of Primeval on DVD, in that precious 2 hour slot in the evening after the kids have gone to bed and before D and I drag ourselves up to bed to promptly pass out.

The yarn was skein of Duet sock yarn in the colourway 'best friends', a gift from Craftylilly for a contest that she had on an eternity ago. It was great fun to knit with. The pattern was supposed to be for the Herringbone socks, but apparently I've forgotten how to read a pattern and totally ignored the second line of the herringbone pattern, which says that you have to knit one row in stockinette. Oh well, the result is a whole new pattern and although initially there may have been quite a bit of swearing when I realised my mistake (almost at the end of sock one, after I a lot of bewilderment why my sock didn't look anything like the pictures in the pattern) I am now rather pleased with how it looks.

I will knit another pair with the correct pattern, though, just to see if I like that too. ;-)

Moderations to the pattern:
* ...er... the herringbone pattern. It's sort of a different pattern now.
* knit on 2.5mm circs with the magic loop technique
* I only cast on 48 because of the larger needle size

Knitting from stash...

... means that before you can knit you need to wind. Yarn into yarn cakes, that is.

I've been going a bit crazy on the winding of yarn into balls. In one frantic evening that had me bent over my swift and yarn winder for a couple of hours while my bemused husband was watching proceedings from his rather more comfy place on the sofa, I turned skein after skein into yummy cakes.


From Back left to front left, clockwise: three balls of Rowan Tweed in grey, left over from another project, two balls of Knit Picks Memories Sock Yarn in Redwood Forest, three balls of dark blue Rowan DK Tweed, five balls of orange/yellow handspun, one massive ball of laceweight handpainted 100% cashmere from Hipknits, one ball of grey handpainted and handspun merino sockyarn from Hipknits, one ball of 100% cashmere sock yarn from Hipknits, and finally one ball of handpainted wool that I got via a swap from Australia.

Phew, that was a lot of winding! I've been knitting and crocheting too, though. Mainly granny squares, but then the urge to knit something larger and I grabbed two balls of lovely soft Misson Falls 1824 wool (merino superwash) that I had lying around, and cast on for Zoe Mellor's Dinosaur toy. I didn't bother to do a tension swatch because really, what does it matter if a toy comes out a bit larger or smaller than the pattern states? Yeah, right. This is one MASSIVE dinosaur - more like a pillow, really - and I also ran out of yarn so had to do the legs and belly in a different yarn. That'll teach me... Anyway, she's called Gerti. :-)


I've now cast on for another project - Tang from Custom Knits. I love that book - how often do you get a pattern book and want to do every single project in there? I'm using a GGH yarn, also from stash (it's kind of addictive, this knitting from stash... and I have enough to keep me going for quite a while!).


More knitting from stash to come soon. Watch this space... ;-)