Hello everyone! I hope you’re all well and happy this fabulous Friday. Isn’t it a glorious day? I may or may not have had a little too much sugar this morning. Combine that with GREAT! EXCITEMENT! as Bob & I are getting a night off parenting tonight and perhaps you could forgive the gratuitous use of exclamation marks. Bob’s wonderful parents have volunteered to take the three youngest tonight while Findlay goes to his Dad’s, so we’re actually going to spend some time together that doesn’t involve housework. What a novel idea! Have you got anything fun planned for the weekend?

So – the title of my blog post today is artistically challenged because I really am. It’s not even funny, I am the most cack-handed wannabe artist that I know. I wanted to do art for Standard Grade – which is the Scottish equivalent to GCSE – and the art teacher pretty much laughed me out of the room. I can’t draw to save myself, I don’t have the techniques for painting but I am so keen! I’ve been trying to create faces for the little dolls I’ve been making and I just can’t seem to do it.

These are the new dolls – four girls and a boy (I’m going to put together a tutorial for the boy doll at some point soon, promise!). They’ve been sewn up and finished for almost a week and are sitting on my sewing chair just waiting for their faces. As a reminder, this is the dolly I’d made for Elise:

And I wasn’t thrilled by the face. I ended up repainting the eyes more than once because I felt they just weren’t quite what I’d expected. It sounds like such a simple thing doesn’t it, to draw an eye? But I’m a big believer in the power and mystique of eyes, and I want these dollies to be loved and cherished so it’s important to me that the eyes are enchanting, beautiful and not at all frightening. So I shall plough on with drawing eyes until I think I’ve found an eye that works. Wish me luck!

Posted under for the kids, sewing

A year ago today, a gaggle of us were sitting in Kirsty’s living room, celebrating her forthcoming birthday with a slumber party all too reminiscent of my days at boarding school. Alas – as is an apparently normal event for the Fab Five – one of our number was absent. She had a pretty good excuse in fairness since Eileen was in hospital across the city, allegedly in labour. I’ll never forget that night – a room stowed full of people, most of us constantly refreshing twitter to see if there was any new news before we got the text message to say that Elise was here safely and a roar of celebration went up. Amazing.

So little Elise turned a whole year old today and it appalls me how quickly that time has passed. From a mothering perspective I remember Findlay’s first year as being one of the longest since I was a kid, when you measured years by when Santa Claus paid a visit. Subsequent years have flown by all too quickly and I could easily sit here and get maudlin about the fact that I have an eight-and-a-half year old son. Eileen and I mused this afternoon just how quickly the time has passed and there’s simply not enough words to explain the conflict of emotions this has stirred in me.

In any case, having a fully stocked craft cantina and a dwindling bank balance I decided that 2010 will be the year of the handmade gift and Elise was the first – and some would say unfortunate – recipient. Whilst searching for a tutorial I thought I’d bookmarked (Mimi Kirchner’s handsewn felt doll) I found this tutorial on Martha Stewart’s website, a step-by-step guide showing you how to make the dolls made famous by Etsy’s #1 seller, Emily Martin.

This was a surprisingly time-consuming project, although that is probably down to my rampant disorganisation and the fact that I sewed the arms by hand. I did really like this little project, my sole complaint being that I’m not confident in my arty skills and having to leave the face until the doll is sewn up was extremely daunting for me. I must apologise for the lack of detail in the photo but poor Bob had about three seconds to snap it for me as I finally ran out the door earlier.

This was my finished version. As she was going to be loved, slobbered on, chewed and rough-housed I deliberately left off any embellishments which Elise may have managed to remove which has left her looking a little sparse to my eye. I have promised a little coat for her which I’ll make at a later date.

I really don’t find it easy to “big up myself” and I’m constantly looking for things to criticise so I’ll end this post here and accept any lavish praise you’d like to heap upon me now

Happy birthday, Elise!

Posted under for the kids, sewing

Wow! It’s Christmas Eve – how the Dickens did that happen?!

I just want to take this opportunity to say thank you all very much for your support and comments over this year. You’ve shared in some of the most magnificent times in our lives as well as some of the worst, you’ve all been so very kind and I’m thrilled to have made so many friends in all of you. 2010 is going to be so busy and I promise to make an effort to stay in contact as much as possible. I wish each and every one of you a fabulous Christmas, and for those who have already celebrated their holiday for the year I hope and pray it was filled with love, laughter and joy.

Now – a little quicky for those of you with young children. As we ALL know, Santa Claus is coming tonight! HOW EXCITED ARE YOU?! But with it being so snowy outside the reindeer will definitely need a bit of help to find your house, won’t they? Every year my children’s nursery put a little bag of Reindeer Food into their Christmas folder and I thought I’d share it with you. (Please excuse the photos as I’m still having to use my phone. We’re hoping Santa brings us a new camera this year!)

All you need is a few tablespoons of porridge oats, mix with a teaspoon each of different coloured glitter, add in some cut up shiny paper if you have it and pop into little bags. I’ve put some into a baby food jar with a painted lid for my little nieces to sprinkle outside tonight before going to bed.

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope Santa is good to you!

Posted under for the kids, with the kids

Every Wednesday I take the kids to a nursery rhymes class in a Glasgow library with my sister Stephanie and niece Bailey. We’ve been going since before Greer was born and we’ve made quite a group of friends now, including Jean and her wee daughter Molly. Molly’s first birthday party was on Saturday and I did some face painting there only to have one of Jean’s Aunties ask me to do her face. “No problem!” said I, and this was the last face I painted of the day.

Now, before I show the picture I need to be honest. I estimated that this lovely lady was in her mid-fifties. She’s actually 71 (and says she doesn’t mind me mentioning that on my website)! I honestly hope when I’m 71 that I have the cojones to do stuff like this. Awesome.

Overall I was pretty happy with how it went, being that I haven’t painted for other people for a looooong time. I didn’t have time to get new brushes, hence the very thick black lines but on the whole it went not bad!

Posted under for the kids, with the kids

I’m not really the kind of person who suits a hat, much to my chagrin. It is the bane of my existence that pretty woollies are out of my reach. That said, when Bob & I went to Stockholm in January for our wedding anniversary I picked up a phenomenal ear infection which took nearly three months to heal and so this winter I’m simply not prepared to risk that again.

I’ve already half-heartedly started my craft neutral challenge and this yarn (Sirdar Denim Ultra) has been in my stash for about seven years. It met my criteria of being warm, fluffy and quick to knit up so I combined it with this pattern (Ravelry link) which is supposed to be a slouchy beret.

Note the ubiquitous hairbobbles around the wrist mark of the mother of daughters. The eagle eyed amongst you will note an error about three rows into the pattern caused by Erica leaping on me while I was having a knit break and thus losing my stitch marker but since my friend recently told me that Muslim prayer rugs always have an imperfection since only Allah makes things perfectly, I’ve relaxed my ridiculous perfectionist streak. It’s a really mind-altering way of looking at things. In any case, although (I think) the error is highlighted perfectly in the picture it’s really not obvious in reality.

As the title suggests there’s more to this post. Erica has decided that actually she rather likes my hat so I have now cast on Amy Swenson’s Cabled hat (pdf link) for her, but in the meantime I’m having to tolerate this nonsense. Two years old and she’s already raiding my wardrobe. Of course, as is the way of these things she suits the hat much better than I do. Ah well

Posted under for the kids, knitting

Firstly I’d just like to say what an amazing and wonderful bunch of people I am HONOURED to have as readers and therefore as friends. I was gobsmacked by the response to my last post and I’m truly overwhelmed at the outpouring of support and experience that came from you all. Thank you, all, from the bottom of my heart

OKAY! Now we’re done with the schmaltzy PDA I can show you what I’ve been doing while I’ve not been doing anything. I know this won’t come as a surprise to any of you, given that I have four children but I’ve been indulging a lot in that naughty S word…*

…SHOPPING. You filthy minded scamps. What else did you think I was going to say?

So. My good friend Evelyn posted photographs of her gorgeous daughter Esmé over a year ago and of course being me my first response was, “ZOMGshe’sgorgeousEvelynWHEREDIDYOUGETHERDRESS?!!” Evelyn graciously directed me to Cindy’s shop on Hyenacart but alas, she didn’t have any fabulous technicolour dreamdresses available in stock. I bookmarked the store then completely forgot about it until a couple of weeks ago when I was clearing out my email, I found an exchange between Cindy & I. I decided to drop her a quick line to see if she was still making the dresses and oh FRABJOUS day not only was she making the dresses but she had space for me to place an order. Hooray!

I thought Greer was probably a little young for the full twirly dress effect so I got one for Erica and one for my niece Bailey. My sister Stephanie and I have a pretty good deal going, I give her Erica’s clothes once she’s outgrown them then she passes Bailey’s clothes back to me for Greer. We have just acquired a new niece last week when my stepbrother and his girlfriend had a little girl so no doubt these dresses will be passed on to little Maissie too! Anyway, I digress. Point is, beautiful dresses of wonder arrived this afternoon and I immediately stopped what I was doing to make Erica put hers on. It’s so colourful it has immediately washed away bad mood (I was really irritated today because it’s been raining constantly for months and I need some sunshine!)

I think Erica likes it.

What do you think?

*That reminded me of a story. When I was in Primary 3 (so 6-7 years old) I remember grassing someone in my class in for swearing. The teacher asked me what the swear word started with and my precocious little reading mind went into overdrive and I said, “It began with an S.” The teacher had a think and couldn’t work out which particular profanity had been levelled so told me to whisper it, so I whispered, “shit“. She gave me into trouble and told be it didn’t start with S, it started with Sh! Isn’t it funny the things you remember?

Posted under for the kids, recommendations

I did finish this before I had Greer but until this week I didn’t have a good photograph of it. Alas, Greer has grown so quickly that it looks like a tank top rather than a dress! Still – after all our worries with Erica, Greer’s growth is a very welcome surprise. She was weighed this week at 11lb 2oz so is absolutely thriving. It’s making me feel very proud of my boobies and EXTREMELY relieved!

So – this dress is knit using the Kaia babydoll pattern and I just squeezed it out of 100g Sirdar snuggly baby bamboo DK. Seriously – I had just enough left to do the drawstring and that was it! It’s a really lovely little pattern although I think if I were to make it again I’d pick up stitches around the armhole and knit little sleeves.

You even got a wee smile from my big girl!

Posted under for the kids, knitting

I’ve got almost 4000 posts to read through bloglines. Suffice to say I’m falling way behind on your blogs and I apologise for that, I will get back through them at some point but I think I need to scale back on the amount I read!

Anyway – today I found this post via Ohdeedoh and I’m dying from cute overload. I am massively in awe of the project this family has completed. How amazing is this?! If you click on the image it’ll take you to Erika’s flickr set for ‘La Roulotte’ where you can gasp and squee to your heart’s content. Erika also has an Etsy shop although this is closed until the 23rd July.

For me, the most amazing thing about this is that the materials used in the construction were mainly recycled/upcycled which appeals to my green side. I’m away to see if I can source some timber to create something even a fraction as funky for my kids.

What have you seen lately that has inspired you?

Posted under for the kids, inspiration

Everyone who emailed me about the bake swap should have received an email detailing their swap partner. If you haven’t got yours, let me know

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that my children (Nairn in particular) are obsessed with starbucks and in particular with their ooey gooey marshmallow twizzlers? Now I’m not a skinflint by any stretch of the imagination but £1.50 for three marshmallows and a bit of chocolate is extortion in my book and definitely comes under the veil of, “Things wot I could do myself for cheaper”. I should mention as Apryl reminded me that you can do this with bananas too, I usually skewer the banana and stick it in the freezer for about an hour so that it’s easier and more solid to work with.

So! Stick a few marshmallows on a skewer like so. Melt your 100g bar of chocolate in the microwave or in a double broiler, and dip the skewer into the melted chocolate, lift and tap the skewer on the side of the bowl to let any big drips fall off.

Holding your skewer over a bowl, shake some hundreds and thousands over your skewer. Dip the end into the bowl to make sure it’s coated.

Place your skewer into a glass and put in the fridge to let the chocolate set

Hand to 8 year old child for a verdict.

Posted under for the kids, swaps, with the kids

After my prototype, I’ve been playing about with the design of my changing pad a little because it seems to be morphing into a large-ish bag rather than a small thing you can pop into your bag. Hmm.

I made another one last week with a snap closure this time so the mat can be folded in four and snapped closed. It’s a lot smaller than the prototype but still too bulky for my liking. The problem is that the bulk is caused by the padding in the mat which was the big selling point for me. I’ve been using mine everywhere, including putting it on a sofa in a cafe so Greer could lie on it comfortably and nap while I had a cuppa but I’m used to lugging a massive bag around with me and adding this hasn’t been a massive ordeal. For your average new parent I can imagine this being a cumbersome nuisance which wouldn’t get used and I need to change that before I start selling these bad boys.

I’ve got one tester lined up and I’m sending another version to a friend who is about to have a baby so hopefully I can iron out the niggles that are irritating me. This one is pretty lush if I do say so myself, but I will NEVER AGAIN attempt to sew fleece to a non-stretchy fabric. What a nightmare!

Posted under for the kids, sewing