French Knots

A little sewing

 

I have been continuing with my plan to make as many presents as possible this year, to keep costs down and also to reduce my fabric mountain. And of course because I believe that handmade gifts carry with them the love and care that went into their creation. 

This is a game I put together for one of my nephews. A noughts and crosses board from large checked fabric with a zigzag stitch playing area marked out and felt counters stuffed with soup mix. You be green and I'll be blue! A drawstring bag and stamped label finished it off.

I'm finding it hard to come up with ideas for men, what do you knit or sew for men? I'm also making ahead so presents are ready and waiting for the weeks following the baby's arrival as I think I might have my hands full!

Unless I can work out how to knit while feeding.I think I learnt to pretty much feed while asleep during night feeds with My Little Helper, all went well apart from the time I awoke with a jump sitting up in my bed in the wee small hours and to my horror had lost the baby. Was he suffocating under the covers? - no, of course he was back in his cradle, just where I had put him before falling back into bed.  I always felt there was something magical about feeding in the silence of the middle of the night, the world around me sleeping and only us awake. Peaceful, mindful ,nourishing for both of us.Mothering at it's best. I still can't quite believe that I'm lucky enough to have that gift again, soon.

Moving forward

 

Winter flowering jasmine last time, now it's sweetly scented hyacinths and cheerful primulas. Despite the grey skies and lack of sun I'm trying to create a bit of spring to cheer myself up. I'm sure the fact that I have only 8 weeks to go until the baby arrives is pushing me along the path seeking spring too. I feel like I have been hibernating this winter, staying at home feeling ropey and waiting for spring.

Mr FK has been busy creating a new bedroom out of my old sewing room, a large room with two windows, which has now been divided into two with a little hall area

   

this is the view into the bedroom which will soon hold a cot and other baby acoutrements. I'm lucky to still have a little sewing room and am trying to whittle down my fabric mountain to fit it all in. I'm a dreadful hoarder and a firm believer in things'coming in useful' at some point in the future so the destashing isn't going too well yet!

 

My Christmas present is finally in use, just had to wait for the wall to be built, and now hangs in my sewing room so I can play with the colours and rearrange them. A few flowers and a bit of colour, I'm easily pleased!

Sew Christmassy

In line with my cheerful frugality approach to life these days I decided I would try and make as many Christmas presents as possible using what I already have. This is no hardship as I have boxes full of fabric, jars of ribbon and buttons and using what I have is more satisfying than just going out and buying more stuff.

So repurposing began, unused pillowcases - 70s perhaps?- bought at the jumble became peg bags

 

An old sheet in a funky flower pattern became a bed pocket, with the addition of an embroidery I saw on someone's blog - I can't remember where so if it is you please let me know so I can credit you properly (and it's a little present for my niece so I hope you don't mind me copying your sweet bedtime picture)

 

The bed pocket has a long flap to go under the matress and the pocket can hang by the pillow to hold a book, a torch or other special treasures.

Unlike the government I don't believe that borrowing and spending is the answer when times are tough financially, I would rather save my money and be a bit more inventive and creative when coming up with Christmas presents.

A rummage through my embarrasingly large fabric stash came up with a super selection of fabrics to make a Wee Wonderfuls robot, I've had the pattern for a couple of years so it was time it saw the light of day.

   

I had almost forgotten the lovely fabric I bought bought earlier in the year with a patchwork cushion in mind. I added a little pocket and made a matching neckerchief for the bear, perfect for cuddles

 

Sew ( yes I'm enjoying that pun, sorry!) my Christmas list has shrunk to just a couple of things, including an embroidered stocking that I started before last Christmas and I'll be really pleased if it's finished for next Christmas! 

High points

Well, the Big Sister was picked for the school football team for the first time - great anticipation chez French Knots as we are all footie fans. She was really excited as she has enjoyed playing football for the first time since the start of term, they competed in a local schools tournament and did brilliantly only going out on penalties in the semi final.

I was on the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2, discussing finance, as you do on national radio! I heard them talking about the taxpayers having to bail out the local councils who have lost tens of millions of pounds due to the collapse of the Icelandic banks and it really got my goat! So I phoned in, something I have never done befrore in my life, spoke to a very nice researcher and before I knew it was put through to the studio. Texting my husband as fast as I could to make sure he was listening too! Sadly the chap on before me had a lot to say so I was just squeezed in before the next song, depriving the nation of my fullest thoughts on the matter - should have mentioned the blog, visitor numbers would have soared!

 

This (unironed!) beauty was only a pound at the jumble sale this week. Of course I told myself it would be useful for repurposing into doorstops. But really I just wanted to rescue someone's wonderful hard work

 

How could I snip it up?

 

I imagine my sewing and embroideries will go for a pound at the jumble in years to come too!

Button Love

I'm sure, like me, you have jars of buttons that you hoard and save because they are pretty and we have a compulsion to buy them at car boot sales. I steeled myself and managed to use some up this week making pictures for presents in shadow boxes.

Half the fun was sorting out the buttons from their jars and playing with patterns and colours, hopefully they wont be an unwanted reminder of advancing years!

Have you seen the giveaway of the century over at http://oldredbarnco.blogspot.com/2008/07/win-this-quilt.html?? The most amazing quilt, in wonderful colours will be given to one incredibly lucky person. Go and take a look.

I was wrestling with Typepad again, trying to make the link thing work - it was so easy before and even though I follow their instructions it's temperamental now, and unusually for me I had a look at my stats and where people had come from to visit my blog. I nearly fell off my chair laughing at one search that had found French Knots 'What makes big knots on your head go down'...What the...!?! The mind boggles!

Have a lovely weekend, I'll be off car booting to replenish my button stash!

Gently keeping busy

Have spent some time snuggled under this reading, you all have excellent taste in nostalgic comfort reading. I have learnt how to use the on line ordering service for our local library and will soon be joined by many of your recommendations, some of which I loved as a child and others that are new to me. 

These are some little notecards I made for my Littlest Sis, I scanned the appliqued picture and made some postcards and a wallet to keep them in. I was inspired by this excellent tutorial ( which I still can't link to despite an email from Typepad telling me what to do! ) http://www.feelingstitchy.com/2008/05/are-we-almost-there.html

I've also started a couple of new yarn projects, but as the camera has a cob on today I'll have to show them tomorrow!

My Little Helper came dashing into the house to tell my our little dog had done a poo on the path in the garden....as soon as I saw it I knew it wasn't the dog who had left it! Struggling between laughing at his ingenuity and keeping a straight face as I told him how it is wrong to tell lies and what did he think the big white thing in the bathroom was for, I tried to focus on how our children always manage to surprise us!!

Getting on

Thank you all so much for your kind messages and emails, the support and lovely comments are very much appreciated. We read them all and are comforted by their heartfelt words and it just confirms that my blogging friends are wonderful.

I have been resting and taking it easy, in fact have been in bed by 8pm every night for the past week. During the day I have been keeping Philip and Fern company ( for overseas readers - they host a lightweight daytime show over here) doing a bit of sewing and lots of reading. My sewing machine tension developed a mind of it's own so lots of frustration was heaped upon it, quite cathartic really even if the air was blue! Some foul language, cursing and foot stamping later I tightened the tiny screw that was hardly visible to the naked eye which seems to have worked.

I have been making some BIG doorstops, as usual with recycled fabrics, but with 2kg of rice in each one so they are up to holding open the heaviest of doors or ones with self closers on.

I have been rereading some of my favourites from childhood, so far Little Women and Good Wives, Swallows and Amazons, The Secret Garden and am just about to start on What Katie Did. Which were your favourites to read under the covers by torch light? I tried the children's section on the library but found it to be sadly lacking in nostalgic inspiration, just lots of Tracey Beaker etc which I'm sure children enjoy but didn't fit the bill for my wander down memory lane.

Hope your weekend is sunny and peaceful, thanks again everyone. xx 

Some sewing too

Despite my new love of knitting and being a bit like the girl who drops her old friends once a new boyfriend comes along ,I have squeezed in a bit of sewing too. I have a couple of stalls coming up so needed to get my act together.

I made these for my PIF ( I know Lesley's arrived and as Marsha's and Ashley's were posted a few weeks ago I hope they arrived too, so I shouldn't be spoiling any surprises) and was pleased with how they turned out so have been making a few more this week to sell.

Just need to plunder my pegs to put a few of these together to go with them. Nothing beats the sunny smell of line dried washing - well maybe bacon butties....oh and cut grass too.....and newborn babies....ok back to the washing....so I hope the sunshine we've had this week continues. It makes me feel organised and competent once the line is full of washing as there's no pile of washing or ironing cluttering up the house and whispering to me when I'm trying to sew - easily pleased these days!

Ginny at The Flour Loft has tagged me for an archive meme, have been enjoying reading through the waffle in my archives and will post my findings next week.

Have a lovely weekend, filled with small pleasures

Janey Janome

Well Janey and I have been getting to know each other better, I think I know what all the buttons do now! My Little Helper requested a dinosaur for the front of his t shirt and fortunately Janey can run at a slow speed which was handy as I zigged and zagged round the feet

and manged to avoid my fingers.

I was reading Vintage Pleasure the other day who commented about the amount of fabric she has and the feelings of greed and self indulgence. It struck a chord with me as I had spent the afternoon riffling through my stash with an idea in mind for a project but unable to find just what I wanted out of the boxes and boxes of fabric and saved clothes & linens. I've decided to try and reduce it by a) weeding out the bits I'll never use and freecycling it b) making some projects to use up the stash even if the fabric isn't just what I wanted and c) encouraging the children to choose fabrics for their own ideas. If I keep collecting it at this rate we'll have to move out of the house and live in a tent in the garden! I've got that New Year clean slate feeling - clearing out, tidying and editing our stuff to what we need/love. Perhaps I'll tackle my extensive shoe collection later in the week - bearing in mind I've only been able to wear one pair since spraining my ankle as the bandaged foot won fit in most of my shoes or boots!

We had a lovely lazy weekend, I'm getting better at inactivity, in fact I've been practising hard! Before ( ie when I was working and stressed out) I found it hard to take it easy, to just be, perhaps because I was living on adrenaline and felt every moment had to be 'used' for something. Didn't leave the house on Sunday, got dressed at lunchtime, watched Scooby Doo with My Little Helper while The Big Sister and Mr FK were at the footie and generally mooched about. Lovely.

Hope your week is getting of to a good start.