Yarn Along in pajamas

It has been a looong time since I did the knit along. Mostly because I haven't been able to sit (curse you back troubles) so my knitting has been on GOOOOOO SLOOOOOOOWWWW.  Now I'm way more mobile its going faster.

This project is the tail end of something experimental.  I am making sleeve, leg and tummy extensions for E's favorite pajamas.  I am not normally ambitious enough to bother with this sort of thing because E.'s clothes go right to J. as hand me downs and everyone is happy. 

 However....  

These particular pajamas are for E. the best-est pajamas ever created on the face of the planet. They are boy's pajamas (eg nice and comfortably baggy) we bought in the UK before we moved and they have guitars and other rock/music equipment on the shirt.  I am lengthening them only because when I told E. they were getting too short and she had to hand them on her eyes teared up and J. started jumping around crowing because E.'s precious "Coolest PJs on the Planet" would soon be hers!  

So here I find myself... doing the thing that seems totally futile for the sake of a pajama obsession that is probably quite unhealthy... 

I will post pics next week with a how-I-did-it-and-if-you-are-a-masochist-or-cheapskate-so-can-you!!

I'm reading Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore.  It is a fantasy novel which has two others in a sort of paralell series. I've found it  interesting and I love the world the author created but the book is slow and pushes hard against some moral issues that I feel quite strongly about so I have found it occasionally uncomfortable enough to skip some reading. I would read it again if it weren't for a lot of (gentle) references to said moral/sexual issues which this is not the forum for discussion.  It has a villain I find very very repulsive and A LOT of victims. So I dunno. Thumbs sideways I guess.

You can see E is re-reading The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.  Excitement for the The Desolation of Smaug is reaching fever pitch in our house as the girls all know it opens the day after M.'s birthday and I've already bought us tickets at our local cinema (surprisingly good for a small town) as a surprise for him (he LOVES The Hobbit).

Happy kitting!

xx Jo

The sharpest crafting implement

So recently (before the crippling back took over my life) we went to our local fair where we were delighted to discover that there is an annual wool and fiber festival. It was so amazing. I could hardly manage to restrain myself from blowing an entire months rent on wool. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me, it was truly drool worthy.  Additionally I was reminded of my plan to learn tatting by a lovely woman selling beautiful filigree shuttles silver plated.

Tatting.

Ohhhhh tatting how I love you!

I've had these books for awhile, I can't remember where I got them only that they came with me from the UK. Learn to Tat by Connie Ellison and Tatted Jewelry by Lyn Morton.  Learn to Tat comes with a instructional DVD which I have to admit to not using as of yet, probably I should have as I absolutely had to access online video tutorials to  get it all to work properly. I have this feeling that it is one of those skills best learned sitting at the foot of your grandmother!!

And then I visited Pintrest (oh man- just look up tatted jewelry!!!) and some other blogs etc. There are some beautiful designs at Le Blog de Frivole. 

Its brilliant when laying in bed and I read that traditionally it was a craft taught to people recovering from illnesses. It is so suiting I find the whole situation slightly embarrassing.

So now my head is spinning with ideas and designs. It is sparing me the absolute soul destroying level of boredom I could be hunkering under.

However Tatting shuttles are the sharpest craft implements I have ever had the misfortune of partially laying on in bed!! They have a horrific little sharp point on one end which is entirely useful and practical until you loose it!

Yike!

As an aside Autumn has set in here in an amazing way with breezes, crispy mornings and rain showers.
I don't remember ever having rain before the end of September when I was growing up in Mariposa. We are closer to the coast here but it has still taken me by surprise and it is so cold in our house. 

My poor little homeschoolers are working in scarves and hats and mittens!

Last week the thermometer was recording overnight lows of 34 F and it felt it. Today the rain is falling in earnest so it is a little warmer.  In the UK there is a quiet battle of  hardiness and pride in how late into the year one can last before turning on the heating... well its not yet October and we are having morning fires.  Guess that means I loose.

Isn't it beautiful? Almost worth waking up with frostbite!

xx Jo

The hip Victorian silhouette project

I love the trend for Victorian silhouettes that has come up in the last few years but the dull black leaves me a little uninspired and quite frankly makes me think of funerals. 

I also love to make mementos of my children at different stages of their life. Particularly a set of three showing all three girls at the same time. When the girls were little I did a set of their footprints all at once (ages 4 years/2 years/ 3 months) which were the things we most feared getting lost or broken in the move because they are irreplaceable and utterly priceless.

So here is my work in progress and a little (very very little and simple) how to:

You need:

1:  a digital camera and computer.

2:  tracing paper.

3:  a large enough piece of fabric to fit comfortably in an embroidery hoop of your chosen size. I used a 10 inch diameter hoop which is what I will display the portrait in long term as well, but you can mount it in a frame if that’s more your style.

4:  Your hoop

5: two coordinating pieces of felt- I used the acrylic kind that’s really cheap.

6: needle and thread in coordinating colours.

7: a stencil if you wish.

Seat your subject in a chair in front of a white, smooth  background (I hung a piece of paper on the wall) and shine as much light from every direction as possible. Take your photo and upload it to the computer. Size the photo on your screen to as big/ small as you fancy and trace your subjects profile onto tracing paper directly from the screen- carefully don’t press hard!!

Carefully cut out the profile- that’s your silhouette template. Cut out one exact copy from your top piece of felt and an enlarged (by only a ¼ to ½ an inch) copy from the bottom felt colour. It’s okay to be less precise on the bottom copy but try to keep the enlargement even all around the silhouette.

With your fabric in the hoop and your two felt silhouettes placed on top stitch in small even stitches all around the edge of the top silhouette.

If you are going to skip the stenciling- you are done.  Either cut away the excess fabric from your hoop or stitch it back behind and hang your portrait. Alternatively frame your beauty and make it look as proper as you choose!

For the stencilers… I am ashamed to show you the messy back of my work but I feel it is only fair to show you how I am adding pattern to my piece…  My stitching looks great at the front but is a 

PAR-TAY 

at the back….

***BLUSH***

I used a stencil which came as a set of three for free with a magazine and I traced my basic design onto the back of the outline of my stitching and added embellishment where it looked too bare.  

Voilà! Hip Victorian Silhouette! 

 Use your template for other projects too. 

I used mine to make porcelain silhouettes which I hang in a group. They took (surprisingly) less time to make than the stitched versions. But you could use the template to cut sheet icing for a special birthday cake or to paint a drawer in a shared room  rather than putting names on the drawers.

Have fun!

xx Jo

The place I'm at when I should be doing something else...

Soooooo....  You know I've been busy. With lots of things.

I have the ABC's of busy...

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A is for Apples

 in the orchard- more than I can keep up with cooking, canning, feeding to my children, our neighbor's cows or the deer.

B is for Bird-sitting

 our chickens when they are out of their pen in order that the nasty bobcat that ate one doesn't get anymore!

C is for Canning

because I planted too much veg, inherited too many fruit trees and generally got too ambitious when ordering peaches via our friends at Live Power Community Farm with our CSA (Community Sustained Agriculture... its a mouthful to say and eat) box.

--------------------------------

The alphabet goes on and on and on (like Gone With the Wind but with no war, elegant dresses or Rhet Butler ... just lots of me looking flustered and throwing tantrums about someone messing up the quilt draped artistically over the back of the couch AGAIN!!!!!) finally ending in:

------------------------------

Z is for Zombie*

...sometimes... sort of... not really...

but M. sometimes acts like one.  He has been really really busy too and starts talking about going to bed the moment the children are up the stairs to go to sleep at 9 p.m. Naturally my instinct is to rebel and go to bed at 3 a.m. so I'm kinda a zombie too some mornings. 

*no photos of "Z" for the protection of the innocent

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  but the letter that has been consuming my time and mental space is S.

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S is for Sweet Little Wood

and Shop!  I am officially set up in a beautiful shop called Gin'Gillie's Vintage Home Collective in Gyserville California!

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When we left England we had some idea of opening a vintage/handmade sales space of some kind but we were uncertain of what exactly we wanted to do and more importantly where! I have a space on Etsy but in order to make it work you need a large-ish shop and really you have to push yourself to be proactive in order to keep your listings popping up because there are so (I cannot stress this enough) SOOOOOOOOO many sellers on Etsy. 

So the reasons Etsy is not really for me are that I am: 

1: too lazy. 

2: too annoyed/terrified by the postal system in the USA. 

3: to lazy

So this is what I enjoy doing. I find stuff. Old busted (sometimes) not really loved stuff. I take it home buff it up and show it I love it and then put it where someone else might pick it up and decide they love it too. Then I spend time with my family and make stuff I love with my hands... while the kids do homeschool... while I wait for the twelve jars in my canning pot to get to the right temperature... while I sit and wait for yet another interminable visit to the orthodontist to end...  while I inwardly gripe that M. has gone to bed at 9:01 and I'm not anything like tired yet.  Then I put that handmade stuff where someone else might pick it up and decide they love it too.

The long and short of it all is that when I should be watering watermelons that are taking over the back acre, keeping my little chickies from going stir-crazy in their pen, or sleeping with my husband at 11 o'clock.:  I can often be seen thinking about, designing, creating, washing, dusting, stitching, drawing or daydreaming about  Sweet Little Wood, my sweet little space that I can play with and make my own.

x(yz)  Jo

P.S. if you have never seen a tiny little baby watermelon...

 they are the cutest darn things ever!!

P.P.S. Does anyone know if apples are bad for cows?!?!

The Jubilee Quilt

Introducing 

(drum roll please- or maybe a fairground organ like you get a British fairs)

The Jubilee Quilt!!!

(terrible photo, sorry- how do you photograph a 7 foot quilt??)

 

Perfect for cozy moments nestled with a hot chocolate and Pride and Prejudice while the rain taps against the windows and the sun has put itself to bed early for the night.
 

It has also been perfect for procrastinating doing things like ironing M.'s work shirts and hoovering the carpets! Not to mention making dinner for the family or washing my hair!

 

This is my first quilt in about eight years.  Note the lack of piecing... ahem... I chickened out of that bit.  However also note the plethora of applique! I started with one patch (the Corgi in a crown) and enjoyed it soooooooo much I had to just keep going. Then there is the freestyle machine embroidery... Kristy Alsop called it the "crack cocaine of the sewing world" and I totally agree. I settled with my new sewing machine, a piece of fabric and an embroidery hoop thinking I would just have a go at a little machine sketching and five minutes later I had finished the London sky line block! Its satisfyingly quick and creative, allowing a sense of freedom you rarely get when sat before a sewing machine!

 

A London Mayor

A Wee Highland Cow

Since we decided to move to the states I've been feeling nostalgic about all the little things in the UK that I will miss. Thus The Jubilee Quilt was born of all those little lovely quirky that I will miss. For example:  what other place can you find a cow that looks just like the Mayor of the capital city? Seriously.
So The Jubilee Quilt is full of things I love: Big Ben, postage stamps with the queen's profile, red squirrels, hedgehogs, foxes, castles, post boxes, red phone booths and the London sky line. 

It has Highland Cows too but (sorry Boris Johnson) no Mayor of London.
 I've adored and continue to adore two special little critters in the quilt. LOOK at those! Does anything get cuter than a red squirrel's tufty ears? Like armadillos you see hedgehogs more often spread several feet across the road but this little guy looks just like the fellow that wandered into our garden a few weeks ago. I picked him up (much to M.'s horror as he moans "They have mites!!") and he squirmed then stopped and just stared at me. When I put him down- cause they are surprisingly prickly- he did this funny little "keep your eyes on the predator" shuffle away from me. So that is what my quilted hedgehog is up to.
 

It took a little thinking to decide what time Big Ben should read right in the center of the quilt. In the end it was M.'s very clever idea for it to read 8:12. It is not a significant time of day for us for any reason but it makes a tiny little puzzle for those of you who would like to work it out.

 

x Jo

Hands free

I like to carry my smart phone with me everywhere.

Not because I get calls... I get one or two a day (almost always from Matt).

Not because I have interesting apps (Windows 7 phone- was great but now getting a bit glitchy).

I just love it's carry case!!!

This was cross stitched onto cream evenweave and then just sewn with a felt lining to the right size with a ribbon for carrying. The design is by Kerry Morgan and can be found in Cross Stitcher isssue 247.  It has this adorable title line which you can personalize. Mine says "California Dreaming" and who can resist a classic? Not to mention; I do... dream of CA that is.

I love it. I don't have to scrabble in my bag looking for it, forgetting it on coffee shop tables, setting it down somewhere in the house where it disappears into the background because of the bland black colour, or (and yes sadly I have done this before) put it in my pocket where it slips out just as I go to use the loo!! No not for me because... THERE! SEE IT? My phone hangs sweetly from my wrist. 

I got approached by a bloke in the music industry who wanted me to make him some (500) to include with parcels he wanted to send out. After controlling my initial surprise and telling him it wasn't my design to sell I asked him how much he thought it was worth per item... Well let me just say that men in the music industry clearly have no clue how long it takes to produce a small cross stitch pattern because his assumption was grossly undervaluing my time not to mention Kerry's lovely design! 

So if you see me strolling down the sidewalk with my arm waving in the air crazily: I'm not hitchhiking/distressed/mad/having a heart attack. I just want everyone to look at my uber-awesome phone case!

X  Jo

Do as the Romans do

We've had a birthday in these parts which has been unusually pressured. Birthdays for adults (Matt in this case) are usually lovely, relaxing and peaceful affairs in our home. This year our children's plans for M.'s 36th (!!!) got bigger and bigger. And its all the Roman's fault.

It goes like this:

History studies for homeschool are done with all the girls together. We started with ancient Britain and have now reached the Romans in Britain. The chronological process has put a great deal of things into place for the children and produced an enormous surge of enthusiasm in their history lessons. It is all spectacularly thrilling.

However the girls unanimously attacked me with the idea of planning a Roman feast.Due to a surfeit of obligations and plans we put the feast further and further back till the only option was to combine it with M.'s birthday or leave it to January.

Kitty researched and planned the menu, Esther researched and planned our costumes and Jessica wrote a PowerPoint reviewing the history of the period. As planning moved forward it became more and more obvious that their vision outstripped my enthusiasm.

This is how it all turned out... Matt came in from working in the shed to be dressed by the household servant (me) in his tunic and toga. The dinner was being served in the triclinium where diners could recline on cushions around the "roasted swan" centerpiece of our meal (cake).

We had goat stew, pieceman bread, olives, bread, almonds, fruit, vegetables and (everyones favorite delicacy) stuffed door mice. It was delicious and admittedly easier than a roast dinner however... the cake. Oh the flipping monstrous cake. Not to mention the tunics!

It was spectacular Matt loved it, the girls were over the moon, and I am so glad to move on from the Romans. Long live the Saxons!

Gifting creativly

So as a follow up to my last post there is this: We make a set of these sketch books every year for Christmas and they are a perennial favorite! The gold stencilled version is what all our girls will receive and the titled version is what our young nephews will get this year as we are all going to be together for New Year.

These really could not be easier. I buy cheap A4 hard back sketch books this time of year. Last year I got nice ones for £1.99 each. This year I've had to fork out £2.50 each. The titled version is lettered by hand in pencil and then painted over (also by hand) but you could very easily use letter stencils to put words on your books. The stencilled version is new this year as I felt I'd worn out the titled ones for our girls over the last few Christmases. If anything the stencil is easier. You just need a piece of lace paper. A paper doily would work nicely but I've used some scrapbook paper that was not cheap at £1.80 for the sheet but it was so sturdy I've done three books and it could stand up to a lot more use still. Good quality acrylic paint works a treat but don’t be tempted to try the kid’s paints (poster or otherwise) on them as it flakes off over time and you will find yourself one day covered in chipped paint and the book looking rather less spectacular. I placed a letter cut out of the child’s initial under my lacy card and used a sponge to stipple gold paint all over the front of the book then the card and initial removed and voila! The spine was painted gold and when dry about an hour later I wrote in in black Sharpie each child’s name so that when being pulled off a shelf it would be immediately recognizable whose sketch book is whose. I haven’t painted the back as I think it’s easier for younger children to recognize front from back with a plain back cover- but I could imagine how much more glamorous a whole gold painted book could look!

The CONVERSATION

We have a family tradition that this time of year Matt and I have a CONVERSATION that goes like this:



And then as December goes by it goes like this:



However this year I'm feeling rather disenchanted by boosting GDP and acquiring more Stuff. So this year the CONVERSATION has gone more like this:



I anticipate this sort of December:



Well... it could be fun.