Hectic Half Term

Hello! I hope you have had a fine week. It has been half term in my neck of the woods, so we headed off to my in-laws for a few days (me with no camera, W with a camera and no charge). We had the loveliest time- charity shopping, wool shopping, Ws birthday, a zoo day, scrummy food and a head louse battle of epic proportions. Perhaps the last was not quite so lovely.

On Wednesday W and I did a runner and left the kids kids with Papa and Toot (Thank you!!) We managed:

:: a day at work (me)
:: a trip to the driving range, where we found that I am Very Bad at golf
:: some much needed clothes shopping
:: to accidentally get very drunk with an old university friend
:: a stomp around London taking in Spitalfields market
  : Petticoat Lane market
  : lunch at the Albion
  : the National Gallery (looking for Ws favourite painting Mr and Mrs Clarke and Percy by David Hockney. It had moved- it was at the Tate)
  : The National portrait gallery, where I was unimpressed with a self-portrait bust made of the artist's own blood. (Why would you do that?)
  : a wander round the delis in Soho
  : a stop at a bead shop (staffed by the rudest people in London)
  : a trip out to Angel to see our friends and their delicious new baby
:: a trip to Ikea (where I managed only to buy things on Toot's shopping list. I am very proud)
:: a humungous and knee bucklingly expensive supermarket stock up in anticipation of my bears coming home.

Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy

W and I had a fabulous time together, but I will admit to spending the hour before the kids arrived home peering out of the window and jigging impatiently.

This afternoon we have spent an hour delousing Mouse again, disarmed the boys several times, spent two hours folding laundry and sorting toys, half-forgot to feed the kids any tea, broken my promise-to-self to spend an hour on the wii fit, weathered a temper tantrum of extreme tiredness from Mouse, put out three bags of recycling, made dinner for the week, and enjoyed a wonderful hour during which the bears (wearing respectively a yellow dragon kimono and a sword, a shalwar kameez and silver slippers, a jalabiya with a light saber and a small-but-not-small-enough sari) ran around upstairs shouting 'Ha har Custard! The evil genius who wants to cancel Chinese new year..!'

I have really missed my children...x

Hooked! The Accidental Cardigan

Yesterday...

Hello! Today has been a mixed bag of a day. Wild and bored children on a grey, wet day that is a bit too far away from pay day. Hmm. What to do?

Well, I visited my friend and her new baby this morning. The bunting went down well and I brought home with me a birthday present for Custard. So this afternoon we have made glove puppets (well, we have coloured them in. Tomorrow there will be glue involved) and we have wrecked another of his presents too- a play doh burger maker. Custy and Mouse had an awful lot of fun with that, but little Miss T just ate their burgers, much to Mousey's horror. I wait with baited breath to see what colour her nappies are going to be tomorrow (the burgers were red and green).

I have been messing around with wool again today, trying to decide what to make next. This is a strategy I have developed in order to ignore the fact that my house is filthy, the floors crunch, there is play doh squished into the soft furnishings, the boys have swung off my living room curtains and the track has fallen off the wall and they have spent quite some time beating each other over the head with a four pint milk bottle full of shaky things/a 2 litre drinks bottle full of crinkly things that Mouse made at school to celebrate Chinese new year. I should have stopped them but you know what I did? I hid. Anyway, I digress. I have been starting and frogging things all day, so I am thinking my creative streak is ebbing somewhat, I suspect I used it all up making this:

After I finished My Big Jumper I had a lot of wool left over and a free afternoon, so I made the Bebop Cardi for Mouse. It took five hours to make and entirely satisfied my Monday creativity requirements. I think my niece may be getting one for her birthday too as it was such a fab pattern. It is Accidental in that I had only intended to swatch it and before I knew it it was three hours later and there did not seem to be much point stopping!

Still do not know what to make next though so I guess this evening will be spent exploring Ravelry...x

Today...

I am sooooo tired I could cry. Our next doors neighbours are being Very Noisy and I am getting little sleep. And becoming progressively more grumpy. I have been whiling away the hours when I should have been cleaning by studying my new book- Sasha Kagan's Crochet Inspirations. I have been meaning to buy it for ages and finally got around to it- and I am not disappointed. It is full of inspiring swatches, patterns and textures, but possibly my favourite thing in the whole book is this page:

Aren't these jumpers just scrummy? No patterns for these sadly, so my little brain is whirring away trying to work out a pattern to make these for Miss T (Granny style) and Custard (stripes).

Oh, and I came up with something to make for me too, but more of that another day.

On a totally unrelated subject: As we were getting in the car today I was accosted by the friendly local alcoholic who informed me that I look much better in my glasses as my face is much too round and they make me look in proportion. Mind you (he says) you're not doing too badly anyway 'cos, you know, ladies who have had loads of children always have loads of chins too, like they've gone overboard in the chin shop, but, you know, you've only got one. (Thinks) Well, maybe one and half, but definately not two.

So there you go. Happy Wednesday to you, from me and my chin and a half...x

Hooked! The Big Jumper

I feel as if I have taken forever to make this, but actually this has only taken about six weeks of not-very-intensive-at-all crocheting.

Look...

I LOVE it! There is about 1400 metres of aran wool in it and it is So Warm! I lengthened the sleeves quite a bit from the original pattern- I love a jumper you can tuck your hands up inside. The pattern is this one and is soooo easy. I do think there might be another one of these in my future. But not quite yet.

x

Four!

A very good Monday morning to you! My head is all whizzy this morning and I am having problems preventing my eyes from rolling backwards- we are all extremely tired. This weekend one Captain Custard turned four, so much fun was had, along with quivering excitement and little sleep.

W went to see this:

on Saturday, so my mum and I spent the day entertaining the bears with a bit of this:

and this:

Custard's favourite Birthday Item is this:

a card from his Aunt and Uncle. They made one like this for FHB a few years ago and Custard has always wanted his own. (As I write this he is hugging it. I think framing will be involved today).

And on Saturday night I spent quite some time creating this:

which he then shouted about because he WANTED A LIGHTSABER CAKE.

Grrr.

Me (Through gritted teeth, trying hard to be happy, jolly and birthdayish): No you don't. You want a Jedi cake. He's a Jedi.
Custard: Yeah, he's quite cool really isn't he?
Me: The coolest.

Oh, and you know what else?

I've only gone and...

FINISHED MY BIG JUMPER! x

Notes on crafting

Here are Mouse's skirts, Miss T's trousers (which I must admit started off for Custard, but I got the sizing very wrong) and my little purse:

Several things to note:

:: I am Very Bad at taking photos. Even when using W's posh camera. Must work on this. (W is rubbish too, I would add).
:: I can only sew in straight lines. And do elasticated waistbands.
:: I can do zips though. Funny.
:: I am currently working on a quilt. Made of squares.
:: A real quilter would be horrified at the slapdash nature of my work. Having four marauding bears and little time means I am of the 'that'll do' school of crafting rather than the perfectionist school.
:: I would quite like to be perfectionist. I am very critical about what I make. When I see things I have made, having not seen them for a while, I am usually dead chuffed with them and cannot believe I Did That.

I went to my most local of local charity shops today. It is fab! It genuinely smells of wee and has the old ladiest of stuff in it. The lady behind the counter is so scoliosed that she sits with her head resting on the counter. Today I felt Really Guilty because, as it was raining, she had brought her scooter into the shop, which meant I could not get in with my buggy. I said that it was okay, I'd come back another day, but she insisted on moving it. It took her five minutes to do it and involved moving two displays and knocking over a table. I tried to help- honest- but you can't move someone else's mobility scooter for them can you?

So then I felt that I had to buy something because she had gone to so much effort. I was drawn to a 70s coffee set, but have nowhere to put it, so I bought four packets of buttons, a Beano annual and a fabulous A-Z book of crafts that is the same age as me...

::Must try macrame again...x

Still smiling...

It is Wednesday and, yes, still smiling. A little forced perhaps, but even so. Thinking Happy makes me feel a lot better about things. This was helped by a good stint in the park after school yesterday, getting some Sunshine and a bit of excercise:

Here are a few of my charity shop buys yesterday:

 I have realised that, much as I would like to love pretty pastels and zingy brights, I am clearly drawn most towards sludge colours. I wonder what that says about me?

Spent yesterday evening doing a few more rows of the pouffe. I have reached that stage where the shine has worn off a new project, but I am not close enough to finishing to feel enthusiastic about going round and round...Back to the jumper tonight maybe.

I did finish a new baby project- and I blocked it! This was a first for me, I detest blocking and generally I look like a mess in anything I wear, so I do not usually worry even for clothes. But these little triangles looked a bit sad until I starched them:

And now they are So Pointy! Just need my friend's baby to arrive now...x

Happy Tuesday too!

Hello! My Monday smile is still there, made a little brighter still by the splendid morning I have just spent in the charity shops. I have bought birthday presents, pillowcases, a tablecloth, two cups and saucers, a jug and a biscuit barrel. I'll take some pics of them later. I have spent the grand total of £7! Miss T and I have come home to finish up the flapjacks and drink red berry smoothies. It is a beautiful sunny day, though still cold enough to see your breath. I think I am more seasonally affected than I thought because I FEEL GREAT for some Sunshine!

Yesterday afternoon I felt quite crafty indeed and as my sewing machine was sitting on the table I thought I may as well use it. I had a rummage around the scraps box and found some material to play with, so now Mouse has another skirt, I have a new coin purse and I have cut the squares for two new lap quilts for the bears to nest under. I'll take some pics of all of that too today, so expect a bumper photo album tomorrow. In the meantime I thought I would show you what I've been doing lately with a hook:

My grey jumper is not quite in hibernation, but I have definately lost any impetus to finish it. Still a sleeve and a half to go. To combat the boredom I have started to make this:

Looks rather like a giant's beret doesn't it? It is going to be cover for our pouffe. We inherited a small pleather footstool from W's Grandad which is losing its buttons and is sadly mistreated by our children, so I thought it was about time it was given a little TLC. It is made in the finest washable acrylic- Stylecraft Special DK that I originally bought to make some bunting. This picture does not quite capture the acidity of the colours- it is very bright and just right for our home.  Can't wait to finish it!

x

Good Stuff

I know! Monday morning and I have nothing but good things to say! (This despite the cat pooing all over the lounge last night. We had throw away one of our ancient Ikea baby quilts. But hey- I'll have to make a new quilt. Yay! An excuse to sew!)

Four exclamation marks in one paragraph. And relax...

Well this weekend we discovered a new hobby. Geocaching. You go onto a website, you upload co-ordinates to some sort of GPS thingy (the technical stuff is not down to me) then you go off and treasure hunt. It is Ace. We spent all day out on Saturday tootling around searching for treasure. We couldn't find the first cache we were after- it was under a bridge and neither W nor I fancied grubbing around under there. But we did find a fab charity shop where I got these:

('Scuse the rubbish photos- it is grey and dull here today. Not complaining mind).
They fit perfectly, they've hardly ever been worn and they were £4.50. Result.

We then went out to our local nature reserve where, while Miss T was snoring loudly and I was confined to the car with her, W and the big bears went off and found a cache of treasure. I was going to photo what they found, but apparently you are supposed to be a bit secretive about it all, so I'm not allowed. We have to rehide the treasure another day in a new spot. The kids were So Thrilled and now think they are 'splorers.

After all this we were a bit peckish, so despite it blowing a gale, we bought fish and chips and sausages and sat on the beach. It was FREEZING. Miss T went purple. I had to chase a pie wrapper along the coast for quite some way and Mouse and Custard were astounded that grass can grow on the sand. Shock and horror.

Then we came home and went FLOP in our chairs. Turns out Star Wars was on on Saturday. I own three different copies of Star Wars, but yet we are all still compelled to watch it when it is on TV. Even with ad breaks.

Just a lovely day.

On Sunday we began with a full English (So Good) and the day carried on being great. Custard and I made flapjacks, W went on a restorative bike ride, I had an hour on the wii (didn't weigh myself, didn't want to spoil the day), FHB was allowed an hour on the DS as a reward for being a Pleasant Human Being this week, and Mouse and I made a skirt for her and a quick pair of trousers for Miss T:

(Mouse had a go with my camera too. Standing on the table. I find it best not to look).
At some point I'll blog some photos of the finished skirt and trousers in their giraffey glory, but right now Mouse has squirrelled her skirt away and I can't find it, and Miss T-oilet training promptly weed (wee-ed/weeed?) on her trousers so they are in the wash.

Poor FHB is desperate to learn to sew, so I think this afternoon may hold cushion covers for us.

Lastly, W broke the last of our Tooting pound shop pasta bowls. We bought them 13 years ago when we were first together living in university halls of residence:

In my current state of karmic trust and relaxation I have decided to see this as a Good Thing. A sign of better, proper grown-up things to come (at thirty-five!) This does not stand up to scrutiny, but I am still smiling anyway.

Hope you had a good weekend too...x

In which I experience another grim Wednesday...

...which is happily followed by a more pleasant Thursday.

Yesterday I was going to write a post saying Gosh what a lovely day we are having here, all is well in the world. But then...[insert screeching brakes noise here]...the school run. Forty minutes to walk 600 metres; two small boys being truly hateful; one small boy quivering with rage; the smaller boy shouting until he was purple that 'Mummy, you are a big fat idiot' (nothing unusual there); a contretemps in the co-op over who gets to Carry The Basket; a fairly loud discussion about why I was not prepared to buy chocolate...and then...SWIMMING.

My regular Wednesday personal hell, made even more enjoyable yesterday by the fact that someone Small-but-old-enough-to-know-better chose not to use the toilet when advised to at home, but instead decided to wee himself in the car, meaning that I had to sit next to a small, smelly, slightly steaming nearly-four year old in the spectators gallery for half an hour. Yuck.

Then Miss T chose to throw the mother of all tantrums. Twenty minutes of full-blast two year old rage. She went puce. I had to strap her into one of the handily provided baby seats in the changing rooms to prevent her clawing my face.

When we get home I discover that one FHB has been hiding books under his mattress in order to continue reading late into the night. This despite us having removed all the books from his bedroom in order for him to get some sleep. A discussion ensued. FHB sobbed. I pointed out that really, nobody can help him if he is going to steal his sister's books in order to stay up late. 'Your body needs sleep,' says I, 'if you don't sleep, you get grumpy and angry and rude. And I can't help you if I know it's because you WON'T GO TO SLEEP.'

FHB wrote me a note to say sorry:

To translate: Me being an idiot. Quite.

Mouse remained very good and quite smug throughout the afternoon's proceedings.

Anyway- I managed to clean the house yesterday, top to bottom, and I feel like I have cleared my mind too. I do get very bogged down when the house is filthy. Oh, and it really was filthy. Embarrassingly so. When I cleaned the kitchen I couldn't bring myself to take down the labels on the cupboards. FHB and Mouse made them the other day. I love the way Papa (on the 'plats' cupboard) is saying 'Disco!'

 So today has been a much better day. Everyone is being pleasant (so far- it is only 11am), I have no jobs to do- Yay! I have nearly finished my first sleeve (despite Someone removing and hiding my hook. Luckily I have a spare stash); I have been out with Miss T so she can spend her birthday money: a t-shirt and a small knickerless Chelsea doll with a 'CAT! MAM, LOOK! A CAT! EEEOW!' She is happily nesting on the sofa (having already lost the cat) and I am enjoying a vanilla latte.

Simple pleasures...x

Miss T is 2!

Hello friends,

Last week was a long, not entirely enjoyable one, that has left W and myself feeling a little wrung out. The weekend however, brought Miss T's 2nd birthday, which was something to feel very happy about indeed! For the unmpteenth time I had that 'this time two years ago...' feeling (I wonder if I'll still get that when they are all in their forties?) and the bittersweet realisation that, with no bear younger than two now, our baby days are well and truly over. In time for her birthday, Miss T has learnt to say 'Don't talk' (to Toot and I when she wanted to go to bed), 'Dog-poo-face' (at FHB when he is at his grumpy worst) and 'My Lamp!' (after a showing of Disney's Aladdin. She shouts this whilst hugging a princess teapot. My heart does little flips).

This is Miss T's Gnome Home and its occupants. I meant to make a badger and some toadstools too, but ran out of time. She loves it: My House! Cat! EEEow!

x