sending love

On this day when so many are sending their greetings of love, my wish is that we can extend that love over every day and all our encounters. Lots of love to you all this valentines day.

Jo x

Happy New Year!

How lovely it is to see this space again, it feels comforting and familiar here and just the right time to be back. If you are still here I welcome you with open arms and hope we can carry on this journey. I have so many things to tell you and lots of new ideas ahead, but for now I am going to wish you a very happy new year full of joy and beauty while I feed my nostalgia and peruse the archives!

It is good to be back!

Jo x

the handmade christmas

There have not been many make posts around here for a while because I have just been busily elving away for christmas. Here are some things I was working on.

This is the quilt that I started back in the beginning of July, see the post here. I really enjoyed making this. It is double bed size and I did the piecing by machine but the quilting and binding are all hand done. I'm glad I started early so I didn't have to rush but even so I only finished it 3 days before christmas. I am happy that it has now gone with my brother and his wife to its new home.

Next is a puppet theatre I made for Faith. Strangely in the christmas eve rush this is the only picture I got but basically it hangs in the doorway and above the house scene is a big window with theatre curtains where you do the puppet show. It is from a pattern in the book 'oliver and s little things to sew', I had to re-size it a bit though as I think the authors doorways must be twice the width of ours!

Here are the puppets to go with the theatre. They were really fun to make.

These are not home-made, they are ostheimer figures. The horses we got for Faith and the dog for Roghan. I have included them here because they came with the promise of home made stables / kennel. That wasn't completed before christmas but we are now halfway through the stable building and working on the kennel design. More on those to come.

These are fingerless gloves I made. The ones on the left were for my sister in law. They are veyla by ysolda teague, ravelry notes here. I loved these gloves and am glad they have a good home. I may be making another pair for me in the near future! The pair on the right are very simple wrist warmers, they are just a ribbed tube with a gap left for the thumb and striped of colour around the wrist.

The socks were made of a really soft chunky yarn just using my own very basic sock pattern and they were well received. The hat I made with one of my favourite yarns, fez by debbie bliss. It is from a pattern in 'last minute knitted gifts'. It was for my teenage nephew and went down well. Useful to know as teenage boys are a notoriously difficult gifting group.

This quilted bag was a bit of a risk as I used bold colours and it is an unusual shape. I hope it will grow on its recipient.

Also made were new stockings for the kids. I just drew a paper shape and made them very simply, no linings or anything like that.

This year I'm going to try to make one gift each month through the year to avoid the last minute rushing. I have said this pretty much every year but this year I really mean it .....

Jo x 

celebration

We have had the most lovely week of celebration. Loads of food and family, everything a celebration should be. Happy New Year and here's to 2013 x 

Jo x 

toddler proof tree

I'm all for the stress free approach. The day to day throws up enough challenges without us creating our own, and I didn't fancy spending the holiday season 'rescuing' the tree! Enter the toddler proof tree...

... a branch really! I love that our 'tree' is decorated with a complete miss-match of homemade decorations.

Jo x 

cake!

Happy belated birthday sweet boy x 

preparations

Preparations are beginning, I missed stir up sunday last week but managed to get my christmas cake in the oven (for 7 hours, phew!) today. The smells are so good and make the house feel all seasonal.

I had some left over mixture so I decided to make little christmas cupcakes. I've never tried this before so I'll have to let you know. I may even ice them like little christmas cakes!

The cake baking got me into the mood a bit so this evening I've been creating an advent calendar scene where our seasons table is. We have a teeny tiny mouse following a teeny tiny star path (the stars are about a cm wide).

The little mouse has to cross a sparkly ice river on the bark bridge and follow 24 tiny stars before reaching the bigger 25th. I hope to have some small trees in there soon to finish the decoration.

Jo x 

birthday boy

Roghans birthday was over a week ago now and there still has been no cake. Oh don't worry, there will be cake, there is always cake for birthdays, we are just delayed on account of sickness. I'll spare you the grim details but we are all fine now and looking forward to celebrating this precious little boy's first flight around the sun, and eating cake!

Jo x 

to you...

You make me smile, you work so hard, you play with your children, you make people feel comfortable about being themselves, you are so giving of your time and energy, you bring me cups of tea, you write sweet little messages for us to find, you dance really funnily, your good at drawing, your good at puzzles (from faith!), you wear smart clothes, you give me acupuncture to balance my energy, you tell me silly jokes, your part of a family that loves you x 

Here's to you on your birthday x love x 

fun in the pool

We celebrated my mums birthday at the weekend and although I failed to get the important pictures, such as birthday cake, the actual party etc. I did manage to get some nice ones of the kids in the paddling pool.

When Roghan was 4 months old I started taking him to a baby swimming class, I was unsure of it when I first started but it turned out great because his confidence and enjoyment of the water is really high. I don't do the classes anymore as they are very expensive but I'll definately keep taking him swimming.

Taking a splashing break to recharge and refill. Of course then the big kids had to join in.

Jo x

party!

Faith turned 7 this week so we had a little party, lots and lots of balloons were involved. The world according to Faith would be a sea of balloons.

 err...

Thanks to friends and family who sent their love to Faith this week, we could feel it.

Jo x