DottyCookie

Undercaffeinated woman, step away from the keyboard

2012-02-22T09:09:00.004Z

Right now, the most frustrating sentence in the English language appears to be "Is it an emergency?" Well, no, no-one has an arm hanging off, and I am not about to go trudging off to A&E, but I have someone who doesn't feel 100% and has gone into school tearfully. The second most frustrating sentence definitely is, "You should have phoned at 8.30." I'm sorry, I tried at 8.30 but the lines were engaged and the school bell rings at 8.40 and we have already cut it too fine twice this week and I tried to use my mobile on the way back but the sounds of the school buses and lorries thundering past made it impossible to hear, and anyway, it's now only 8.50.

And, breathe.

Tiny Small is more than likely fine. Just before half term she had the horrible high temperature coldy fluey bug that's been doing the rounds and has been grotty since. I think she's probably fighting something off, and more than that she just seems off. Tomorrow is probably soon enough if she's still complaining in the morning. But the thing that galls me is that I know full well that if I'd been a bit less honest, a bit more bolshy, I would have taken that 11.30 emergency appointment and had my mind set at rest.

Oh, and while I'm on the subject, has anybody else in the UK noticed that the newest bottles of 6+ Calpol have had the dosage instructions changed so that what last week was a reasonable amount to give a 7 year old with a temperature nudging 40 would this week be an overdose?

And I got cross with Tall Small when she told me as we went into school that she had forgotten to do her homework. She hadn't written it down and I didn't know she was meant to have done it. So did I comfort her, wipe her tears and calmly go in to explain to her teacher, or did I first throw a hissy fit in the entrance hall? See if you can guess.

Rant over. I think. Here's the plan: Look at the new fishtank instead. Put the kettle on. Do a bit of exercise (steady). Just get on with it.

Bah.

A bit of a ponder

2012-02-08T14:04:00.000Z

If you read the same blogs as I do, you may well have read accounts of a lovely get together that happened last weekend at Tracy's house. She very kindly hosted a meeting of like minded bloggers, and it was, as ever, a treat and a privilege to spend time in the company of Tracy, Monica, Ali, Alice, Emma (special thanks for driving this country bumpkin down the the Big City), Nancy and Julie. We missed Kristina - but we all promised a repeat at some time. It was a truly magical day - huge hugs and thank yous to all of you.

At one point the conversation turned to "How long do you think you'll keep blogging for? Will you know when there's an end point?" As we pondered, someone very fairly commented that really, I have already stopped blogging, and I suppose to all intents and purposes that's true. I seem to have got out of the habit of responding to those of you kind enough to comment here, and I leave fewer and fewer comments on other blogs, neither of which are habits I'm proud of. I didn't even have a camera with me on Saturday, for goodness' sake.

But here's the rub - I still think of myself as a blogger. This space has given me so much pleasure, and brought so many friendships both real life and virtual that I would feel lost without it. It's been a place where I have recorded important parts of my life - admittedly not the grotty bits, but I doubt they'd make for interesting reading. I started Dottycookie in 2007 when I was still working and when my children were really tiny. Now they're older and my blogging time is stolen by homework and after school activities and cooking (they actually eat these days, which is a blessed relief). I think I actually spend more time making "stuff" but less time photographing it. Through this blog and the people I've "met" I found the courage to finally sell things I'd made, and while it's a small turnover, it is steady and that brings me great joy.

I think perhaps I haven't stopped blogging, just slowed down. Maybe this year I'll post more, maybe I won't but I think for me that feels fine - your blog is what you want it to be and the people who like it and connect with it are more than likely people you'll want to spend time with, whether that's online or in someone's kitchen eating salad and cake. And those people are the ones who do get to see the messy bits behind the sparkly colourful photos - just like in "real life".

Scrappy colour bursts

2012-01-24T12:07:00.000Z

I hope this qualifies as being cosy and comforting enough to be part of ThriftyHousehold and Silverpebble's Making Winter series!

I don't know about where you are, but here it is grey and soggy and VERY January. Bleurgh.

So when I saw some brightly coloured scrap cushions on AmandaJean's blog, I could do nothing else until I had made them for my girls. Ignore all the other things I have on the go and the parcels I STILL haven't posted (sorry ladies!), I actually managed to start and finish a project in one afternoon. Wheeee!

I am faintly ashamed that I didn't need to buy anything at all to complete this - please tell me I'm not the only one who has unused cushion pads kicking around - but then that means I'm stash busting, which is a Good Thing. Right?

And lest you should think I live in a twinkly, colourful, fairy lit interiors magazine home, here's the reality only 2 feet away.

Argh!

I think I've peaked

2011-12-28T20:07:00.001Z

Was your Christmas a good one? Was it? Ours was. Really, really lovely - and we get to do it all over again this weekend when we see both our families, hurrah!

One of the reasons for my excitement and my early morning wakefulness on Christmas Day was that I knew I had spent a lot of time making an extra special present for the girls and I could barely wait for them to open it.

You may remember they are huuuuge Harry Potter fans? For Tiny Small's seventh birthday we had an (unblogged) HP party, at which the highlight was a Potions class - lots of mixtures that smell good, or are sparkly, or fizz, or bubble, or pop, or change colour - or all of them in sequence. Anyway, as a result my two have been hankering for potions kits since October, and how could I refuse?

It started with tiny weeny pestles and mortars, and quickly escalated. I found papier mache tea bag boxes and miniature bottles at my local craft shop, and with a bit of paint, some saved small jam jars and bottles, and some ingredients from the kitchen cupboards they were transformed into ingredients chests.

I downloaded a spell book here, and was inspired to make my very own potion book - you would be amazed at what you can find on the Harry Potter Wiki in the way of ingredients lists and recipes.

Some of the potions I made up recipes for, others are straight out of the books, but the one thing I did do was have a long hard think about all of the ingredients so that the potions ended up the right colour, or fizzed, or shone.

Of course, once I'd gone that far I had to make it look "authentic" so I used brown paper, string and sealing wax to package it all up and left two big boxes inside the front door for them to find.

It took far more time than money to create (the priciest part was the pestles and they are far from essential), but I will not soon forget the cries and squeals of delight, or the fact that for the last three mornings they have woken up asking to do "potioneering". They've tried all my recipes, and started writing their own. I need to think up some more ingredients for them.

I think this is the the best thing I've ever made. And I am thrilled that my children do too.

PS I'm happy to converse with you if you want to make something similar. Especially ideas for potion ingredients for whizzing and fizzing and kitchen chemistry-ing ...

Days 21-24

2011-12-25T08:22:00.001Z

Ooops, slipped a bit here, haven't I?

The truth is, we've gone off piste, and it always happens - the activity advent is fantastic in the first half of the month when it's early enough to be excited but not yet completely busy with preparation. It gets us in the spirit without being prescriptive. But by the week of Christmas we're all ready to be a little more spontaneous - we don't actually need the prompts any more.

So, we have been to see Arthur Christmas, we've made and sprinkled reindeer food, we've played board games, we've wrapped and cooked, we've hung our stockings, we've been carol singing, we've been to the annual Christmas Eve service next door, we've baked our glorious ham ...

And now it is Christmas morning and I am slowly pottering about before the little ones get up. I reckon I've got about 10 more minutes so if you'll excuse me, there are birds to be fed and coffee to be drunk and then merriment to be made.

Have a lovely Christmas if you celebrate it; otherwise I wish you a very happy day anyway!

Days 19 and 20

2011-12-20T18:51:00.000Z

The calendar said we ought to be making gingerbread houses yesterday, but what with work parties and present making we ran out of time. So instead, we saved it for today when we had a visit from Emma and her tiny pebbles and went a bit mad with the sugar.

This is the pebble cottage. Note the exuberant use of colourful sweeties, and twin chimneys, no less:

For some reason there is a jelly baby stranded on the roof of the Dottycookie cottage, and his ladder is broken. Oh no!

But at least he can be reassured that there is a colourful path waiting to break his fall if he ever gets onto the roof:

We used the leftover gingerbread to make tiny bears, and drew on them with a food safe marker, an extravagant delight if ever there was one.

And we even made tasteful angels from a glorious Allsorts printout - Jenny's blog is a constant source of joyous inspiration and she's generously produced a whole slew of free Christmas projects over the years.

And now I am sugared out. Weeks of very limited sugar intake have had me feeling well and healthy, and this afternoon's excesses have made me crave intensely savoury foods. Bring on the Marmite!

Day 18 - Dress up for dinner

2011-12-18T23:57:00.000Z

Our activity last night was to dress up for dinner, which we did, having returned from joining in an attempt to break the world record for the largest number of people simultaneously singing Christmas carols. It looks like we (with 17000 others nationwide) did it, though it has yet to be confirmed. It was fun!

Anyway, there are no pictures of us in our finery so instead I shall give you a photo of some of the cakes decorated by children we had round for a party yesterday afternoon. I had planned a bit of white rose and snowman elegance, a sprinkle of glitter and a squirt of lustre spray. They had other ideas. Get your sunglasses!

(This new blogger interface is ... interesting. I'm not convinced yet.)

Day 17 - Popcorn and a Christmas movie

2011-12-17T20:23:00.003Z

Stuff the popcorn, we're watching Strictly.

Go Harry!

Days 13,14,15 and 16

2011-12-16T23:53:00.005Z

Now that was unexpected - a day in bed with a rotten cold surrounded by a day or two on either side for the build up and easing off. If you'd handed me a pistol on Wednesday night I might well have used it.

Anyway, here I am, back again and trying to get back on track. The activities have gone a bit by the wayside - odd that - but since one was the school Christmas lunch and another the School music evening, I hadn't planned much that actually needed doing.

Ah yes, the music evening. In which Tall Small stood straight and played her violin in front of 200 people without a wobble. She looked so grown up and as she played the last note I think I felt my heart burst. Sigh.

One of our regular advent activities is to buy food for the collection box in the village church, which is then donated to the local nightshelter. I'm not quite sure what planet the Waitrose marketers are on if they really think chocolate chip digestives count as "essential", but I hope they are appreciated in this wintry weather.

Anyway, I do believe I need to pick 3 people who want to receive snow. I've used the Random Number Generator (and I'm afraid you'll have to take my word for it as screen capture is still beyond my woolly brain). The winners are:

Thimbleanna

backlanenotebook and

driftwood

I'll be in touch via email!

Advent day 12: crystal snowflakes tutorial and a giveaway

2011-12-12T23:57:00.003Z

Edited to add - this is my Making Winter post for this month!

I feel a bit of a fraud - not only is it not day 12, it's the morning of day 13, but also we didn't actually do yesterday's scheduled activity. We were supposed to go shopping for Christmas ornaments (the girls get a new one every year to make a little collection they'll eventually take to their own homes - assuming we ever let them leave home. Ahem.) but events overtook us, so instead I've taken a few pictures of how to make the crystal snowflakes.

And here I feel a fraud again - the first thing to do is to buy the snowflake frames. I know some of you thought I had cleverly soldered and twisted and spun the frames out of the purest green, but in fact they are on sale at my local bead shop. If you're in or near Cambridge, the Beaderie is your source for all snowflake making components (and mine are an adaptation of the ones Sally makes there), otherwise google is your friend ...

So, first grab your frames:

round and flat nosed (chain nosed? I am making this up as I go along) pliers:

crystals - these are glass and very sparkly:

and seed beads in mouthwatering colours:

Thread beads onto one arm in a pleasing arrangement, leaving about 70mm free wire. The most important thing is to put a seed bead, or other small bead at the open end as these frequently get chipped or cracked in the next stage and you don't want to waste Swarovski:

Bend the tip of the wire firmly with your flat nosed pliers - the wire is stiff, you'll need to be insistent:

Bend the free wire into a loop with your round nosed pliers:

Neaten the loop and urge it closed with flat nosed pliers:

Repeat on the other five arms:

And go a bit crazy:

Hang them up and admire the sparkle.

And now for the giveaway. Months and months ago, lovely Ali Magic Bean ran a pay it forward which I won and never blogged about, and spectacularly failed to follow up on. So I shall try to make up for it now and say that there are 3 of these snowflakes up for grabs, with no strings attached except for the ones to hang them by. Not a PIF, just a gift. Leave a comment if you'd like one - I can't guarantee a colour preference but I will try to accommodate requests. You can sign up till Friday to give me time to get them in the post before The Big Day - though sadly international commenters probably won't get theirs till the New Year now!

Advent day 11

2011-12-11T10:37:00.004Z

Day 11 - snowman pancakes.

Every weekend, Mr DC makes pancakes for the smalls, so when I saw this idea I knew it would be a good one for our advent calendar. Here is the simple one I made for Tiny Small:

Here is Tall Small's version (how excited she was to be let loose with writing icing at breakfast!)

And here is the one I made for Mr DC. Poor old Frosty clearly has other ideas ...

Advent day 10

2011-12-10T23:19:00.002Z

Day 10 - decorations up! Time for some sparkle and twinkle around here.

I have a love hate relationship with tinsel. I hate the dust it holds (Tall Small and I sneeze for days). I love it wound round the banisters where it feels fluffy under your hand. I don't like it on trees because it always looks out of place to me - I can vaguely imagine that the ornaments have sprouted there as if by magic but unless it's fine whispery cobwebby tinsel, to my eyes it always looks plonked on.

But the children and Mr DC love it, and I have had my way for the last (many) years so this year, tinselly tree it is. And it does look like the decorations box has just been thrown at it, but I rather like it that way now.

Advent day 9

2011-12-09T21:00:00.005Z

An oldie but a goodie! Fancy schmancy cutting instructions courtesy of Martha Stewart (who else?)

Advent day 8 - Barely holding it together

2011-12-08T21:07:00.002Z

I decided on a simple but meaningful activity today - "Think of reasons why we are fortunate" which took on unexpected poignancy as we watched both our girls performing with their choir in a Christmas fundraising concert. The concert started beautifully with festive performances, and then the founder of the charity they were supporting - Hope and Homes for Children - spoke movingly and eloquently and left most of the audience sniffing bravely and clapping hard. He was followed by my girls' choir singing pieces including Bob Chilcott's "The Child" and Lin Marsh's "Child of Tomorrow", and there was literally not a dry eye in the house. I am afraid I completely lost the plot.

Read these lyrics, imagine them sung by a choir of 7-13 year olds after you'd just been told about the plight of abandoned children in brutally poor or wartorn surroundings and tell me you'd have reacted any differently ...

Lost mid the ruins, two children are hiding.

Beneath broken windows they play with a gun.

Surrounded by soldiers, their city is dying.

The world turns its back and the conflict goes on.

Will you be wiser oh child of tomorrow?

Will you remember the price that we paid?

How will you cherish this earth which we leave you?

What will you learn from the child of today?

Do go and visit Hope and Homes for Children if you can. They're trying to do amazing things.

Advent day 7

2011-12-07T18:23:00.003Z

Each year we try to think of something the girls can make (or at least part make) for their teachers. Our fallback these days seems to be Lindor chocolates and a Christmas ornament, and this is what we're doing this year.

The wire is a bit tough for them to bend, even with pliers, but they can select the colours and thread the beads on. We have a lot of these to make - between teachers, TAs, post fair orders and our own requirements I think I need to stock up on more crystals!

Advent day 6

2011-12-06T16:52:00.004Z

This was a lovely idea for an activity, and earlier on we had clear, cold skies and the promise of a good night's twinkle viewing. But then it clouded over and started to drizzle so that put paid to that. But all was not lost - earlier on I did some stargazing of a different kind as Tall Small stood up in front of the whole of Key Stage 2 to talk about her pet hamster. Each week, one of the children in Years 5 and 6 talks for 10 minutes on a subject of their choice, to help them practice their presentation skills, but usually it's only in front of their class. She did brilliantly - I was proud of her, her teacher was proud of her and more importantly, she was very proud of herself. Hurrah! Confidence boosted, we hope!

Advent day 5

2011-12-05T22:13:00.004Z

The sharp eyed amongst you will notice that this is not, in fact, a garland of stars. I'm not sure I care - it is made of glitter card which makes my girls very happy indeed!

Day 4 - Non stop

2011-12-04T21:57:00.005Z

It's been a mad, full on day. I was asked to have a stall at the school fayre and I agreed, thinking it would be my last one - I find them a heck of a lot of work for usually not brilliant returns. Today was astonishing though. The village hall was heaving, and because it's our school, I knew pretty much everyone there. I sold out of crystal snowflakes and had to start taking orders in my notebook. Blimey.

So it was a relief to head off to Mr DC's choir advent service. I used to sing with them, and now the girls are big enough we all go together and have a good old carol together. I haven't got the voice I used to have but my little ones are getting stronger and stronger every week it seems.

Day 3 - chocolate!

2011-12-03T20:24:00.005Z

It was inevitable that we wouldn't manage to make both Christmas puddings *and* cakes for the school fayre - but since that's tomorrow we decided Rocky Road was the order of the day. It's easy, the children can do most of it and who doesn't like big wodges of chocolate biscuit cake??

I used to make complicated decorated cakes and biscuits, but since they all end up priced at 20p per cake, these days I go for big trays of stuff to slice up. A dusting of icing sugar, a sprinkle of edible glitter in my favourite disco baby lilac, and we're good to go.

Advent day 2

2011-12-02T23:42:00.001Z

It's been a day of just getting things done in time - an unscheduled after school trip to replace holey-soled school shoes left us rushing to complete Day 2's activity before I had to head out to the school staff dinner. Only a few paperwhites planted but I doubt the ones I do over the weekend will be nearly this pretty.

An Active Advent

2011-12-01T20:56:00.003Z

We are now entering my favourite three weeks of the year - I think I enjoy the run up to Christmas as much as (more than?) the day itself. We have daft numbers of things to get done, concerts and plays coming out of our ears, but in the middle of it all one of our most important traditions is an activity advent calendar. These abound in blogland, and in the past I have used a rather ugly fabric calendar to contain the ideas - but this year I braved papercraft - it turns out even I can stick festive stickers onto little white envelopes and dangle them from the banisters.

So given that the time may be approaching when my elder girl is no longer excited by this kind of thing, I was thinking I might have a go at saving our fun and games for posterity and posting a little picture every day of what we've been up to. There may be very few words, there may be lots. It depends. I may fail completely and delete all evidence of previous posting, ahahahaha!

None of the activities is terribly original, and I don't claim that any were entirely my idea. This was today's:

We fitted it in between the after school activities and the brownie trip to visit the local guides, and it was ten minutes of very silly fun. Just what we needed!

Messing with my metabolism

2011-11-22T18:21:00.004Z

I am supposed to be Cutting Down and Losing Weight. I am supposed to be Reducing My Intake of Refined Carbohydrates, and generally being sensible ahead of the upcoming seasonal festivities. I have recently realised that sugar is in fact my nemesis - some people go for alcohol, some for more socially unacceptable substances but I am here to say, "Hello, my name is Val and I am a sugar addict."

So did it really make sense to go on a cupcake decorating course today? Probably not, but it was a lot of fun. We played with sugar paste and lustre and glitter and sugar pearls. I learned to make complicated multipetalled sugar roses (though I think I shall stick to making them in polymer clay).

Even with all the complicated techniques, I think I prefer very simple rolled rosebuds and a bit of glitter.

And actually, the fewer, the better.

I never thought I'd say that.

Show your spots!!!

2011-11-18T09:48:00.004Z

No, not an ad for Clearasil.

As most people in the UK (and certainly anyone with primary school aged children) will know, today is Children in Need day.:

You may also know that Matt Baker has been riding a rickshaw from Edinburgh to London to raise money, and we were very excited to realise that his route took him 6 feet from our front door. He was leaving Cambridge at silly o'clock but he has an online GPS tracker that showed his progress and lo and behold he came cycling past at 6.15am!

Two (TWO!) cameras refused to take pictures but fortunately Mr DC's shiny phone did the job beautifully. If this video works you will not only see Matt and Pudsey in the dark, but will hear Tall Small calling out "He's here!", my panicked cries of "It's not working, it's not working!" and please note how calm my husband is in response. Living with the rest of us, believe me, he needs to be.

My children were beyond excited, and I have to admit I actually jumped up and down. I have a feeling we won't make it all the way through the broadcast tonight! Go, Matt, go!

Distractions

2011-11-15T19:04:00.006Z

Just when I thought I was heading into the home straight with making stock (thank you very much to the lovely ladies who bought hairbands from me after the last post!) I was distracted.

Destined to be stuck onto brooch baaaaaaacks.

Well, wouldn't you be?

I had the chance to take a Fimo course at our local craft shop, and made loveliness for the upcoming winter festivities (ahem) which I will show you in the fullness of time; but since I came home I have been making non seasonal flowery and sheepy pieces. I find them all the more appealing because their coats appear to be made from Swiss rolls. And remind me that my very favourite village names are Sheepy Magna and Sheepy Parva. I always smile when I see those on a map.

Overdosing on sparkle

2011-11-07T13:53:00.007Z

It's been a bit of a frantic few weeks here. It's not so much that I fell out of love with blogging, it's more that we changed our camera and computer setup and I upped my volunteering commitments *and* I decided to do two craft shows in the run up to Christmas and ... well, you can imagine the rest. I apologise for the slightly blurry pictures, I am still trying to get used to the new camera and having no daylight doesn't help.

Rewind a couple of months to the summer holidays (remember those?) While we were away I had time to finally make a couple of tiaras for a pair of fairy princesses; one is for a pink and sparkly fairy, the other for a mermaidish sea princess.

I am not thrilled by the wire twisting (I was making it up as I went along) but I rapidly fell in love with the jewel encrusted bands and decided that they would make the most fabulously girly headbands to make for special presents. And so they do. I may have got a little bit carried away ...

PS to Kim - thank you for your message about problems with permissions - I think I've fixed it (the blogroll was having a moment) but please do let me know if you see any other oddness ...

Expelliarmus!

2011-09-10T16:53:00.011Z

I have a pair of mad keen Harry Potter fans here. They call themselves Hermione and Ginny, or sometimes Luna. They have pinched our old college gowns (in Oxford you have to wear black gowns to take exams and on various other formal occasions so every student has one) and pair them with school uniform even on non school days. They have watched the first three films over and over; those from Goblet of Fire onwards are far too visually intense for them yet. They have lain on my bed for hours and hours listening to me reading to them; we're currently halfway through the Half Blood Prince. They are each rereading the earlier books - Tall Small is reading about 3 of them at once!

So when I asked them what they'd like to do over the summer, the top request was for Harry Potter day. Ah, OK. What does that involve then?

Well, first of all you need to find your Hogwarts uniform:

Then you need a wand, complete with a treasure for its magical core - one had a special fluffy feather, the other had a piece of wool from the mane of a very well loved unicorn.

(Instructions for wand making are here, though you really don't need them)

You need a Sorting Hat (though in this house we all ended up in Gryffindor, of course):

Not my proudest crafting moment but it did the job - until I sat on it.

For the first night feast you need to eat special magic biscuits decorated with appropriate symbols:

and you need to drink butterbeer - an alarming combination of cream soda and Nigella's butterscotch sauce which tasted far more delicious than it had any right to do.

And then you need to practice your spells over and over again. And then some more.

Then, and only then, can you sit down and watch one of the films, for the fiftieth time. And if you're really lucky, you get to do it all over again the next day!

If you go down to the woods today ...

2011-08-18T07:14:00.006Z

Nestled deep in woodland a few miles outside Norwich is a strangely magical place. Leave your car behind in the carpark and enter the domain of the Boggles and Twiggles, and you'd better leave any grown up sense of decorum in the car too if you're going to get the most out of this giant adventure playground. It's like Willy Wonka has been let loose in a forest with building materials and a team of carpenters.

It's called Bewilderwood and is a place my children BEG to be taken to. We've just returned from two weeks in Devon (of which more another day) and Mr DC wanted a special last day before being chained back in his office so on Sunday we piled in the car and made our second visit of the year . Last time was early in the season and the place was rather more heavily populated this time - but still not anything like the crazy busy atmosphere of the large fun park made from bricks than they usually clamour to visit.

There are brightly coloured elfish houses hidden in the trees, birds and butterflies, and everywhere the sound of people being very silly indeed. You do have to put up with a slightly daft story that links the different areas together and is clearly set up to sell books, but once you get past that you can go on aerial walkways, giant climbing frames, terrifyingly steep slides and zipwires - all sized so that the grown ups can join in with the children. Even I, the least athletic human in the world, joined in and had a blast.

My very favourite part is straight out of the Famous Five - a section of woodland amply stocked with long branches and bracken and designated the "den building area". We spent hours here. Hours. There were some astonishingly complex shelters being built, lots of collapses and no grumpy voices at all, which at the end of a very upsetting week for pretty much everyone living in this country came as an enormous relief. OK, so ours ended up looking like the House at Pooh Corner but we did sit inside it to drink tea and eat ice cream. Not sure I'd sleep in it though.

But this has to be my abiding memory of the day.

I have no idea where she gets it from.

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Bewilderwood, though my children have said over and over that they want to work there when they grow up. I think they assume the staff get to play once the visitors have gone home ...

The end of an era

2011-07-15T09:44:00.006Z

When I was little I loved going to Brownies. I could hardly wait for my seventh birthday, and I remember Brown Owl coming to visit us at home a few weeks before I was due to start to tell me what Brownies was like and how much fun we would have. And the badges - how I wanted an armful of badges. Unfortunately I didn't mange to muster the energy to actually put in the work to get that armful but that's another story.

Tall Small has been a Brownie for nearly 2 years, and Tiny Small will be joining her pack in September, which is very exciting.

But it also means she has has to leave Rainbows.

Rainbows has been FAB. She has had a wonderful 18 months, been on endless trips, played lots of games and learned to sing silly campfire songs, and she is very ready to move on. This is all down to her wonderful leaders, and to say thank you she has been making presents for them. First up was the polymer clay rainbow on a stick with a potted plant, which will also be the basis for our teacher gifts this year (note to self - let the clay cool down before inserting bamboo skewer or it might crack). I let go of my desire to tidy it up - this was her present for her leaders, and it is what it is.

The other thing she made were shrinkie keyrings - we made these for the teachers last year and they were well used. Children can design these themselves to suit the personality of the teacher they're giving them to, and you or they can add beads or leave them plain. They take only as long to make as the child wants them to, and most importantly they are used - and that means a lot to us.

A labour of love

2011-07-11T10:35:00.007Z

Let's just gloss over how long I've neglected this poor old blog, shall we? No dramatic reason for it; I've just been busy and got out of the habit and that makes me rather sad as I've very much enjoyed blogging in the past. I make no promises but I think I need to up my posting rate a little bit ...

The four school houses - my two are in Kestrels!

Anyway, one of the projects that has taken a lot of my time recently was the designing and making of a wall hanging for the village school my children attend and where I work part time. This is a tiny friendly place with just over 100 pupils in four classes, and this week marks the 150th anniversary of the school's opening. On Saturday there was a big tea party with singing and cake, and a flypast by a Spitfire piloted by one of the dads from the school which made everyone feel terribly emotional.

As part of it our new wall hanging was officially unveiled; I've been working with one of the other mums on the design and making of this for about half a term, and it's involved going into school and getting the children fully involved in making parts of it, then lots of cutting out and industrial quantities of bondaweb, culminating in a frenzied series of late night sewing sessions. My poor sewing machine doesn't know what hit it.

Panels made from the children's drawings - Class 1 made their sandpit, Class 2 drew portraits of themselves in the school pool, Class 3 drew the wildlife pond and Class 4 made pictures of themselves playing on the village green

This thing is BIG - 2 metres each way and I realised my house is not large enough to lay it out anywhere for taking pictures. It's also far too heavy to hang on my washing line so I apologise for these pictures - it really isn't that wonky in real life!

Class 4 each cross stitched a letter for the centre panel

Everyone seemed to like it - and most importantly the children and teachers at the school are thrilled with how it turned out. And so am I. I'm not sure it will last 150 years but hopefully a good few ...

A grand day out

2011-04-28T16:41:00.016Z

We're very lucky to live only a short train ride from London - all the benefits of village life with the opportunity to see the city when we can. On Easter Monday we decided to be tourists for the day and headed down to have a look at the preparations for the Royal Wedding tomorrow. We thought a good plan might be to start at Buckingham Palace and walk the route, along with many many other people who had the same idea!

The first thing we noticed was the stunningly large TV presence - I was expecting cameras but for some reason the scale of it all amazed me.

I did feel like a bad mother when my little ones told us we'd never taken them to see the Palace before - we've done museums galore but not "the sights". Time to set that right with a look at the balcony - and an explanation that the next time they see it on TV there will be lots of people in big hats standing on it.

We had a quick whizz round the Royal Mews to look at the horses and carriages and take bets as to which coach will be used - I'm pretty sure it won't be one of these:

or this one (though the girls think it should be!)

A march down a refreshingly traffic free Mall took us to Horseguards Parade where even our equine companions were suffering from hay fever. (Did I mention the pollen? And the dust? Blimey.)

We tried to show the girls 10 Downing Street - and I'll show my age my revealing that one of my earliest memories is of being taken to stand outside the house itself where I'm sure my parents gave me exactly the same serious description of its importance as we gave our girls. I think they took about as much notice as I did ...

Can you believe we've never even taken them to see Big Ben? What kind of monsters are we?!

And then what was, for me, the highlight - going in to Westminster Abbey which I have not done since I was a teenager taking a German pen pal to see the sights. It is a glorious place - the building itself is stunning but it's filled with so many gems - and we were lucky enough to be shown some extra special highlights by a friendly verger - he allowed the girls to climb through the Queen's own special door to her seat in the choir stalls (complete with embroidered booster cushions) , showed us Dick Whittington and his cat in one of the stained glass windows and even let us under the rope in front of Isaac Newton's memorial to show us the details of the carving you can normally only see from 20 feet away. Be still, my beating geek heart!

Sadly no photography allowed inside, but when we see this shot from these cameras on Friday, we can say - we were there! The girls said it was their "best day ever". It was certainly one to remember.

To those of you who are planning to watch, have a lovely day - we have our wedding feast planned! - and I hope that those of you who have no interest in it can spend the day doing something you enjoy too.

Rose quartz - delicious!

2011-04-05T12:10:00.005Z

As I mentioned in my last post, I was practising my tiny wire wraps with specific projects in mind, and this is one of them:

Rose quartz and sterling spiral loop frame earrings, made using a design from the very talented Kristin Smith. It involves wire bending, hammering and wrapping - a step beyond my usual pieces but I adore these. Absolutely adore them. I am loving playing with wire, and the hammering takes it to another level entirely. The rose quartz briolettes came from Tracy's destashing sale and I am glad to have found the right project for them.

And they even show up against my hair - the dark earrings I usually make tend to disappear unless I tie it up - which is often a step too far in the morning!

Wearing your genes

2011-04-03T15:12:00.011Z

One of the projects we made at the Science Festival was DNA bracelets - using the sequence of DNA to make a brightly coloured strand of beads and then making a matching strand by following complementary base pairing rules. DNA has only 4 "letters" in its alphabet - A pairs to T, C pairs to G - so it's easy to pair a a red bead (T) to a green (A) , and a blue bead (C) to a yellow (G).

My little people had a fine old time making bracelets based on trout sequence:

That's fun and everything, but I'm a little too old to get away with wearing one. Instead I took two gauges of silvery wire, some glass crystals and a silver coloured bookmark and made this.

Believe it or not, this is the genetic code for "dottycookie" - or rather DTTYCKIE which is the closest you can get if you use the 20 letter amino acid (protein building block) alphabet to represent my name. If you give it a twist ...

Since DNA encodes protein sequence, you can represent words as proteins, and then backtranslate to figure out a corresponding DNA sequence, for example using this program. It's a long sequence as it takes 3 DNA letters to encode each amino acid.

It's the ideal adornment for a book about one of my heroines, and did serve a serious purpose - I needed wire wrapping practice for a project to be revealed in the fullness of time.

And if you think this is just plain daft, I take comfort in the fact that I'm not the only freak on the block - Emma Pebble pointed out some truly fabulously geeky objects for sale on Etsy ...

When Watson and Crick met Haribo

2011-03-20T21:29:00.013Z

Every March, Cambridge hosts a Science Festival - two weeks of events, all free, covering everything from maths to astronomy, physics to veterinary science. Departments open their doors and invite the public in, and if you miss it, you really do miss out.

Most of the events happen on the first Saturday, and that happened to be yesterday. There's far more on offer than we can possibly manage, so we are selective about the events we attend. This year - oh joy! - we managed to fit in a lot of cell biology, my very favourite subject. So, this week, in honour of the festival, I'm going to attempt to bring back Kiddie Science. Hurrah! For background on DNA structure, in case this makes no sense at all, this is a very good place to start.

One of the groups we visited came from the institute where I used to work, and they had a fun and simple table introducing the idea of DNA structure using gummy bears. We decided to take it one stage further. If you want to have a go too, you will need a packet of cocktail sticks and a LOT of jelly sweeties.

Simply put, the most common form of DNA is a bit like a ladder that is twisted around to form a double helix. In order to model a small part of it, first we built a pair of phosphate backbones - like the outside edges of the ladder - using two colours of jelly babies and some cocktail sticks. Observant biologists will notice that the two strands are running in opposite directions with the heads of the red men pointing away from the heads of the yellow men.

The part of DNA that does the clever genetic coding are the 4 nucleotides, or bases, that fit between the long backbones like the rungs of the ladder.

These bases are of two types - the larger purines adenine and guanine (A and G), and the smaller pyrimidines thymine and cytosine (T and C). One of the crucial things to realise is that there is only a limited amount of space in between the backbones, so in order to keep your ladder legs parallel, you need to pair a large (purine) base with a small (pyrimidine) one - in this case our two choices for the large bases were red and yellow fruity bobbles, while the small bases were purple and orange gummy bears. The girls soon decided which sweets to pair together and our first molecule was made.

Now, as Watson and Crick very soon realised, this complementary base pairing gives a huge clue as to how DNA can be accurately replicated - essential if you're a cell that wants to divide properly! So, we split the two halves of the molecule apart:

and used each half as a template to build a second strand.

Now all we had to do was skewer our rungs with cocktail sticks,

Pick up the ladders and give them a twist:

to form a giant edible DNA double helix!

Apologies to 1. cell biologists; and 2. vegetarians. My DPhil supervisor would be so proud!

For Japan with Love - Bloggers Day of Silence

2011-03-17T23:18:00.002Z

I cannot find words adequate to express the sorrow we're all feeling this week. The news is almost too painful to listen to, and explaining the situation to my children has been close to unbearable.

So, I'm going to join many other bloggers - many of you - in observing a day of silence tomorrow, Friday.

It's a tiny gesture, but it's something. You can find more information here, and donate here, if you can.

Keeping busy

2011-03-10T21:55:00.004Z

It's been quite a week here. This is a glimpse at my worktable - a very old trolley on casters in our spare room which has a beautiful view of the village church. In the evenings the stained glass is lit up - and it's just as well I like the view as I've been spending a lot of hours here.

It started last week with a trip to the bead shop and gallery in a village north of Cambridge. I got into conversation with the manageress, and the upshot was she asked me to take in some samples of my jewellery to show her. So I have been beavering away to make a representative selection, working into the night and relying heavily on my beloved daylight lamp and trying not to go blind.

1. Rhodolite earrings, 2. rhodolite cluster necklace, 3. crochet glass pendant, 4. Banded agate and onyx pendant, 5. Banded agate and silver bangle, 6. Lagoon delica earrings, 7. Vineyard delica bracelet, 8. Vineyard delica earrings, 9. Garnet cluster necklace, 10. Green crystal pin, 11. Amethyst crystal pendant, 12. Amethyst crystal brooch, 13. Herringbone brooch prototype, 14. Brooch prototype, 15. Heavy metal delica necklace, 16. Heavy metal delica earrings

I visited today, clutching my little box of samples and trying not to feel too nervous. And guess what - THEY LIKED IT! And THEY'RE GOING TO STOCK IT!

I have to make quite a few necklaces, bracelets and earrings, and we've discussed their requirements but they're leaving the final colour and design decisions to me, because, apparently, I'm an "artist". That gave me a huge buzz, I can tell you.

So, from the start of next month, should you find yourself in Haddenham, you can pop into the Haddenham Gallery and see my stuff in the Spring Fling exhibition. Who knows, it might even give me the kick I need to put some stuff on Etsy ...

Craft yourself happy

2011-02-16T11:31:00.003Z

Do you ever have days when you wake up and wish you hadn't? Where every little thing just feels like Too Much Effort?

Today was such a day. I didn't help myself by skimming Country Homes and Interiors at breakfast. I tried walking with friends from the playground after school dropoff. I tried looking at flowers. I tried halfheartedly shifting piles of stuff around the living room in an attempt to start sorting it out (let's face it, what it needs is a giant skip and for no one to actually live in it for a while).

And then I thought, "This is not working. I am feeling worse."

And THEN I thought "I need to make something. Now."

And so I found some beads and some silver wire and I did.

And I felt about a million times better and I am going to wear it all day and probably all day tomorrow too. And smile to myself.

The inspiration came from this lovely book. And now I need more wire.

Have your cake and eat it

2011-02-13T17:48:00.019Z

We're not hugely into Valentine's Day here, though I do make an effort to eat as much chocolate as I can on that day. Most of my efforts go into making little gifts for the girls, or indeed cajoling the girls into making presents for Mr DC. And in that spirit, when I saw these little cakes (via NotMartha) I knew that 1. I had to have a go and 2. I could never muster the dexterity required for that level of perfection.

So, instead, I give you the cackhanded cook's alternative to produce a cute but very definitely homemade (and therefore achievable) lunchbox treat.

Valentine's loaf cake

(All measurements are standard UK ones - sorry, I'm no good with cups or degrees F but I think a pound cake is the US equivalent)

This is based on a simple madeira cake - Nigella has one that calls for:

240g soft butter, creamed with

200g caster sugar

3 eggs - beaten in

90g plain flour and 210g SR flour beaten in

and it works very well but I suspect any basic cake recipe would be worth a try.

You'll need a lined square tin, about 20cm square, plus a 1lb loaf tin, also lined.

So, preheat the oven to 170C/150 fan/gas mark 3, then:

1. Take about 1/3 of the mixture (or, preferably, mix it up in 2 batches) and beat in a teaspoonful of vanilla extract, a capful of rosewater (optional) and a good squirt of bright pink food colouring.

If you have mixed only one batch, you'll need to keep the rest in the fridge till later, and you may then need to loosen it with a little milk.

You want this violently pink and well mixed. You'll see from the picture at the top that I managed to achieve neither of these.

2. Spread the mixture into a small square tin - mine's about 20cm square. This doesn't need to be done neatly or perfectly. Bake for about 25 minutes till just cooked through.

3. Find a heart shaped cutter that fits well into your loaf tin, as shown.

Use it to stamp hearts out of the pink sheet cake.

4. To the remaining 2/3 of cake mixture add about a tablespoon of cocoa powder and mix it all up. Put a layer of this chocolate mixture into the bottom of the loaf tin. The first time I made this I made this layer too thick, and the hearts floated up to the top of the loaf; and this second time I made it too thin so the hearts are right at the bottom. It probably needs to be about a third of your chocolate batter.

5. Stack up your pink cake hearts and cram them in to the loaf tin - and I do mean cram. I thought 6 slices would be enough, but I managed to fit in a seventh and I am glad I did.

6. Blob cake mixture down the sides of the hearts - you may need to used your fingers but remember the mixture will spread in the oven so don't worry too much.

7. Spread the remaining mixture on top of the hearts. Bake until it's done - for me this took about 50 minutes and I think I may have been a little bit impatient.

Remove from the oven, slice it up and feel very happy. I sliced mine when it was hot which was silly. You won't make that mistake!

Just to prove the hearts go all the way through. Yes, it's wonky, but it's made with love and it tastes yummy!

Still here ... sort of

2011-02-06T20:34:00.017Z

Hmmmm, that was a longer than planned break. Having proclaimed that winter doesn't affect me, I promptly went and hid under the duvet for most of January. Ah well, let's put that behind us.

While I wasn't blogging, I was making lots of woolly things, and I present to you the most recent, and my contribution for Emma's last Splash of Colour. It made me smile, and made me laugh, and I can't quite make up my mind whether it's cute or as horrendous as those crocheted toilet roll covering dollies that were all the rage in the 70s ...

Anyway, take one beloved teapot:

Some exaggeratedly springlike wool:

And some pretty buttons:

Add an obsession with bees and a few evenings knitting for the first time on a circular needle, a cute amigurumi pattern, and you end up with this:

Anyway, time for me to indulge my latest guilty pleasure - the third series of Being Human on BBC3. It's not everyone's cup of tea (Mrs Pebble, I'm looking at you) but for me it rounds off the week very nicely thank you.

And then the wheels fell off

2010-12-24T11:41:00.004Z

We had 6 inches of snow last weekend, which just Doesn't Happen here. We went snowballing and sledging and basically made the most of it. I'm not sure who was the most excited but I suspect it may have been Mr DC.

Thank you for all the get well wishes - they worked temporarily but then this week they wore off. We had a big old family Christmas planned - the first time in years we would have almost all been together on Christmas Day. Unfortunately the world had other plans and as a result of illness both at our house and at my poor sister's, we'll be at home. While I am currently well, I am tired - I wrote down the dosage to give Tall Small this morning as her temperature hit 39C AGAIN and walked downstairs and couldn't remember whether or not I'd actually given her the medicine.

Still, there is an end in sight, we hope, and in between alternating doses of Calpol and Calprofen the Smalls are in good spirits. And we had a delivery of heating oil today (thank you Team Flitwick!), and Mr DC braved the supermarket so we will have a proper dinner tomorrow instead of fishfingers.

Before it all kicked off, last weekend we had a lovely party for little people and decorated a small village of gingerbread houses and made sparkling crystal snowmen and Christmas trees.

Patterns adapted from instructions given at Spoilt Rotten beads

So, there's a lot to be grateful for, and we will hang our stockings up this evening and have a lovely time tomorrow, albeit not as planned. I hope you're all well, and happy, and that your Christmas is really, really wonderful.

Better late than never

2010-12-14T17:31:00.003Z

We've been as busy as everyone else this last week or two with end of term school stuff (roll on Friday!), two craft fairs, music practice, parties to plan and on and on and on. I still have to make a Bollywood outfit (help) and wrap presents and post some cards, but we're getting there.

Unfortunately my lovely plans for a a decorating weekend and a full day of sewing today were destroyed by a rampaging stomach bug that felled Tiny Small at the weekend and then me today (72 hours incubation?! Someone's having a laugh).

Anyway, I messed up Splash of Colour so instead I give you a Splash of Light in two parts, first Mr DC's birthday cake groaning under the weight of hundreds and thousands. Is it me or are they just far less vibrant than those of my childhood. I really wasn't going for tasteful here:

And second, my astonishingly blonde and beautiful Tiny Small dressed as Santa Lucia - I "made" the crown with tinsel and IKEA battery powered stars, and she put the rest of the outfit together herself. Paired with furry boots she looked good enough to eat, but I settled for ginger star biscuits instead. And even better was the fact that her fabulous elder sister let her parade around and have a whale of a time without once complaining that it should have been her turn.

Hope you're staying healthy. I'm feeling almost able to eat some dinner which given that I couldn't even face water this morning is a big step forward, believe me!

Highs and lows

2010-11-17T16:59:00.008Z

The week just past has included a heady mix of emotions here, and I'm hoping for a rather more even keel over the next few days. Can I start with a plea? I kept myself occupied one afternoon this weekend by sewing a large quantity of Wiggly Bags for the Liberty Rose Trust to be given to children undergoing cancer treatment. I made them using Florence's pattern and instructions, and if you can possibly spare an hour to do the same, they would be grateful for any you could send. They really are very straightforward and you will feel very proud of yourself afterwards, I promise.

Wiggly bags in memory of a very brave little boy

From one extreme to another - two gorgeous little babies came into school to meet everyone, and of course, babies need bibs, and two babies need lots, so I've been making those too and loving every minute (well, except those where the tension went wonky). There couldn't be a much better excuse to indulge in soft brushed cottons and some new Tilda florals.

Sunday was, of course, a time for remembering those who gave their lives for our country. It's always a day that stirs up strong emotions, and this year my composure was challenged again as Tall Small's choir joined another group of children to perform in a special concert of Remembrance. The standard of singing was wonderful, and the Senior choir (older teenagers) were nothing short of remarkable. Tiny Small clapped so hard she nearly fell off her seat. This time next year she'll be up there with her sister and I shall lose any shred of self control I ever possessed.

And the highest high? Undoubtedly a letter from the BBC for clever Tall Small, who managed to achieve a prize I yearned for during my entire childhood.

Yes, it's a Blue Peter badge!!!!

This has unsurprisingly, become her most treasured possession!

Danger in Hatfield

2010-11-06T16:08:00.002Z

I've been making my own jewellery for a very long time, starting with simple earrings in my teens, and on through bracelets and necklaces. I've dabbled in bead weaving and up until the last year or two I've used cheap findings, glass and plastic beads and been always slightly disappointed with the results.

And then I met Emma Silverpebble, and she's not only become a treasured friend, she's also introduced me to a whole new world. I've talked about the art clay, and the silver chain before, but recently she took me to a gem show in Hatfield and introduced me to semi precious stones and now I fear I'm lost forever.

The sparkle from these babies is like nothing else. Even in dim winter light they glow and flash. By firelight they are stunning.

These tiny mulberry pendants are made from 2.5 mm rhodolite faceted rondelles (I originally thought they were rhodonite but now I think I misheard), 30 per drop, stitched with the narrowest bead needles I could find. Paired with freshwater pearls, I've hardly taken these off since I finished them.

I'm thinking I need to find an outlet for these - I am quite addicted to making them, and everyone I've shown them too in real life seems to like them as much as I do. What do you think (she asked, trembling slightly).

Just wait till I show you the labradorite ...

There's another gem show coming up at the end of the month. Heaven help me.

Just to prove I can be colourful

2010-11-02T17:57:00.004Z

I spent most of my teenage years dressed exclusively in black. There were literally no colourful clothes in my regular wardrobe. All my makeup was black, my nail varnish was black, my hair was black, my lipstick was black. Get the picture? I hope you do because all the photographic evidence has been destroyed.

Teasel hedgehogs eat conkers!

Perhaps this partly explains why I am not generally sad about the onset of autumn and winter - lack of colour, and the need to wrap up and feel warm doesn't really feel that alien to me. Or it could be argued that I'm such a miserable wotsit most of the time that the switch back to GMT makes no noticeable difference.

Our autumn table, complete with lots of brown corduroy and mad mushrooms

These days there is a lot more colour in my daily life, be it in clothes, felt, food or courtesy of two small people. I love (and wear) the reds and browns of autumn in preference to any others. And I do sympathise with those who miss the colours of spring and summer - so Emma's Splash of Colour series seems like an ideal opportunity to seek out colour around my home.

We replaced the sick lens on our camera, and I'm not really comfortable with it yet - I keep misfocusing, but hopefully these give and idea of what's happening round here these days!

Well, of course we have a lilac music stand - don't you?!

PS I can't resist saying a HUGE well done to an old friend who's been featured a lot on the news today - Leo James, whose team has made a breakthrough that could save us all from colds and vomiting viruses one of these days. I haven't seen him for a while, though Mr DC still socialises with him regularly. I was rather stunned to hear him speaking from my radio at 7am - what a clever chap!

Revisiting old friends

2010-09-28T19:23:00.007Z

Some of you were kind enough to be interested in the painting I mentioned in my last post, so when the sun came out for 5 minutes this afternoon I rounded up some of the pieces I still have and took them for an outing into the garden. Poor old things, it's the only excitement they've had in a while.

I started taking painting classes at a shop near where I used to live - the Burnt Owl in Burnt Hills, NY - in 1997, then painted most days till we left the US in 1999. I have tried to get back into it back here in the UK, but the lack of a dedicated permanent workspace rather held me back. Sewing and knitting seem much more portable to me, but I suspect I may be alone in that!

This was one of my first pieces, a favourite of Mr DC and the only one that's in regular use. It holds hairbands and brushes for the Smalls and while there are a number of problems with it, I'm very fond of that silly sheep.

I was very keen on traditional stroke work, and in fact this was the piece that had me signing up for the various courses in the first place. It's a bit tatty and dusty now, and I rather wish the background wasn't jet black, but I painted this design over and over on oval storage boxes that I still use.

The thing I liked most about this style of painting is that you don't need to be able to draw. At all. I cannot draw to save my life, but I can trace patterns and base coat them and follow the instructions to add colour and shading in the right order. The clever people are the designers of the patterns, and I was lucky enough to be taught by Pat Parker who designed this one - this is her version just to prove that hers is the real skill here.

This is a tray I started, and didn't finish. It's a design by Betty Caithness, whose pieces I adore. I doubt I shall get back to it any time soon, but you can see how bits of it (the children and their tree) are done, while the stones at the bottom are only basecoated as yet and the houses need a lot more work.

The patterns and brushes are still up in the loft. Maybe one of these days I'll dig them out again and see if I can remember any of what I learned!

Bring on the pumpkins!

2010-09-25T17:15:00.005Z

A friend recently told me she'd read in a lifestyle magazine that now is the time to switch summer cushion covers for autumn ones. "Surely no one does that?!" she laughed. Well, it turns out that now I do ...

I made this cover using some of the fabrics from Jacqueline Paton's irresistibly cute Harvest Town range, found at a little quilting shop in the town where my parents live, and some rusty coloured satiny stuff I'd had stashed away for years (quite literally). The pattern is based on the technique described recently by Elizabeth at Oh Fransson!, but mine's ended up a little bittier as I started with smaller scraps and winged it. The next one will have larger panels - oh yes, there will be another.

Autumn brings the colours I love the most, and I have an enormous soft spot for this style of folk art, born from the decorative painting I used to do when we lived in upstate New York and I had an entire loft devoted permanently to crafty pursuits.We lived in a converted white clapboard chapel and I would hide away in the roof at the top of the spiral staircase and paint and sew and weave. Sigh.

Edited to add: I found a picture of our old chapel house here. I cried when we left it, even though I was very happy to be coming back to the UK. It was a wonderful place to live.

But seriously, who wouldn't want to live here?

Or here?

And how I wish we had a pumpkin stand in our village - maybe I should set one up!

The Last Night

2010-09-13T12:28:00.003Z

Mr DC and I had an awfully big adventure on Saturday night. See if you can guess where we went:

Does this give you a clue?

Or this?

How about this?

Yes, we were at the Last Night of the Proms!

Katie Derham in the middle!

We have a contact, you see. A lovely friend who is a member of the BBC Singers, and has the voice of an angel, has access to a few Last Night tickets every year. Up until now we've turned them down (!) but this year we said YES, and I am so glad we did. What a truly wonderful evening.

Our seats were astonishingly good - right behind the back row of the BBC Symphony Chorus, so the sound was breathtaking.

I know there are a lot of people who question whether such a display of flag waving (flags of all nations, I should add) and patriotism is really appropriate these days, but I defy anyone not to have been caught up in the atmosphere, and not to have joined in the joyous singing of Jerusalem and the rest. There have been some negative reviews of the choice of both soloists and programme, especially the replacement of the traditional hornpipe, but what can I say? I was there and it was FAB!

This was the view from our seats!

If you are both curious and completely at a loss for something to do this afternoon, we do appear in the iplayer recording at about 83 minutes in, right at the end of the National Anthem. Mr DC is the unfeasibly tall man in a red tie next to the strange people in masks, and I am the short round person next to him in the gold top.

Blast from the past

2010-09-04T20:40:00.004Z

Ali's post about badly behaved jellies triggered such a longing in me that I've been hankering after a certain jelly receptacle ever since. And lo, Steamer Trading came up trumps in the shape of a plastic rabbit mould. I was excited, the kids were excited, even Mr DC was excited.

We bought strawberry jelly. We bought lime jelly (tastier than expected). We ignored the packet instructions and made the jelly extra stiff - though it could have done with being even stiffer. We mixed, we poured, we waited.

Then we chopped up the green jelly, inverted the mould and held our breath - till we turned out Mr Bunny in all his lurid red glory.

I was transported straight back to being 8 years old.

But what I hadn't banked on was Tiny Small's horror at the thought of eating any part of the "poor little rabbit" when it came to teatime. She cried and ran from the room, and only returned when the beast was safely chopped up and served out and covered with ice cream.

I now wonder whether I did the same when I was little and that's why my mum's rabbit mould stayed safely in the cupboard above the boiler ... and I know what we're not going to be having at a certain someone's birthday party, that's for sure!

On the trail of Peter Rabbit

2010-08-31T14:21:00.004Z

Thank you for the camera concern - it seems to be the lens rather than the camera, which is annoying but not terminal. What I didn't tell you was that we discovered it while we were halfway up Lingmoor Fell in the Lakes and had to fight to get any reasonable shots for the whole two weeks we were on holiday there ...

Still, there are lots of lovely memories of long steep walks to breathtaking viewpoints, even if the shots are blurry. On one very memorable day we set off early to a secret carpark in Sawrey whose location was passed on by a very friendly National Trust warden as the only hope of parking anywhere near Beatrix Potter's house at Hill Top - a visit we've avoided for years because of the alleged parking nightmares and the overcrowding.

This time we collected tickets for late afternoon entry and in the meantime took ourselves off for a walk along the paths Beatrix Potter trod - and drew, and described. We read The Tale of Mr Tod under Oatmeal Crags where he has one of his residences; we looked at the Tale of Jeremy Fisher at Moss Eccles Tarn surrounded by the water lilies Miss Potter planted there:

And we lunched at the Tower Bank Arms where Kep the collie tries to find out where Jemima Puddleduck has run off to.

The National Trust helpfully provides information about which houses in Sawrey were used as the settings for which stories, but the most astonishing are at Hill Top itself - every room, every piece of furniture appears in a Tale somewhere.

Tom Kitten's residence, anyone?

And we even found Peter Rabbit - not in Mr McGregor's garden, but in the meadow next to it - look closely and you may see him to the left of the tree!

Book results and a slight disaster

2010-08-15T13:15:00.004Z

Something BAD has happened to our camera. Our beloved, now fairly elderly, Nikon D70. It lives in a safely padded bag in a cabinet drawer when it's not being used, and is pulled out and put away many times each week. Last week I pulled it out to find that some had put it away minus the bag, but I just tutted quietly, stowed it safely and moved on with the day. Unfortunately the next time I came to use it, it turns out that while it was unprotected, the lens edge has been badly cracked and the poor thing can't autofocus any more. I rather suspect small hands closed the drawer too vigorously on it. We just hope it can be repaired ...

Anyway, in the absence of any actual photos, here's a screenshot of the results of the Pass the Book giveaway:

By my reckoning, Miss Read will be winging her way to Rhiannon - I'll be in touch!

Pass the Book

2010-07-28T11:58:00.003Z

I had a perfectly lovely day last Sunday, sitting in Emma's garden beach hut admiring her jewellery, and trying not to squeak too loudly when she sold lots and lots of gorgeous trinkets. You can see the fun here if you haven't already done so. Mavis and Celia arrived in the afternoon and we had a fabulous impromptu tea party (wherein I proved I should never, ever be allowed to make tea in someone else's teapot).

I spent a good part of the day crocheting pebbles - as you do - inspired by the gorgeous creations of Margaret Oomen at Resurrection Fern. Initially I used the pattern she'd very generously provided at Purl Bee last week, but soon was chaining and trebling and doubling at will - I'm pretty rubbish at following patterns, and using a 0.6mm hook with fine perle cotton there was not much chance of keeping the stitch counts and tension regular!

Sitting in the garden I suddenly remembered with horror that I have Emma's first Pass The Book sitting on my windowsill and it really, really needs to go to a new home. I was sent it by Fiona at Tizduster (clever, clever silver and clay sculpting Fiona) along with some gorgeous silver earrings and some chocolate, many weeks ago. I read this lovely little book by Miss Read in about an hour and a half sitting in the sunlit living room of a beautiful cottage in Suffolk on a birthday weekend trip - yes, that's how long it's taken me to sort this out!

Anyway, it's time to pass the book on, so if you'd like to read it, leave a comment on this post and I'll pick a name at the weekend or early next week. The person whose name is chosen will receive a little parcel of goodies along with the book - not sure what yet but there are bound to be toadstools in there somewhere!

We need to talk about roses

2010-07-14T09:43:00.004Z

No, not the pretty flowers, though I am very fond of them. What I want to talk about is this:

Lots and lots of perfect circles punched out of the leaves of one specific rose bush in our garden. It happened last year and I realised that the creature responsible was most likely a leaf cutter bee - at which point I decided to do absolutely nothing and thank my lucky stars we operate a wildlife friendly (read: lazy) garden policy. You've got to be a really persistent weed for me to even consider eradicating you.

Anyway, this summer they've been at it again and while I haven't seen one in the act of cutting, I have seen what they've done with the leaves:

This is just one of those cheap boxes bought from the garden centre and attached to the fence and forgotten. It's behind another rose that they don't seem at all interested in chomping.

You only need to wait a minute or so to see bee activity.

I think we may have mason bees in the bottom half, and also in the loose mortar in the wall of our old house, and I couldn't be happier to just leave them to it. We've stashed lots of bundles of bamboo canes around the garden, and I've now seen a plan for another, fancier bee box - time for my little wildilfe DIY helpers to get busy with the power tools again?

PS Thank you for all the lovely party comments and birthday wishes. If you're inspired to do the same, please do - once I put ideas up here I'm happy for them to be used, though obviously not my words or photos. Life is hectic as it is for all mums of school children at this time of year, so I've been a bit quiet. Lots to show and tell, one of these days!

Glamour for teddies

2010-06-20T16:24:00.007Z

June is always a big month in the DC household with two birthdays coming very close together. Mine was last week, and then yesterday my gorgeous Tall Small turned 8 and I swear she grew another inch overnight. She's up to my shoulder now, though she has a way to go before she catches up Mr DC.

For the very first time we were able to have her birthday party on her birthday - a terrifically exciting prospect for anyone, I think you'll agree. After the success of the mug painting we were contemplating an at-home pottery party but it turns out one of her little friends has had the same idea for next month. So ... thinking caps on. Here are a couple of clues:

Lots of concentration and creativity and glue and trimmings and sequins.

And a fair few of these furry friends.

Got it? Yes indeed, Build a Bear eat your heart out, we made summer beach costumes for our teddies. Aha! Lots of frantic cutting up of net half an hour before the girls arrived and a lightbulb moment when we realised the beach skirts were far easier if the bears were wearing their ribbon waistbands before we tried to tie the fabric onto them.

There was slightly heart stopping moment when they all looked at me in confusion after I'd explained they were going to use glue to decorate their T-shirts, but they soon fell in with great enthusiasm and I could kick myself for running out of time to take pics of the fashion show.

And the best part of all? Tall Small loved every minute, and was able to spend time with a friend she's known since they were both 6 months old but these days we see only a couple of times each year. When we got to the end of the party one of the girls turned round to her mum and said "You're too early!" And I have to say I felt the same way - this really is a fabulous age for still-quite-little-but-growing-up-every-day girl parties.

Cheers!

2010-06-03T15:12:00.007Z

When I lived in the US, I remember going into a local cafe and asking for a cup of tea - and being given iced tea which was probably wise given the temperature outside but wasn't what I was expecting at all.

Perhaps it's because the humidity and temperature in the UK rarely approach those in North Carolina, but even on the hottest days here I drink hot tea (well, lukewarm by the time I get round to drinking it). Iced coffee, certainly, but not iced tea. Well, unless it's Long Island Iced Tea of course, and even then I'd prefer Pimms. Actually, I remember making a huge jug of Pimms for friends in the States at a summer barbecue, and they thought it was oridinary iced tea - we didn't realise that's what they thought till it was too late and as a result we had a lot of unplanned extra overnight guests. But I digress.

I painted this mug last time I visited my parents, at one of those fab pot painting places. We've picked it up this half term, and we had another painting session while we were there. And just in case anyone is in any doubt whether this mug is theirs, I named it.

I do fear I'll die of a tea overdose soon though ...

Sorry for my unexplained and extended absence - nothing sinister, just an excess of 'stuff' to get on with! I can't promise it won't be the pattern for the next few months ...

Fairy gardens

2010-05-03T20:05:00.006Z

Thank you to everyone who wished me well last week. In the end the fair was a complete washout - it hadn't been advertised so visitors were very thin on the ground. I'll admit it did get me down, and I rather lost interest in making or writing anything for a few days, and still haven't anything terribly witty to say; but then the little daisies and toadstools started calling and I couldn't resist for long.

The daisies were begging to be made into a daisy chain necklace - the Smalls have been busy harvesting dandelions and daisies all week and threading them together into coronets and bracelets, so I thought I'd get in on the action. I made some little matching earrings too; the fimo flowers are very light and float gorgeously on illusion cord. This is my very favourite type of necklace, both to make and to wear.

But something that's been at the back of my mind since I started making felt pictures, drawing and embroidering and modelling little mushroom houses is the thought of a Fairy Garden bracelet - and here it is:

It's still a bit of a work in progress - I'm trying to decide whether to leave the dangly charms sliding freely between the anchored crystals as they currently are, or whether to restrict them a bit, but I'm really pleased with the airiness of it so far. And perhaps the fairies will like it too!

Daisies and toadstools

2010-04-24T09:56:00.004Z

(Warning, shameless self promotion ahead)

What are you doing tomorrow? If you're in the North Essex/South Cambs area you might like to pop along to the St Mary's School Spring Craft Fair in Saffron Walden. It runs from 11-4 and I'll be there with lots of felty and textiley goodies, plus some of these little chaps:

A tiny fairy ring complete with daisies, and with a penny next to them to show you the scale. If you can't make it (and I realise that's the vast majority!) I'll be revealing what I did with these little cuties very soon ... but if you do come along, please say hello!

Here are the details:

St Mary's School, Castle Street, Saffron Walden, Essex, CB10 1BQ.
Sunday 25th April
11am - 4pm

Parking can be interesting in Saffron Walden but there are large public carparks that are within easy walking distance and are well signposted as you come into the town.

Back to nature

2010-04-15T15:22:00.005Z

The Smalls are very keen on bringing wildlife into our garden - which suits me fine as apparently wildlife friendly = very untidy. Or so I thought until we visited the glorious Standen (more on this another time - if you have even the faintest interest in the Arts & Crafts Movement you simply HAVE to visit). Tucked in various locations around the gardens we found their palatial, and really very tidy, bug hotels. We will be making one of these but I don't think ours will be nearly so pretty ...

Anyway, last year we decided that we needed a little pond. In previous years we have had large populations of baby froglets hatching from spawn laid in abandoned rainwater filled seed trays, and we thought it might be kind to give them a proper place. Space is at a premium here, plus we do have a lot of small visitors so a big pond was out of the question. But we did have room for a washing up bowl sunk into the ground and filled with a couple of water clearing aquatic plants.

It's not the prettiest creation, and it has become the resting place for various bits of broken pots, but if you peep underneath the largest one, you can see someone seems to like it.

This chap had a friend with him the other day, who I've since encountered wandering around the garden. Might we have some tadpoles later on?????

Edited to add: Zoe from Scented Sweetpeas has a far prettier tiny pond and instructions on how to make it too!

Proof that the skills swap worked?

2010-04-08T17:40:00.003Z

Some of you may recall that a few weeks back Emma introduced me to the magical world of silver art clay as part of a skills swap. It took me a while to sort out a heat source (no gas in our village, and our use of a blowtorch last year ended in near disaster) but I finally cranked up our old camping stove, bought enough gas cylinders to last a lifetime and rapidly used up a block of clay making flowers and hearts and all sorts until I felt confident enough to make tiny pendants for my girls. Just before Easter I added some crystal flowers and butterflies and here they are.

One for a yellow loving girl:

And one for a fan of pink:

There was also one for me but the girls insisted I make one for their cousin so I recycled my chain for her and mine is now waiting till I order some more for myself. How many of these can I wear at once, I wonder?

I am not going to admit to how many silver headpins I wasted along the way. Gulp.

Hoppy Easter

2010-04-04T19:30:00.003Z

Hope it's been a good one!

Peeps brooches made by me for the Smalls, from here via here.

Flannel bunnies made by the Smalls for their grandparents, with instructions from good old Blue Peter.

Glitter and felt and thread, oh my

2010-03-26T18:41:00.002Z

I'm becoming a tad obsessed with these little felty pictures.

Some days I think I'm seeing double.

Or triple.

But then I realise that all these little mushroom houses are actually slightly different - a bit like a modern housing estate perhaps?

These three are for commissions/presents and I have requests for more but really needed to do something different otherwise they were in danger of ending up with duplicates which seems pointless. So I doodled and fiddled and snipped and ended up with a tiny fairy castle.

I even had the chance to use some of the stitches I learned at a course at the Make Lounge recently - maybe Ali, Tracy, Monica or Karen recognise bullion knots, French knots, satin stitch and feather stitch?!

The daffodils are finally blooming

2010-03-19T13:06:00.003Z

More evidence (if any were needed) that I am slightly deranged ...

Today the girls have another non uniform day, this time a fundraiser for Marie Curie Cancer Care. You'll have seen the little daffodil badges on sale all over everywhere if you're in the UK; it's a great cause we're happy to support. Anyway, the theme for the day was "yellow and green" - two colours that don't appear in our wardrobe. I had said, "Well, we'll dye a white T-shirt and you can wear your jeans and green and yellow ribbons in your hair." Oh no. That wouldn't do
At All.

It's entirely my own fault but my children know that if they ask me to make them a skirt, I am never going to say no. And given the chance to go and browse in John Lewis and stroke all their new Amy Butler* and Tanya Whelan - well, would you have turned it down?

These skirts made me love my overlocker all over again - even if I did run out of cotton and have to rethread it. Like me, my tiddlers love a long swirly skirt, and who can blame them?

*(yes, I know I said I didn't like Amy Butler fabrics. I was WRONG.)

Hasn't got the sense she was born with

2010-03-17T10:06:00.004Z

Any sensible mum, faced with the prospect of a Roald Dahl themed non uniform day, would suggest Matilda, or Violet Beauregarde, or Miss Honey, or one of The Witches. A craft obsessed mum makes the mistake of asking her children what they would like to be.

A sensible mum, on hearing the response "We want to be baby foxes!" would then think, "Ah yes, a bit of face paint, a few whiskers, easy peasy!" A crafty mum starts to dream of fake fur and little furry ears and big bushy tails.

A sensible mum would have got to bed at a reasonable hour last night. A crafty mum stays up sewing till the small hours and still finds herself attaching poppers to belts for tails at breakfast time.

But then, a sensible mum isn't greeted by this:

and isn't serenaded on the way to school by fox barks.

I know which I'd rather be.

A grand day out

2010-03-08T10:36:00.005Z

You know what? You're fab, you lot. The lovely good luck comments spurred me on through a week of stupidly late nights and a sinus infection and sewing my finger more than once (only a machine sewer can know the pain of being whacked by the needle holder when you fail to get your foot off the pedal at 1am. Still, at least it wasn't the overlocker.)

The sale day went better than I could have ever hoped. We had a sunny day, a hall full of daffs, GORGEOUS stalls (and I somehow didn't spend all my takings - yet), delicious Boden clothes, and a steady stream of visitors.

My stall came together, and I managed not to spike anyone with bamboo canes or stab anyone with a needle. I even made some custom requests for hair elastics and clips on the spot which was a very special feeling, and I have a couple of orders to fill. Yay!

So, to say thank you to everyone who left me good luck wishes, and to say sorry for not replying to everyone individually, I'm having a retrospective giveaway. I've drawn a random name from the people who commented on the last post, and I'll make for you one of my covered notebooks with a little picture of your choice on the front. To remind you of the sorts of things I make, here's a reminder:

And the winner is ....

Lucy Locket!

Lucy, I'll be in touch to find out what you'd like on your notebook.

Now it'd back to the reality of a neglected house and a pile of ironing. Ah, well!

Uncharted territory

2010-03-01T19:02:00.004Z

I'm feeling a bit wobbly, a bit nervous, but at the same time very excited at the moment. On Saturday I'll be having my very first stall, here:

Thanks to Celia for making the poster bloggable!

If you're anywhere near the northern side of Cambridge on Saturday, it should be a worthwhile way to spend an hour or so! Google Maps knows where Swaffham Prior is if you're not sure.

In case the clothes alone are insufficient to tempt you, you should know that the lovely and talented Emma Silverpebble will be there selling her irresistible jewellery, as she and her friend Andrea are the brains behind the venture. Also coming along will be Celia with her gorgeous prints, a local basketmaker, a ceramic artist, and more.

Mind you, there is the issue of what to sell. I'm in the middle of a sewing frenzy. This is about a third of my in progress pile - the house is in a state and the worst part is I can't shout at anyone else about it because it's all my mess.

I've been doing lots and lots of little felt appliques - which I shall photograph and show at some point, but this is one of the simpler projects I've completed, to give you an idea.

*I* like what I'm making, so I guess that's a start; I just hope someone else likes it too or my friends and family will be receiving books and purses for years to come ...

Soggy Saturday

2010-02-27T15:51:00.003Z

It's grey and horrid here today; we have seen some sun but it's long gone now. We've played with the hamster and put her in the dolls' house where she explored and happily did not relieve herself. Mr DC is off singing and the Smalls and I have exhausted all the usual Saturday options, so we decided to dig through the kitchen cupboards to make a teatime treat. The health police
need to look away now.

All this and Lenny Henry as Othello on Radio4 - oh Lordy, he's just done for Desdemona. And now I am off to clean the kitchen floor (again!)

Dancing raisins

2010-02-25T12:52:00.006Z

I have Tall Small with me today - she had a tummy bug which is all better now but our school sensibly has a 24 hour quarantine policy after little ones stop throwing up, so she is feeling fine but stuck with me.

What to do? We've done multiplication squares and fed the birds, and then she asked to 'do some science'. Well, am I likely to say no?

So, here's a old but good recipe to entertain a small not-very-ill person:

Take one glass and fill with something clear and fizzy - we used tonic water but lemonade or soda water would be fine too.

Add a raisin.

Watch as bubbles of carbon dioxide form on it and carry it up to the surface. The bubbles will burst and the raisin will fall, and then rise again, and fall again over and over till the liquid goes flat.

And if one raisin is fun, why not try a handful?

Just don't try to drink it afterwards ...

Edited to expand the science bit:

Fizzy drinks fizz because the CO2 in them only stays in solution whilke the drink is under pressure in the bottle or can; when you open the can the CO2 comes out of solution and escapes as bubbles of gas. The raisin - or indeed anything else - forms a nucleation point for the bubbles to get caught on. Once enough bubbles are formed on the raisin, it becomes buoyant and floats up to the surface. When the bubbles reach the surface of the drink the CO2 can escape into the air and the forces holding the raisin up are overcome by gravity so it sinks again. Hope that's a bit clearer!

Seven ways to make me feel special

2010-02-10T09:19:00.003Z

In the dark days at the end of last year I signed up for Ali's Seven Days of Specialness swap, along with half the blogosphere, it seems! My partner was Jo from French Knots, and she put together a fab package of gorgeousness for me - well, seven packages actually. I was amused to realise we had both forgotten to label our carefully wrapped packages with the order in which they should be opened, and found it even funnier that we'd independently chosen the same wrapping method - pink tissue and pretty ribbons! Clearly we were well paired :-)

Shall I show you? Oh, go on then.

Sleepy tea (invaluable last night as the smalls shared my bed and wriggled); a lovely little tin for buttons and beads; an adorable tiny embroidered picture which is now by my bed; a buttony heart to cheer up the kitchen; some flower seeds ready for me to reprise my Sarah Raven impersonation of last year.

A proper needlebook, and I know it's mine because it has my name on it; and a tiny, beautiful thimble with a hidden panel of exquisitely small embroidery. Jo says she did it herself but I think she must have a stitching fairy as I'm not sure how else she could see to make such minute stitches!

Thanks Jo, your parcel made an otherwise grey and dull week seem like the first week of spring; and thank Ali for being a swap organising genius!

PS If you want to see what I sent Jo has posted about it here. But you should go and visit her anyway, because she's lovely!

Absolutely typical

2010-01-31T20:51:00.003Z

Tall Small and I spent a very lovely hour this afternoon engaged in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch, which we're going to count towards her Brownie Wildlife Explorer badge. She had the binoculars out and the bird spotting book and coloured in her little counting squares with great enthusiasm.

My favourite part was the two minutes where we opened the windows to hear the birdsong as well as watching the birds - there's something shamefully decadent about sitting right next to a hot radiator with your head hanging out in the freezing cold air watching goldfinches and greenfinches fighting over the birdfeeder while a squirrel pinches all the robin food.

So I was telling her about how I have regularly seen two robins close together in our tiny garden this week, and also that we have a wren hiding in the honeysuckle, but did they show their beaky little faces? Not until five minutes AFTER we had stopped recording our counts. I swear they did it deliberately.

Anyway, that's what we did today - did you?

A different kind of swap

2010-01-29T10:36:00.001Z

I have to be honest, I am questioning whether I can really call myself a blogger anymore, since I don't actually seem to be blogging at the moment. Hmmmm. But if I start to question why I blog, or whether I should just call it a day, meetings with lovely fellow bloggers usually do the trick to get me back in the groove again.

So it has been recently. Most of you know Emma from Silverpebble - lovely, clever, sparkly, silvery Emma. But did you also know she is a patient and enthusiastic teacher, and bakes a mean blueberry muffin? She had the marvellous idea recently of a skills swap - and over the last two Wednesdays we have made it happen, with just two 2 hour sessions. She has opened the door for me to the bewitching new world of silver artclay and enticed me in with encouraging words, lots of reassurance and just the right number of excited squeaks.

LOOK! I MADE THESE! ME!

I tried to be brave when Emma set them on fire, and stopped my bottom lip from quivering when she started scrubbing at them with a steel brush but lookie, lookie, they really are silver! I should warn you that if you've ever used polymer clay, or indeed Playdoh, you are going to find silver clay HORRIBLY beguiling. Bank managers beware.

She even showed me how to make figure eight loops for necklace closures - I've done a fair bit of jewellery making before but always with cheapo beads and tarnishing wire. Oh dear. I think I'm really in trouble now.

In return I helped Emma to set up her inherited sewing machine which, all praise the sewing gods, started up first time, had well behaved tension and more even stitching than mine often does. We threaded it, we wound bobbins, we had a few thready tangles but sorted them out - and it's good to see those horrible bobbin related knots early on and realise they're not terminal, right? We made a little calico bag, and will be moving on to more ambitious projects on both sides very soon, I hope! (And this us where I really lose the right to call myself a blogger, because do I have photos? No. Fortunately Emma does ...)

So, Emma's idea, and it really is a good one, is to encourage crafty bloggers - yes, that's you - to find people who you might like to swap a skill with. It doesn't have to be silver jewellery making, it could be how to make your trademark scones or cakes, how to plan a veggie garden or what to do to get spuds ready for planting, how to crochet a granny square, how to arrange flowers, anything! It only takes an hour or two, some refreshments - which don't need to be fancy or indeed home made - and you'll be in for some fab chatting and something lovely to take home at the end! And if you're really lucky, a cuddle with a couple of tiny Pebbles - though to be fair I can't guarantee they'll be able to attend every swap.

New Year, New Skills

2010-01-13T18:16:00.004Z

I don't really make resolutions, as I can never keep them; but I have felt the need to learn some new skills, or polish up some old ones.

The need to polish up my parallel parking was driven home this morning when I completely failed to manage it in a tiny space at the Blood Donor centre at Addenbrooke's. It didn't help that I was being hassled by a taxi and that driving around the hospital at 9.30 on a weekday feels a lot like punishment. Anyway, I retreated to quiet residential roads to try to find a space, but quickly passed an old lady lying on the pavement. She'd been pulled over by her enormous wheelie bin, and had scraped her face and cut her hand and couldn't get up. I did what I could to help, and she insisted she was fine and absolutely didn't want me to call a doctor, and wandered back inside. Maybe I should be glad I can't park - if I'd been in there bleeding into a bag the poor woman would have been lying out in the sleet for I don't know how long. Sobering stuff.

But I have learned a new skill or two. The first one was relighting the above fire from the warm remains of last night's fire, banked up with ash at 10pm and reignited with some newspaper at 11 this morning. Yay! My piano teacher claims she kept a fire going without relighting for two weeks from Christmas Eve, though I doubt I'll be rivalling that.

The other skill was that for the first time, I successfully altered a pattern to fit me - this involved moving seamlines, repositioning bust darts and changing the neckline, and is all thanks to Julia's inspirational patterning posts. In celebration I bought enough fabric to make three more tunics - now I just need to learn how to get on and clear time and space to make them!

Can we fix it? Ummmmm, no.

2009-12-23T09:51:00.007Z

So, yesterday we embarked on Operation Gingerbread House. We had our walls and roof pieces. We had half a ton of sweets. We had two little builders with clean hands. The one thing we didn't have was royal icing cement. Hmmmm. I nearly made real royal icing from scratch with eggwhites but I have to confess raw eggs still make me irrationally nervous so we decided to try extra thick glace icing instead.

At first it was all looking peachy - walls stood up, sweets stayed on, we made a little garden.

But hang on a minute, is that a sign of subsidence?

Not to worry, the roof may have slid gracefully down but the walls are still up and Bob the gingerbread builder reckons he can have it fixed in a jiffy. Assuming we don't eat it first.

The one advantage is that we just started to scoff it straight away rather than admiring it for a few days and starting to eat when it had already gone stale. Yum.

Right, I'm going to sign off and wish you all a hugely Happy and safe Christmas, but before I do, a few more things to tell you:

Laptops don't like being dropped, but it's amazing what a bit of Araldite and a handy husband can achieve.

Please make sure the memory card on your camera is working - we found out this week that ours has packed up, and while I'm very glad we realised before Christmas Day, I am peeved that we've lost all the photos from last weekend's snowy trip to the Teddy Train. It could be worse.

PLEASE be careful on the roads - around 9 last night we heard a huge crash and rushed outside to find a car had spun off on black ice and hit the telegraph pole 15 feet from our front door (and about 7 feet from our car). There were three terrified children inside, and a very shocked driver. Fortunately no-one was hurt, they had friends in the next village who came to fetch them, and the AA came to take the car away promptly. The reaction of all the neighbours was exactly what you'd hope to see - hot sweet tea was made, phones were provided, torches were waved and approaching traffic slowed down and turned away (I think I frightened one pair of lads as I approached them in my pyjamas and overcoat), the children were taken into warm houses and the car was moved off the road. The police said the corner was very dangerous and they gritted it - but why exactly did it have to take an accident and the police to do that rather than the council? OK, I'll stop ranting.

So, take care, keep warm, and see you on the other side!

Just-in-time quilting

2009-12-19T13:46:00.010Z

(Geekery) When I was working we ended up doing a lot of just-in-time design - coding what was needed to complete a task there and then and not worry so much about future requirements. It's a pretty scary concept but was underpinned by a lot of very carefully designed code so most of the time it worked out OK. (/Geekery)

Anyway, it seems I've carried this into my crafting life too - we had 3 inches of snow by yesterday morning and fortunately I had managed to finish stitching the binding onto our two new Christmas lap quilts earlier in the week - because when they came in from this my little snowbabies certainly needed them:

The green one is a simple nine-patch with a couple of maverick stars and a couple of sawtooth stars thrown in:

And the blue one is based on this pattern and features my first attempts at fussy cutting. I do love silly Christmas prints!

Keep warm!

Cheers!

2009-12-08T14:31:00.003Z

I don't generally have the storage space (or indeed the finances) to run to special Christmas crockery - a couple of very cheap plates for mince pies and otherwise it's down to candles decorations and homemade napkins for festive cheer. This year I did spot an idea here for etching glasses with snowflakes which really appealed to me. Only I couldn't get hold of etching cream in Cambridge so instead these are made using Pebeo glass frosting medium and some stickers from the local craft shop, applied inside a circle masked off with book covering film. The glasses are some very cheap Value ones (4 for 79p!) as I wasn't sure this would work so didn't want to wreck decent ones just in case. I applied a good thick coat of the medium and left it for the recommended 24 hours before peeling off the stickers. It dried gratifyingly matt and not too streaky, though I did need to neaten the edges slightly where the medium had leaked under my masking circle. Pebeo claim the frosting is dishwasher safe after drying and baking but I think I'll handwash these anyway!

Snow angel tutorial

2009-11-28T19:54:00.010Z

Ah, sorry to have teased you. This is what I've been working on - think of her as an early Christmas present from me to you and a thank you for reading. She's inspired by a little angel I saw on a Christmas tree in a local shop, and I couldn't resist her. Obviously, she's not a toy - if you make one please don't let tiny people get hold of her as she won't stand up to extended tugging.

If you do make one please post a picture and let me know so I can come to have a peep at your handiwork. I don't mind what you do with her: keep her for yourself, give her as a gift, make her to sell, but PLEASE don't pinch my pictures or instructions and use them as your own - that would not be in the Christmas spirit and would make me very sad.

OK, here we go - warning, there are lots of photos:

You will need:

* a piece of felt about 3" x 6" - I've used white but she'd be equally lovely in red or blue with white embellishment; or glitter felt, oooh!
* two pieces of stretchy plain fabric, each about 3" square- I used jersey but old T-shirt, or even tights would work too
* scraps of felt
* wool to match felt
* embroidery thread in eye, mouth and hair colours
* a small ball of stuffing, or bits of old tights
* a length of narrow ribbon for hanging, about 8" long
* needle and thread
* scissors
* knitting needles - whatever you have will do, as you'll see

First, make a template from paper:

Fold your felt in half, short ends together to make a 3" square. Pin and cut out the template - note where the template lines up with the fold! You'll end up with a piece like this:

Now cut out two little mitteny hands, which you will fold to make them double thickness - I don't use a template but fold the mitten felt in half and cut an appropriately sized paw, and then another:

Fold the hands in half as in the left hand example, and sew them around the edges with a tiny running stitch, as shown in the picture below.

Now is the time to embellish your angel's dress. You could applique a felt heart, as in the top photo, or embroider a snowflake, a heart, a mitten - whatever you like. Beads might be a pretty touch too:

Time to make the head. Stitch a circle around 2" in diameter in one of your pieces of stretchy fabric - I've used red here to show what I mean, but in reality I use thread to match the fabric.

Put the ball of stuffing in the middle and draw up the threads. Secure with extra stitches. If you can, gather most of the fabric to the back of the neck,

and leave the front as smooth as possible - this improves the end appearance. At this stage you could stitch a tiny gathered circle in the face to make a nose, but I generally don't.

Lay the second square of head fabric over, secure with a couple of stitches through the neck:

and then wrap the edges in and stitch them down, again trying to keep the front smooth and wrinkle free (if only skin care were really that easy). Wrap the thread a couple of times round the neck to tighten it all up:

The bulky straggly edges will help to give shape to the body, so leave them alone.

You now need to cut a neck hole. This needs to be only just large enough to insert the 'body' through, so go cautiously or you'll be darning up the neck hole afterwards. The easiest way is to fold the body in half at the shoulder seam, and then in half again, and then trim the tiniest sliver off at the corner you form:

You should end up with something like this:

Carefully feed the neck layers through, one at a time if necessary. Secure the head to the body by over stitching the edge of the dress to the base of the head - this isn't a toy so you don't need to go overboard.

Stitch the edges of the skirt together with a tiny running stitch.

Now, starting at the underarm seam, start to stitch round the arms, inserting the mittens as you get about halfway up the cuffs and letting your running stitches go through all 4 layers of felt. I actually then stitch back down over the mittens to secure them:

Hair next. Cut 6 strands of hair coloured embroidery floss, each about 8" long. Stitch them one by one to the head, starting at one ear, then over the top of the head, and finally out at the other ear. There's no need to tie them, but do pull all the strands so they're level and even on both sides of the head.

Now you need to plait them. This is the fiddliest part of the whole operation but I think it's my favourite feature in the finished angel. So take a deep breath and perhaps anchor her to your jeans with a pin before you start plaiting. Tie the ends of her plaits with thread, then trim them neatly. If you can tie a bow here I'll be green with envy. Take some time to make sure they more or less match up!

Embroider a face - or you could use fabric pens if you find that easier. You could use tiny French knots for the eyes as I've done here, or single stitches as in the heart-tummied angel at the top of the post. For the mouth you could do a single knot, or perhaps an "o" shape, or a single plain stitch, or catch the centre with a tiny stitch to make a little rosebud mouth. Attach your narrow ribbon, folded in half to make a hanging loop, to the top of her head.

The hat is made from a small piece of knitting. If you hate knitting you could also crochet, or even make it from felt, but I think the knitting looks good and it is about as simple as it gets.

You need to make a stocking stitched piece that's about 3" long by about 1.75" wide. I used bulky wool and 4mm needles, and that was 14 stitches by about 10 rows for me. You'll need to cast on what looks like a good number (stretch them out a bit and measure) then knit and purl a row or two and re-measure - you'll only be dealing with a few stitches so if your first attempt is the wrong size it won't take long to try again. Knit/purl in alternate rows to the desired length, then cast off and leave a long end for gathering. You'll note my piece is curly - and that's exactly how I want it:

Stitch the short edges together then fit the tube to her head, pushing the ribbon loop up through the middle and having the hat seam at the back. Secure to her head with little stitches and let the curly bottom edge curl up to be a sort of cuff. Use the remaining long end to gather the top edge with a running stitch, pull tight and secure the end.

And you're done! Phew! Well done if you got all the way to the end, and have fun. These take about an hour the first time but they get faster after that.

Rainbow goodness!

2009-11-27T16:17:00.003Z

I received my Rainbow Swap parcel all the way from sunny Australia a couple of weeks ago, but have been having a bit of an unplanned blogging break so this is the first time I've managed to get my camera and laptop and any light together to post about the gorgeous goodies sent from Calidore - there were sweeties too but they're long gone!

An array of fabulously colourful cloth and wool goodies - from gorgeous stitching on a little bag to a wonderfully warm scarf that's been doing sterling duty this week on the bitingly cold walk to and from school. I don't care what the thermometer says - the wind is making it flipping cold here!

I'll leave you with a teasing glimpse of something I'm hoping to make a tutorial for if I can get my camera to cooperate ...

Kitchen Poetry, Friday

2009-11-13T19:15:00.003Z

OK, so this is sort of cheating for my last Kitchen Poetry day. These aren't strictly speaking photos of my kitchen, but they were taken *near* my kitchen - there's been nowhere near enough light in there today to take a real kitchen based photo. One of Tall Small's spellings this week was kitchen - does that count?

These are the little things I made for Trashy's Rainbow swap; I'm fairly sure my swap partner isn't a regular reader and even if she is, she doesn't know I'm sending to her yet so I should be safe.

First of all a little bit of rainbowy-crystal necklace goodness, because who could resist such cheery sparkles?

And then a felty rainbow covered notebook that gave me such a lot of pleasure while I was making it. I know it's supposed to be bluebirds over rainbows, but my bluebirds looked more like dying ducks so I went with a butterfly instead.

I also included rainbow coloured thread, fabric, buttons and a mini stack of felty squares - hope it arrives safely and that she likes it!

Kitchen Poetry, Thursday

2009-11-12T23:49:00.002Z

This is a tiny little tin that I have hanging from one of my cabinets, and it was given to me by Emma from Silverpebble, maker of fabulous jewels and scourer of vintage fairs par excellence. I love it, it cheers me up hugely - as does Emma :-) I'm lucky enough to live close to her and get to go bead shopping and tea drinking and giggling and gossiping; the next best thing is reading her blog, and if you haven't, you should!

Kitchen Poetry, Wednesday

2009-11-11T18:46:00.004Z

There was an interesting post over at A Commonplace Life recently dealing with the idea that maybe in blogging we should try to reflect real life rather than always editing out the messy bits and cropping the untidy corners out of our photos. While I can sympathise with the frustration induced by viewing other people's seemingly perfect houses and immaculate children and endless talents, I'm not going to post pictures of the six empty milk cartons waiting to be recycled into the school swimming pool (dump in a handful of gravel and put them in the water and they theoretically prevent it freezing over in winter). Likewise you don't need to see the three sacks of logs waiting in my kitchen because I haven't yet stacked them and there's no room in the shed and I don't want them to be rained on overnight.

But I am happy to share with you this evidence of my hopelessness:

This is our weather tree. A lovely idea stolen from some inspirational parenting blog that I cannot now recall, the idea is to colour in a leaf each day to represent the prevailing weather - blue for rain, gold for sun and so on.

Well, daily colouring went by the by after about a three days, and we finally gave up even the weekly 'catch up' colouring sessions by February. We made a brief attempt to restart in April, but since then, nothing. And have I taken the wretched thing down? No, it's still there, reproaching me daily for being both a forgetful parent and a lazy housekeeper. Humph.

Oh well. Hope that makes you feel better!

Kitchen Poetry, Tuesday

2009-11-10T14:28:00.003Z

So, having showed off our (not very shiny) coffee machine yesterday, I thought I should come clean and reveal what I really drink most of the time. I used to have a serious Lady Grey habit - a couple of pots per day, easily, plus frequent cups of coffee = a lot of caffeine. I've given up caffeine many times in the past - when I was pregnant, when I had just had the babies, and when I realised that if I missed my morning coffee I had the most appalling withdrawal headaches that it made me wonder whether it was such a good thing to be drinking so much.

The thing that triggered me this time was a friend whose sister is a nurse telling me about a patient who had such seriously high blood pressure he was about to be medicated, but was given one last chance. "Try giving up caffeine for a couple of weeks and see what happens," suggested the doctor. So, he tried, and lo and behold his blood pressure came back down to normal. Now, obviously this is second or third hand, and we don't know how much coffee he had previously been drinking, whether he had to gave up chocolate too (unthinkable) or even whether he actually existed, but it did make me stop and think about what I was drinking all day, every day.

Anyone who tries to tell you that Redbush tea tastes just like "real" tea is telling a big fib - there's a very definite and distinctive edge to it; but I have got used to it and now I rather like it. Don't worry though, there's still normal tea in the cupboard for visitors!

Kitchen Poetry, Monday

2009-11-09T18:58:00.003Z

Last autumn, I took part in Kitchen Poetry and was surprised at how many things I could find to photograph in my kitchen. This year, it's being hosted by the lovely Mrs Fancy Elastic and I decided to join in again. A week of daily posting is going to leave me very short of words so please forgive me when I post dimly lit wobble shots and not much else!

This first one is our beloved coffee machine. It's older than either of my children, and has been bunged up with scale and cleaned out more times than I can recall, but it's still going strong. These days it's used mainly at weekends or when people come over, though the Smalls have discovered the joys of cocoa made with steamed milk so it may yet find it has a rather active old age!

There's still time to join in if you feel up to sharing photos of your own kitchen and what goes on therein ...

Inevitability

2009-11-03T16:10:00.003Z

It was always going to happen. As soon as I'd made one little felt house picture my mental wheels started churning and I realised I needed to make my own design.

Not terribly original - mushroomy elf and mouse houses abound in blogland and beyond - but I am pleased to have conjured this out of my head and rendered it in felt and thread.

Now I need to try to translate some of the other silly images I have into reality. I have some outrageously glittery felt that is screaming out for festive treatment ...

Behind the curve, as usual

2009-11-01T07:15:00.004Z

I hope all that observe it had a lovely Halloween. We went a bit Martha Stewart this year and carved haunted houses instead of scary faces. It always ends up that the children draw their desired patterns on the pumpkins and I end up scooping out the pumpkin guts and wielding a not quite sharp enough knife while they wander off, distracted by shiny things. We even had our own pumpkins ready to carve but in the end they were just a teeny bit small so they'll end up as pie one day this week.

We went to a huge party with my sister and her family, and bagged quite a lot of sweeties, but not so many that Tiny Small couldn't scoff them all while my back was turned. Little monkey. She didn't give me a single one!

Playing with power tools

2009-10-17T15:24:00.001Z

For the last year autumn or two, the Smalls have been busy trying to attract wildlife to our garden. We've had toad houses, insecty log piles, stacks of leaves, bamboo canes bundled up for overwintering creepy crawlies, a tiny washing up bowl sized pond for froggies and water bugs, and bird feeders galore. They even tried to make a hedgehog house from an old teabag box - not surprisingly, there were no takers.

We know we have had hoggy visitors in the past - we've seen them late at night trundling about and have fed them, so when I dismantled and old set of bookshelves we decided it was time to make them a proper house and see whether we could entice anyone to overwinter with us. We found a plan on the Gardeners World website, and Mr DC set to with the Smalls.

Much excitement was had with the electric drill (once we had recharged it - why are they ALWAYS out of power when you need them?) and after a couple of hours they produced a stunning yellow abode. I realise the hosepipe makes it look like something out of Dr Who, but it's actually for ventilation - the last thing we want is suffocated hedgehogs come spring!

The girls have been checking it regularly for inhabitants (it's not properly in place so no chance of them disturbing anyone yet) and were excited to find that someone had moved in:

Our visitor was knitted from Julie's adorable pattern, and took less than an hour. We hope his real life cousins will enjoy their new house too - and repay us by eating all our slugs in the spring!

This post is for Julie, who not only designed the cutie hedgehog pattern, but also inspired us to try to attract some spiky friends by her adventures with Herbert Hogwart a year or two ago.

Another year older

2009-10-14T15:14:00.003Z

Tiny Small turned 5 last weekend. It seems hardly possible that my little baby is now a schoolgirl; a smaller, feistier version of her big sister; a handstanding, cartwheeling bundle of energy. But she is!

She was very specific about the entire menu for her birthday (that's my girl) - a breakfast of pains au chocolat, ham sandwiches for lunch and roast chicken with all the trimmings for her special birthday tea. The chicken gave me a scary moment when I was checking it with a meat thermometer and it spat hot fat RIGHT IN MY EYE. I feared we'd end the day in A&E but I had a lucky escape (though I did leave the rest of the serving to Mr DC and cowered in a corner watching the Incredibles with the Smalls). Fortunately I had already made the birthday cake - a special request for a huge pile of brownies studded with birthday candles and set blazingly alight. And I even managed not to set fire to anyone's hair.

Here's to the next year!

Planning next year's veggies

2009-10-13T15:02:00.003Z

We've had a good first summer on our very own allotment, so when Julia suggested her Seed Swap I though it would be good fun to join in. I duly packaged up seeds and sent them off to her (you can see what I sent here), and she sent to me a HUGE selection of seeds, gorgeously packaged and even with their own little seed pouch - how cute is that?

I wish I had such neat writing, and such lovely painting skills, but I don't, so I shall content myself with growing and eating Julia's seeds next season, and looking forward to joining in the swap again in a year's time!

Cross eyed in Croyde

2009-09-25T15:24:00.003Z

In the long distant past when my eyes were sharper and I could stay awake past 9pm, I belonged to a group of enthusiastic bead stitchers in Saratoga Springs. One of the ladies taught us brick stitch and peyote stitch and we made mad earrings and purses and daisy chain anklets from the tiniest seed beads we could fit on our needles. I still have boxes of minute beads squirrelled away - I can't bear to part with them even though my beading tastes have moved somewhat since then.

Then last summer I picked up a kit for making a beaded spiral bracelet, being sold to raise money for two schools in Zimbabwe. It sounded like a wonderful cause and the bracelet was rather enticing; but I foolishly tried to start the pattern after a restorative G&T and couldn't make any sense of it, so it languished in my knitting bag for an entire year. Then while we were away this summer, I tried again and it flew off my needle and onto my arm:

It makes me think of DNA - there's a double helix in there and although strictly speaking the bases are on the wrong side, I still find it appeals to the geek in me! The beading group have produced an entire book of fundraising designs - the Minerva Spirals book. I am tempted to have a go at this one next but going on past performance don't expect to see it before next summer!

Say it with flowers

2009-09-21T08:25:00.004Z

I'm sure many, many of you saw the tutorial for the Little Pink House picture on Sew Mama Sew recently. I don't know how many of you, like me, squealed with joy and went to ransack the craft drawers for felt and embroidery hoops. And then sat stitching happily in front of The King And I. And then got out of bed at 6.30am ON A SUNDAY in order to stitch some more (no, wait, that was probably just me).

Well, this is what I made.

So, my stitching is a bit wonky, and my photography isn't the best, but I love it. I love it so much I want to cover the walls of my house with felt houses. In fact let's be honest, I want to LIVE in a felt house.

The design is by the supremely talented Melissa at Checkout Girl - go and look but be careful, you'll end up spending your housekeeping money on felt. Speaking of which, I'm off to see Sarah to order some more colours!

Hanging on to summer

2009-09-19T05:57:00.009Z

One of the books from my childhood that has left the deepest impression is 'Miss Happiness and Miss Flower' by Rumer Godden. I read and reread it on damp chilly autumnal evenings, and remember being enchanted by descriptions of tiny Japanese dolls, how to make a house for them, sewing miniature futons, creating a tiny weeny living garden. How I longed to have an elegant dolly home with sliding paper doors, and how my own two little girls would now love to have the same.

Well, tiny Japanese houses may not be on the agenda, but we have found out how to make the tiny paper flowers Nona has for the pond in her Japanese garden, that unfold when you put them in water; and more than that, we know how they work too. Yes, it's the return of kiddie science!

Left to right, top to bottom:
1. Take a square of pretty paper
2. Fold it in half with the pretty side in
3. With the fold at the bottom, bring the bottom right corner up and across to make a squashed diamond shape - you don't need to be absolutely accurate here!
4. Bring the bottom left corner up too.
5. Keeping the bottom point towards you, draw a petal shape but make sure you don;t cut through the point!
6.Cut your petal.
7. Unfold the flower and admire your dexterity.
8. Start folding the petals over, bringing each petal tip to the centre of the flower.
9. Tada!

Now you're ready to drop the flower into water and ooh and aah. And make some more, and spend the rest of the day clearing up bits of soggy paper.

The science is pretty simple - as the paper absorbs water the fibres that make it up expand and force the petals open. But simple explanations notwithstanding, these were a lot of fun.

The inspiration for this comes from Usborne's Big Book of Science Things to Make and Do, but we branched out from their four petalled flowers. We experimented a lot with various folding patterns, putting one flower inside another, rolling the petals instead of folding them, refolding soggy flowers. Both girls took extra flowers to school for Show & Tell, apparently with great success.

Summer sewing

2009-09-08T07:00:00.008Z

I start every summer with great intentions of making dress and shirts and tops for myself and my two little ones - I'd offer to sew for Mr DC but I don't think he'd go for flowery frocks - and most summers I fail miserably.

This year was different - each girl has had simple handsewn dresses galore, with low cost cotton prints from our local travelling fabric sale.

I wish I could get away with flowers like these!

This is adapted from New Look 6478 - very easy, and works in cotton
rather than the recommended jersey if you extend the back
slit and add an extra button.

I particularly covet this one - it's embroidered sequinned linen and it sparkles in the sunshine. It also creases like you wouldn't believe but it's worth the ironing.

This one (which is tiny yellow rosebuds though you can't see them here) even works over jodhpurs when you're having your first ever ride on someone else's pony...

Adapted from Simplicity 4206 - originally a peasant style top.

Dotty's Lottie

2009-09-06T07:00:00.003Z

Earlier this year we took over a new allotment - long time readers might remember I had a part share in a plot last year, and when the chance of a new plot of our very own came up in February, we jumped at it. This is what it looked like:

Gulp.

The first three months flew by on a hectic schedule of arranging ploughing (a great luxury, but it was an absolute disaster area), building rabbit fencing, covering designated growing areas with weed suppressing fabric till we can tackle them, making a big compost bin and digging. So much digging.

Finally we were ready to plant more potatoes than we can eat in this lifetime, beans of all varieties, sweetcorn, various berries, butternut squash, pumpkins ...Now it looks more like this:

And my pride and joy? The reason I craved an allotment in the first place? My very own cutting patch - I only planted up one of the planned four beds this year but it is hugely productive right now:

Sarah Raven, eat your heart out.

Taking my mind off it

2009-09-04T15:53:00.011Z

Well, it's official, I'm no longer the mother of pre-school children. Tiny Small started at the village primary yesterday and the combination of that with Tall Small going into KS2 has left me feeling like I've gone through an emotional mangle. Anyway, they're having a lovely time, which is of course the main thing, and I have managed so far only to fall apart when they're not in the room. I must be learning self control in my old age. Well, apart from the chocolate - for therapeutic purposes, you understand.

So as a distraction I have been looking back through photos of our holiday this summer. We spent two weeks in a little cottage in Croyde, famous for its surf and its pubs - both of which we fully enjoyed. One weekend we saw James Cracknell on the beach teaching his son to bodyboard, just the same as we were, though I think he looked rather more glamorous in his wetsuit than I did in mine.

There was plenty of rockpooling action:

Quite a bit of seagull chasing:

Sliding down sand-dunes - rather her than me; and yes, she did complain about the sand getting everywhere!

One afternoon we ventured away from the beach and headed for a walk along the cliffs above the bay. I think this photo was taken just after the point where our collective vertigo kicked in - the cliff path is the brown band about 30 feet down the hill from where we were standing, and we had taken the higher alternative just as soon as we could ...

There's nothing quite like sea air to make you sleep well and give you an appetite - which probably explains why my clothes felt tighter at the end of the holiday!

Is anyone there?

2009-08-31T17:39:00.004Z

So, August is all but over and for all the Cookies it was a month full of sun and sea and holidays. Lovely stuff, exactly what we all needed. Early on we visited the Weald and Downland Open Air museum near Chichester, a glorious expanse of green fields with very old houses rebuilt in sympathetic surroundings. You can wander into a medieval market place, take a spin around a maypole, sit in a Victorian schoolhouse and poke around railway workers' tiny cottages.

And if you still have the energy you may be lucky enough to stumble upon someone running an Iron Age cookery course, building fires and making string from stinging nettle stems.

One of the highlights for me was the gorgeous gardens recreated outside many of the cottages - herbs culinary and medicinal, vegetable plots, chickens, and designs that wouldn't look out of place in lifestyle magazines these days.

I visited this museum many, MANY years ago on a primary school trip, and my clearest memory is of this structure jutting out from a very old building:

Can you guess what it is? Apparently it's the one thing most adults remember from their childhood trips to the museum, which might give you a clue ...

No?

Well, if you go inside the 15th century farmhouse, past the richly adorned dining hall and up the stairs to the main bedroom, you'll find a cunning little doorway concealing a garderobe - in other words a bench with a hole in that sticks out over the edge of the house and acts as a primitive toilet. Well, primitive by our standards but we're assured it was the height of sophistication at the time!

Is it wrong to be amused that the privy expert quoted in Wikipedia is called Dr Bottomley?

It's August, so it must be raining

2009-08-04T10:06:00.002Z

The heating on the village pool is kaput, all our playmates seem to be on holiday, so what are we to do to entertain ourselves?

Chocolate day, of course! There are endless hours of fun to be had with two small children and a chocolate themed day.

You can study the frequency of different colours in a single tube of Smarties - and build an edible histogram.

You can use a small bar of chocolate to think about addition, subtraction, fractions ... it's amazing how quickly a child can get the hang of "Which one is larger - a half or a quarter bar?" when they can eat the results.

You can build houses.

And of course, you can revisit classic literature - the biggest treat of all.

And given that I'm meant to be on Michaela's healthy eating plan, I was terrifically restrained and ate only one Smartie and one chocolate button during the entire process. Excuse me while I head off to polish my halo (and conveniently ignore how much cake I inhaled the following day).

A proud moment

2009-08-02T14:01:00.000Z

Please indulge me while I brag a little bit about the very talented Mr DC . Not only is he funny, wise, hardworking and the best husband and daddy our little family could hope for, he's also a rather fine singer. Proof of this (if any were needed) came last week when he joined a combined choir from various Cambridge colleges to perform at the Albert Hall in a Prom celebrating 800 years of Cambridge University.

Sadly the only photos are copyright (and I am not going up against the University or the BBC to snag one!) but you can see the best one here. He's there, fifth from the right in the front row of the choir, looking extremely tall and smart - though admittedly you need a magnifying glass to see him. I wish we could have been there - truly a once in a lifetime opportunity and we are very, very proud of him!

School's out

2009-08-01T10:25:00.004Z

Yes, OK, I know we broke up two weeks ago but as we know, life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it (bonus points and virtual cookies for anyone old enough to place that quote).

The last few days before the end of term were a flurry of teacher present making and biscuit baking. Here is the latest incarnation of dottycookies - little shortbread flowers and stars with a single Smartie stuck on with royal icing. Small enough to not feel guilty about sending them in as a last-day-of-school class snack, and yummy enough to feel like a treat.

I decided to make sunglass cases for the teachers (I KNOW!!! The July monsoons are all my fault!) as they always need them when they're teaching our little dolphins to swim in the outdoor pool. I ordered the scrumptious fabric from Julia at Gone to Earth, and would highly recommend you visit too - her selection is glorious, her prices are very good and the goodies arrive very quickly and so beautifully folded you hardly want to undo them! These are very basic zip pouches but long and narrow, and I used some of Julia's lovely fusible fleece to give them a bit of body.

I also made bracelets, because I can never resist doing that.

Tall Small made her own presents, and this is something we did for Father's Day too - a stack of post-its with her drawings on the edges and a little message written on the top one. The teachers are always having their post-its pinched (usually by me when I go in to sort out games for maths homework) and this way at least they can identify the offender!

PS Does anyone know why some comments end up needing moderation? I haven't asked blogger for that option and it means every so often I find a few lurking that I wasn't even aware had been posted! Apologies if your comments seem to have been lost in the ether as a result ...

Stop! Thief!

2009-06-28T10:49:00.004Z

OK, 'fess up - who stole June? Because otherwise I can't form any sensible reason for not having written in *three weeks*. I think it's an inevitable part of this time of year - school and social activities seem to be speeding up rather than winding down and one day soon we're going to have overdone it all so much that we just collapse in a soggy little heap on the living room carpet. Which desperately needs cleaning. Oh well. I'll add that to the list then.

June is always busy for us; there have been two birthdays - mine and (moving swiftly on) Tall Small's. This year her birthday fell on a Friday which meant that by the time we had had the day itself, and her party on Sunday, it ended up being a birthweekend - which is as it should be when you're turning 7.

Seven? Those tiny time thieves have been at it again.

Still, it was a good excuse for bracelet making:

partybox creating:

(we watched Beverley Hills Chihuahua, and the (recyclable!) boxes were filled with iced flower biscuit lollies, headbands from Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing, and homemade matching hair bobbles - one button covering kit plus some cheapo Boots hair elastics.)

And, of course, cake scoffing:

I was really pleased with the way this turned out - it's Nigella's custard birthday cake with unadulterated Belgian chocolate on the top, and those lollies are inspired by Bakerella but made with this recipe. Glitter and coloured flame candles, naturally. Yuuuuuum.

Bzzzzzzzzz!

2009-06-05T21:14:00.006Z

I saw something today which at first terrified and then delighted me - a swarm of bees outside my house. Imagine hundreds (thousands?)of buzzing honeybees, loud enough to make themselves heard through the double glazing, and landing all over the windows. Fortunately my neighbour is an ex-beekeeper so she explained to Tiny Small and myself what was happening and we watched as the bees started to cluster together ready to fly off to a new home. By the time we returned from collecting Tall Small from school, there were only a handful of sadly deserted bees bumbling around and we started to wonder whether we had imagined it all.

Sadly I didn't think to grab the camera, so instead here's a picture of a bag I was commissioned to make recently. It's a keepsake satchel, and apparently the little chap it was for liked it nearly as much as his mum did!

'Tis the season

2009-05-30T10:10:00.005Z

Strawberry picking season, that is.

Yes, it's still a bit early but the sun and rain seem to have brought the crop on, on the South Coast at least. We smothered our pale skins in suncream yesterday and headed here along with hordes of other people, to gather more strawberries than we could eat. (And believe me, Tall Small and I can eat a LOT of strawberries.)

I remember picking strawberries when I was little - it's the first time the girls have been but they soon caught on, and were very selective about which fruits they put in their punnets. There's nothing like eating strawberries you've picked yourself, especially if they're still warm from the sun. On the allotment we've set up a little seating area right next to the strawberries and raspberries so we can do just that. Yum.

See what I mean about early season? A profusion of green berries, carrying the promise of a delicious summer harvest, but still we managed to collect more than enough for our tea.

Roll on summer - though now I'm thinking I need to net my own crop sharpish!!

Humble pie

2009-05-17T20:39:00.002Z

For years I've protested that I cannot stand rhubarb. I've tried (and failed) to eradicate it from more than one vegetable plot I've had. I've listed it alongside offal as the two things I won't eat when invited to dinner.

But, I'm willing to admit I was wrong. Oh so wrong.

Gina nearly won me over with cherry and rhubarb jam last year (who can resist toast and jam?), but the thing that's really done it for me is this cake - not pretty, but delicious.

It's a Nigella Domestic Goddess creation (of course), containing polenta and scary amounts of sugar, and made with a gift of rhubarb that I couldn't bring myself to throw away. Perhaps that's why the rhubarb lost its weird tasting edge and became just a lovely tartness. Mmmmmm.

Lots of rain this week, which is lovely for weeds and rhubarb alike. And alchemilla is just made for raindrops ...

Explosion in a lilac factory

2009-05-09T17:21:00.002Z

I have something of a love-hate relationship with our wisteria. It drops a frustratingly large volume of leaves on our little garden, it regularly breaks its restraining wires and it requires Mr DC to scale tall ladders for the twice yearly pruning.

But then, for 2 weeks every year it looks like this, and I am forced to forgive it all over again.

Can you smell it? One year a late frost destroyed all the flower buds - a very sad May indeed!

Busted!

2009-05-02T19:09:00.001Z

6.30 pm

Messy kitchen.

Small child caught red handed on Mr DC's mobile phone.