Creativity has continued, but slowed since those first weeks. Parenting, exercising and working have taken a front seat more often than not. Still, we’ve been busy, individually and collectively.
Baking has definitely continued to be a major part of life, both pragmatically and for culinary delight. Bread a couple of times a week means some form of cinnamon roll, or pesto roll or pizza alongside the bread. Various cakes for birthdays and just because…
No knitting or crochet, though the yarn keeps peeking at me, especially when we rearranged all the furniture the other day which involved unpacking and reorganising all the fabric and yarn stash…
Lots of ‘art’ with chalks and stamps and paints. We’ve even lured the Tall one into our creativity…sometimes protesting gently that he’ll just sit and watch, but almost always unable to resist the temptation to get involved. Just today we’ve tried out making some white clay to imprint flowers.
Sewing though, little bits here and there and a pair of cobbled together dungarees – no printer = no pattern. They work though, and I know what I’ll change for next time. There’ll be a next time!
All links to any recipes or instructions or patterns at the end of the post.
Baking fun – continuing with Jamie Oliver’s easy bread recipe, making it up as I go along for the variations. Small one asked for a bread snail, so we have a snail, this week a turtle and a hedgehog (no image). Experimented with cinnamon rolls in a muffin tin, latest is smaller ones into a 20cm sponge tin – works brilliantly! Definitely best with some lemon drizzle icing … yum! We’ve made flatbreads regularly (also a Jamie recipe) and also made sopapillas (CBeebies My World Kitchen is a great programme).
Small one thought Granny would like virtual strawberry cakes for her birthday. Experimenting with beetroot and chocolate cake (no eggs) recipe. Discovered “fork” biscuit recipe which we’ve done as standard, chocolate, salted chocolate and almond/coconut sugar (really caramel tasting!). A fling together, make it up as you go along apple cake – dense as a dense thing, it won’t be repeated 🤣. Another no egg biscuit recipe yesterday, cut out with rabbit shapes, why not? And decorated with lemon icing. Not my finest decorative moment 😆 Virtual birthday cakes no. 2 for Small one’s best friend’s birthday – small one thought bestie would like chocolate icing best… Then finally her own birthday bake, one I am inordinately proud of for the icing – I’ve never managed to do such a job before. She asked for chocolate and strawberries, so that’s what she got! After I had to dash to the neighbours to nab some cocoa powder when I realised there was only 25g left in our cupboard 🤦🏼♀️. Small one was pleased. 😍
Paper based creativity – making a paper rainbow for granny, Small one practicing her writing. Paper tape crafts – birthday cards for friends and relatives. More binoculars which you can see at the end are now on version 2.0. We’ve had some happy hours of colouring together. Using stamps to be creative (Tall one did some too!). Small one was given paint sticks for her birthday last week – like a small tube of lip balm but solid paint, dries really quickly, limited mess! She’s made all her thank you notes using them.
There’s been a lot of stitching these past weeks…starting with a no-stitch project. Turning a donated chunk of jersey into an infinity scarf and headband for the Small one. We’ve made a set of feather head dresses (from a delightful book called Sew Adorable – just beautiful and vintage inspired makes for age 1-4. Six bean bags from some upcycled linen (didn’t end up cooking those dried canellini beans which were going to help bridge the gaps between food deliveries 🤣). Whipped up some bunting to jolly the house for VE Day – Small one made her own from the off-cuts and was very proud. They are now adorning the garden shed! Then some birthday makes, the aforementioned dungarees from this ace book – Wild Things to Make. I enjoyed the challenge of trying to work out how to design the pattern based on viewing the unprintable PDFs…and finally some birthday crowns to wear on the day. Small one enjoyed hanging out and observing, making her own ‘patterns’ and ‘cutting’ her ‘fabric’ ❤️
Finally finding some chalk has enabled some outside art…all the neighbourhood children joining in on VE Day and our own little doodles (including Tall one’s contributions) on the driveway and in the back garden. An attempt at two different giant bubble recipes…heart shape biscuit cutters make excellent bubble blowers! Small one enjoys taking pictures with both her toy camera and with our phones, some of them are even pretty great! Today we tried making white bicarbonate of soda and cornflour clay, tomorrow we’ll try painting it. It’s very delicate, so next time we’re going to do standard salt dough I think. We enjoyed collecting some delicate flowers and leaves on the morning walk and from the garden to use.
I’m sure I’ve forgotten something along the way, but if I have the spirit of it is here in this collection. I’m loving that Small one talks about ‘doing craft’ and that she wants to do her own sewing and knitting. Our favoured quiet time activity is watching the Sewing Bee or Bake-Off. She just doesn’t understand why someone always has to go home…
Things are changing up again, within the next two weeks we will, perhaps, know how soon we will both be back to work and pre-Covid life…mixed feelings about this as I for one have finally settled into a happy groove of working, family adventuring and creating. Just being…
Made a dress. In the new creative space. ‘Twas brilliant to do so. The fabric for this came from Spain I think in the seventies, raided from my Mum’s stash a while ago. Until now I couldn’t work out what to do with it, as it’s a 46″ repeat. I like the basic idea, but at the moment it swamps me, thereby looking something like a nightie, due to expanse and length.
Thinking about shortening it somehow, but in order to do so successfully I’d have to redo the whole neckline as the lift would have to come from the top. Alternatively I played around with a belt and quite liked it, so thinking of adding a drawstring which would give it a waist, raise the hemline and make the top half nice and generous…
Another slow attack on the project this evening – I had to unstitch and re-stitch the sleeve, decided to put it in ‘flat’ and then stitch up the side and across the sleeve seam. Success! So I’ve unpicked the other seam ready to fit the sleeve – tomorrow.
Fitted one of the sleeves today, but requires a little gathering, done a rough pleating at the moment, another thing needs leaving a little to see what I think or find alternative solution.
Trying to work out how to do the neckline and the placket today. Managed the neckline (though it’s not sitting smoothly, hoping that will fix itself when I add the placket opening) and had a play with how to cut the placket. I’ve left that part until tomorrow as I always think it’s best to allow the solution to percolate a little 🙂 I’m hoping I’ll have time to fetch the extra fabric for the sleeves tomorrow, though it may need to wait until Tuesday…
I’ve realised recently how few lightweight summer tops I own, and how much lovely fabric I’ve seen…so today’s adventure has been to attempt to recreate this…
Using this…
Found a useful sheet of tissue paper for drafting…
I’ve made it as far as this…sleeves are going to have to wait, as I didn’t buy enough fabric!
A top for niece no. 3, maybe not to wear with the trousers, but have enough left to make a t-shirt inspired by this one from the Purlbee. Whilst this one is designed for 3-5 year olds, turns out niece no. 3 isn’t all that much bigger than a tall 5 year old! (She’s going to be 9!)
Look like a couple of rectangles? It’ll be the t-shirt, honest 🙂
Freehanding the neckline.
Here’s how it works, back shoulders wrapped over the front…
It should come out as a pretty boat neck. It’ll need some sleeves and bias tape though…
Cut the legs and waistband, but can’t decide what to do about pockets or a top…There’s enough fabric left just about to make niece no. 3 a top to go with her trousers, but of course there should be pockets on the trousers! They’re going to be her adventure trousers, so maybe I’ll find some contrast fabric for the pockets, I think she’d like that. Thought I better give it some time before deciding…
Getting very ahead of myself here, niece no. 3 has a birthday in about 6 weeks, but the plan and the fabric have been around for several months already! I realised that with sizes available on this pattern from age 8 – 16 I would be unwise to cut out just the one. This brought a moment or three of wondering how to get around it, until I remembered how easily a sharpie marker pen sinks through pattern tissue…so I’ll be tracing each piece on to newspaper! The legs are done, just a few pieces to go!
She’s quite the outdoors girl, likes nothing better than clambering in trees, so a pair of trousers with elastic at the ankles and plenty of pockets for stashing exciting finds seemed appropriate. If there’s enough fabric I may indulge the top too. Somewhere I’ve seen a pattern for a ‘tool’ belt of pockets and spaces to store things, may have to look that up too 🙂
acknowledging the importance of creativity in my daily life
