Snore

"All was quiet on the farm"*

For the past few weeks I have been monopolising one of the small tables in our living room, much to the disgust of my family especially as on some days I spread out onto the sofa too.  The monopoly has been caused by some small knitted creations which I was picking up and working on each time I had a few spare minutes.  Knitting rows and then occasionally unpicking them as some of the creations had no pattern to work from.

"Cat was asleep, Dog was asleep, Cow was asleep"

How I would love to have my own dedicated crafting space, where I could leave my works in progress out and return to them in the knowledge that they will not have been strewn around the place.  If I am not monopolising the table then it is the back of a chair in the same room which sometimes has sewing in progress draped over the back of it, it has the perfect back for draping.  Once I have gone to the effort of ironing and cutting out material I don't want to fold it up and put it away, I will forget about it then and have to re-iron it, so it sits as a reminder that it needs attention and often gets knocked on the floor.

"Sheep was asleep. Pig was asleep, and so were all the Piglets"

Those small creations came about as a result of a conversation I had with my sister in law, some time ago, about presents.  She and my brother have four children all born in a four week period, my own daughter has a birthday during that time too, if I am to get presents sorted for them all in time I have to start early!  With two older siblings and mum being a childminder it is really hard to know what to give the youngest two (twins) as they have so many things in their house already.  Somehow that conversation got onto story sacks.

It was all so peaceful - till.... snore! and Cat woke up.  Cow woke up.

I had just the book in mind, one that I had long thought about turning into such a project.  One of my own children's favourite books when they were younger, Snore by Michael Rosen.  A very simple story of a snoring dog who has woken all the other animals on the farm, they would like to get back to sleep if they can just stop him snoring..........

"Sheep woke up. Pig woke up, and so did all the Piglets"

I needed a dog, a cat, a cow, a sheep, a pig, some piglets and a rooster.  I thought about sewing them with felt but they needed to be robust and I wasn't sure I could achieve that.  My twin nephews will be two next month and, as a childminder, mum wants to use it with her minded children when they have outgrown it.  It needed to last, I thought knitting them would make the animals stronger.  I had patterns for most of the animals some of which I had made before, the others I had to make up with varying amounts of success.

I have whipped up a bag for the animals, to keep them all together, and another bag to store everything in.  I have added a second book to this sack, a story written by a local author about bedtime.  I hope it gets lots of use!

Oh and the rooster?  He was my favourite to make, he, naturally, wakes the dog up!

Now my family can have the table back, until the next project that is............

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*All text in italics is taken from the book, Snore by Michael Rosen