Bags of Busyness

March is almost over, gone in a whirl of busyness, a good happy kind of busyness, it has felt shorter than February!  I thought, when I sat down to write this post that I had not done much creating and making this month, but as the list grew I realised there was plenty, it has been all about small projects.

My jumper has grown and I hope will be finished soon, after my last project I knitted for myself ended in failure I have been trying this on regularly to ensure it fits!  It is cool enough here to wear wool knits all year round and I chose this colour with that in mind, it will go with both my summer and winter wardrobes.  Just a few more rounds on this sleeve and the neck and hopefully a ta da moment soon.

I wanted to make 2016 the year I sewed something that I could wear, I have been talking about wanting to for the last couple of years.  I don't have a dedicated space for sewing, I am a nomad using which ever space is best for each project.  There is a lot of effort involved in getting everything out and putting it away, which I have to do each time I want to sew.  It has hindered larger projects as I always want to start and finish in one go.  I have made peace with the fact that that isn't going to happen and learnt to break down projects into bite sized chunks, the issue then is where to store the work in progress.  This is only the second time I have bought and followed a pattern, I usually just make up my own.  It is not quite finished yet, I just need to make some bias tape to go round the armholes.  I say just I have never made it myself before, I couldn't find any that matched.

I am entering birthday season here which is why I thought I had made little progress on projects.  Between the end of April and mid June we have 15 birthdays amongst family and friends for most of these I send a present. In the past I have tried to make them all but to give myself enough time I have to start in January which meant that with the Christmas makes I was spending nearly all year making presents a rather ridiculous state of affairs.  I make what I can sewing, rather than knitting, as that tends to be quicker.  I try and have a theme, so that they are all fairly similar which saves on thinking time!  This year it is all about games in bags.  I will reveal the contents of the grey bag at the top in a separate post, these colourful bags are for my twin nephews, a bag of beanbags, I shall be making two more this month for a friends children and one other for a June birthday.

We haven't marked Easter in our house before, inspired by my Advent project, I have started to build a project for us to do each year, stories, crafts, songs and poems.  We have been making use of our crafternoon time each week to make some small pieces for our seasonal table.  We now have two hares, a knitted chick and some decorated eggs hanging from the plant that also sits on the table, they have joined Mother Earth and her root children (who are replaced with flower fairies as they come into season), a snowdrop fairy and a sheep with her lamb.  I have wanted to decorate eggs for a number of years, I tried blowing eggs with disastrous results, the shells just kept breaking.  Then I chanced upon a new, to me, blog with the perfect answer, decorating polystyrene eggs with fabric, I have lots of scraps of fabric!  We wanted to hang ours up so I threaded a loop of cotton through the last piece of fabric we glued on.  These will keep for years to come, I hope!

My socks are still as they were last month and the balls of yarn are waiting in a bag, they will get some attention once the birthday season making is over, it is Alice's presents on the top of the list now.

Joining Jennifer for the last Winter Linky Party of the season.

Shrinking and Growing

You see those small balls of yarn.  I would love to tell you they are from my stash, the leftovers from projects but they're not.  They are from a project (shared here) that I thought was nearly finished, just a few finishing touches to go.  I tried it on and it didn't fit, the yoke was too tight in places a common problem for me.  It fitted perfectly at the neck and slightly lower but just above where the sleeves join was too tight.  I thought I had allowed for this in the pattern but obviously not enough.  Any fitted knitted clothing that I have bought over the years quickly develops holes in this area, just near the armpits.  I have unravelled it back to where I hope I need to, hence my small balls of yarn.  I will need to wash this yarn before knitting with it again as it has become a little wavy.

Thankfully my socks have been growing, not shrinking, the first sock is off the needles.  I am mighty pleased with my grafting at the toe.  The first few socks I ever made with this technique look awful and lumpy and I kept ending up with odd numbers of stitches at the end, too many distractions I expect.  I shut myself away in a quiet room to do this one, that may be the answer.  So here we come sock number two, already on the needles.  I don't suffer with second sock syndrome, and with this pattern I challenge anyone not to want to cast on another, I love it.

Talking of patterns I love, I can't always remember how patterns find their way into my Ravelry favourites especially when they have few projects, I can't have seen this in progress on a blog.  Anyway some of those skeins I bought last month are taking shape into a new project.  This is my first sweater, ever.  I haven't worn sweaters for years they didn't work for me when I was breastfeeding, cardigans worked much better so I have got out of the habit.  I only own one.  Joining the pattern under the arms took a few goes to get right, I am not complaining the pattern is free and it was good to work it out for myself.  I am loving how this pattern knits up it is complicated enough to interesting but not so that I can't do it whilst talking or watching something.

I have managed to find a way to plan a day at home into our rhythm and we have been enjoying some crafting time together. Cameron has decided they are crafternoons.  We have been making peg people, sewing a felt horse, painting a Russian doll set and making a tiny doll who has been named Rosie.

Rosie has been up to all sorts it would seem from the photos that have appeared on my camera!

The children seem to enjoy this time, we all sit together round the table working on our own different projects.  It has been a good time for me to get on with my mending pile which for once is now empty!

********************

Sweater Pattern here
Sock Pattern here
Peg Doll People here
Rosie Doll here

Joining Jennifer head on over to see what others are making and creating this Winter.

Autumn

At this time of year I buy myself a new diary.  I am a paper diary girl, I have tried using electronic diaries but they don't work for me. It is not about being able to touch the diary it is about how it is laid out and what you can see at a glance.  At the beginning of this year I researched the dates of many festivals and celebrations writing them into my diary.  I was not organised enough, for much of the year, to observe or celebrate any of them until the Autumn and a new rhythm.  Autumn in many ways was a good time to start this, there are many festivals in the autumn and they are have sent us all on an interesting journey one which I hope we will continue for a good while.

Autumn Equinox - 23 September

We celebrated this at home on our own and with our friends at Forest School the following day.  The children already know a little about the tilting of the world in relation to the sun but we talked about what happens on the Equinox, that the days and nights are the same length in the northern and southern hemispheres.

During our music session we came up with a rhythm to clap and drum.  At this equinox the dragon, an ancient energy symbol representing Earth energy, dynamism, Fire, will and courage was invoked to carry the Fire energy in to the inner realms, to activate the Fire within.  The dragon goes underground for the Winter and our rhythm was a dance to send the dragon to sleep.  We wrote out our achievements for the year and any hopes and dreams for the coming year.  At Forest School we planted tree seeds in pots and shared food together round the fire.

Rosh Hashanah - 25 September

This is the Jewish Festival of New Year.  This was a new festival and new religion for the children.  I found two books in our local library one about Judaism and one that had a page on this festival.  We read the books together.  At lunchtime I made some apples and honey traditionally eaten for a sweet New Year.  We also watched a short video.

Michaelmas - 29 September

This is the feast of St Michael.  We celebrated this with friends for the first time last year.  We reminded ourselves of what this festival is about and why it is celebrated.  Having just celebrate the Equinox we talked about the similarities.  The symbolism of the Dragon in both festivals,  St Michael subduing the dragon.  We read a Michaelmas story, The Most Beautiful Dragon in the Whole World (under the third heading, eight from the bottom) and a poem.  We joined our singing group to continue our celebrations, singing songs, making dragon bread and sharing a meal together.

Dussehra - 3 October

This is a Hindu festival which is celebrated for nine days, culminating with Dussehra on the tenth day.  It focuses on the harvest, the end of the monsoon and the triumph of good over evil.  For us is was an introduction to another religion.  We read about Hinduism and about how this festival is celebrated.  We watched a short video.

Sukkot 8 - 15 October

This is the Jewish Harvest Festival, when the homes ancestors make in the desert during the flight to the promised land are remembered.  Shelters are built, the Sukkot, and decorated and all meals are eaten there for the seven days of the festival.  We read about this festival and watched this video.

Diwali - 23 October

This is a festival celebrated by Hindus and Sikhs, some celebrate it as a five day festival.  It is a celebration of the end of the harvest and the victory of light over darkness.  We lit candles and shared food, we read about the festival and a story that goes with it.  We made Besan Ladoo a sweet treat that is often eaten at Hindu festivals.

Samhein - 31 October

We were away for this festival so we had a small celebration with Forest School when we returned.  We shared food around the fire, burnt our worries, made a mandala with leaves, berries and branches in which we placed our hopes for the new year.  At home we remembered our loved ones and the those that are no longer with us.  The children and I had a long talk about their Grandfather who passed away last year, we talked about our happy memories of spending time with him.

Bonfire Night - 5 November

We always attend a local bonfire and firework display, but my children knew nothing about the history of why we light bonfires and fireworks.  We read several books about Guy Fawkes and the history behind this day.

Guru Nanak - 6 November

This is a Sikh Festival to celebrate the birth of the founder of the Sikh religion.  I introduced the Sikh religion to them, we watched a short video and we talked about our own celebrations at Christmas.

Martinmas - 11 November

This is another festival that we has previously celebrated with friends.  We reminded ourselves of what this festival is about and why it is celebrated.  We learnt some simple lantern songs in the morning as part of our music at home and read a story St Martin's Light.  Later on we joined our singing group to continue our celebrations, singing more songs around a fire, taking our lanterns for a walk and sharing food together.

Kathina - 13 November

This is a buddhist festival.  It marks the end of the rainy season and period of retreat for monks.  The monks are given an offering of material to make into robes.  We talked about the monsoon and the weather in Asia compared to that which we have here at this time of year.  We read about the festival itself and what it means to buddhists.

All of these have been a gentle introduction to many topics, to religion, to festivals, to cultures, to countries.  As we find more about each of these I hope that as the years go by we can develop our own knowledge and build these into our rhythm to find what fits and works for us.  We spend as little as half and hour to most of the day devoted to learning depending on what else we were doing and how interested we all were to learn more.  It is by no means and exhaustive list.  We will be finding out about St Andrew for the end of this month to complete our list of Autumn Festivals.

We have a small collection of books that we use these include:

What I Believe by Alan Brown
A Calendar Of Festivals by Cherry Gilchrist
Children Just Like ME: Celebrations by Anabel Kindersley
Sacred Celebrations by Glennie Kindred
All Year Round by Ann Druitt, Christine Fynes-Clinton and Marije Rowling
Festivals, Family and Food by Diana Carey and Judy Large
Festivals Together by Sue Fitzjohn, Minda Weston and Judy Large

The library is our greatest resource.  We have used many books for each of these festivals.

Winter

As Winter approaches we will be considering the following festivals that take place in that season:

Advent - Starts 30 November
St Nicholas Day - 6 December
Hanukkah - Starts 16 December
Winter Solstice - 21 December
Malid al Nabi - 3 January
Twelfth Night - 5 January
Wassailing - 17 January
Candlemas - 2 February
Valentines - 14 February
Imbolc - 16 February
Shrove Tuesday - 17 February
Lent - Starts 18 February
Chinese New Year - 19 February

Rather a lot and we may leave some this season and observe them next time round......

Strawberries

I love strawberries, do you?  They are my favourite summer fruit picked and eaten straight from the bush or in a bowl with a splash of cream, yum!  We have lots of wild strawberries growing in our garden they are the only type I have been able to grow successfully, from seeds kindly delivered by the birds, so any others have to be bought and we usually stock up each year at the local pick your own and make some jam, of course!

I haven't made anything for our seasonal table in ages, we started this at the beginning of last year when we were given a beautiful driftwood tree which I thought would make a great centrepiece.  Over the past eighteen months I have made a few pieces each season to slowly build a collection.  So when I saw these on a recent crafting link up I knew I had to add strawberries to my table.  I found a pattern and some red and green wool and went to cast on but then I remembered about some peg dolls I had bought and that I was going to make strawberry people with them when the summer came round, a much better project as I could include the children.

These were incredibly easy to make.  I used two sizes, 4cm and 6cm as that it what I had to hand, but you could use any.  We painted the body and part of the head, leaving a part unpainted for the face, with red acrylic paint.  We drew the eyes and mouth on with these, and cut a small piece of green felt for the calyx, which was glued on with a glue gun.  The achene (those are the green seed like looking pieces which are not seeds at all) were drawn on with the same pens as the eyes and mouth.  It was impossible to get the light green shading, perhaps if we had had some light green paint it might have worked?

There you have it, a family of strawberry peg people.......

You can see some other makes in this last picture including Mother Earth, watching over the little strawberries, and some flowers knitted up using patterns from this book.

Mother

At the beginning of this year, when we were still in the depths of a grey wet winter, I shared our King Winter I made to stand on our seasonal table.  At the time my children requested I make a Mother Earth to join us for Spring.  A Mother Earth or Mother Goddess has been represented in cultures for thousands of years, as a deity, a protector and a provider amongst others.  She was worshiped to ensure good harvests, for fertility or to ensure protection from natural disasters this is but a small part of what she has represented.  I pondered all these images as I decided what form our Mother Earth would take.  I had used the book The Nature Corner as an inspiration for our King Winter, this book depicted Mother Earth as an old lady, as does the much older book The Story of the Root Children originally published in 1906.  We love this book and read it regularly so I decided that our Mother Earth would be similar.

She is made using the same process as King Winter, a waldorf doll style head mounted onto a base, with pipe cleaners wrapped in wool for the arms.  She has a 'petticoat' under her skirt to give it some fullness, a round piece of material which is gathered up round the base and post and sewn to the blouse.

Her hair is wool, I used the roving yarn that I made a fulled/felted bowl I shared a few weeks ago.  It reminds me of a great aunt I loved to visit as a child, it was a similar colour and she always wore it in a plaited bun, I never saw it down so had no idea how long it was.

She has a cloak...

....and a shawl, knitted in moss/seed stitch with decreases every other row to give a triangular shape.

All the materials I used were in my fabric or wool stash, either leftovers from other projects or old pieces of clothing I keep for repairing and patching, which was very satisfy and somehow in keeping with the character herself.

I am rather pleased with her, she now stands in pride of place on our seasonal table along with the daffodils I made last year, a felt sheep and lamb and some flower fairies we have been making which I will share with you another time.

Joining in with Nicole for the weekly sharing of crafting on her lovely blog, head on over to see what others have been making......

King

I was given a lovely book for Christmas the year before last (2012) as I really wanted to start a seasonal table with the children, we were also given a beautiful driftwood tree which has become the centrepiece of our table.  I decided that I would make a few pieces for each season and slowly build a collection of bits and pieces that could sit alongside items collected on walks.  Despite thinking about it I never got round to making anything for that first Winter and some of the pieces I started for Spring were not finished until Autumn!  So as Winter approached last year I thought once again about making something for our table, Christmas rather sapped my time as I was busy with present making so come January I seized the moment and got started.  I knew I didn't have all the bits and pieces the book suggest so I improvised with what I did have.

I started with the head which is made in the Waldorf doll style, I found this easier this time round having made one before.  The first layer is a stretchy jersey material stuffed with wool, the second layer is a stockinette, which is slightly stretchy, both of which were left over from making my first doll.  The book suggests mounting the head onto a wooden post with a round base which I did not have so I made a tube with some cotton material stuffed with wool and a piece of wood in the bottom to help it stand up.  The arms were a pipe cleaner wrapped round with some wool, the robe is cut out in one piece and sewn onto the neck and hands which were made from very small pieces of the stockinette.  The cloak was cut as a square and gathered together at the neck before sewing on.  The eyebrows, moustache, beard and hair are all wool and the crown is felt.  His staff is a pipe cleaner covered in silver foil.  The children love him.

King Winter now is in the land,

he reigns with cold and freezing hand.

He makes Jack Frost touch nose and toes,

and gives our cheeks a shining glow.

So King Winter sits on our seasonal table in all his splendour whilst outside, well, is it really winter?  It seems to be limping along this time in a wet, soggy, greyness not my favourite type of winter at all, give me cold, crisp and snow with a bit of sun and blue sky any day.

The children sat with me at the table whilst I made him, doing their own thing, watching what I was doing or reading the book I was making him from.  Once he was complete they requested I make a Mother Earth next and have been asking for the last week when I am going to make her, I hope that doesn't take me a year to make too! The book I used is The Nature Corner.

Joining in with Nicole for Keep Calm Craft On head on over to see what others have been making and creating.

Knitting

I am still working on slippers a different pair this week, the green pair are now off the needles and awaiting their soles.  It's weird how each Wednesday when I write a knitting post I am at the exact same stage of the next slipper, just starting the instep, all my picture look the same.  Despite having plenty of Christmas knitting to be getting on with I needed a diversion this weekend, and my husband had an day off work so I couldn't knit the slippers anyway.

We recently changed our seasonal table to mark the change to winter and I thought it looked a little bare.  I have some ideas for bits and pieces I would like to make, but am saving them until after Christmas when I have more time.  I thought making some holly leaves and berries would be an easy and easy addition.......but after a scan thorough my flower pattern book and online I could only find crochet patterns, I cannot crochet and now is not the time to be learning!  So I had a go a making a pattern up, after all I have nothing else to do, right?  After several attempts I finally came up with a pattern I am happy with and I thought I would share it with you all, in case anyone else has a burning desire to knit some holly leaves too.  You could use any yarn to knit these, the heavier the weight of yarn the bigger the leaf will turn out, just use the appropriate needle for the yarn you are using.

Holly Leaf Pattern

Cast On 3 stitches

1. P
2. K1 m1 K1 m1 K1 (5 stitches)
3. P
4. K2 m1 K1 m1 K2 (7 stitches)
5. P
6. K3 m1 K1 m1 K3 (9 stitches)
7. P
8. K4 m1 K1 m1 K4 (11 stitches)
9. P
10. Cast Off 3 K1 m1 K1 m1 K5 (10 stitches)
11. Cast Off 3 P to end (7 stitches)
12. K3 m1 K1 m1 K3 (9 stitches)
13. P
14. K4 m1 K1 m1 K4 (11 stitches)
15. P
16. Cast off 3 K to end (8 stitches)
17. Cast off 3 P to end (5 stitches)
18. ssk K k2tog (3 stitches)
19. P1 p2tog (2 stitches)
20. K2tog

Berry Pattern

Cast on 3 stitches

1. P
2. K1 m1 K1 m1 K1 (5 stitches)
3. P
4. K2 m1 K1 m1 K2 (7 stitches)
5. P
6. K
7. P1 (p2tog) 3 times (4 stitches)
8. (k2tog) 2 times 
9. Cast off

Cut thread and sew through stitches and pull to make a small berry.

I have left a small loop on each leaf and berry so that I can hang them on our little tree…..

I finished The Winter Ghosts and really enjoyed it.  I am now stepping further back into history with 1215: The Year of the Magna Carta a description of what it like to be alive in that momentous year.  Thus far I have read about the houses people lived in, the shape of the landscape, the towns, education, families, tournaments and the forests.  The forest were strictly managed you could pay with your life if you broke the rules, they were managed by forest officials who sound like they were the modern day equivalent of traffic wardens in my country!

For those of you interested in such things the date today is a special one if you write your dates, day, month, year it is the 11/12/13 you won't be able to do that again for just over 86 years I will be long dead by then.  If you write your date month, date, year you have missed your last one but I have just realised that it was my eldest's ninth birthday!

Joining in with Ginny for sharing of knitting and reading and Tami for this weeks work in progress, head over to see what others are up to...

Creating

We have been making a few more pieces for our autumn seasonal table this week to add to the pieces we made last week.

The fabric mâché bowl has now dried and been trimmed around the edges.  We are using it to store our finds from walks so far we have conkers, ash keys and three types of acorn from English, Sessile and Turkey Oak trees

We have successfully felted the little knitted bowl that I made.  I have made one of these little bowls before with a 100% wool yarn which felted fine, this time I used a yarn which contained 20% silk and was not sure if it would felt successfully.

I made two mice using a pattern from this book.  They are in the autumn section of the book but I suspect they will stay on our table all year round as they are a feature of our lives all year round.  Last winter we went away at Christmas and New Year and they moved into the house, in Spring and Summer they busy themselves eating as much of what we grow as they can.  We live on the edge of a village, surrounded by fields so it is hardly surprising.  The pattern suggests using beads for eyes but we did not have any of the right size and shade so I made french knots with some embroidery thread and I think they work fine.

We also made some little toadstools using acorns and and idea from here.  We painted the acorn tops red and added the white spots when it had dried.  The tops were glued to acorns, we chose narrower ones to give them a toadstool shape.  We had to sandpaper the bottom of the acorns to get them to stand up.

The leaves in our little tree were knitted using a pattern from here and we made the little acorn people at a friends house they were inspired from this delightful book.

Autumn

I have been making bits and pieces for our seasonal table over the last week or so.  I realised at the beginning of September when we changed the books in the basket, taking out the summer ones and replacing with autumn, that we had nothing to decorate our tree with.  I have knitted some leaves in autumn inspired colours once again using this pattern.  I might add to these leaves with some felt ones which I thought the children could help with.

We made some little acorn peg people with some friends at a crafting session at their house, we have shared them here where you can also see that the tree is still summery!

We have recently collected a few pieces whilst out on walks to keep them together I thought I would make some bowls to put them in.  I have knitted a bowl which now needs felting and we have made one using fabric and glue, fabric mâché.  To make one of these you need to find a bowl to use as a form and cover it with cling film.  The material needs to be cut into thin strips and the glue, we used PVA, is watered down slightly.  Coat the material in the glue and lay over the bowl covered in cling.  You will to start the strips the right side down for the inside of the bowl, once you have covered the bowl place the strips right side up for the outside of the bowl then leave it to dry.  We made ours last week and went away for the weekend hoping it would be dry when we came back it was on the outside so we separated it from the bowl we were using and found it was a little damp inside still we have had to reglue it a little as it had pulled apart a little.  The material I used was quite thick, it was leftover from the curtains I made in the living room where our seasonal table is, I thought it would be fun if they matched, so it has taken longer to dry.  Once it is fully dry I will trim off the edges to neaten it up.  We got the idea from a book we have borrowed from the library.

The knitted bowl is a really quick knit which I made whilst the children were having their bath, once I had finished I put the completed 'bowl' on top of the children's clothes that needed sorting. When I came to take the knitting downstairs I discovered I was a needle short and hunted around for it to no avail, it still hasn't turned up!

I have several other ideas of things we could make to add to our table including mushrooms and fungi if we have time we will make some this year if not then it can wait until next.  This is our first year having a seasonal table so we are taking it slowly building up items to put on it.

Crafting

 
I have been making some snowdrops and leaves this week to put on our seasonal table in the spring.  We have not had an area suitable for such a table up until now.  Over the last year or so I have been decluttering our stuff and this has freed up a space on a small table in our living room.

We were given a beautiful homemade tree for Christmas from some friends.  When I got it home and put it on the table I thought it was too lovely to only be bought out at Christmas.  So I have decided that it will make a centrepiece for our table.  In the spring I will take off the current decorations and add leaves.  Underneath there is a small vase in which we will put seasonal flowers.

I have yet to decide what else we could have, I think we will keep it simple for this year and add a small thing each year.

The pattern for the snowdrop is from this book and the leaves from this lovely blog.

Joining in with Nicole for this weeks sharing at Keep Calm, Craft On.