Teddies

 Phew....I did it!  Two teddies knitted and two teddy sleeping bags sewn.  They are ready to join the other teddies heading for a Kenyan Christmas. 

Little I's teddy has a red jumper with pink heart and pink trousers.  Her sleeping bag is provencal cotton from some scraps. 


T's teddy is in grey school trousers and blue jumper.  His sleeping bag has some red ric rac trim. 

I enjoyed making these teddies and rediscovered how nice it is knit in odd moments of time.  I even found that it is possible to knit and breastfeed at the same time!  Wouldn't recommend it though - it is taking multi tasking to a silly extreme. 

Autumn sewing scuppered by teddies

Ugh..bleurgh...meh...that's how I feel about my sewing at present.  I seem to have made a wardrobe of ill fitting, oddbod garments. 
 My actual sewing is very infrequent at the moment.  My dark blue shirt dress (the Lisette Traveller dress) has been hanging up all summer, shoulder and side seams complete - the only progress I made was to tack on all four pockets.  My floral dress based on a patterrn from the Modern Sewing book is awaiting sleeves binding and a hem.  Despite this I was planning for autumn.  Thinking of what patterns I already have waiting, it is a matter of adjusting my summer plans slightly.  I was thinking thriftily and sensibly of using what I have and not buying anything new.  I am also thinking of making something that drapes well and fits.  Back in May I bought a renfrew pattern and lovely Winnie aka Scruffy badger gave me some purple jersey which I was planning to renfrew.  I also bought the pdf version of the Wikstein Tova a few months ago and have some greyish drapey cotton blend that I purloined from my mum's stash while sorting her sewing supplies this summer.  A grey tova seems to me to be a prospect that will fill many wardrobe gaps. 
Then Jessica kindly gave me a Crepe pattern so it would be downright churlish not to make a crepe dress wouldn't it?  I have some fabric lined up for that too. 
But all sewing is on hold because of The Teddies. 
 Both children bought home letters from school asking for knitters to knit up teddies.  The school has a partner school in Kenya and  the plan is to send every reception child in the kenyan school a handknitted teddy for christmas.   So now on the crafting horizon are two teddies.  Selfish sewing for me or selfless knitting for little children?  Uh-oh, what a choice!  Each time Rocket Girl naps out come my needles and knit, knit, knit I go.  Normal sewing will resume once two teddies are knitted, stuffed and have sleeping bags sewn. 

Apples for teacher

I have not made many home made gifts this year but here are the few that I have done.

As well as Christmas on the horizon this is Little I's last week at her nursery before she starts primary school after Christmas.

I know I will cry when she has her last day, I cried when her brother left the same nursery! (Maybe I can blame it on hormones.) It feels like the end of a special time and even more so because after Christmas everything will change again. (I am not great with change, can you tell?)

We are very fortunate that our local nursery provision for 3 - 5 year olds is an outstanding Reggio based nursery where she has had an amazing time. Her brother also went there so we feel connected. He still remarks that he feels it is unfair that he cannot spend time there. I have to prise him out somedays when he comes to collect his sister as he quickly gets busy working with magnets or lights and mirrors.

So we have been making some leaving presents for the nursery teachers. It is hard to think what to make, they do get lots of tins of biscuits and chocolates at this time of year. There is an unspoken tradition there of giving a picture or storybook when you leave so it is a present to the nursery. We are doing that but also made some personal gifts.

We made a fabric covered journal for her headteacher. Little I drew on some calico and then I tortuously sewed it into a cover for an A5 notebook. It was quite quick to sew up but was a bit fiddly to insert the book at the end. The cover is fully lined with some scrap William Morris fabric, I tried unsuccessfully to get a picture of this.

Then I knitted a scarf for her main teacher. The variagated yarn is ribbon-like rather than wool. I bought it four years ago and can only remember that it was italian and from a lovely knitting shop. I trimmed the ends with some velvet ribbon. As the yarn is graduated in colours I decided to keep the actual knitting simple and plain to hopefully show off the colour changes. The embarassing truth here is that I bought the yarn four years ago when T was due to leave the nursery with the intention of making the self same teacher a scarf. Needless to say I ran out of time and never did make it. During my November declutter I emptied and sorted my knitting supplies and found this yarn. I decided it was too good to waste. The fact that I actually did make it this time means maybe I have become better at time management?

A recent obsession with Little I has been drawing her teacher's picture. I keep finding these pictures. She recently started drawing them on fabric with some fabric felt pens. I took a small one and sewed it up, filled with some wadding and added a brooch pin to the back as an extra present for her main teacher.

Finally T was set to work on saturday....her made this coaster for his class teacher from Ikea Pyssla beads. This is his teacher's first year of teaching so we decided she probably doesn't have a large enough collection of child-made gifts yet. He decided upon the pattern himself. I think it is reminiscent of a granny square. At age he can sit and do this kind of fine motor skills task (though not for too long) while his little sister tried for about ten minutes to copy him but then ended up having much more fun running her hands through the beads, spilling them everywhere to the point where I had to take her into another room.

That's about it apart from bulbs in a pot for the lady who provides snacks at the nursery...a very, very important person in Little I's world for the past year. Oh no, I mustn't cry on friday, I try and remember I am British, we don't do that kind of thing...do we?

Finished scarves

I have made three of these scarves so far for presents. The first one I made went a bit wrong on the ribbing where you divide your stiches and then rejoin to make the loop for threading the scarf through. But I have now got the knack of it. - hurray. The pattern is quick to knit and only takes 50g of wool so is a good one for using up your stash. I have also enjoyed knitting these as it is so portable and easy to do when waiting outside school, or watching tv. The hardest part was taking the photos as my self timer has stopped working.