Lovely lovely parcel

Last saturday I had the best surprise - a parcel from the lovely Jessica of Ayenforcraft.  I had forgotten that she ws sending me something for taking part in her project ridiculous challenge of last summer.  It was a fantastic box of goodies.  It cheered me enormously as I am currently in the midst of summer school holiday madness.  This is the part of the blog where perhaps I am supposed to be a "cupcake blog" and tell you how heartwarming it is to have the summer holidays, add in some beautifully photographed childrens' activities and wax lyrical about how wonderful my life is.  Um...to be honest summer holidays are HARD WORK!  We are having fun, but also we are having some humdinger brother/sister arguments, some almighty unphotogenic messes, plenty of olympic watching, lots of conversations where both children talk at me at the same time about different subjects,  and not much sleep for me.   So, I was feeling a bit worn out, and Jessica's parcel came along and cheered me up mightily. Shall I stop wittering and show you the contents?

Pretty floral cotton - not sure yet what to use it for...

Stripey cotton - I am thinking baby trousers?



This is much darker blue then camera shows, linen-y fabric, with gingham binding and three gingham buttons.  I am thinking possibly a pair of trousers with piping details. 



A pair of handknitted socks - they didn't fit Jessica but happily fit me!





Oooh, it got even better....a Colette Crepe pattern, and a sneaky baby hand trying to grab it.  My first Colette dress pattern... I am thinking and planning what to sew it in.  I showed this to several people saying breathlessly  "it's a Colette pattern" but they just didn't get it. Blank looks all round.  This is why I like to share here cos I know sewing bloggers out there will get it! Won't you???





This gorgeous Anna Maria Horner fabric.  I had been admiring this for ages on the AMH blog.  Once again, I say breathlessly to my friends, "It's Anna Maria Horner voile".  They look blank.



Some more cotton fabrics



RG trying to get in on the actionA

A huge thank you to Jessica and I am putting together a return parcel for her! 



More sewing for others

I have been doing a fair amount of sewing but no blogging recently. I have several items almost finished to share but most recently I have been doing more sewing for others:

A birthday tee shirt for Little I's friend whose favourite colour is green and a bag for her to keep treasures in.

The teeshirt I did at the last minute, well an hour before the party. A new sewing shop opened near me and I really wanted to like it. I live in a sewing shop desert. The owner was lovely and helpful BUT she sold me fusible interfacing that was ironable-fusible on one side when I had asked for fusible on 2 sides- bondaweb type stuff. Eeeek.

I didn't have time to go back and change it before the party, and so I just used the interfacing for the tee shirt applique. I think it is going to fray more now though than it would have done with the double sided stuff.

The new shop is five minutes drive from my house, located on the edge of a small industrial estate, and has loads of patterns and fabrics and a bit of haberdashery. There were lots of useful lining fabric (I bought some grey for a skirt I am in the middle of making) and some pretty floral cottons (didn't buy any, thinking of the stash I already have). There was quite a bit of fabric that was not my kind of taste but which made Little I gasp and say things like
" Ooohh, look shiny rainbow, glittery,stars material...ooohh pink princesses material....! " (Can you imagine a world styled by four year old girls?)

I did buy a length of fake suede in emerald green and some brown fake suede off cuts. Don't worry, this is not the latest FESA wardrobe plan. Nor am I going to the Birmingham Bloggers meet up in fancy dress. I'm making T a Robin Hood costume for friday night's cub camp. We googled Robin Hood costumes (found a strange flickr group devoted to men who like to dress up as Robin Hood, let's just not go any further) and found a simple one that met with T's approval (he is not keen on dressing up) so I am spending my sewing time making it now. It is basically a tunic to wear over his normal khaki green trousers - no way this boy would wear green tights! But I have had a request for a pointy hat as well.

We only had one week's notice about the costume which is a little short don't you think?? T is very excited as this one night and one day camp is his first cub camp. I can't believe he is old enough and brave enough to go. I may cry into my cocoa on friday night - this is my just desserts as before I had children I used to be so unsentimental and laugh at soft-hearted parents.

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.