Every house needs play silks

It has been too long since I last posted. I'd love to say it was because I was working on top secret Christmas crafting, but the sad fact is I've simply been snowed under with work. But it is half term here now so I'm spending a week with my girls. Emma only just started at school in September, and while I'm really pleased that she is settling in so well and really enjoying it, I do really miss her. So this week we are pottering around doing all our favourite things together and having a thoroughly lovely time. Lucy is enjoying having her big sister back too.

This morning, Emma pulled the play silks out of the toy box. I bought them about three years ago as seven undyed silk scarves and dyed them in rainbow colours with food colouring and vinegar. Since then they have been a firm favourite in this house. Super hero capes, princess dresses, making rainbows, hide and seek, making dens... the possibilities are endless and limited only by imagination! Today we decided that half term holidays were not right without a trip to the sea side, but unfortunately the weather is not that great here, and we live about as far from the sea as you can get! So we have made our own.

Yellow play silk for sand, blue and indigo for the sea, purple and red for rocks, green for seaweed. Add some coloured ribbons for more seaweed, a few shells, and some cuddly penguins and all you need is hats and sun cream! We've been having great fun building "sand castles", going for a swim, sunbathing, looking for shells, and I think that after lunch we might just have to have an ice-cream. :)

 Every house with children needs play silks - they are just such a great simple toy. And dyeing them with food colouring and vinegar couldn't be easier. This video is for dyeing yarn, but you can do silk using the same method.

Elf travel - meet Gaston

All has been quiet on the blogging front, because I was away at my father's house in The Hague. It is a lovely place to visit, and blissfully quiet because he has no internet connection! I spend a lot of time online for work (and play!) so it is nice to get away from time to time. We used to live in Holland, so it is great to go back for a visit from time to time.

While there, I visited the gorgeous little local yarn shop Woool. Emma was in a bit of a mood following a sleepless night, and didn't want to go in at all. She stood in the corner with her nose against the wall having a sulk while I looked around. Not fun! After a while she crept up to me and said in a very little voice, "Mummy... will you make me something?" Ahhh I love those words! She is obsessed with Little Kingdom - Ben the elf and Holly the fairy have all kinds of fun adventures together. Much of it revolves around the fact that Holly is a fairy who can fly and do magic, and Ben is an elf who can't do those things but is good at making stuff. He has a pet ladybird called Gaston who flies him around. Emma has little toy Ben and Holly dolls that go everywhere with her. "Mummy... Ben can't fly. But Holly can. It isn't fair on Ben and he is sad. Pleeeeeease will you make a Gaston so he can fly too?" What could I say? I asked her to look for some red wool, and she came back with some rather scary looking fluffy yarn with sequins, proclaiming that Ben would be sparkling!

Once I got home, I found some black Baby Cashmerino which had been liberated from a project-gone-wrong. I held it double, used size 5.5mm needles, and made a hexigon. I repeated this for the top, adding in some colour and features. I made legs, sewed together and stuffed, and he is all done. Easy peasy! I really should make toys more often. :-)



He's by no means perfect, but Emma loves him, and sleeps with him every night. We have had long complicated discussions about whether he needs to have antennae, but they will get in the way if she takes him to bed. Apparently, Ben can hold onto the fluffy bits when flying so it is ok! Lucy seems to have fallen for him too, and keeps running off with him when she is tired. So she gets the honor of today's picture!



We had a lovely time over in Holland, but all too short. Now we are into the last week before Emma starts school. On the one hand I'm really excited about it for her, but feeling a little melancholy too. I'll miss having my little fairy around me all day. But I am excited to see what the next term will bring for her.

Simple Sun Dresses

Last week the weather got really hot. But both of my girls are growing like weeds at the moment and I was really struggling for clothes cool enough for them to wear. So I dusted down the long neglected sewing machine, rifled through my fabric box, and sewed up a couple of lovely simple sun dresses.


There are lots of tutorials out there about how to make these, but I rather like this one. I had enough fabric left over to make nice bias binding for the arms - I really love the kitchness of matchy matchy bias binding! :-)

Young Lucy was very happy in her new frock! She is very much a climber at the moment, and she found this loose enough to not cause any difficulties.

They both wore their new dresses to go and visit my mother. It was a beautiful day, so Emma helped with some tomato picking...


...while young Lucy explored and hunted for ladybirds.

Lovely dresses, gorgeous sunshine, and a beautiful day in my favourite garden!

Long car journeys mean lots done!

It has been rather a long time since my last post, because Brett was off work for a week so we have been here, there and everywhere. We spent a couple of days in Ripon, a day in York to visit old haunts, popped in on my lovely aunt Jane near Halifax, came home for a day, went to Bournemouth for 3 hours of seaside fun, up to Nottingham to visit a dear friend... I think that is about it! 800 miles in a week - my bottom has now changed to a bizarre car seat shape!!

All that sitting around in the car means I've got rather a lot done craft wise. Tour de Fleece started this month, which is a daily spin-a-long following the Tour de France, and I was delighted to discover that I can manage to spindle spin in the car. It is slow going, but really relaxing! I'm spinning some merino/tencel blend really fine (it will be a heavy lace weight when plied) on my IST spindle.

I also made really good progress on my cardigan. This is made with handspun merino, which was dyed with natural dyes by the very talented Helen, Angelica and Imogen at My Heart Exposed. I had only done a couple of rows before last week, so I'm really starting to make headway with it now.

Speaking of Tour de Fleece, I finished this beautiful sparkly Blue Faced Leicester blend last night. I'm not 100% happy with the plying, so may run it through the wheel once again, but we'll see how it looks after I make a sample with it. The colours are lovely though, and there is something that I really love about sparkly yarn. It brings out the little magpie in me!

In non crafty news, Emma had her first taster day at "big school" last week. She absolutely loved it, and I think she is going to be very happy when she starts there in September. Me - well I felt like a silly quivering wreck when I dropped her off, which is even more daft when I remember that she has been at pre-school for a year. She is growing up so fast! And Lucy... well she is just little Lucy! A tiny little ball of energy, always happy, and usually up to something a bit naughty. We were very excited to find that one of our sunflowers had burst into flower this week. Emma has tended to it very carefully every day since she planted the seed with my mum a few months ago.

Phew that was a long update! More tomorrow...