Nini Makes

Sleep-time teddies from outgrown pajamas

Tristan wouldn't give up his favourite brushed-cotton pajamas that he'd long outgrown but a hole in one knee the size of a football made me finally take the scissors to them. Though the fabric was fairly threadbare I salvaged enough to make him a soft teddy so he could still enjoy it. Gracie wanted one too and has the perfect pair of way-too-small jammies with tiny pink rosebuds I couldn't wait to use, but no, she wanted her brother's fabric, and absolutely no pink. Luckily, I was able to maneuver the pattern enough to squeeze out a second teddy.

To make them I drew a simple one-part teddy pattern, cut it out and stitched features on the pieces to keep them entirely soft. I then stitched around it and left a gap for stuffing. I stuffed the head and limbs with soft filler, made a little pouch of the filler and poured in some lavender, then tucked the pouch into the teddy's tummy. I could bearly get the gap stitched up before they were usurped for a cuddle. T & G love the lavender scent and both are snuggling with their new friends as I type.

They're so simple I thought I should share them. My children always appreciate the things we make from re-purposed materials much more than those from new materials; to them the process of transformation is a little bit magical and it is to me too!

The teddies say thank you Sonia for the nature finds they're modeling with ; )

Merry Christmas one and all!

We watched A Christmas Carol tonight, the one with, Patrick Stewart as Scrooge; a great version of the story, but I kept expecting him to be beamed up by the Starship Enterprise instead of the Ghost of Christmas Past ;)

I think I'd better go wrap some presents, it's getting late. Merry Christmas!

Night-night,

J x

Last minute make

Make these spontaneous patchwork angels to hang on the tree or to tie to gifts. Yet another way to use up more scraps and the unfinished edges mean these ornaments are quick and easy to make.

 Here's how:

1. 
   
   Click here to download this template and cut out the ornament pattern
2. Cut out two pieces of fabric larger than your ornament template
3. Take one of the pieces of fabric and using a small zig-zag stitch, sew scraps all over the piece of fabric going in any direction - be sure each edge of each scrap is stitched down
4. Cut a piece of felt or heavy interfacing out using the smaller, inner template of your ornament pattern
5. On the unstitched piece of fabric trace your ornament template in fine pencil or water soluble pen, then flip it over, tape it to a window so the light shines through it and trace the template on the other side (the tracing should be in the same position on both sides of the fabric)
6. Add a tiny bit of glue to your felt piece and center it in the middle of one side of the tracing and let it dry for a couple of minutes
7. Lay your zig-zag patchwork fabric on top of the other fabric (patchwork side up) sandwiching the felt shape inside
8. Pin a looped ribbon or string, loop pointing up, inside the sandwiched pieces at the top of the ornament template
9. Pin the pieces together, turn them with the plain fabric facing up and stitch around the tracing marks using a straight or zig-zag stitch
10. Trim the fabric right up to the edge of the outer stitching, finished!

Note: Try embroidering a name, message or date on the plain backing fabric before gluing the felt shape on the opposite side and pinning your pieces together.

The down-loadable template includes a few different simple shapes which can be used in many different ways. Tristan and Gracie have been colouring, cutting and gluing them today.

I hope, unlike me, everyone is very organized and ready for Christmas, then you'll have time to whip up this simple project.

Also, thanks to Annet for sharing her Tree Family wall hanging with me.

I love the ornament earrings she gave the mama tree and the spotty, snowy fabric she used. Visit Annet's blog Fat-Quarter to see more of her fantastic quilting and patchwork pieces.

Hope you're all cuddled up with your families, or your cat and are keeping warm.

Night-night!

"Winter... is the time for home"

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire:  it is the time for home.  Edith Sitwell

Wherever home may be, it's lovely to be snuggled up with friends and family during short days and long winter nights.

We had a wonderful weekend with friends and family back in Kent. Celebrating birthdays, the season and an early Christmas. Happily we made it there and back in the snowy conditions, only needing to be towed out by friends once during our stay. We were lucky to have a chance to meet up with lots of friends and enjoyed lots of laughs, cozy fires and more than a little mulled wine.

I caught the friendly robin above enjoying a little bird seed we set out on some unused clay pots. These are just under the apple feeders we made.

Dianne's crab apples brighten up the fresh snow.

Snowy scene at Claudia's

Back at home in Hampshire the snow fell harder and treacherous roads have kept us housebound, but we don't mind there are snowmen to be made, bread to bake and birds to watch.

Too bad we have no ice skates.

I'm also enjoying looking through some recent bookshop purchases. We have a fantastic antiquarian bookshop nearby, when I go in I have a very hard time coming back out. This is one of my recent favourites, it's about British trees but it also incorporates the plants and wildlife in hedgerows, an integral part of the English countryside.

On the craft front, if you like robins like I do, try this little tutorial from a couple of years back; it's a fun project on a snowy, winters day.

I hope you're all snuggled up and warm enjoying the season like we are!

Snowy days, winter craft and feeding the birds

The snow has come and is settling a little, just enough to get the children squealing in anticipation - it's not time for the sled just yet but the forecast says there's much more on the way.

T and G are into all sorts of making. Each year they bring out the clay for ornaments, this year the ornaments took on new dimensions. If we had any normal flour in the house we'd have tried Sonia's cinnamon scented salt dough recipe.

In addition to the clay there has been much sculpting with paper, stories written and illustrated, bird feeders made, a song written and a puppet theatre backdrop designed. It's only Wednesday - phew!

I haven't been allowed to show any more than these activities, Gracie is apparently saving the rest for her own website.

 

These impromptu bird feeders were thrown together with apples instead of the pine-cones we normally use. The friendly woodpecker at the left is enjoying one of our feeders from a couple of years back.

Tomorrow we'll be making some of our favourite seasonal gifts to take away with us at the weekend. These pomanders fill the house with lovely spicy scent, we make them every year. Here are some quick tips for making your own.

We're headed to Kent for a birthday celebration (Happy Birthday to Claudia and Ian) and also an early Christmas with my lovely in-laws. Maybe I'll return with some snowy images to share, today my ailing camera wasn't up to the job.

Enjoy a restful weekend everyone. 

 

 

It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas

School's out for Christmas break, today we got the tree and the holiday festivities are in full swing. I've had this Robertson's marmalade lid sitting on my work table for months with the aim of putting a tiny silhouette in it and today was the day. When the Christmas tree is up later it will be our newest ornament addition.

We followed Rachel's suggestion for peppermint bark earlier this week and made it for the teachers. Ours doesn't look as pretty as the batch Rachel showed us, or the one in the original recipe at Brown Eyed Baker. We used Green & Blacks white chocolate which has small bits of vanilla in it and it's very yellow – but I can tell you it was very tasty regardless of it's less than perfect appearance.

Also, I got into the habit of melting chocolate in the microwave, why, I don't know. This time because of  the large quantity of chocolate I popped it in a huge stainless steel bowl and put it over a giant pot of boiling water so the kids could do all the stirring and watch the melting process happen more easily. They loved it - probably their favourite culinary adventure to date, I highly recommend it.

We made jars like these on the right for gifting the peppermint bark, a pattern for them is coming soon ;)

Tiny tutorial
The silhouette project above was very easy but it was so tiny to cut that I gave up after several tries and decided to Photoshop her instead. It was very easy to do and I'm sure any image editing program would work, here's how to do it:

• Measure the inside of your lid to find out what size you'd like the image to be, mine was just under 2.5" or about 6cm in diameter.
• Photograph your subject in profile against a plain, light background then open the image in your image editing program.
• Reduce your image to a size that will fit within your lid and save it to 300 pixels per inch.
• Select the light background and then invert it. In Photoshop you would select the background with the magic wand then choose "Select" from the menu, then "Inverse." This step will make your subject selected.
• Lastly fill the selection of the subject with black (make sure the background is white)
• Print it out on to heavy weight paper, cut it into a circle (fitting the diameter of your lid) around the subject and glue it to the inside of the lid.
• Glue a looped ribbon to the back, finished.

Note: Gimp is a very good, free image editing program, I'm not that familiar with all of it's features but I bet it could handle the simple tasks for this project. Also, cutting the silhouette out probably would have worked with manicure scissors, my embroidery scissors were not tiny enough.

Now I'm hoping my boy will pose for his profile so we can have a matched set, but now I must make a start on some Christmas cards.

A new friend

Isn't it funny how dust and dirt isn't at all noticeable when the sun doesn't shine. This morning we woke to clear, sunny skies, which meant a beautiful, thick frost and also dust and cobwebs around the house - so out came the vacuum.

In the midst of this overdue clean I discovered a little friend keeping warm on the wall behind the curtains in our family room. I grabbed a glass and gave her a more suitable, temporary home, of course Gracie will surely want to build a whole snail hotel for her when she arrives home from school. My new friend told me Fern sent her from across the sea.

Now she needs a name, no doubt Gracie will have several ideas, any suggestions?

As we've had so many weeks of rain, this was our first real frost, here are a few images from our morning.

Happy Tuesday everyone : )

It's raining, it's pouring

During my absence we've been hit with serious rain and wind but nothing like up north in Cumbria. Our thoughts are with all of those affected by the terrible floods.

As you can see by the dim light in the photo above, it's still raining here and this poor dolly is waiting for me to get off the computer to put on her hair and make her a dress. She's a larger version of Gracie's doll and will be going off to Oz for the Softies for Mirabel project. I hope Royal Mail won't take too long getting her there as I'm cutting it quite close.

I've kind of been Christmas crafting. A package of projects to help other crafters with their last minute  gift list has been keeping me busy. A pattern for dolly is one of the projects in development - didn't realize sewing patterns were so tricky. This little stitch-up below is also planned as part of another project.

The light on my desk has been burning through midnight and on again before the birds wake and I can't wait to show you the results (hope they look good in daylight ; )

Time just disappears like sand through a sieve this time of year doesn't it?
Last night Gracie said:
Mummy I need a cowboy hat, cowboy clothes and cowboy boots for assembly on Wednesday.
Mummy: That's okay assembly isn't until the 25th so we have a week.
Gracie: No Mummy, the 25th is THIS Wednesday (imagine a very exasperated tone in the 8 year old's voice)

Somehow I lost last week.

On the home front, Tris got this cast replaced yesterday with a fetching new blue one, three more weeks - oh my!!! It's just precautionary, he's healed but the doc says he wants it protected a while longer. A cast leads to lots of excuses for children: I can't bathe - my cast, I can't vacuum - my cast, I can't go outside it's too wet - my cast.... Mummy has come up with solutions to all of these things, except vacuuming but that's been swapped with laundry folding.

Soon I hope to get a chance to make these dala ornaments Pam shows. She uses Pendleton wool and needle felts, they'll be great fun to make. Check out the rest of her site for everything Christmas.
Pam's horse reminds me, there's also a new embroidery pattern coming up in my package.

We've cut down on buying things in our family except for the children so my Christmas gift list seems to be largely a wish list for myself. At the top are these new gorgeous cushions by Geninne. I'm really hoping the London Urban Outfitters will start to carry them, her birds are sublime.

Also topping my list is one of Margie's crochet and sea glass neckaces, but I don't think I'll be able to nip off to Paris to buy one. Perhaps I could have a word with Father Christmas.

I hope to be back very soon. Have a great Tuesday!

Life happens

Monday morning sunshine at breakfast, what a promising start to the day.

Fast forward a couple hours and we're at A & E getting a cast on Tristan's foot. He'd hurt it the night before running around at a birthday party. His daddy and I said, "It's probably a sore muscle." After refusing to put weight on it the next morning I decided it might not be a simple ploy to get out of PE, we went to the hospital. Small metatarsal fracture, oops.

After spending most of the day at the hospital Tris got a fetching new plaster boot and a new toy (crutches) then we raced back just in time to pick up sis from school and email my Green Parent article off last minute.

I put together a birth journal for this issue and offer up a tidy way to cover hard-bound books. As you can see I plundered the vintage button collection on one and made good use of some favourite fabric scraps on the other. I'm thinking the button journal will be included in an upcoming giveaway.

I'm in the midst of a reshuffle in my craft space then it's time to finish some important projects and mailings. And I really, really want to get a dolly whipped up for the Softies for Mirabel project this year. Now that the post office has put off their next strike until after New Year it might just happen.

Gracie has been a mad crafter this past week and learned her first little bit of crochet. I think her hands were made to hold a hook. It took her no time to learn how to hold the thread and hook then run up a long chain. She was beside herself with glee, me too. Now Gracie and I can learn together, I'm still not much past the chain stitch.

Also, I found yet another use for felted old sweaters, they make great padding for the hard handles on crutches, Tristan says the felt is very comfy : )

Autumn activity

Big pumpkins at the local farm shop

Life is still in fast-forward around here but I wanted to post a few images from the last couple of weeks before the season disappears like the leaves from the trees.

More pumpkins and squash

The colours this season have been outstanding. The unseasonal warm weather and light wind and rain have given us a longer look at colour on the trees.

A woodland park nearby

This park has beautiful woods and children make dens with branches all over the place.

Late afternoon sunshine filtering through

A mushroom family

This mushroom image is dedicated to Rane who has been very poorly but is happily now on the mend : )

A hill walk

My Aunt Kathy was one of our recent visitors and we had a lovely time together. My camera wasn't really up to the job but this is an image from a hill walk we took together. I'm enjoying getting out and about and learning my way around, there's a lot to discover right on the doorstep of our new home.

Big brother is swinging the piñata

And of course the most important event in our house this season is Gracie's Halloween birthday.

A great big happy 8th birthday to our little pumpkin!

We had a fun day with a small group from her new school. We were lucky with a beautiful warm day so we were able to have a lot of outdoor activity - a treasure hunt in the garden and of course the piñata, it was great fun.

I hope to be back soon with more projects, unfortunately the Christmas pattern will need to be put off until next year, it's more complicated than last year's pattern so I think I've left it too late for people to complete; but there's more to come very soon. I have managed to stitch up the Mouse House pattern, I really should stitch them before offering them up, but luckily it was a piece of cake to stitch.

Mouse House

I think this one is destined for a child's room or a child's bag as the colours are a bit bright.

Lastly, I want to share a link to Rachel's a pretty new blog nest full of eggs. Rachel is hosting a month of re-purposing jars, click over and see her sweet site.

A deadline this week and various commitments at school means very little online time but I hope to catch up with all of you soon. 

I hope your autumn has been warm and wonderful too!