Nini Makes

Dawn

I love morning. I go to bed at night excited to get up in the morning. As soon as it becomes the slightest bit light out I'm up, in winter I get up in the dark. I begin to make coffee in my French Press, put away any clean dishes from last nights dinner, organise my day and my thoughts.

 

While coffee brews I stretch, and calm my mind, usually the mind calming part is harder than I like. My favourite part of the morning is when the sun just peeks over the barn next door and floods my face. I realise then that there's still at least an hour before I wake the children which means 3,600 seconds are still all mine.

 

Morning is the time of day when I function best. I usually get two hours of work done, good and productive work. Never the same thing. Sometimes letter writing, copywriting or sketching ideas - I save boring, administrative stuff for the afternoon when I'm less alert. 

 

I find my days are now highly scheduled, little time for relaxed blog browsing and catching up with friends online, maybe one day that will change, but it won't be soon. Now, my mornings are my refuge, even on days when the sun doesn't come out and peek over the barn.

 

Since I was last here we've moved house, the children have grown a whole lot in just these few months and we've been getting accustomed to new routines. We are really well and hope you are too.

 

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A few things I've enjoyed recently and you might too:

 

Today's Desert Island Discs with Alison Moyet. I love hearing an artist's own perspective, she's fascinating and her music choices are great too.

 

The Story of Women and Art  So much food for thought in this series, amazing, wonderful and desperate all at once. 

 

Painting with gouache. I haven't used it much since art school but have found it my medium of choice when I steal away minutes for painting. If you follow me on Instagram, the quick little studies I've done of birds in our new garden are with gouache.

 

Today I'm sending off my French Knot pieces and doily drawings for this project by Lisa Solomon. It's easy to take part, if you have a moment take a look, she's still taking contributions.

 

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Have a lovely weekend.

 

Jx

Reflecting on goodness

It's February 1st, and I'm getting around to reflecting on 2013. I don't want to forget because it was mostly a really big year for us.

Gracie left primary school and began secondary school. Her team won their regional rounders championship and her love of sports has become even greater. This year she's played on every team: hockey, netball, rounders and track and of course riding at weekends.

I keep on walking and enjoying the hills that surround our tiny village but soon we'll be moving again, outside the village a couple of miles away. Walking makes everything clear for me, can't do without it.

We enjoyed two trips to California, thanks Grandma and Grandpa. The first a fantastic reunion, this time in the Wine Country with some of the family.

Tristan turned 15, and went to see Green Day in London with friends.

Gracie turned 12 and grew a whole lot of inches!

I turned.... a year older too. And went back to design work to help improve finances around here.

I still always start with pen and paper. It was fun working with lovely Jan on this one.

Tristan performed several times and played live on radio for the first time. I'm still trying to get that recording linked, my heart swells when I listen to it. This year I'm looking forward to hearing both children perform together on stage.

We had a prolonged Autumn, mild and magical too.

Very little making was done, though three dolls were finished for some of our littlest family members.

And we ended the year in the warm embrace of family, again back in California.

I hope 2013 treated you well. And big warm wishes from us for a glorious 2014!

We will move house at the end of February but not get broadband until middle of March. I'm hoping to come back with regular visits after that. I want to share some of my new adventures with gouache, so fun!

Jx

Fabric gift box or bag, tutorial – in time for Christmas!

Fabric box/bag with unfinished edges

I made a necklace for a friend recently and had no spare box or bag to package it in so I thought it was a good time to try out making a gift box I'd been mulling over in my mind for a while. I used buckram to support this box, which really has more of a bag look to it.

Inside the box is lined

I'd bought buckram to use for making fairy hats for Gracie when she was younger and somewhat girlier and I massively over bought the stuff. The type of buckram I bought is used for making roll-up shades; it's white, thin and foldable (not sure that word exists). I've thought of many uses for it since then but haven't followed through on any ideas yet apart from this one. I know it exists in heavier, more hessian style weights and I'm sure that would be a great support material for larger jobs.

This box is just a few inches tall. I sandwiched the buckram between two layers of fabric using fusible webbing and I left the edges unfinished. I've created a quick template in the actual size I used but it could easily be scaled up or down. As I uploaded these images the box has reminded me of fabric lunchbags so there are probably similar templates around. If you'd like this one here is the Fabric Box Template and tutorial in a PDF file to download.

I also thought they'd be easy to make for wedding favours, they could be dressed up or down with lace or flowers, buttons, rubber stamps...

Yesterday was spent on some belated birthday present activity, as you can see, Gracie is way beyond the fairy hat making stage, now she prefers being a "Gracecar" driver ;)

Children went back to school today after half-term break, time to catch up.

Have a great week.

Jx

Happy Birthday to my baby!

Happy birthday Gracie, our Halloween treat.

Here you are today at 12, looking decidedly serious. You make everyday a sunny day!

Love Mama
xoxo

autumn views and new workshop

So many pretty views right now, looking up or looking down. This Picasa collage is not great but I'm being lazy at the end of a long week.

 

Naomi and I are back at Moorish for another felt workshop soon. She's over committed on commissions for Christmas already so we'll be teaching people how to make their own pets from fleece. As the Spring Grove Alpaca and sheep herd has grown so has the colour range. Find out more about the workshops here.

I've gone through my current stack of books and recently returned to classics. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by, Carson McCullers and Sweet Thursday by, Steinbeck. I loved them both so much. It's astonishing that McCullers was only twenty-three when she wrote The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. And while reading Sweet Thursday I was struck by how all the issues in the novel are so relevant today, especially concerns about overpopulation. I've always loved Steinbeck and Sweet Thursday made me want to re-read Cannery Row, as Steinbeck revisited the same characters.

Do you have any favourite classics?

Tonight the BBC were recording here in our tiny village and visiting our monthly music club that Tristan has performed at several times. I usually go but a silly cold kept me in tonight. Rumour has it they were here to record the local brother duo Ben & Alfie. They are brilliant to see live and they were just shortlisted for the BBC2 Young Folk Awards – have a listen.

And speaking of listening, Matthew Oomen's new music has been helping me through some creative yet sometimes tedious jobs this week; it can be downloaded here.

I'll be back soon with that template and tutorial mentioned previously.

Have a great weekend. x

Updated - Forgot to mention the dog and the butterfly were made by Naomi Stannard.

 

29 Sep 2013

I've had a lovely birthday morning with my daughter and pup. We've already had breakfast in bed and coffee and pressies. She's spoiled me :) As a sign of the times, teenage son is still asleep, that's okay with us, we know he really needs his sleep!

I had a new tutorial and pattern template planned but a rather gross cold and deadlines too got in the way. Then my photos were crap, so it will come soon. It's a quick and easy sewn item that might be handy for the gift giving season.

Hope you've had a lovely weekend.

Jx

A fun macro lens to play with

Seed pods with an Easy-Macro Lens

I've coveted a nice macro lens for my DSLR for years but I haven't been able to splurge. When I read about the Easy-Macro lens for camera phones I thought at $15 that's an investment rather easy to risk should it turn out to be rubbish - wish I wasn't so slow to the party, it's been out since 2011.

I was so surprised at what this tiny lens on a rubber band could achieve. While there's not much depth of field and you have to get very close to the subject to focus it, I found it really fun to use. It takes a little practice and it's important to be quite still but I managed to snap some pretty good shots with it anyway. In the process I even discovered tiny, unwelcome creatures living on one of my stalks of dried seed pods – they've since since been released to the wild.

The spider wasn't easy to shoot because I kept getting jumpy every time I got close enough to snap him (you must almost touch the subject to use this lens) but again, not too bad a shot. The snail was very accommodating though and even posed for me.

The Easy-Macro doesn't have the crisp, high definition of a £1500 macro, but at £15 (plus £5 shipping) I've already enjoyed more that my money's worth with it. I've also discovered one of the best things about it is that it's one of those tools the kids can really explore with too. Not only is it easy for children to attach the lens, it's also a great learning tool.

I noticed a Kickstarter campaign was launched to help finance the next version of the lens, unsurprisingly they've reached their goal with time to spare. If you need a budget lens that you can slip in your pocket when you run out the door, give it a try.

Happy Monday!

x 

the magic of mist

View from a misty morning walk

Autumn is drawing in and mornings are becoming cooler and the mist heavier. Last week I snapped a few pictures of magic the mist brings by showing off another sign of the season, web building (the arachnid variety).

The day before, these webs would have been invisible to passerbys. But this misty morning they were visible every step of the way. Here are a few varieties of constructions I saw, oddly, most of the builders were hiding at the time.

This last one is taken of a holly section of hedgerow and looks like a block of flats to me.

I long for the day when I have time to remember to take along a decent camera and stop relying on my phone for images. Having said that, my DSLR is in need of a serious upgrade so until then I'll enjoy what I have to hand and keep in mind it's better than no visual reminders at all.

Speaking of visuals, I took really subpar video of Tristan's performance at the art week that kicked off this weekend, I really must find a better way to record. He was asked to perform a whole set and in spite of the base player getting cold feet at the last moment, he and the drummer still took to the stage and gave a rousing performance, including one of his own compositions this time.

Tris was also interviewed and performed live on local radio which I'll link to as soon as I can sort out the audio file – I'm not sure how, but I'm quite sure I held my breath through the whole thing!

Hope you had a fantastic weekend too, what did you get up to?

x

Last tooth & tooth fairy pouch tutorial revisit

Gracie has lost her last primary tooth (wisdom teeth aside). She may not be so sorry to see them go as they were enamel deficient and her adult teeth are not, but it can make a mother a bit sad to be leaving the early years behind.

Tomorrow is also the end of primary school as she embarks on her next stage, the start of secondary school. Butterflies have been gathering in the tummy and we've already had restless nights, but I know she'll be okay. It may take a while to feel settled but I know it will happen – besides, she has that younger sibling advantage of having a brother who will be there for her.

Tooth pouch tutorial

It's hard to believe I created this tooth fairy pouch pattern and tutorial when Gracie lost her very first tooth, it was also the topic of my very first blog post.

Like lots of parents I'm excited for the children to start a new year but already lamenting the loss of varied routines and kicked off shoes. Tomorrow it's back to packed lunches and early rises, the upside being no "I'm starving!" interruptions followed by the lengthly "your quite capable of making your own lunch" discussions. Really, I miss them already.

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Next Sunday is the Wiveliscombe Street Fair as part of the 10 parishes festival. We're really excited about Tris performing a whole set on one of the stages – he's also one of the acts that will be broadcast on the local radio station. So if you're in the Wiveliscombe area next Sunday drop by – it's a great day with loads of food stalls, local ales and cider and music all day. Did I mention the ales? 

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Also, I've been trying out the Easy Macro lens for my iPhone. It's such an easy and inexpensive solution to trying to get close up shots with a phone camera. I'll update this space with samples from this new little toy soon. At only $15 plus $5 shipping from the States it's already proving to be well worth the investment. And speaking of investment, I noticed the Macro lens people have launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the development of their next lens – I hope they do well.

Time to get dinner on and have an early night, school tomorrow!

x

PS - Am I the only one Typepad no long gives paragraph breaks to? Sometimes they happen, more often than not, they don't :(

home

Nursery web spider, Pisaura mirabilis

We've just returned from three glorious weeks with family and friends in California. Whenever we visit I get the usual question regarding where is home now for me. After being in the UK for 16 years the answer is a tough one. I adore my family and extended family so much that it's great being back in their protective, nurturing environment. But I love our life in the UK too, it's been good to me and our UK family and friends have too. 

Spiderlings inside their protective web, mother stands guard outside

Just before we left on our trip we found out our landlord is selling the home we rent so soon we'll be moving yet again. The children are so happy in the village where we live that they were desperately unhappy to come home to a "For Sale" sign on the house. I wish I could spin a silky web around them to gaurd them from unpleasantness and predators like this nursery spider does for her young. But this is another little bump in the road that we will get over and life will roll on and I'm sure benefits will come from it.

Right now we're basking in the afterglow of the fun we had in California, giving our doggie lots of cuddles and catching up on sleep. Luckily there was finally a bit of rain while we were away so things are a little greener than when we left and there's a bumper crop of blackberries waiting to be picked in the back garden.

Hope your summer has been fabulous!

x