Delightful dilemma

Which is cuter and more strokeable?

My new niece's sweet little tummy, kept warm in a tank top knitted by her Auntie Nancy?

Or her little feet, waving around vigorously, and kept toasty in tiny cashmerino socks also knitted by her Auntie Nancy?

I couldn't decide.

Little wee things

I am beginning the new year by sewing some very tiny little garments for a new baby who is due within the next month. My family are very excited about her impending arrival. I've already made this baby a cosy red kicking bag, and a flower fairy quilt, but I think she still needs more. 

She now has some little bibs - made from my last remaining scraps of Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric, and a favourite Cath Kidston print.

I've been making bibs like this for years.  The pattern comes from the first sewing book I ever bought: Bend the Rules Sewing by Amy Karol.  The bibs are very satisfying to make because you can sew a whole batch of them easily in an evening, and they look so organised and useful stacked up together.  They are backed with soft brushed cotton and have little snaps at the neck to get them on and off easily.

While I had the sewing machine out, I thought I'd use up another precious but tiny piece of leftover fabric by making a wee little skirt - desgined to fit a newborn baby in those very first few weeks.  Because tiny, newborn babies really need pretty skirts.  They do.

I had to rummage around the internet quite a bit to find waist and skirt length measurements for newborns.  In the end two outrageously cute designs which people had put up on their blogs helped me out - this petal skirt, and this jersey ruffle skirt.  I want to make both of these skirts too now, but I only had the very smallest bit of fabric to work with, so I made a simple ribbon-hem A-line skirt with an elastic waist.

It is hard to tell from the photo just how tiny and adorable this little elephant skirt really is.  But the final skirt length is just 18cm - go and look at how small that is on a ruler!

Having been so impatient to meet this new baby for what feels like the longest time, I am now thinking she can stay where she is for a few more weeks so that her auntie can make her some more of these little skirts.  I have just the right amount of red polka-dot cotton for a baby skirt, neatly folded at the side of my desk.  I have a feeling she might also appreciate some cotton skirts in bright, cheerful Kaffe Fassett prints.

It smells like Christmas

Last night I realised I had everything in the house to make one of these:

It is an orange and clove pomander.  Pomanders originated in the middle ages; I first became enchanted with them when I was very young and read about them in the books by Cynthia Harnett.  Pomanders are balls containing scented herbs and perfumes, which were carried around to ward off bad smells and diseases.  They were originally made from filigree silver or gold, and hinged to allow you to open them up and put the perfumes inside.  These seasonal versions using oranges and cloves have been around for years too.  For me their smell is quintessentially Christmas.

To make them you need:

• a nice, fat orange
• a box of cloves
• some ribbon
• a cocktail stick (optional)

Tie the ribbon around the orange as if it were an old fashioned parcel: over the top, down to the bottom, cross over and back to the top to finish with a bow.  Your orange will now have four sections, divided by ribbon.

Push the cloves into the orange as far as they will go, alongside the bits of ribbon.  Let the wonderful smell wash over you.  You can make life a little easier by piercing the orange's peel lightly with a cocktail stick before pushing the cloves into the holes.  Once each section of the orange is outlined with cloves you can add some more to make designs on each section.  I made our family's initials: G, N, C and O.  Stripes look really good too.

If you put plenty of cloves in (you can of course stud the entire fruit with cloves and not bother making patterns at all) then your pomander should dry out slowly and keep for anything up to a few years.

Ours lives in the sitting room and is picked up and inhaled often.  Pomanders look mighty fine hung from a Christmas tree too, although the options for sniffing them when they're hung on a tree are not so good.

Hanging around

Term-time life with children seems to involve a great deal of hanging around.  At ballet.  In the playground (sunning myself on a bench). At various sports events.  While there is a birthday party on.  Waiting for an after school club to finish.

Hanging around is boring, and I need something to entertain me and keep me occupied.

I always have a book in my handbag.  Currently I'm reading Treasures of Time by Penelope Lively, which is part of a new series called Penguin Decades.  I love these new covers - all of them - and it is always good to rediscover old books that are new to me.

But I can't always read a book when I'm hanging around.  Particularly if I have one of the children with me, or there is good people watching to be done.  Instead I need something to occupy my hands.  A portable craft that can be stuffed in a bag and brought out when there is time to be killed, and then stuffed back in the bag until next time.

I like sock knitting for its portability, and simplicity.  Apart from the heel and toe, it is just a whole load of knit stitches - round and round.  Easy to manage while talking about goodness-knows-what with the children.

But I find sewing is often less portable.  I need to get a good collection of small hand-sewing projects that I can have on the go.  I am hand quilting Livvy's strawberry quilt at the moment, which is a good pick-up-put-down job, but not portable.  Embroidery is a good hand sewing project.  And suffolk puffs are simple and mindless once you've cut up a whole pile of circles.

But what else could I do?  What fun, portable, hand-sewing projects can you think of, which I could carry around with me?

Small things

Making small things comes with a disproportionate amount of satisfaction. They are quick, they look cute, they’re simple and they use up those precious scraps of fabric or yarn that cannot be thrown away. What’s not to like?

I’ve been making a great many small things lately. It feels like what I need after all of November and December spent making C’s quilt.

I sneaked in these fabric covered moleskine cahiers in the last few days before Christmas. The instructions are in Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts. I love them. They are fun to make and even nicer to give away as presents. Don’t they look pretty?


In the New Year, doing such long hours at work, I stuck to small things that could be tucked into a short sewing session. I decided to make these tiny, fabric bookmarks.


I’m always turning down the corners of catalogues, recipe books and sewing books, and I realised I could easily make some bookmarks with more oddments from my vast basket of scraps.
.

My machine was not happy about sewing such thin fabric with a very small seam allowance, and I had a few sweary moments when I started. But a couple of hours later I had over thirty (yes! thirty!) bookmarks with which I am very pleased. And they’re perfect for marking the patterns I want to knit in my new book.


Doll’s clothes are usually a quick and satisfying project. And they’re met with charming excitement by small girls. I made this vintage Cloth Kitty for O for Christmas. She is an exact replica of the one I had at O’s age. I made the doll and her dress by Christmas, but there were other clothes that came in the kit which I didn’t have time to make. Last week I dug the kit out, and in a spare hour thought I’d make the sweet little frilly knickers in the kit.

Goodness me, frilly knickers in doll’s sizes are a complete nightmare. It took me HOURS. The shirring was stressful – I did it by hand in the end. But Hannah, the doll, is pleased with them and so is her owner.

Hannah is now looking through the Mini Boden catalogue dreaming of her summer wardrobe.

And I am moving on to bigger things. The quilt for O will need to be started soon....