Imposing order

When it feels as though life is starting to spiral out of control, and everything is choatic and stressful, I take pleasure in ordered things.

At Kew Gardens on Monday I saw order and patterns everywhere I went.

The other thing that I like at times like this, is having nice stationery and using it to write lists on.  After I'd cleared my head with a long walk and a long chat, around Kew, I came home and wrote absolutely everything I could think of on a list.

The daily 'to do' lists start with a collection of bossy verbs at the moment.  I must pay, wash, check, phone, collect, speak, email and change all kinds of things.  Writing them down, and crossing them off, takes away their power to overwhelm.  All I must do is work my way down the list each day.

There are also lists of things which are overwhelming in different ways, but which I must accept:

• lists of issues which cannot be resolved yet, and so I must not fret about,
• lists of good things coming up in the school holidays, which I should look forward to
• lists of things I might sew when I have some more time,
• lists of possible solutions to potential problems.

These too seem much more manageable when I write them down.  For these stress lists I have some new sticky notes, which cheer me up just looking at them.

I bought them in Paperchase, and I'm using them to impose order on my life.  The house is bristling with them at the moment.

I do like a nice plastic wallet

Since I finished the quilt last week I'm back on the knitting again, and remembering all the knitterly things that I love:

• slim dpns - they make me feel very clever and dextrous
• yarn - so tactile and squishy
• Ravelry - I can waste entire evenings rummaging around its pattern library
• portability - I tuck my knitting into my satchel and sneak in a couple of rows when I am on the tube, sitting in the playground or waiting at ballet.

This last point has been helped considerably by the purchase of one of these plastic zip-up wallets from Muji.

I have the A4 size, which is big enough to hold one or two small projects on dpns, some photocopied patterns, my tape measure and a little pair of scissors.  When it is zipped shut, I can tuck the wallet into my satchel and it is ready for whenever I have a spare 5 minutes.

I love the ghostliness of the wallet when it is shut

The wallet in my satchel - no more pulling out my umbrella and having a whole ball of precious Debbie Bliss cashmerino come too

I'm knitting things for the children.  When I asked O what she'd like she declared legwarmers would be just the thing.  I am knitting her a pair of these Easy Peasy Leg Warmers (pattern from The Witty Knitter blog).  The pattern is for a 10 to 12 year old girl, and uses thick worsted weight yarn.  So I am knitting it in much finer Debbie Bliss cashmerino to get a better fit on those skinny 8 year old legs my girl has.  It is a super easy pattern - and coming together gratifyingly quickly.  You can see more details on my Ravelry page for them here.

C wanted socks.  He is a (young) man after my own heart and likes nothing better than handknit socks.  I quite agree with him that they are one of the nicest things that can be knit.  For these I'm using the reliable, free, Kaffe Fassett sock knitting pattern that I picked up in John Lewis years ago. They yarn I am using is also by Regia - a deliciously bright primary coloured one called World Circus.  Again you can find more details on Ravelry.

I think I may be a little odd in being so motivated to knit because I have a nice plastic wallet to keep everything in...but perhaps not.  Muji must be onto something - everything in that shop just makes me feel like a small child again, wanting to spend ALL my pocket money on rubbers, glue, notebooks, pencils, folders, storage tins and felt-tips.  That small child is still in most of us I think judging by the crowds of middle aged people sighing over the plastic wallets and hex pens every time I go into the shop - just like me.

Continuing with colour

Silverpebble's Splash of Colour project has started something here I think.  All the sewing I've done this week has been saturated with colour.

I've made two brightly coloured treats for the shop. 

First came a notebook cover, using what may be my last piece of this gorgeous Phillip Jacobs floral fabric.  It holds a Muji or a Moleskine notebook and has a little pocket on the front for a couple of pens or pencils.  If I still worked in the City I would so LOVE to take this into meetings as a zingy counterpoint to all the standard-issue office stationery. 

I've also made a patchwork cushion in one of my all-time-favourite colour combinations of bright red and pastel blue.  It has a touch of pink ricrac too, because I never need much of an excuse to add ricrac.

I used a dark green polka dot cotton for the back of the cushion and added a little patch of the Cath Kidston strawberry fabric which I'd included on the front.  I really love the blanket stitch settings on my machine, which I've used here, because I always found appliqueing with a zigzag stitch a very knotty and messy business.

I have a real cushion obsession at the moment. 

Since finishing C's birthday Swiss cushion, I've finally got round to remaking the cushion covers that I sewed for O when I was pregnant with her, nearly nine years ago.  I hadn't learnt about the envelope back closure back then and they were fastened with a giant flap and some very unsatisfactory velcro.  I've been desperate to re-make them and O finally agreed but instructed me to "keep them saggy" because that's how she likes them.

Despite the small blow to my pride this caused, I did as instructed and kept them "saggy".  I unpicked the covers, tutted at the shoddy understanding of seam allowances I had nine years ago, and re-made them with a few small additions of other panels of matching fabric, and some ricrac.

The cushions originally had the red-and-blue gingham on one side and the red-and-blue paisley on the other (both Ikea fabrics).  Because I added in some extra panels, I had a little of both fabrics leftover after re-modelling the cushions.  I used some of the gingham on the (puffy, not saggy!) cushion for the shop and with the very last scraps of the leftovers I made O a small patchwork quilt for her Clothkits dolls.

This corner of her bedroom now has all the colour I could wish for on a grey November day.  The Clothkits gang are all tucked up under their quilts, O's strawberry quilt is folded up on the bed, and the cushions are all lined up against the wall.  It looks like a cosy pink, red and blue fabric nest!

Child of the 70s

When I was small enough to have my hair washed just once a week (and always on a Sunday night) the only good thing about having to endure my ears being singed by my mother's terrifying and antiquated hairdryer, was being able to read a catalogue while my hair was dried.

The catalogue I loved the most was the Clothkits catalogue. Many of my clothes came from Clothkits and so did those of my friends in the village where I grew up. Clothkits sold fabric to make clothes for children and adult in mad, bright 1970s colours and bold designs. The colours of the girls dresses were so weird that Clothkits also sold matching tights and knitwear because you'd never be able to find that exact shade of turquoise or burnt orange anywhere else. I would gaze at the catalogue for hours loving all the matching colours and funky patterns. I don't remember asking my mother to make me anything specific from the catalogue - I loved it all.

When I came back to sewing after my children were born I remembered Clothkits and tried to find out where I could buy their kits. I was so disappointed to find that they had gone out of business in the late 1980s.

And then...bored at work and randomly clicking through sewing blogs and flickr, I discovered that in February of this year, Clothkits was relaunched! Their new range is breathtakingly beautiful - the colours and simplicity are still true to its 1970s bohemian origins but with elements of modern design that are bang up to date.

At present their range is small - the children's clothes are only for girls up to age 6 and there are just two skirts for adults - but they are planning on bringing out more very soon. O already wears age 7 clothes so I haven't bought her a dress pattern, but I couldn't resist the Cloth Kitty doll pattern. I had at least one (possibly both?) of these original Cloth Kittys when I was small and I remember my friends having them too (and we used to dress our Sasha dolls in Clothkits dolls outfits too - remember Sasha dolls?)

Today the parcel from Clothkits arrived...



..and I was very, very excited because not only is the kit just how I remembered, but it is packaged so wonderfully as well - all wrapped in tissue paper and accompanied by a hand written note thanking me for my purchase. With customer service like that they deserve to be back in business!

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The other post I got today was pretty amazing too. This note from Anna in the Cath Kidston stationery I was drooling about in my last post. Incredibly, it's even nicer in real life than I had imagined - there is a sticker to fasten the envelope!

And O had a parcel from my mother with this beautiful cardie inside - knitted in the softest angora yarn and trimmed with ribbon. I didn't even know you could knit in ribbon