I am struggling with the annual irk of winter which is that we spend too much time indoors and too much mess is made that doesn’t get cleared up. I really do still believe that fairies will come in the night and everything will be cleaned and tidied by them ready to start a new day. Or, if they can’t make it at night then they will come when we are out during the day and I won’t come home to washing that need processing or dishes that need to be washed.

We have been making envelopes at a rate of about six a day for the last week since the wonderful The Crafter’s Companion Enveloper Pro was delivered by a very patient post man. This poor man has to come to our house in a van now to deliver parcel after parcel containing vinyl albums bought for pennies on ebay by El Famosisimo.

We’ve also had a run on badge making so we are surrounded by snipped up bits of paper and magazines as well as all the washing which I have been drying on the really useful Ikea Pressa peg things on the shower rail or the door frame as I can’t be bothered to go to the shed and put them in the tumble dryer. I feel like I am the only person who has piles of clean folded clothes on the sofa which don’t move (no fairies again) as well as piles of clean plates that get dirty then clean again and don’t make it into the cupboards in-between those states and paper everywhere. I just can’t be bothered to keep moving things and putting them away ALL THE TIME…. I think I need to go to housewife boot camp or something to sort myself out as I’m twenty years into this job and I have still not really got the hang of it.

I have a few finished things and more unfinished things to show for a month’s worth of thinking about sewing:

What you see here is what can be sewn from 1 meter of denim: one pair of trousers for Miss Amoo – now 128cm tall, one bodice for a simple A line pinafore for Miss Froo and one back piece sewn from the leftover denim ready to be cut to shape and attached to aforementioned bodice if I can find more denim to make the front.

The bodice is completely lined with a bit of one of Mr G’s ink-stained shirts and finished with poppers so as soon as I get some denim there will be no excuse not to get the thing finished. This is proving tricky though as there is currently absolutely no denim in my favourite shop. Local folks will know that this small town is disproportionately well supplied with dress and upholstery fabrics, notions, yarn and more in three fantastic shops all called Masons. The ladies tell me that ‘He Who Does All The Ordering’ hasn’t been well and some things haven’t been restocked lately as his mojo is taking some time to find again. That and the price of cotton is ridiculously high at the moment and denim is hard to find at reasonable prices. So, disappointingly, the only useful bit of the metre is the trousers which have been well worn already.

The other thing was a last minute birthday gift for Mr G. The story behind this is that the caravan came with a stainless steel tea pot which we have been using on a daily basis. We have had tea pots before but always ended up breaking the lids somehow so the hinged lid of the metal pot is a real bonus.

Now that Mr G is getting into drinking green tea and decaff Earl Grey he needs a littler tea pot at the office doesn’t he (this is my thinking, not his). I left it til the last minute and bought a brand new shiny pot for one from an old fashioned hardware-and-more shop in Oxford that is close to where Miss Froo’s drama thing happens. It is the kind of place where you have to ask if they have something as everything is everywhere. On enquiring, the chap moved some plastic sieves on a high shelf to reveal three different sizes of boxed tea pots. This kind of shopping is much more exciting than buying him yet another pen, I can tell you!

This was the winner and is is seated on a hastily but carefully sewn tea pot mat to save scalding his desk. This is the first time in years that have bound something without using the Singer bias tape foot but the thick cotton (from trousers) the batting (fleece) and the backing (check shirt) wouldn’t fit through the foot so it was old fashioned half machine, half hand sewing that got the binding so neat. I’m so happy with it that I offer you an extreme close up as a bonus.

I have yet to cut any of the Rag Market fabrics to sew anything for myself so I plan to do something about that next month. Or not. Depending on the effect produced by the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Australia.

I was browsing Pinterest ( you have a lot to answer for analog lady!) and saw a pillowcase bag from Martha Stewart’s crafty summer things. Looking at photos of summer sewing stuff was a bit distracting but I got a summery pillowcase out of the drawer and sewed one up.

I didn’t like the idea of a knot on my shoulder so I cut the thing in half from 3″ from the corner instead of right at the corner. In hindsight I did my maths wrong and should have only gone an inch or two in as I have a very wide strap and a relatively deep and narrow bag…

I used my trusty narrow hem foot to finish the diagonal edges to save getting the iron out to press and turn then turn again.

Here’s the finished bag with a square bottom to add a bit more room and shorten the darned thing. The button is there to hold the loose inside diagonal bit which makes a kind of handy-ish pocket inside.

And best of all this was a job that left very little waste so there wasn’t much to tidy up:

What you see above is tiny trimmings from both ends of the pillowcase, the triangle ends left after sewing the gusset and the flappy bit inside that holds the pillow in. As the pillowcase only cost 50p from the YMCA shop last year this was a thrifty make in all senses. the larger piece of leftovers might become something else soon so I’ll keep it in the drawer and throw away the little strips. When I’ve done that I must go to bed and *NOT* look at Pinterest again tonight.

I love the possibilities that the New Year brings and every year I hope that we will be contented, healthy and all move forward in positive ways. This year we are still hopeful but also sure that unpredictable times lie ahead in many areas of our lives. I think we will have to make sure we do things that make us happy to balance out the other bits but sometimes life is like that.

There have been a lot of good times this year as well as a few bad ones here and there and these are some pictures that trigger good memories for me.

Here’s how it started on Monday afternoon

It is a simple origami folded thing from here . This year the tree is double spread of newspaper wide and three pages long. Then we plastered it with old envelopes and flour/water paste.

It was painted this very green shade on Tuesday and is looking much drier and stiffer now. The tree has already suffered some damage from being under the soaf so this will need a minor corner repair at some point! (It’s the picture that is fuzzy, not your eyesight)

Miss Amoo went to a home ed thing with friends the other week and came home with some lovely crafty things including this little fabric decoration

Hers has 2-3″ squares and a ribbon on top which looks great and I thought I might have something somewhere to do something similar. In all my tidying up of late I found a bag of 1″ squares that I cut last Christmas and the year before to make little scrappy wreaths with a home ed groups we go to. I didn’t want to make wreaths again so I’ve made these:

They’re blutacked to the back of this little door and I might sew some more tonight if I can drag myself away from doing nothing. It really feels like it’s time to hibernate and my whole self is slowing down as everyone else is revving up. Never mind.

It was Christmas 2007 when I decided it was truly mad to send out cards which cost trees to make, money to buy, money to post and then would get binned a month later was madness so I wouldn’t buy any. Most people I would have sent cards to I could have called for a chat or visited or seen in the street to give them my good wishes so did I really need the cards at all? That year Mr G bought some cards and sent them to people he thought would be offended if they didn’t get one but then he said we shouldn’t buy a tree. What? No tree?

I grew up putting up a silver and white tinsel tree every Christmas. It was then folded up into a long thin box and kept in the loft til the following year. My mum never wanted to buy a real tree but I always wanted one so when I had my own home I always bought a tree. Before we had a car we would choose the most runty looking tree that no-one else wanted from the Sea Scouts at Donnington Bridge on about Dec 20th and carry it home. When I learned to drive I had an ancient Fiat with a fold back roof and we squeezed the tree in and let half of it poke out of the roof which the boys thought was really funny.

We have an old Christmas tape that we have always played in the car on such journeys and then play indoors too once we are feeling a bit more festive which usually happens around the 23rd or 24th. By staying away from too many shops I can manage to hold on to the truth that Christmas does not actually start in November at all! I can see might be hard if you have to walk through town every day to work but being here in yokelville is a bit easier.

Back to the tree thing: Mr G used the same wasteful arguments I had used against card purchase, against tree purchase and I couldn’t disagree. Why would we cut a tree down just to let it die in the house? So we made a paper tree from newspaper and envelopes that I collected during December. We folded a massive origami tree from the newspaper than papier mache’d it with the envelopes then painted it green and hung it on the wall.

We did the same thing in 2008 and 2009 with the same kind of end product. Then in 2010 I didn’t make a tree and the kids got antsy and I threw caution to the wind and bought a tree (runty again) in a pot so we could plant it therefore not violating any principles (much). I planted it after Christmas and it died. It is still in the garden looking dead so I think we may go back to a paper tree this year.

With the cards gone and the tree gone we also stopped wrapping the presents. The children each have a stocking which holds a comic to read when they wake up, a satsuma and some gold chocolate Euro coins (Lidl don’t do pound coins). Their presents are in white bags tied with red ribbon inside a larger white bag tied with a ribbon which as their initial Sharpied on it. The Sharpie bit was done by Mr G late one Christmas Eve when I had sewn a load of little bags of different sizes and sacks and couldn’t be bothered to embroider their initials on them. And Sharpie just doesn’t wash off you know!

The little bags are mix and match depending on who has what size of present and some new bags needed sewing when Miss Froo grew old enough to want presents. I sew the bags with the Easiest bag gusset in the world which I had been using for a while but used as one of my first posts on this blog way back in 2009.

It is fun trying to remember where I have stored the bags and the stockings the finding a bag to fit each present and tying them up and we don’t have to come downstairs to a sea of wrapping paper on Christmas morning either. We stay in bed and let them open their presents and do what they want all morning then we get up and start making something to eat.

And so to food: we are meat eaters but we don’t buy a turkey. I get a big long piece of beef which I chop about a third off and make into stew for Christmas Eve then we roast the rest for Christmas dinner which is usually at about 6 o’clock. No rushing around to eat before the Queen’s speech in this house, no. The Queen is lucky if we haven’t got back into bed after having put the meat in oven by then!

My food tips/observations are these:

It is just another day and another meal so as long as everyone is full at the end of the day it is all ok.

We have some stars that we hang up under our porch thing. We love making the snowflakes from Marcel’s kids crafts as seen here last year and the stars from here

It all boils down to not buying stuff thereby avoiding shops and shoppers, being ordinary and remembering that these days are also about midwinter and that we are halfway to the days being longer again which will bring warmth and new growth soon. Stay calm!

]]> http://parasombra.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/simpler-christmas/feed/ 5 The Sewist Christmas 07 008 http://parasombra.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/i-know-it-is-cold-when/ http://parasombra.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/i-know-it-is-cold-when/#comments Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:04:53 +0000 The Sewist http://parasombra.wordpress.com/?p=1164 ]]> …I start getting orders for Winter Sling Things and the mad Christmas rush starts in earnest.

Two orders this week and a little purchase, out of the blue, from Folksy too! I am a bit chuffed about the Folksy sale of a little purse because it must mean that someone was searching for a purse, looked at hundreds of them and chose mine!

Winter Sling Thing sales don’t amaze me so much because people find my ebay listings and Folksy shop by googling for stuff like “fleece cover for sling” and then following the link.

I think it has taken Folksy a while to hit its stride and in the year or so I have been on there it has changed quite a bit and got a lot more coverage here and there too. I have been a very bad Folksy shopper and only ever bought one thing so I’m setting a really bad example to other shoppers! I bought a print from this shop for the girls for Christmas last year. I am ashamed to say that I still haven’t had it framed yet! I must do that this month.

So today I cleared the floor to unroll and cut some super snuggly chocolate brown fleece and for the first time I’ve been able to sew a little tag onto the Things. It can’t be seen when the Thing is being used because I hate that kind of branding all over stuff but it has Orange & Green on one side and the design registration number on the other.

Here’s a mad close-up

I’ve been sewing some tiny weeny cross stitch pictures for the girls which will also need framing at some point… I thought it would be nice to sew something by hand for a change so when I saw these on sale in our favourite shop in February I paid for and pocketed two while they were distracted by the beads and jewels at the other end of the shop. It has been a labour of love to get just one finished . Just the outline of this one took me three hours! Perhaps doing this whilst watching The Killing (with subtitles) wasn’t the smartest decision, but anyhooo

That square of fabric is just 5″ x 5″ and the biggest box is onnly about an inch and a half wide. One pub night with the home ed ladies and one night of tv watching later I have got it all coloured in as per the picture so I have started on number two which is a bell in two shades of yellow. What was I thinking? I am so glad I started stitching at the start of December and didn’t leave it till Christmas Eve to get started. Nothing else for Christmas has been done though so I am thinking about writing a very short list of things I want to do (not need to do or should do) and get on with doing them at a snail’s pace. A few years ago I found that if I kept in mind that it is just one day, with one meal, that took the madness away.

Tomorrow I’ll post about some of the things I’ve been doing, if I get a minute.

]]> http://parasombra.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/i-know-it-is-cold-when/feed/ 3 The Sewist IMG_4821 (1024x768) IMG_4816 http://parasombra.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/small-progress/ http://parasombra.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/small-progress/#comments Sat, 26 Nov 2011 00:15:23 +0000 The Sewist http://parasombra.wordpress.com/?p=1162 ]]> Large parts of the living room floor are now clear space and I have Thrown Some Things Away. Eek! Will I miss them? I don’t know, but I’m sure that I won’t remember what I put in the bin in a month’s time.

Tonight I have crossed two things off the UFO list. The undies now have waist elastic and the bag now has one single strap not two lonely ends. I have also sewn a little needle case for Miss Amoo as part of her christmas gift. The cover is denim from Mr G’s old jeans, the lining is part of a double cuff that I cut off all Mr G’s old shirts when I made them into a rag rug. The bit for the needles is cut from the sleeve of a felted jumper and I blanket stitched the edges of the wool while I was watching trash on iPlayer. Doing little things like this reminds me why I keep so many bits of fabric and why it is such a struggle to get rid of stuff.

A nice peaceful evening at the end of a kind of weird week. I forgot to go to work on Wednesday night which is a sign of something being a bit discombobulated in my head for sure.

]]> http://parasombra.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/small-progress/feed/ 3 The Sewist http://parasombra.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/time-to-talk/ http://parasombra.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/time-to-talk/#comments Tue, 22 Nov 2011 01:11:50 +0000 The Sewist http://parasombra.wordpress.com/?p=1160 ]]> Today when Miss Froo was at her Dreamweavers drama group (the only thing she does that is big sister-free) Miss Amoo and I went to the post office to return the boots of the previous post then went to the cafe at Pegasus Theatre They have an amazing wire tree which starts on the ground floor and ends up almost reaching the roof. The tree has coloured circles of perspex growing on its branches some of which are engraved with messages and inspiring quotes. We had a drink and a big fat slice of shortbread and read some of the bubbles that were close to our table.

We are four weeks into the Dreamweavers thing and I have found that this time with Miss Amoo has been strange and welcome as it gives her time to say something without having to shout over her sister or have her sister contradict her or say that she also wants the same things. I love how close they are but I do also want to give them opportunities to be themselves and not a lump of FrooAmoo or AmooFroo depending on who is more forceful at any given moment. Some people might (and sometimes do) argue that if they were at school they would be more individual but we don’t think that is the answer. As they get older their desires and needs will change and they will find paths they want to walk together and others to show each other but for now they spend significantly more time together than apart which is special.

Today in these peaceful moments walking and talking then sitting and watching, Moo told me two things that need some action on my part. She would like to learn to draw better as her portraits of different people are starting to all look the same and she thinks that a denim belt with a button on it would be good to hold her trousers up. I’ll do what I can to help her with both these things.

Tomorrow Miss Froo and I will be home alone as Moo is off to a friend’s house for the afternoon. Froo is sure to have some things that she wants me to do for her too and we may have time to do them before her sister gets home!

]]> http://parasombra.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/time-to-talk/feed/ 1 The Sewist http://parasombra.wordpress.com/2011/11/20/moving-stuff/ http://parasombra.wordpress.com/2011/11/20/moving-stuff/#comments Sun, 20 Nov 2011 17:42:41 +0000 The Sewist http://parasombra.wordpress.com/?p=1155 ]]> I’ve been emptying out cupboards and bags of fabric with the aim of moving all my fabric out of the house and into the caravan.

This has revealed that my stuff falls into several categories: yardage for me; yardage for the girls; smaller bits that can’t be used for whole garments but would be handy to keep for this, that or the other; clothing/sheets/other that have yet to be upcycled in their entirety; UFOs and muslins, USOs (sewn to sell but as yet unsold) and other stuff which is really just rags.

So far I have sorted out the yardage for me and the girls without any trouble, then a bag load of Mr G’s shirts which are now minus sleeves as I’m working on another rag rug. The other stuff is a bit more difficult to organise as some of the UFOs are quick fixes and could stay indoors. Another couple of metres of fabric need to stay near the machine because I want to sew them up soon… other bits seem to dissimilar to put into the same bag…. I’m a Virgo you know! I’m one of those people who is generally messy but has a spick and span filing cabinet and has been know to tidy bookshelves so that the colours of the spines go from light to dark through colours…. Try it: it looks great!

Something else that needs to stay in the house is a large amount of Ikea fabric under the sewing machine which is the start of a friend’s curtains which must be sewn soon as winter is coming round again. On top of that is half a Winter Sling Thing as I’m back in the swing of sewing them up for winter too.

The UFO pile contains the unsuccessful Sorbetto, a Novita needing one more bound armscye, some undies needing waist elastic, an Ottobre top for Miss Froo that needs some coloured FOE to finish the neck and cuffs, a bag that needs the strap sewing up and a pair of New Look 6190 trousers in brown linen that now fit me so might be worth putting a zip into!

While I’ve been doing all this sorting and moving of piles, Mr G has bought a new heater for the living room which is ‘More efficient and heats up faster” than our oil filled radiator. Unfortunately it is also a bit larger than the old heater so I think we are going to have to put dismantle this chair and put it in the shed for the winter in order to fit it in. He bought this heater from Amazon and accidentally also bought a pair boots I had in my wish list. This is not the first time this kind of thing has happened but last time we didn’t really want My Daddy is a Pretzel! He brought the boots home sheepishly as I hadn’t intended to buy them right now but we’ve had to send them back as the box says size 4 but the boots inside are both size 5 and far too big for me

And all this palaver makes MORE MESS! How is this possible?

]]> http://parasombra.wordpress.com/2011/11/20/moving-stuff/feed/ 0 The Sewist IMG_4811 (1024x768) http://parasombra.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/the-caravan-of-delights/ http://parasombra.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/the-caravan-of-delights/#comments Sun, 13 Nov 2011 18:55:30 +0000 The Sewist http://parasombra.wordpress.com/?p=1148 ]]> Well, it’s here and we’ve been investigating every crevice.

The caravan has a cooker, a two ring gas hob, a grill, a fridge, a sink, a porta potti, a wardrobe, cutlery and kitchen utensils, plates, cups, saucers, eggcups, pots and pans, sleeping bags, pillows, blankets, sheets, power cables, gas tanks, toilet cleaners, an awning and inner tent for the awning, a mallet and pegs, an old style camp bed, water carriers, coat hangers, extra cushions, wing mirror extensions thingies…. and more

Having found all this stuff I have been wondering about the previous owners and what happened to make them decide to leave all this in the van because they were never going to use it again. I hope they don’t have too many regrets and there wasn’t too much sadness.

Here are a couple of pictures to give you an idea

70s sleeping bag! Deja-vu anybody?

more cups and stuff

extra curtains that don’t seem to fit anywhere

more retro plates

I have an idea to make a poncho out of one of the crazy sleeping bags and some large fabric baskets with handles to fit under the benches to keep my fabric in. *If* we ever go away with the van I can make a second set of baskets to put our camping stuff in. Having seen everything that is in the van I am really tempted to get a towbar on the car, get new tyres for the caravan and plan a getaway for the spring. Even Mr G is slightly tempted by this idea…..

Today the girls had a friend over and they played out there for nearly two hours without any props or toys at all. I went out there the other night to measure up some more bits and it started pouring with rain so I stayed put instead of getting wet coming back indoors. I closed the blinds and the curtains, lay on one of the seats in my puffa jacket and closed my eyes for half an hour of peace and quiet listening to the rain. I was out there so long that Mr G came out and lay down too. He has a white noise app that sounds like rain on a roof so he loved it.

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