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Arabella Molly's wellies are a good fit, Phew! We left her wearing them, standing on the dining table while little miss was collected from nursery. When we got back she was so intent on preening in front of the hall mirror that her Mum said "What do you think Arabella Molly has got on her feet? Wouldn't you like to go and look?" No response. From the depths of the pushchair a little voice says "Bella Lolly WELLIES" So that was a timely warning to my Daughter - no secrets to be spoken in front of him - he listens, he remembers, and he talks!
My pooch pretends to be computer literate.
I do a terrible thing.
Other Daughter is home for Christmas. I made some brownies - she doesn't like Christmas cake. I scooped the mixture into the baking tin, and popped the mixing bowl in the sink and ran water into it. In my own defence, it has been a very long time since I had a resident bowl scraper. Nevertheless, that was the nearest I have seen to a flounce for over a decade!
Yes, that is the name the doll has acquired.
I got an e-mail "Please can you tell Granny that Arabella Molly needs some wellies" I also heard that enquiries had been made as to whether Granny had been told, and if so, how long was it going to take! She had to be told that it was going to be difficult to find that size of wellies.
Of course no such thing exists to buy but I did find a pattern here, and established that the doll they were designed for was a pretty good match in shape and size.
I asked what colour - I had thought black, because we are in a Katie Morag phase at the moment, but what I got back was "Madam says blue" - I just hope madam remembers that when they are handed over.
I bought two squares of felt and Bondawebbed them together with a piece of nylon net in the middle for extra rigidity. Though I say it myself, I am really pleased with them. Acid test comes when I visit next week. Fortunately Madam will be at Nursery when I get there, so I shall be able to give them a trial on the quiet, and if they don't work, they won't see the light of day!
This is the doll that I have had sitting in the cupboard for a long while now. I fell in love with her pretty face, and the fact that she bends in all the right places. My Granddaughter turns four at the start of next month, and her Mum says she loves dolls and plays properly with them - she had a school going on last week, with every little character she could collect up. Now that is proper dolly games. Not like schlepping a naked Barbie by the hair, as one sees in the supermarket so often!
The picture is of her wearing an Alsace traditional costume, but she was supplied wearing ballet clothes, and I have found a few other bits and bobs over time, so she goes home well supplied, I have been having fun making some as well.
It has been lovely going through my boxes of bits to find fabric and trimmings. Now I know why I have been saving stuff all these years!
The stripy cardi is from Arne & Carlos' Doll book, adapted slightly. It is actually a traditional pattern from Fano in Norway.
Posted a couple of packages to California - not long till the new Grandbaby arrives. Now that the contents have been seen and approved, I can show off a bit.
This is "Babies and Bears" and I owe thanks to Kirstie for pointing me at the pattern source, and for showing her own version, which tempted me. I made it in cotton yarn, and left off the hood, since I thought that even a Californian "winter" might not need too much warmth.
Lene Alve's Aada went too, just in case a bit of wool might be needed. That's the one on the right with the third prize ticket on it
Then I had made a little angel top and pants from a piece of Tana Lawn that I have had for years - too small for something for me, but too pretty to be discarded. The colours are just scrumptious, and the trimming matched perfectly - and that, too, was something that had been waiting around for a long time.
Doing
the ironing, discovered a small hedge tear in one of my favourite
shirts. On the right sleeve, just where our loving girl puts a socking
great paw when she wants to say "Play please"
I did manage to resist the temptation to screw it up and put it in the bin - it is a favourite shirt, and has been around for a long time - the pattern first appeared in a Burda magazine at about the same time as the film "Braveheart" came out, and we have always referred to it as the Wromantic Shirt. It has dropped sleeve heads with lots of released tucks at the tops of the sleeves, and again at centre back. The fabric is Tana Lawn, pattern Toria.
So I found some linen gauze, and tacked a piece on the back
I darned it as well as I could - had to use my magniying glasses for this bit.
Trimmed and turned the backing fabric raw edges under, and hemmed them down.
A press, and that is as good as I can get it. Now I have a job to find it when looking with my regular glasses! Back in circulation.
A very beautiful and dignified (mostly) friend.
This is the face that greets me in the morning; with eyes half closed with emotion, she prepares to melt.
She hangs around on the landing, and when someone wants to come downstairs, it is compulsory to sit on the top step beside her and give her a hug. I love the way the ears stick out sideways, as though they are draped over brackets.
She waits so very politely in the kitchen, when I am cutting up meat. She doesn't nag or harrass - just sits there.
She takes her little treats so delicately
and cleans up nicely,
then says thank you with a big expressive yawn. At the top of her tongue is her little "distinguishing mark" - she has a black patch like the map of an island.
We've found the easiest way of stripping out some of that moulting hair is to stroke her all over with gloves that have little rubber pimples on them.
At least, it works well until she comes over all silly and wriggly.
And size is no barrier to being a lap dog - although we are considering that it might be a good idea to look for a nice second hand sofa. Something that doesn't need to be worried about. It would save him getting pins and needles. She is heavy.
The amazing thing is we have only had her three months, and it is now hard to imagine life without her. She gives us so much. My blood pressure has come down by about twenty points!
I have been knitting - small because the weather has been too warm for a great big dollop of alpaca in my lap.
The top is from "The Family Knitting Book" - a James Norbury dating from the late 1960's, and the skirt from this pattern, which has been hanging round the house since I was a very small person.
I used good old Sirdar Country Style, which was part of my treat to myself after the success in the show - the other was a bit of laceweight which I am still thinking about. It was a great pleasure to discover that the stationery shop in Lincoln has expanded it's art materials department to include knitting supplies and a small amount of textiles for patchwork. I felt I had to encourage them to the extent of a couple of balls to play with.
I also have a small sewing project on the go. It is a piece of Liberty print I was given which has been waiting for the right purpose for a very long time. They used to do half-made skirts - Tana lawn with elastic at one end, and you sewed the side seam and hemmed it to taste. Only it never was to my taste since the resulting skirt was always unpleasantly skimpy. But this piece was a gorgeous mix of colours, and then I realised that it was a good match for some embroidered trimming which was another find waiting for a purpose.
That's all for the moment on that one!
This is the nose that knew something good might have happened. I had a little fumble, and a loaded plate landed on the floor. Mine, actually.
She understood "NO" but needed the OH to hold her back while I cleared up. Fortunately I was able to retrieve a reasonable helping from the food that was not in actual contact with the floor. I just left the rest. I have to report that she is not too keen on cabbage, when it comes to clearing up, but there is an unnaturally clean patch on the kitchen carpet tiles!
Now I remember why we wanted a dog. Spillage control.
Out of the Sunday paper comes a group of pages that details various useful bedroom things, available mail-order.
"Lightweight Summer Duvet" -"this 100% cotton duvet ticks all the right boxes" "it's filled with 100% hollowfibre, inside an easy-care polyester cotton cover"
Last time I looked, hollowfibre was 100% synthetic, likewise polyester. So which bit does the copywriter not understand - cotton, or 100%.
Spray to keep the moths away
Trust me on this one. The socking great moth pictured on the holey jumper is actually (probably) a Sloe Carpet, (rather a fuzzy photo) Aleucis Distinctata,
and the carpet bit does not refer to eating habits, but wing pattern. Normal food is Blackthorn, not wool.
It is sad that I find myself so irritated by these sort of errors. I would have been the teacher that nobody loved, if I could have kept myself from blowing a gasket!
Maybe I just have this tragic need to know better!
Not the most stunning of photos, but enough to show that it is a Painted Lady. They don't always show themselves here since they come from the south of Europe.
After a dearth of butterflies, it is turning out to be a much better year for them than last summer.
Back in the mid 1990's, we had a "Painted Lady Year" I shall remember it for the rest of my life.
There was a letter in the local paper from a lady who said she had nine - NINE - in her garden. We went out for a walk round the wood at the back of our home, which led to a derelict bit of land at the back of the motorway service station. A patch probably quarter of a mile square. All thistles. One plant every six inches or so. The plants were not green, but a dusty khaki brownish colour. That is because each plant was covered with roosting butterflies, packed so closely than the green was completely hidden. Much in the way that Monarch butterflies do when they go to Mexico to overwinter. We let the spaniel run into the thistles, and we could track her movements at the base of the plants, by the little clouds of butterflies that rose up and settled back down in her wake.
Nine in one garden - maybe nine hundred thousand in that field - possibly! Maybe even more.
UNFORGETTABLE
Heckington Show this weekend. The knitting section was back to being divided into three classes (based on the weight of the yarn) after last year's try at putting it all into one class.
Two of Lene Alve's beautiful patterns - both my work, and Lilleput got a first and Aada a third. Thanks to her!
I hadn't shown my Half-hap shawl before, so it qualified, even though I had been wearing it as a draught stopper through the winter - it just needed re-blocking. It came first, and even won the trophy for the best piece of work in the handicraft section.
Happy is my middle name.
But I did take a pic of the patchwork, as far as it has got. I am pleased that the vague attempt at design that I have been doing appears to be working. I have been making seven patch flowers, and surrounding them with random patches. The reason for this is that I saw some lovely patterns develop in the quilt I did some years ago - that was all seven patch flowers, but joining them together made the thing asymmetrical, and that bothers me!
Aren't Lewisias great value. They smother themselves with flowers, which die down so we cut them off, and then they do it all over again. And they carry on doing this all through the summer.
And a couple more pictures of Maggie Magnificent, just to prove that she is not just glamour and elegance - she is a clown as well!
But I can cope with the sewing machine. My daughter suggested that her daughter would appreciate a proper big petticoat. We do try and avoid pink, but are fully in favour of girly stuff to feed her inner princess. Pink doesn't suit her colouring that well anyway. The broderie edging is the last bit of a large remnant given to me by a lady I did some sewing for, years ago. It is of a quality that I have never seen anywhere else - the base fabric is incredibly fine.
I seem to have started myself a project in hexagon patchwork. I have tried machined blocks in the past, but could never get going with them, so it is back to my favourite - which has the advantage of being an armchair job.
This has been occupying a great deal of my attention. She arrived three weeks ago, from Dogs Trust. Two and a half years old, a lurcher, and a delight. Totally laid back and relaxed, except when she is not, since she loves to roar around like a crazy dog, when the mood takes her. She is also incredibly beautiful and affectionate.
My daughter has been sorting some of her boxes and came across a few hexagons that were going nowhere, and said I should have them, since I have dived into patches as an armchair occupation.
Oh my goodness there is one of THAT print. A piece of fabric that I found in Billingshurst, in about 1980. It made a nightie for me, which I was wearing when I had the third baby, and a rather sweet little blouse for the first.
The reason I leapt on the fabric is because I had seen it before. This dates from 1960, when my Mother made me a beautifully cut dress and bolero to wear to a wedding. She used a Vogue pattern; the skirt was beautifully cut, I loved it dearly, and then something cropped up and we were unable to go to the wedding. Sadly, it was late summer, and I was about to do my main growing spurt over the winter, and by the follwing spring it was impossible to get the zip done up. So it never got worn properly. But there was a certain amount left and it found it's way into my Mother's patchwork, which is a total memory box.
This was another dress that I loved - one of the many cut-out-ready-to-sew offers from Woman magazine that my Mum did. This dress had a broad boat neck with a collar front and back, and it was the first time we had encountered iron-on interfacing, I can remember hanging over the ironing cloth while she bonded it. It was a woven fabric, and looked as though it had been sprinkled with caster sugar. I found that magic.
This from about the same age - ten-ish. A gathered skirt - nothing fancy, but I was horse mad and forever grateful for being allowed to have that print. I was quite a rarity in those days, in that my Mother allowed me a lot of say in what I had to wear. She like to allow me choice of fabrics, from an edited selection, and always consulted me on the detail of each garment. Most girls my age just had to do with whatever was chosen for them - a lot of it was pretty poor quality too, as so much ready made stuff was.
I was allowed to choose this fabric myself at about eight or nine. I can still remember being in "West End" - one of the drapers in Penzance, and having the bolts of cloth laid on the counter so we could feel and see them close up. The dress was simple, button front bodice, with a sweetheart neckline, gathered skirt, with patch pockets, which had keyhole openings, edged with blue rick-rack braid. When I grew up, I wanted to work in that shop, so I could snip the selvedge, and tear it across. Then I could put the invoice and the money into the wooden barrel, attach it to the top thingy and pull the handle to make it whizz across to the cashier in her little cabin in the middle. The only thing was I didn't want to be wearing a black skirt and cardigan all the time.
This one and the next go back further. Nighties, both of them, and both rayon by the feel of them. Mum and I could never ever decide whther the spots on this one were brown or purple. I am still not sure.
I think this is the one I was wearing when I had measles, and remarked to Mum " If I am sick again, I won't have any more clean vests, will I?" That puts it at before I was five, since the measles were over before I started school.
Mum used to get a little catalogue every spring, for "Miss Muffet" prints. This and the next one were from the same year - it was always the same - let down last year's dresses for rough wear, and have two new one for being polite.
I was never very happy with the green basketwork print, but I dearly loved this one.
This one has a sad ending. It was a snippet given by my Mother's dear friend, who died much too young. She was a lovely lady - a keen birdwatcher, an enthusiastic gardener, and a craftswoman. Now and then she would borrow one of my cut-out paper dolls, get out her watercolours and some nice cartridge paper, and make a collection of new dresses! Just to please me!
