Miss Polly the Dolly

Perhaps a little over-ambitiously, I wanted to make at least ONE gift this Christmas. Since Miss Mei wasn’t the happy recipient of any crafty items from me on her arrival, largely as a result of my working full-time and lavishing any spare attention on her brother in the gestation period, I felt compelled to remedy […]

Birdy Birds…

One of the wonderful delights of our little rural idyll are the birds. This morning our house was bombarded by housemartins as we got ready for the day. We recently signed up as family members of the RSPB and finally made a short trek to the local RSPB Reserve at Vane Farm. It was a […]

Christmas Stocking

It took me a couple of weeks to get around to checking if the Japanese step-down transformer Akira’s mother had sent me would work on my sewing machine after it arrived from the States last month…and then until this week for the postie to finally get through the snow to deliver the replacement transformer we […]

A Teensy Bit Crafty

Summer doesn’t really make me feel like battening down and spending time being crafty. But there is some impetus right now to (a) finish up projects before we move so that they are ready for the autumn/winter when we arrive (b) use up some crafting supplies so I won’t have to ship them or dispose […]

Hats

Way back in November I cast on a hat for Kazuo for the winter. I am such a slowpoke knitter, esp when I only do a row or two once or twice a week. But some lovely peaceful girl-alone nights in the past couple of weeks finally led to the end of the hat. Just […]

Winter Sewing – Part I

Cushions are my latest obsession. I do go through phases. They are nice and easy to sew, and I can construct a couple while Kazuo is sitting at the table watching me sew if they are cut out the night before. Before Christmas, the only handmade Christmas presents I managed to construct were the two […]

Sleep Sack

The weather has definitely turned. Kazuo is also getting much bigger and the lovely cool cotton sleeping bags my mother made him for the summer were just not keeping him warm, nor were they giving him the room he needed. We turned on the heating in the interim, especially since my sewing machine chose this […]