Rollercoaster parenting and dragon eggs

Parenting. How is it for you? A rollercoaster? That's pretty much how it is for me, and I've only survived 9 years of it. Apart from the admittedly rather extreme parts of my own parenting experience, the thing that really gets me is how one thing leads to another and before you know it, you've been talked into some completely bonkers project or other, feeling vaguely hysterical to boot.

now imagine it large scale, across the Humber

A throwaway comment the other week about how I'd made some bunting for my 40th birthday celebrations, and the next thing I know, I'm helping 1st Overton Rainbows with their contribution to the Helen Skelton/Blue Peter longest string of bunting ever Red Nose Day project. Two 2 metre bunting triangles, no less, to join a host of other flags adorning the Humber Bridge. Felt, scissors, fabric pens, orange squash, malted milk bisc.. oh sorry, those last two were 'tuck', not anything to do with the bunting. Crazy.





This from a woman who remains unshakeable in her belief that glitter was invented by a deeply mysogonist forbear of James Dyson who never spent any time with a toddler and a pot of PVA glue, and 'craft' is what Playgroup was for...

I am not a 'crafty' mummy. I am a reading stories mummy. A running around in a field mummy. A baking cakes mummy (of course). Try as I might (and I really do), I am not good at the whole craft thing. But one thing leads to another...

Blue & Pink are going to a Harry Potter party on Saturday. It promises to be a wonderfully orchestrated affair  - hand crafted 'invitations to join Hogwarts'. There is talk of the Petrificus Totalis game, and the potions lesson. I am torn between total admiration and a kind of snarling resentment - a new bar has been set. I for one am not in the market for competitive birthday parties - although I do own up to once spending 15 hours crafting a Thomas and the Troublesome Trucks birthday cake. 15 hours. In my defence, my son was in the grip of a potentially life threatening illness at the time, but even so - faced with this kind of inventiveness, I must stamp down a little part of me that has judged me on my birthday party enthusiasm and found me lacking...

Blue owns some 'robes' - and Pink has been hankering. The problem is that I MADE Blue's robes for a book day affair - nothing fancy, but Pink was after some herself, and things have moved on and I just haven't had time. So what is she to wear, my diminutive, headstrong, firecracker of a daughter? Well, my friends, I have convinced her to go as Hagrid. I have a curly black fright wig and enough black & brown facepaint to provide her a beard. She can wear some brown trousers and a shirt I modified for Blue to wear as a Celt (it works, I promise). My duffle coat with the sleeves rolled up, and her own pink umberella. 

"And perhaps we could make a dragon egg, Mummy? Hagrid always has a dragon egg"

My heart sinks. But then, one thing leads to another. Does this happen to other people or is it just me? I feel that I owe it to her to make the best of what is essentially a cobbled together affair. Am I really too busy to deny my  daughter? What kind of mother would that make me? A dragon egg? Let me think. Then the lightbulb moment!  A cake was on the cards anyway. There's no need for papier mache and messy balloon coating (which I imagine might be involved in such an endeavour - I can see it now bound to fail) - oh no! - I can blow the eggs. We can paint them! And before I know it, I have uttered those words out loud, so there is no turning back.

Why, why why? I am practically PHOBIC about blown eggs: it's a long story involving Christmas tree decorations and  the words "scarred for life". I could go into it now, but I won't - suffice to say that if my mum (remember, I love her, it's just easy to make the odd joke at her expense) could work out how to leave a comment on my blog, she'd probably remind me (and you all) of all the occasions I have sworn never to blow an egg myself for painting/craft purposes, less so even countenance the idea that I might inflict blown eggs on my children for whatever reason.

The cake required 4 eggs. I equipped myself with a pin and get started.

Getting the pin in is not as tricky as it first seems. But in my delight, I lose my head and put it down on the worktop. My camera is not working. I reach for my phone. 

Crack.

I try again. More luck next time, I get a hole in both ends - a pin hole to blow through, and an ever so slightly larger hole for the egg to slip out of. 

Or not

Can you see the pitiful blob of albumen? It is there. Do you know how much puffing and blowing that took?

In the end, I took a skewer to the 'exit hole', and - success:

OK, so may be I was hoping for a smaller hole

egg!

So I washed out the eggs and made a cake. And mighty good cake it was too.

Now all we need to do is paint the eggs.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

This is not a craft blog #2

After our broadband fell over on Thursday lunchtime, it has still not been fixed. I have been provided with a cheery text message for BT advising me that they aim to fix the problem by 5 p.m. on Wednesday. Yes WEDNESDAY. That’s nearly a whole week without access to the internet at home. I haven’t yet managed to get through to an actual person at BT to explain calmly and rationally how much of a complete an utter embuggerance this is. Not only does it mean I cannot work at home, I cannot do internet shopping, check my bank balance, or do a myriad of other things, including Facebook, blog reading etc. 

However, rather than focussing on the negatives of all this, which would be very easy, I have been considering the positives of our internet-free weekend. Not only have we not had access to the internet all weekend, but the planned entertainment – trip to the Science museum on Saturday afternoon, followed by dumping of children with their Uncle in Earlsfield while the Husband and I went to a party – also fell through as Pink developed some alarming stomach pains on Saturday morning. Of course it all amounted to nothing, but by the time we had worked that out, we had decided that it wasn’t worth risking the trip – especially as one of the options we were presented with by the out of hours GP service was appendicitis. I am the most unsympathetic person I know if you're talking coughs, colds and grazed knees, but serious stuff gets me all on edge...

So instead of cramming all the jobs we needed to get done this weekend into a couple of hours on Saturday morning before we left, and on Sunday afternoon after we returned, no doubt hungover and grumpy, we have had a leisurely stroll through the washing and housework tasks, and even got round to some other things.

Now, as I have said before, this is not a craft blog, but I managed to not only clear out our spare room and reorganise my various stashes of material and sewing bits and pieces with which I might one day produce something glorious, I did manage to complete 2 projects that have been on my mind. I made a curtain to act as a pull across to go underneath Pink’s high bed:

And a matching cushion. 

I made them out of left over curtain material, and I was particularly pleased with the cushion cover because the material I had left (from the material I had left - if you see what I mean) after making the bed curtain was not quite wide enough but I managed to extend the fabric by making a trim out of a purple ribbon that I found stashed away. Oh the multiple benefits of having a clear out.

I’m not going to tell you what I did because both are a total cobble – I couldn’t get online to check out any tips from the lovely craft bloggers out there – but on the whole I was pleased with how they turned out.

I’ve also managed to do some more work on my quilt. Some of you may remember that the Husband gave me this in kit form for Christmas, and it was one of my goals for April to finish it. Well, it’s probably no surprise to learn that it’s still not finished, but I have been plodding away at it and I have now hand quilted round all the flowers – all 25  of them, and am on the second seam of the border that I am going to quilt. Once I have done that, all I will have left to do is the binding round the edge and it will be finished. 

So bets on this time next year then.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Bunting my way...with 'language'...

***WARNING...DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME***

This is NOT a craft blog, but seeing as how many of my evenings recently have been taken up with bunting (have  I mentioned that I'm nearly 40? No? Party planning is in full swing), I thought it would be appropriate to diversify from my usual musings. I have my doubts as to the wisdom of this, as my efforts can only be excruciatingly rubbish in comparison with those of the fabulously talented crafting bloggers out there (you know who you are and I bow down to your greater expertise and skill), but then I thought that there’s always room for someone else’s approach, so here it is:

Bunting – the Recipe Junkie way.

the fall out from over-bunting

Materials. For bunting, you need material for the ‘flags’ and bias binding, plus pins and thread. By far the worst part of bunting is cutting out the flags, so you can avoid this by buying remnant sample books with handy squares of material in co-ordinating colours which fabric shops no longer want. I also had some other material at home which matched so I cut up a few token additional squares for interest. Alternatively, you can be lucky enough to live close to someone who totally ‘over-bunted’ for her daughter’s birthday party, and who gives you the left over (triangular) flags that she cut but just couldn’t face stitching on to any more bias binding. Result!

I bought the bias binding from a very cheap shop in Basingstoke (classy, me) with a discount because I bought a whole roll. 2 in fact – one in turquoise to match my remnants haul and one in white.

If you aren’t lucky enough to have flags presented to you thus, there are plenty of patterns on the web for bunting templates (other templates are available, this is just one I found if you’re interested. Actually you might want to follow their instructions too...)

Some people make their bunting double sided, but I say, when it’s flapping in the breeze, the cake is good and the fizz is, well, fizzy, no-one’s really going to notice.



This is the 'wrong side' up -honest

Attach the flags to the bias binding. There’s no other word for it – this is T-E-D-I-O-U-S – especially if you don’t have enough pins to do it all at once, like me. Anyway, the way I do this is to have the bias binding folded sides up and then unfold the top strip, tuck in the flag, fold back down and pin. This reduces the need for any kind of hemming (not that I was going to hen anyway – this is bunting, for goodness sake). If your material has a ‘wrong side’ you could make sure it’s the wrong side uppermost as you’re pinning like this so that all the flags are the same side on, although see comment above related to double sided bunting.

I expect that the proper thing to do now is to tack the flags on and take out the pins, but I prefer to skip this step and play pin roulette with my sewing machine. If you’re hand stitching (really?? You’re going to hand stitch all that bunting? You are bonkers!) then it’s not so much of a problem. I probably should tack but it takes up so much time... So out with the trusty sewing machine – it’s OK, I have a licence to drive one provided I only do straight lines.

With the wrong side uppermost and the pinned side on the right, machine down using zigzag stitch, slowing down as necessary to remove the pins. This takes practice, but I’m an expert now. Anything to avoid tacking.

Guess who ran out of the nice co-ordinating thread she found?

If, like me, you run out of thread on the bottom bobbin, don’t worry, just do the whizzy thing to get some more thread on the bobbin, rethread (I know, it’s a pain) and carry on. The same applies if you run out of the nice coloured thread you found at the bottom of the draw where you keep anything vaguely sewing related, and have to revert to white. And anyway, see comment above etc...

If you do find you have to restart stitching for some reason, just restitch back over a centimetre or 2 of the last lot, just to hold it in place. Then you can just cut off the ends of the thread without having to do any fiddly finishing off.

Turn the bunting over and stitch another zigzag line on top of where the second fold of bias binding is to hold it all down and make a line of pretty stitching. Take care not to stitch the flags onto themselves, and watch out for ‘tension’ – apparently it makes the stitching go funny and sends you leaping for the instruction manual, with much language, to work out what’s happening (not that I’d know, of course...)

And voila (as they say in France):

Amazing what you can do with some sample squares...

...or your neighbour's left overs...

reade more... Résuméabuiyad