Take Five

1) A little bit more simple, upcycling of clothes. This vest top was very Maria like but much too big...

A quick sew down the sides and trim off the excess...

And it's become a very easy dress for Maria.

2) After his success with building a pallet play house for Maria's birthday, Theo decided that since he had his tree house and now Maria had her house, he really ought to build something for Venetia too. So a second tree house is under construction, and looking pretty good already.

Maria is really loving her house and gets so much use out of it, including, now we're into (even!) later holiday bedtimes, plenty of use late enough to enjoy her fairy lights. They really make it a little bit magical, but hard to capture that in a photo!

3) Loom Bands or Rainbow Looms! Have you been sucked in yet?! They came to our house quite late, but now they're here Theo and Venetia, in particular, are loving them. I'm not mad keen on little rubber bands lying around but I am loving the creativity that's going with it. Up until yesterday I hadn't tried making anything myself, but then Pinterest sent me an e-mail with lots of ideas for them. I called Venetia to come and see and she promptly spotted a flower bracelet (here) that she loved but that didn't appear to have a You Tube video tutorial attached. She seemed to feel it was impossible to make unless it was on You Tube, and challenged me to have a go. What could I do?! So here's my first (and quite possibly last!) attempt at loom bands:

It didn't turn out exactly as planned but it wasn't a million miles off, and Venetia was impressed. It did, however, eat up what felt like loads of my time, especially before Theo showed me the little 'S' clips they use to join the ends of their bracelets, up until then I really couldn't work out how I was going to 'finish' it off! So I think I'll be very happy to leave future making to the little ones. I do find it amazing, though, how it feels like there's a whole new generation of makers being introduced to the online crafting world, and it's all happening through You Tube. Is this what the future of online craftiness will be?

4) I saw this short video on Facebook quite a while ago and have been waiting for an opportunity to include it in any kind of round up blog post. If you have children, boys or girls, and you haven't come across it yet then definitely take a look - Like a Girl. I think it's very powerful and true. In fact, take a look whether you have children or not!

5) And last, but definitely not least! I've started a new quilt! And I'm quite excited about it. Here's my pile of fabric...

Quite a few vintage prints I've thrifted, a few shirts, a skirt, even a pair of small shorts and a couple of sheets. Just my kind of stash to build a quilt around. It's going to be reasonably big, and, since I really don't fancy trying to wrestle a whole quilt through my sewing machine in the hot weather we're enjoying, it's going to be a quilt as you go kind of quilt. I've got an old wool blanket all cut out into the different blocks I'm going to make, each one numbered so that I, hopefully, can work out how to put it back together when the blocks are finished. 

Just have to make sure I don't lose my plan!

Watch this space for some progress over the next few days!

And that's the five for tonight, back tomorrow with a photo,

Sally.