9 days til Christmas

I made my own Christmas cards this year. Yes, red and white - the Scandinavian theme continues. I used a couple of pastry cutters dipped in red paint. And then (you can't see this, I photographed them before the urge came upon me) I wrote 'twinkle' on them in silver. But I have now decided I prefer them without. At least the photo captures the no-longer-existing simpler version.

I wasn't as neat, as inventive, or as effective as I had hoped. Better next year! And I ran out of card so about a third of my Christmas card list is going to have to make do with cheap shop-bought cards after all. But for a couple of hours one evening, fulfilling my making dreams, I don't think they're that bad. Granted, they're not sell-to-someone quality. But I think they're give-to-someone thoughtfully. And that will do me this year.

This Christmas is about rounding off a sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly year with a return to the dreams of last year, and hopefully the living of some of them. It is not about perfection, getting to the end of the 'to do' list, or anyone else's expectations. I want to enjoy myself pottering about with a needle and thread, holly and ribbon, paint and card, fir and decoration. I want to be with my family, focus on my family, and hold dear my friends and relations. I will be wrapping us all up in a metaphorical big red Christmassy bow. Next year I will be less metaphorical, more reality. Next year I will let my Country Living snobbery get the better of me. This year is the simple, the jingle bells and the joy.

10 days til Christmas

When there were ten days to go, I started making these...

Seven (yes I know there are only six here - I've already gifted one) Christmas star decorations. One for me, six for presents. Red on the back, red gingham on the front, with lovely Scandinavian ribbons and neutral buttons sewn on too.

Before you ask (and everyone who's seen them has), they are deliberately skew-wiff. I would have spent a lot of time (that I don't have) with a ruler and compass trying to get them perfect otherwise. So I drew them freehand and I think I prefer the results anyway. The Tiny One has been trying to get his hands on them ever since they were finished! He is one week into crawling and already fast, committed and determined!

I also made soup. Not sure why I need to show it here, but the green colour was so splendidly spring-like in the midst of the snow here this winter that I had to photograph it. It is pea and courgette, which doesn't sound that interesting, but with ham stock and herbs to lift it it was glorious. It put quite a spring in my step. Boom, boom.



11 days til Christmas

When there were eleven days to go, my lovely, lovely mum and I made this...

... and, oh!, I am in love! Generally I'm not too keen on my red door, but at this time of year it comes into its own. Isn't the wreath beautiful? Don't you love the colours? And best of all, my mum and I made it together which was so nice at the time, and keeps on giving every time I look at it. (But I'm not sure our post lady is too keen: the prickly holly is precariously close to the letter box!)

My mum made me the wicker wreath base last year, but after Christmas had passed. She brought up holly, ribbon, pine cones and dried orange slices from her home down south. We cut the ivy from our garden. Then, to the interesting mix of Christmassy 50's tunes and a sprinkling of 'ouch's', we stabbed our fingers with the holly as we wrapped and fastened it all on.

In other news, the Christmas lists are getting quite impressive. Present lists are half-populated with things already bought or made (I know, that other half is scarily blank for eleven days to go). Card lists are full but waiting to be brought to life. The decorations list is growing as I read more ideas from Dottie Angel. The Christmas food list has a title and nothing else, so it's time to get reading my Nigella Christmas book. But at least the turkey is ordered!

12 days til Christmas

Yes, I know there aren't twelve days til Christmas. There are six. Oh my goodness! But I planned to write a twelve days-themed set of posts so - better late than never - I'm going to do it. And in any case, this post shows you what happened when there were twelve days to go...

I made paper chains. Two long lengths to string from the front room in our house. I am having a bit of a Scandinavian Christmas this year. Not intentionally, it's just that I've become irresistibly drawn to the red-and-white colour scheme and so have decided to go with the obsession.

The Little One 'helped' me. I made the decorations from cut-up-and-Pritt-sticked sugar paper, so that was not the best task for a two-year-old. But he was fabulous at holding an end to measure if they were long enough, climbing the ladder to tell me whether it was safe for me to do so, and standing on the odd chain link or two! It's hard to tell from the picture, but the links are thicker than your usual shop-bought chains, and I'm rather in love with them.

Christmas is going to be a bit more home-made than usual this year. Just because I can. It is also our first Christmas at home with the two littler ones, the Tiny One's first Christmas, and my first Christmas doing the Big Dinner Cooking. Lots of firsts, lots of excitement, and I am regularly skipping round the kitchen dancing to Christmassy tunes from Sinatra, Doris Day and their contemporaries. The joy has landed!

Sewing softies

I have been making toys. I hadn't done it before, and I worked from my imagination rather than patterns. But they went quite well. I think I have the bug!

I made this horse for a friend's little girl. Her name begins with 'H', hence the horse. There's a theme here, and I got a little carried away!

Then I added ribbons for the ears, hair and tail as I know from my own Tiny One that ribbons, labels and the like are pretty irresistible to babies. I'm hoping they get very soggy.

I think I have a thing for buttons myself. They keep appearing on bags, toys and all sorts when I sew. I think they make rather lovely eyes. Don't you?

The first toy I made was this winking cat, for a little boy who's name begins with a 'C'. Yes, there's the theme again.

My Little One was a bit perturbed by his lack of legs, but if you've ever looked at a sat pussy, you'll see his lower legs merge somewhat. So I am unperturbed!

I am actually rather chuffed with the blanket stitch. I haven't done it since primary school. Yes, I am revealing what a novice, make-it-up-as-you-go-along sew-er I really am. But I don't mind. Admitting my sewing innocence seems to inoculate me from the self-berating I would otherwise get for all my mistakes.

Lastly let me show you my favourite, the jellyfish. It's a gift for a baby whose name begins with 'J'. Let me tell you, there are not many well-know 'J' animals.

I got the idea for the tentacles from some amazing decorations in my local John Lewis, where all their fabrics had been jellyfished like giant umbrellas with multiple, squirmy tentacles.

I'm rather pleased. I think she looks quite friendly and satisfied for a jellyfish, and quite fun for a baby to look at. Her underside is a lovely soft fleece.

By the way, I know it is nearly Christmas and I have barely mentioned it. I am glorifying in it as usual, but I am completely unprepared and disorganised and so, until I am both, I am ignoring it a little. At least on the blogosphere. But I do hope to show you something very soon.

Been bagging

I've made a few bags I haven't shown you. The one on the left was for a good friend of mine. I love the colours (bit of a mustard fan; get it from my mum). But I made it while a little time-poor and if I could do it again I'd make it with a lining too, to stiffen it up a bit and make it more practical.

The bag on the right is a sweet little bag, only about 20cm across, for a little girl I know who's turned two. Apparently she keeps trying to take it everywhere! I was really pleased with it, despite the inside being a bit scruffy. It's such a pretty little thing, and as I've said before, two-year-olds do love a little bag. Lots of 'little's' in this paragraph!

And this bag is number 5 of the seven little bags I'm making, which again I've written about before. Number 6 is made but neither photographed nor gifted yet. I'll have to get on it! Number 7 is for my own Little One. I'm thinking it will now have to wait for Christmas. Speaking which, I am SO not ready. I have just read Molly's post jealously, as she writes about being ready to slow the pace and hunker down ready for Christmas. I, on the other hand, am ready to quicken the pace and get in gear for some major last-minute present making. Oh the stress! But I can't complain. I am slightly addicted to Christmas and can never resent it.

I had to show you the statement fabric I used in the bag a little closer-up. I am so in love with it! The colours, the tea-party theme. Looking at it has made me realise that I don't even own a teapot. This is a sorry, negligent state of affairs. I may not be a black-tea drinker but I am certainly a teapot-owner type of person. And I can always make my favourite green tea in it.

Brrrrrr

Look! This was 3 days ago. That's how long it takes me to get round to uploading & posting.

3 days ago hail fell. It looks like snow in the picture but it's an accumulation of various hailstorms. The hats were uprooted from their stores. The children were getting better (it's cold season in both senses of the word). The husband was home. Good times.

2 days ago the hail was replaced by a little snow. The Little One kicked every bit of snow on his way to music group. We had soup for lunch and a lovely Middle-Eastern-leaning dinner of couscous with chickpeas, griddled aubergine with pomegranate, tomato salad and orange-marinated lamb.

1 day ago the snow and hail was mostly gone, save for the hilltops and wind-shadows. The wind was crazy - gales hitting the north. The Little One got suddenly worse again, was spectacularly sick on the doctor's waiting room floor, and got antibiotics. But it's yellow medicine for a yellow-obsessed boy, so he's quite pleased about the illness now.

And today I am being shouted at by same Little One to 'come upstairs' as I quickly catch up on the net having done the housework (couldn't do a thing yesterday due to a miserable little boy). The Big One is upstairs in bed, also ill. The Tiny One has replaced his cold with vigorous teething. And the husband is at work while barely functioning due to a very grotty cold and little sleep. Good times.

Special things

I wrote once, quite a while ago, of the dream I had of my life before I got to live it. This year I slowly sewed that dream together. Then I ripped the stitches apart, or the sewing machine broke; I'm not sure what analogy fits best. Now I am stitching again.

And here is a little scene from my domestic dream made real. The beautiful flowers were from a lovely friend, but due to my pause-from-life kidney infection no one watered them. They are now crisp as a, well, crisp. But they live on in this picture! And here is the kitchen table with the highchair, just as I imagined it (though not, sadly, old and oak). And, most importantly of all, the drawing being made by my yellow-obsessed (notice the drink) Little One.

He is two-and-a-half now. Babyhood behind, and at the moment the two littlest ones are in the grips of a nasty cold. But this picture reminds me of a happier time, just a few weeks ago. His drawings are nothing remarkable, but to me they look so clever, so beautiful. I loved to draw as a child, and I hope that love will make it through to my littlest boys.

Right now, the domesticity has to be eschewed for the domestic: the tumble drier is beeping insistently at me. Bottles need sterilising. Bed is calling. Floors need quickly clearing. But I thought I would write this first and remember that moment. Perhaps we will live it again tomorrow or, at least, when the stinking colds go away.

Joy

When I was not too well, cooking fell by the wayside. For a while, someone else did it. Then I did it, but the simplest of things - no recipes, just veg and something from the shop. Oh the joy of cooking again! It means so much to me: health, happiness, sustaining myself and my family. Above is cannelloni. Yum.

And you wouldn't believe the joy to be found in the folding of egg whites. Just look at them! Admittedly, a poor picture, but it was like folding clouds into honey. Though what it really was was American pancakes. With maple syrup or sweetcorn. Lapped up by the brood of boys.

A cake! Yes an actual cake. Big, big joy, though it was a small, small cake. A little Victoria sponge. But it was yum scrum and may as well have been decorated with the words 'You're back!' By the way, that's my new Polish pottery butter dish in the back. Thank you mum.

Now we start getting a little show-offy... meringues. The best I had ever made. Unrefined caster sugar for the caramel, nutty chewiness it provides. The perfect cracks a-top. And, for once, no sticking to the the baking paper! Do you like my jug in the background too? I have something veering on a jug obsession.

Last but by no means least, chicken stock for the soul. You know you're kitchen is powered up and singing again when the chicken carcasses make their ritual movements from meat-picking to freezer, then into pan, cooked down into stock, into the fridge (satisfying layer of fat; glutinous demi-jelly wobble if you're lucky), into containers and back into the freezer again before becoming soup, risotto, or something equally satisfying. The picture above (yet again, with cheap Ikea bowl - oh for a lovely ceramic one) shows it glistening with tinkling rolls of steam as it cools, surface rippling like gelatine. Chicken stock may be thrifty and basic, but it feeds the soul as well as the stomach. Joy.

It wasn't me, guv

I didn't make this. I have been in bed with a kidney infection. Nasty. Don't ever get one.

The Big One made this. I keep finding cookery books in his bedroom. The Primrose Bakery is the current fave. We are encouraging meal cooking (saves us a job) over excessive baking (doesn't save our waistlines). I think this is the kind of teenage pastime he should indulge in.

Isn't he clever?! I am liking this blossoming of my cookery genes in him. Mince pies are next on his list. Mmmmm.