Dress

A work in progress, hanging in front of our calender and weather tree. This was a big shapeless vintage dress with two pockets. I sliced into it using a home made pattern I love using over and over again, knowing it fits, sits happily over trousers and under cardigans, knowing it needs only a metre and a half of fabric or a found dress. I tend to live with things a long time before I finish them, a fact I used to find frustrating about myself but now I accept as a kind of celebration of process.

Carrying Bread

We wake up to fresh breadmaker bread every day (thanks to Mr B) and wrapping the remains of the warm loaf in a plastic supermarket bag has been feeling all wrong for ages ( though it is rare for there to be much left after three ravenous children spread slabs of it with my mum's jam and Mo and I dunk it into soup or hummus at lunchtime). I made this little embroidered picture a year ago now, remembering a golden autumn walk home from the shop with a loaf of bread, secretly carrying Mo inside me, watching Myrtle make ladybirds and butterflies into pets all the way. I turned it into a drawstring bag last night, with a little patchwork frame that I agonised over for ages, staring at fabric and playing with different combinations, daring myself to get over my inability to use the really special pieces (which in my case are always the ones that cost the least- tiny 50p 1950's aprons or tablecloths, that feel like treasure washed up in the tide, never to be found again) So now the final crust of todays bread is wrapped in its cloth story bag and the very oldest fabric in my collection is still behind glass and all is well with the world.

Moving the oasis

Our snowflakes seemed magically, briefly, to restore our dog walking world to shiny frozen white. I finished that hat just in time for another snowy expedition but looking at this photo of it (and many taken of Mo playing recently) I realised how much of his time since Treacle's arrival has been spent above puppy height, sitting up on the kitchen worktop chatting to me while I chop vegetables, standing on a chair 'washing-up' at the sink or sitting in our window with his cars and trains. Its been bothering me that none of his play could be on the floor any more and after two walks in the pouring rain thinking bitter thoughts about the dog I did what I always do when faced with periods of personal crisis; I moved the furniture. I found the play pen we had for Myrtle when she was a baby and used it to barricade a section of the kitchen. Those warm blankets came downstairs for the sofa and with great delight I filled the newly puppy-proofed space with baskets of books and Mo's favourite toys. This has solved daytime play problems beautifully. Now Myrtle Mo and C are scootering up and down in the kitchen with all the lights off wearing head torches much to the dog's loud dismay. Hmm........

Cold

We are missing the snow. The paths through the fields are like glass and everywhere else is slush, grey skies and biting cold. Comfort comes in the form of a snowflake chandelier the children and I created at tea time with computer paper and glass baubles (still not put away from Christmas.) It's hard to photograph but it looked so beautiful to us after we finished that we sat gazing up at it. I hid upstairs during Mo's tiny afternoon nap to finish a hat and a book full of descriptions of deep snow. I miss having my blankets downstairs (turns out puppies and crochet don't mix) but they make our bed feel like some kind of deep winter oasis.

Ragged cloud brooch

I love the fraying edges of this linen scrap so left them showing and used more of the soft white tapestry wool to fill the cloud with snow. Another warm naptime of stitching after a walk through blue white fields sliced through with crisp, grey shadows. I love the way the snow softens and transforms everything, makes outdoors dazzlingly beautiful and indoors feel like a refuge to be savoured.

Blue-white

The children have been loving sledging at high speed in the half light after school. I have been enjoying a little slow stitching of snow clouds during the day. I saw a face in this cloud, pieced from Mr B's old work shirts and linen scraps, stitching snowflakes all around him with soft fine tapestry wool found in the charity shop.

More snow

Treacle mo and I crunched through snow and then munched through biscuit versions of ourselves back home!

Rest

Christmas brought us sleep and snow, a chance to walk and talk and gently pass the time. I had many lists of hand made things I was inspired, too late as ever, to make and managed half a knitted owl, still on the needles, and a tiny angel with a red dress for the tree. We loved lego troops collecting on December breakfast tables (one by one they appeared in those advent stockings thanks to a huge bag found in a charity shop), balls that lit up when they bounced, frozen mud, grey skies and winter light on walks with friends and family, slow meals, window stars, new bedroom arrangements, puppet shows, seeing for the first time in two years the empty bottom of the washing basket and (have I already mentioned this?) whole nights of sleep. Happy New Year!