{tea for twenty}

A long time ago, while waiting not-so-patiently for Tilly to arrive, I sewed twenty tea cups to a big bit of linen, which has hung, framed, for a few years. I've actually never really liked how it came out -- the fraying edges and bumpy linen just didn't seem to belong on the wall. With garden tea-party season upon us, I thought it might be enjoyed a bit more turned into a quilt for Tilly and her friends and toys to sit on.

This is the first time I've used linen in a quilt, and I just loved it. I don't usually use a lot of yellow, but it's so trendy-Japanesy next to the linen.

In other news, I've spent the last five days trying to fix my broken Internet -- turning everything off and on again, on the phone to customer service, at my wit's end -- before discovering today that I had been messing with the wrong box. So sorry to the lovely Indian fellow who tried so hard to find out what type of modem I had, in vain, (uh, it was a hard-drive) and was so helpful to such a moron!

And because I've been Internet-less for almost a week, here are a few others things that I've been filling my time with. 

• Planning for the New Year. What, you're supposed to do that in January? Well, I just discovered Susannah Conway's printable (free) workbook recently. Great for dreamers and self-analyists, and those of us who get to things a bit late.
• Baking and sharing honey-comb cookies (that's when you squish too many on a sheet).

• Listing (and numbering) everything I get rid of as I organise and simplify. Yes, it takes a bit longer, but is so satisfying, and will no doubt make quite amusing reading in retrospect. A few favourites from the list so far: 46. a bag of four-year-old jelly beans, in flavours I don't like.   78. five half-finished felt rabbits.   95. crusty chocolate lip balm (9 years old) which I bought at Heathrow airport the first time I flew to China alone to see my family. 
• Sewing yellow-and-linen potholders for friends who recently moved into the most amazing modern house, and believing that if something I've made lives there, part of me gets to, too!

{beside the seaside}

You might remember getting a few close-up glimpses of patchwork a few weeks ago? The mini quilt was made as a housewarming present for my parents, who recently moved back to England after nine years in China. As I was able to deliver it to them earlier this week, I can now show you the whole thing, without spoiling the surprise!

Their new home is just a short drive from Southwold, a little seaside town with rows of brightly-coloured beach houses along the shore -- and that was the inspiration for this quilt. Three little linen beach houses sit along the striped promenade, looking out to sea.

The sea, as I might have mentioned, is a patchwork of squares cut from the vintage linen tea towels that Justin's grandma gave me, mixed with other cotton prints (including one that became Tilly's second homemade dress!) After a little mix-up with the pinning, my carefully-planned order of squares ended up totally random -- but luckily the bird still ended up above the boat, and the boat above the fish, so there was some semblance of logic. 

At present, it serves as more of a mini runner or mat, but I sewed up two loops in one of the fabrics, so that it can hang at some point -- possibly from a nice piece of driftwood found on the beach!

I was also able to give Alice the giant knitted blanket I made back in March, which will accompany her to university this autumn. Ever the fashionista, she found she could wind it around her neck as the world's chunkiest scarf. It's lovely to know that it'll be keeping her warm, at home or on the town!

{matchy matchy}

Inspired by all the memory games I showed you the other day, I made this little animal matching game for Tilly. It's sort of cheating -- rather than make the whole thing myself, I simply made a board to go with a Clothkits Noah's Ark that I used to play with as a child.

What a relief to not have to make new animals! And it's sort of lovely to turn one toy into two toys. 

Maybe you've got a similar set of animals that could double as game pieces? Or, it could be fun to use household objects and have more of a scavenger hunt game -- make a game board that has spots for a fork, a hairbrush, a banana, the TV remote!

To make it was simply a case of drawing around each animal onto fabric (I used fabrics that roughly matched the colour of the animal, to make matching a little easier), cutting them out and sewing them onto a square of white linen.

Then, to increase the future educational value, I added freezer-paper-stenciled animal names.

Here's the board:

And here it is with all the animals in place:

Yes, there was quite a discussion about how to say 'zebra'. We're going to have one poor little confused baby when it comes to the letter 'z'.

The sheep seems to be Tilly's favourite. I wonder if all those grey fluff lines remind her of the sheepskin she can't sleep without.

The crocodile is Bella's favourite -- I always seem to be pulling him out from her jaws. Luckily, tooth marks only seem to give him more character.

Tilly was very excited by the whole thing...

...for a few seconds. And then off she went to tip over the furniture, empty cupboards, and rip magazines apart. 

How lovely that putting the game away is as simple as loading the animals back onto the ark.

I've got a feeling this'll be perfect if we ever have forty days of rain.

{it's a date}

At last, the lovely old linen calendar tea towels are taking shape... as strings of bunting. 

I'm thinking that it'd be fun to hang them up for celebrations throughout the year, from New Year's Day,

to Valentine's Day,

to April Fool's Day,

to the 4th of July,

and, a touch of orange for Halloween!

Yes, almost every date is covered! It almost makes me want to find something -- National Fish Finger Day, Cadbury's Appreciation Day -- to celebrate every day of the year.

{ikea hack: forty-nine cent tea towel bags}

How excited would you be if I told you that you can make a drawstring bag from a 49 cent tea towel? 

Well, double it! Yes, hold onto your Swedish meatballs, because I'm about to show you how to make not one but two bags from a TEKLA tea towel. 

Materials: (makes two)

1 TEKLA tea towel

2 lengths of string, twine or ribbon, each 20" long

Natural-coloured thread

P.S. If you can't get to an IKEA, or your cupboards are overrun with tea towels already, this pattern will work for most towels -- the finished size will just vary based on the proportions.

First, fold your tea towel in half lengthwise, so that the red stripe runs along the unfolded edge. Pin along both long edges, and across the tea towel on both sides of the middle.

Cut across the middle, in between the two lines of pins. This separates the tea towel into two, one for each bag.

You should now have two rectangles, each pinned on three sides. The unpinned edges will be the tops.
(The rest of the instructions are given for one bag -- simply repeat to make the second!)

Sew along all three pinned edges, leaving a 2" gap at the top edge of one of the long sides. This will allow you to add a drawstring top. Backstitch at the beginning and end.

Now, to add the drawstring. Take a length of string (approximately 20") and place it along the top edge of your bag.

Fold over the top edge and pin it, trapping the string in place. With the TEKLA towel, there is a seam along the top of the tea towel, so it looks neatest to fold over the seam -- no more, no less. With other tea towels, fold over 3/4" of fabric.

Continue pinning all the way around, until you reach the edge where you left a 2" gap. This will be where your string pokes out and allows you to open and shut the bag. Sew along the folded-over edge, backstitching at the beginning and end.

Trim the bottom corners, cutting them diagonally.

Turn the bag inside out, and fill!

We love to use ours for storing sets of Tilly's toys, for holding wool for my latest knitting project, for keeping fruit and snacks safe when we go out, for storing supplies from pompoms to rubber stamps, and for keeping fresh veggies in the fridge. Yes, drawstring bags are taking over our house!

And, after getting so much practice with the TEKLA towels, I had a go with one of the vintage linen beauties. This large tea towel, with a map of Bermuda, seemed perfect to accompany Justin on his next business trip to keep worn clothes in, and, perhaps, to let him dream of more relaxing places!

(Rather than cutting it in half, I simply folded it widthwise and then followed the instruction above, to make a larger bag.)

As always, if you give this a try, please stop back and let us know how it went!

Linen Calendars

Okay, I admit, I didn't quite give you the whole story when I said that Justin's Grandma gave me a box of quilt scraps. The truth is, she really gave me about six boxes, each loaded with new and exciting things. I thought showing you all of them at once might be a bit of vintage-treasure overload, so instead you'll get them one at a time, just like I did. 

In box number two, rolled up neatly like so many scrolls of ancient wisdom, was half-a-century's worth of linen calendars. The oldest, I think, is from 1960, and though a few years were missing, most are here, still beautifully colourful, on gorgeous heavy linen.

My favourite of them all is this folky mustard-coloured calendar below, from 1980. The figures seem like they could have popped right out of a Hans Christian Anderson story!

Now, I can't promise that these calendars will be reincarnated quite as quickly as the patchwork scraps, but they are here, waiting for inspiration to strike, ready to cast off their old dates and take on the new year!

Christmas Aprons

With only a week until we leave for England, I've been trying to finish up my share of the linen Nisse aprons for the Christmas kitchen. The cook's little helpers will wear them over the holiday season, and then, after Christmas, the three best workers will get to keep one.

Here is the first finished apron, which features little a Nisse boy and his piggy. The designs by Danish company Maileg were used for inspiration.

In keeping with the Christmas spirit: 'God Jul' ('Happy Christmas' in Danish), and the year, to celebrate the first Christmas at my parents' new house in England.

Here is one of the aprons my Mum is sewing up -- a Nisse girl with her baking tray full of pepperkaker!

Let's hope the aprons get put to good use, and there's plenty of Christmas baking this year!