The Book that Alysha wrote

For a couple of months one of my sewing girls has been busily stitching a fabric book. Earlier this year the stork delivered a little sister for Alysha; Velvet. To be just a li'l bit different, we thought a fabric book would be a wonderful present for Velvet. A present that would provide hours of fun and imaginative, conversation and play; a present that could be kept forever.....a unique keepsake, a unique heirloom.

As Alysha lives on a farm with her family, Alysha thought a book with a farm theme could be the setting of the book.

After a lot of thought, and a li'l bit of planning (we tended to make it up as we went along) Alysha started to stitch.

As I guide my kiddos along the yellow brick road of stitching, I am always thinking of fun activities they can stitch and make. My memories of sewing at school are those of which horror stories are written. Sewing teachers of my vintage seemed to have possessed a secret delight in making sewing lessons as irksome as they possibly could. The sewing teachers of old (at least mine were) always seemed to be utterly boring, with no exploration down little paths of  delightful discovery, creativity and ingenuity. I cringe when I recall Mrs Colditz's shrill-like screech....(many a parody was made of that name...not nice I know, but alas, true)....regarding the imperfections of my sewing...."that might be good enough for you, missy, but it is not good enough for me.....do it again.....and again....and again!!!!!" She would look at me and my sewing rather menacingly with a rather large ruler in her grip ready to strike one's knuckles if my stitching wasn't to her liking. Oh, she was a horrible woman!

But to get back on the happy and inventive path that the kiddos skip down at the Kim Sharman School of Stitching Excellence......with a lot of clever stitching from Alysha and with a li'l help from me, Velvet's book has been published!

We thought it would be fun it this was to be an inter-active book. A book where a small child could have lots of fun opening a house door or a barn door, to see who or what was waiting inside to say "hi".

We wanted to add a tactile touch throughout the book. The lamb has been sewn with woolly fabric; the clouds with felt to add a sense of fluffy, white clouds etc.

Alysha is one of seven girls! Mmmm.....seven brides for seven brothers, perhaps!

On washing day, the clothes can be taken out of the clothes basket and hung on the line to soak in all that glorious sunshine.

There is something not quite right about this page......can you guess?

Velvet's farm is a place filled with whimsical critters....lady bugs, li'l birdies, fluttering butterflies, sliding snails, buzzy bees and a garden filled with oodles and oodles of "Jack in the Beanstalk" rainbow-filled flowers (mmm...perhaps another storyline for a book??) Velvet's favourite place is her mummy's garden....it is a place of make believe; a fanciful place filled with a child's imaginative play.

Deary, deary me......me thinks that this 'li'l' birdy (along with the other critters)  has just flown in from the land of Brobdingnag of Gulliver's Travels fame; just to check out Velvet's floralicious garden. I hope she doesn't "fall off her perch" and land on Velvet's daddy. That could be a wee bit uncomfortable!

After a busy day of playing with the animals, helping her mummy hang the washing on the line and supervising her daddy as he drove the tractor; Velvet has snuggled with her kitty kat on the comfy sofa and fallen asleep. Yes indeedy, living on a farm is exhausting business!

The stitching of this book was the best fun. Alysha loved all the free hand machine stitching. As always I am amazed how the kiddos take to free hand machine stitching as if they  have been doing it forever. Alysha was tentative for the first 'ten minutes', but then she was off, whirring and drawing away to her heart's content. This form of stitching is so freeing and as this book was from the outset, meant to be a child's book, complete with a whimsical story and pictures, it didn't matter one iota if Alysha stitched crooked lines. Indeed, the more wiggly and naive the  lines, the better.

So there you have it. The Book that Alysha wrote! The transformation of a simple idea; the drafting of the story, the search and collation of just the right fabrics for each component; the clever stitching of each thought by a very clever girl to the stitching together of each page. Yes indeedy, a truly unique book which will provide oodles of fun-filled moments for Velvet as she escapes into  the far away land of make believe.

                THE END

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

No words.....

Except to say……..

Have a flower-filled kinda day, Miss Vicki.

 Happy Birthday!

Yes I can.....yes I can.......

.....and I did!!!! Yes indeedy, I have finished! The most exhaustive and colourful woolly that has taken the longest time in the annals of the history of knitting...EVER....is completed!!!  I have knitted the last stitch, tidied up the last of metre upon metre of spaghetti-like loose threads, sewn up my myriad coloured jumper and knitted the neck band! So strike up the band, let the drums roll out, let the trumpets call, while the throngs shout.....hip hip HOORAY!!

You will need to shout louder......I can't hear you all the way down here!! The orchestra is belting out a cacophonous tune!

This garment which took forever and a day to knit, taxed my brain pan no end. So much so that I did wonder if it would ever see the light of day. This garment has cured my curiosity in walking along the yarny road of making it up as I go; diverting down li'l paths and tributaries, loop-de-loopying through strands of lengthy colourful wool which resulted in oodles and oodles of unravelling, to only back track, time and time again to the beginning. If nothing else I can pat myself on the back for doggedness.....(and perhaps......lunacy),

I have asked my husband that if ever I should say "I think I will make another improv, brightly coloured jumper, with oodles and oodles of patterns; perhaps he could strangle me with lengths and lengths of tangled wool!!

There have been too many occasions when unravelling was the order of my day.

There were many occasions when my brain pan was taxed to the limit with the figuring out of the patterns.

And.....there were was the odd occasion where my thoughts were led down dark and murderous paths!! Ooops....just as well those knitting needles never found a spot in some poor unfortunate soul....they could have precipitated some serious damage! Ouch!!

But not to be defeated by a 'few' balls of unravelled, crinkly wool, the odd pair of knitting needles and of course my muddled brain pan; I was determined to see this through from beginning to end.

Without further ado....here 'tis.

The front......

The Back......

As I knitted a larger size than I normally would, it is a comfy fit; but that's perfectly fine as I do love to bum around the house in larger woollies that keep me warm and cosy. I love to live in thick, aran style jumpers that are longer than the norm, around the house through the colder months. An oversized aran woolly, a pair of jeans and a pair of boots....voila! I will certainly be warm as toast come next Autumn/Winter.

As you can see, I am no chromophobe! I adore colour! I have been knitting this jumper, off and on through three seasons...Autumn, Winter and Spring. We certainly cannot rush these things now, can we!

Down here in Tassie even though the days are beginning to warm up (today was 19 degrees Celsius...a heatwave), there might be one or two occasions where I will don my jumper for my early morning walks with my shadow, Miss Maisie, as we traipse through the countryside. There will be no more concerns of diving into muddy puddles to avoid being hit by a passing tractor! This woolly has an injection of a li'l dose of colour and pattern; an overdose, if truth be told. Yes indeedy, my colourful woolly will be like a neon light in this li'l neck of the woods.

So there you have it. The end of a very long knitting saga and one for which I am very thankful and somewhat relieved that is "all over red rover"!! The next garment I knit will most definitely be one where I follow the straight and narrow path; a path with no deviations down unexplored territory; a path where the instructions are in black and white; where the wandering along the woolly path is uncomplicated and straight forward! Yes indeedy, my fascination with colour and pattern in a hand knitted woolly has been alleviated!

I am linking up with Janine's "Wool on Sundays" over at her lovely blog, Rainbow Hare. Janine's lovely blog is filled with gorgeous, gorgeous woolly makes and terribly clever makes of the fabric kind. Janine is a born story teller. Her delightful stories of Granny Square, Knit and Purl are enchantingly captivating. You can find a snippet of 'Rainbow Hare' here....give yourself a treat and have a lookity look.

So it's toodles from me.  Have a colourful weekend everyone !!

A Finish......of sorts

Remember way back when......last year (has it really been a year?)  when my li'l streetscape filled with cute as cute Victorian terraces oozing with architectural delights, a melodic carousel, beautiful park gardens, intricate wrought iron fences, groovy gals walking their doggity dawgs, vintage cars etc etc, made an appearance on the world scene?? You don't....well let me refresh your memory. If your memory needs a li'l jolting, here's the story of my li'l streetscape.

I happened upon some spiffy house fabric, which way back when inspired me to free hand machine sketch my li'l streetscape and add it to a quilt. But.....the town planner, his civic cohorts, and his band of merry construction men, decided to put down their tools for a while; to find some new inspiration before continuing on.

A year down the yellow brick road of creativity, I have decided I am not enthused with the idea of incorporating this panel into a quilt. So my li'l streetscape has sat on my 'to do' pile, while the cogs in my brainpan have ever so slowly turned, round and round and round! Yes indeedy, the cogs in my grey matter can get stuck in gear these days.

Oooooh.....have a bo peep at the glorious suffolk puff (yo yos) quilt. Alas, 'tis not mine....more's the pity. One of my stitching girl's mum has asked me to back this pretty which her grandmother has so lovingly stitched. Perhaps she will forget that she has left this pretty with me! But, I digress. That story is for another time.

I have unearthed my happy li'l scene from the pile and decided to put it on display in my kitchen as a valance for the kitchen window; for all to see.

The panel is shorter in width than my window. I did consider joining more fabric and free hand machine sketch some more whimsical details; but to be honest I just wanted it up and for once in my life to "keep it simple stupid". So with this thought uppermost in my brainpan, and with a feeling that it was a bit too black and white, I felt that a li'l colour was needed to showcase my panel.

I pulled out fabrics in blues, pinks, greens and a li'l black. As the panel will hang in the kitchen, some of the fabrics have flowers, strawberries and cherries.

I stitched random strips of fabric to both ends and bordered the top and bottom, also with random strips of fabric. I then stitched a lovely length of crochet trim (that was attached to a very old curtain piece) along the bottom. You will never believe it, but the crochet trim is the exact length of the window! How providential.....it seems it was just meant to be.

Now, I love my kitchen curtain that I stitched ages ago, but in Summer when the windows don't have to wear snug curtains to keep the warm air inside, I usually take this pretty down and hang some other embroidered lovely as a valance, to let the sunshine in. And ......of course, nothing ever stays the same in our li'l ole humble abode. My husband constantly comes home and after stepping through the bright pink front door wonders indeed, if this is his home. Thank goodness for the bright pink front door....sometimes it is the only 'signpost'!

The town planner, only too conscious of his time restraints, is ecstatic that he can sign off on his beautiful streetscape and as for those builders......well, they are singing the happiest of tunes. They might even gleefully gallop atop the carousel horses, spinning around and around  on the revolving merry-go-round and throw their hard hats high into the air with jubilation. They are all relieved that they can leave the occupants to live their everyday lives behind their pretty Victorian facades and get on with their lives. To be quite frank, the builders were a li'l weary of all the intricate details that make up this happy town. Yes indeedy, it's onward and upward (and out of there) for them; with their tool kits attached to their hips!

The 'rustic' tin shed will soon be hidden by the most gorgeous purple Buddleia tree. My good husband decided to give it a prune within an inch of it's life. He reassures me that it will be blooming bigger and better than last year.....and there is no need to file divorce papers over this li'l 'hair cut'!! Mmmm.....but what do I know, he is the gardener, after all! So all will be well within a month or two (my good husband says so) when the vignette from my pretty, valanced kitchen window will be a winding country road, distant blue mountains, a HUGE Buddleia tree amassed with pretty purple flowers and pretty butterflies enjoying all the pretty flowers.

Ooooh.....love, love, LURVE!!

So 'tis toodles from me. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Linking up to the lovely Stephanie's, "The Enchanting Rose".