Making: a quick & easy DIY thread necklace

So here's what happened, in order:

- Firstly, I spent a fortnight doing DIY in the bedroom at every possible moment. This meant no sewing. A week of no sewing and I get really desperate to get back to it. A fortnight? The unspent creative juices were threatening all kinds of mayhem.

- I read Monica's post about her quick necklace making. It struck a chord. It hid around in the recesses of my mind waiting for a moment to pounce.

- I had fifteen minutes the next day before going to collect the Little One from school. Fifteen minutes at the end of the day for which my main plan had been do some sewing and my achievement had been do no sewing. There was a broken necklace in a pot by my sewing table. There was some bright darning thread/yarn in my box. There were fifteen minutes.

Ta da! Fifteen minutes very well spent. I love the bright pink-red thread (though I think it's going to get pretty fluffly pretty quickly). And the once forgotten, now re-loved beads. It was just what I needed. A little happy makery to conclude the day.

The bedroom, by the way, is finished!!! Well, there's still a floor to paint at some point and a whole lot of upholstery to sort out. But the walls, ceiling and woodwork are all done. Applause! Curtsey!

Mothering: being the best mother I can be

My boys. Yesterday I was tired, and did a crazy crash-and-burn as the school run ended. Imagine a toddler on a sugar high and then the sugar runs out. I'd had three cups of coffee (my upper limit) to get through the day and yes, I was that mum when all the caffeine ran out. I shouted. I was impatient. There was not a lot of nurturing. They were playing up and it was the end of a long week but once they were asleep the guilt kicked in and I vowed to do better tomorrow.

Mothering is a funny thing. When you first start out, you try to be the best mother as defined by some book, some zeitgeist, or some universal ideal. It takes a while, but you learn that actually so much of mothering is defined by who you are, who your children are, and your family's needs and priorities. If you were a career-minded, over-achieving, OCD-leaning woman beforehand, it's unlikely that you're going to be a happy and thriving mother if you're trying to fit he 'earth mother' model. You discover the best kind of mother you can be, for the person you are and for the children you have. And that's the gold standard that you hope to hit every day.

Here I am at the start of tomorrow. I've washed yesterday out of my hair, both figuratively and literally. I have a house to tidy (my mother-in-law is due in two hours. TWO HOURS!!) There is a gymnastics class to go to, several meals to make, and a cake bake in the village to support. But through all of it I am going to be the best mother I can be. And that's one that loves and enjoys her children. Who listens to them. Who negotiates and explains. Who can be fun, who can be relied on, who is very cuddly. I will need lots of small successes on the practical side of life, but I will try and share as much of my day with them and try and see as much of their world through their eyes. Time to turn off the computer and go give some hugs.

Sewing - a cushion commission, and a little sewing business business

A lovely friend arranged for some cushions to be made for her sofa. And they weren't quite right. So they came my way for a complete re-do.

Let's first say, My, this lady has some lovely fabric taste! Don't they look lovely? That leaf-print was in serious danger of being stolen by me. Lucky for her, I'm a goody two-shoes!

The fabric was a thin, dress-weight, so not ideal for cushions. It needed reinforcing with some interfacing. The cushion covers had been made several centimetres too big so they needed cutting down to size and then sewing back up again. And the zips were much too conspicuous, so they needed cutting out and replacing with invisible zips. Basically, yes, I sewed four new cushion covers from scratch.

It was a fiddly job, I'm not going to lie. And I got it wrong several times before getting it right, mainly due to ridiculous attempts to recreate serged seams on flimsy fabric without a serger. But I learnt my lessons and ended up French seaming the lot. For those of you who don't sew, that's basically a seam that's concealed within a seam, leaving no fraying edges.

These were my first concealed zips and I'm pleased with the results. And it felt lovely sewing something for someone else to enjoy. It felt more like a real sewing job than anything else I'd done before.

There are five or six weeks left until the Tiny One starts his six-hours-a-week at nursery. It'll take a little while to settle him in enough to leave him both mornings, but I hope to get four hours of clear sewing time out of it, and then another two or three evenings a week, of at least two hours each. And that will be the start of my little sewing business. I'm starting small and low-key, while my mothering commitments so overwhelm my sewing time. Ten hours a week to start with, and then in September it will build up to about 15 hours a week. There will be individual commissions, and there will still be gifts to sew, but I will mostly be focusing on home furnishings, especially curtains, and the quilts.

I just have to start earning some money: the pinch point has come. My full-time mothering was a vocation we had longed for and planned for, but one which we knew would need to transition back to a career as a working mother, once the littlest of our brood was ready for nursery and then school. And to get to sew for a job! There are many other things I could do but here I am with the one chance in my whole life to try and make a career out of something that I love, something that is borne of my soul. It's a dream to be paid for your passion. And you all know that I'm a dreamer. Cross your fingers and toes for me that it works out.

Where I've been

I took a little walk around my house the other day. I thought you'd like a little look at where I've been. And after that, we can get to business.

I've been enjoying the colour and life that a little of nature in the house can bring. My tomato plant (well, they're not tomatoes but they look like them, and I can't remember the real name!) was a gift from my boys at Christmas time and I love it. I just need to figure out a pretty way to cover that plastic pot it's in. The rose on the right was from my love on Valentines. Now let me lower my voice to a whisper: I don't actually like the standard traditional rose. I find it a bit ubiquitous and unnatural looking. But I love that his thoughts and heart were in the right place, so I'm always appreciative. But one year, if the lovely husband gets me a bunch of tulips or country-garden bouquet, boy, he'll really see what natural joy looks like!

We've been putting the Tiny One's pictures up in the kitchen. We all love them! He turns around from his seat at lunchtime sometimes, just the two of us, and says 'do you like my elephants mummy?' He's so proud. And yes darling, I really do. On the right is a bit of hastily decked Christmas paperchain in the Little One's room. Yes it's March. No, he won't let me take it down. I wonder if I removed it surreptitiously one day he'd notice?

Sorry, sorry, it's a potty picture. We've been potty training the Tiny One. He's a month off three. And it took him half a day. No kidding, two wee's and he was sorted. Now you may hate me right now but I should also let you know it took the Little One nearly two weeks and on one of those days he went through every single pair of trousers, underpants and pyjama bottoms he owned. So I was owed a really easy one.

We have a playroom but the boys keep bringing their toys into the lounge. There's usually more room and less mess. Fireman Sam was the toy of choice for much of their half term holidays. They played so long and so well together (once we'd purchased a few duplicates with their Christmas money!!) 

I've been making squares of blue, green, yellow and brown diagonal strips ready to be assembled into a quilt for my brother and his wife. It's a nice, manageable activity with the batting/wadding already added. But I'm a bit worried about the assembly part - they are really skewing in shape as I assemble them, and I think some uneasy easing will be required to get a regular grid of diamonds at the end.

My brother found this beauty in a skip. In a skip!! If they're that easily rid off, no wonder a certain upmarket high street shop fills its windows with rows and rows of them. I now have one for my own window and I think it's just beautiful.

You know that nature on the inside thing I said earlier? This is my current favourite. Budding pine cone branches and a feather in a vase. Sounds much less than it is. It makes me so happy to see it there every day in our lounge. I wish I could keep it forever but I feel like it should really go once spring is upon us, to be replaced with an Easter tree of newly forming leaves. You know me, I like to be season-specific.

What would've been time at the computer or sewing machine is now often time spent in our bedroom, painting. We're slowly getting there. I can't wait to show you it when it's finished, but the re-do also involved recovering the chair in this photo and that's going to be a bit of a beast of a job!

And last of all, I didn't want to miss out any references to the Big One, who has just got a glowing report at school but is driving me a bit doolally at home. That is his room just half a day after his weekly enforced tidying. I couldn't bring myself to show it to you the day before. At least the fact you can't even see the carpet then covers the fact that I haven't been able to get in to vacuum for several weeks. Rant over!

And with that done, it's time to look forward again.