Hoorah! I've Finished The Sampler

Its been another bad week healthwise, Em has been ill again! She made a good recovery from the tummy bug for last weekend, but then Monday morning had it all over again. She was off all week again, the GP suggested that we keep her off all gluten as well as the usual dairy products once she started eating. Finally she is well again so I hope she will be back at school tomorrow. Three weeks illness has been a real trial for Em but she has carried on working at home on Maths, English and IT set by her teachers. My crafting has been mostly cross stitch as I have finally finished her leaving sampler, I just need to hem and mount it, I think an over sized pencil might look good top and bottom. For the next two Wednesdays I am running a craft evening at Em's Girl Guides group, whilst half the group is learning to shoot then they swap over. Em is going to start off the evening showing the girls how to make pipe cleaner flower pencil toppers, then I will show them how to make the little Christmas Tree topper. They will also have a chance to make an angel and a handprint poem. I hasten to add that these ideas were borrowed from across the web and adapted to our needs for the crafting evenings. I wanted to find a pattern for an angel made from paper doileys - instead of which I came across an angel on a website which uses paper doileys for wings. Now doileys have all but disappeared in good old England, so I played with the pattern and borrowed wings from another angel and changed her halo to a pipe cleaner version. Hey presto she looks like an angel. I thought the Handprint poem would be perfect for the girls to make, usually these are made at toddler groups and pre-school with hand paints. So I decided it would be fun for them to cut out their handprint and put a toddler sized print on top with their name age and the year. I also adapted the wording to reflect the fact they are older now. I apologise for my photo being on its side I have tried to upload the photo three times, it was saved in landscape format but blogger keeps loading in portrait! You can still see the poem. The Handprint poem and angel I found at DLTK's website. The flower pencil toppers Em found in a book. but she designed the flowers and made her own templates. I hope you have a good week. Happy crafting. Jane x

Progress on Knitting and Stitching

Thank you dear friends for your kind wishes for Em, she did come down with a chest infection over half term, she recovered in time to go back to school. Then Wednesday I got a phone call to say she was in sick bay feeling sick, dizzy and faint. So she has been off school again for the rest of the week with a horrible tummy bug. She recovered in time to help with the Guides Jumble Sale on Saturday - They were raising money for Sight Savers which is The Lions and The Rotary clubs in partnership with Moorfields Eye Hospital working to save the sight of children in Ghana, Africa. They did very well but we don't know how much was raised yet. Today was Rememberance Sunday with Church Parade, so the Scouts, Cubs, Guides and Brownies all attended the service and wreath laying in the village. During half term I knitted a Robin Hood figure, which a friend at work had requested from the Jean Greenhowe Book of Favourite Toys. I then made a little ghostie for Em to cheer her up as she was feeling so ill. Tony managed to find me the October issue of Simply Knitting magazine when he went up to visit Ali, so I could knit a Pudsey Bear. He is the mascot for the BBC's Children In Need Appeal, which is held every November to raise millions for childrens projects both at home and overseas. Finally I have been busy with my cross stitch, I have done more work on the sampler for my friend who is leaving school in early December. I hope you have a good week, and thank you for leaving me so many lovely comments. Jane x

Knitting and Stitching

Progress on Mary Wigham has stopped since my previous photo because I have several other projects on the go. I returned to a pair of socks I started last year but because of the pattern I hadn't got very far with them. I frogged the sock, changed the pattern and voila! one sock down and the other on the needles.

Another friend at school is leaving, she came back from maternity leave and decided that she couldn't continue teaching and leaving her little girl at creche. So at the moment she is counting the days to the end of the Christmas term which is when she is finishing. I have started a sampler for her with all the things she has been involved in at school, in the six years she has been with us she has been very busy. On Friday we had another coffee morning, this time for Breast Cancer Care we raised approx £159 At the moment it is half term and we are enjoying the sleep-ins and lazy days although Em seems to be fighting a chest infection at the moment. I hope you have a lovely week whatever you are doing. Jane x

Baby Care

Last week Em's year had to take care of a baby for a whole week as part of their development lessons. They were each given a hardboiled egg which they had to name and look after. Here is Em with Eadbert, many of her friends chose names for their eggs; e.g. Sheldon, Shelly, Spencer, Eggy, Phoebe and Shelly McEgg. Em decorated an egg box for Eadbert to live in with bed, tv, reading book, chair and table as well as a string of pasta shapes as a baby mobile. Finally I made a tiny pink teddybear for Eadbert. (Em was hoping for a girl) Em was going to make a power point presentation of her, her friends and their eggs but sadly by Monday most of the eggs stayed at home with their parents or went to school with siblings so she never got the photos she wanted. Instead Em took a photo of her rubber egg Eggbert visiting Eadbert for my blog. Em did really well and managed to get to the end of the week without any breakages. Jane

Bytes and Bites

Our coffee morning raised £142 which was brilliant for Macmillan and everyone enjoyed the cakes. This week has been a difficult one as a virus has paralysed the school computers for two days, slowly things are returning to normal but at the moment the virus is still causing problems in the background. Emily has made a delicious ginger cake in Food Tech lessons this week, unfortunately some mixture dripped on to her cake from one on the shelf above. It made a funny mark across the top but the cake is delicious - dark, sticky and gingery but not too fierce and its all gone! Em did her usual trick of using vitalite instead of butter and lacto-free milk, so it was safe for her to eat.

Cross stitching Mary Wigham this week has been slow but I have made some progress. I may have to stop shortly as I need to start work on another sampler for a friend who is leaving school at the beginning of November. I hope you have a good week. Jane

Baking and Macmillan Coffee Morning

The staff at our school had a coffee morning for Macmillan - world's biggest coffee morning. Many of us made cakes and the money pot was looking good at the end of break (total collected to follow) This was the cake I made and half of it disappeared - hopefully the rest will go at lunch break. Earlier in the week Em made a victoria sponge cake in food tech lesson. (cookery to you and me) She changed the butter to vitalite - dairy free and added 1 teaspoon of baking powder to the self raising flour, which helped the mix to rise as the vitalite tends to be wetter than normal butter. Her cake was such a success she got top marks and it was delicious. Finally my stitching progress on Mary Wigham; It has been very easy to work with in the evenings, I love working in all the different colours. Ali is back at Uni now, so tomorrow we are planning to go and visit. This photo was taken in the summer hols in Dorset. I hope you have a good weekend/week. Jane x

Mary Wigham Stitching Progress.

This is a lovely sampler to stitch, I love the colours. I have changed one or two medallion colours from cream because it didn't show up on the off white background, but I have stayed with the colours already in the sampler. Some of the MW's Samplers have been completed and they are beautiful as you can see on the Needleprint blog. The return to school has been busy, planning trips , getting data. etc. Em was delighted to be back with her friends, and the promise of a new academic year filled with many of her favourite lessons. Al has returned to Uni for her final year of English Lit, she's in a new house with old friends and she was glad to be back too. I have been looking around the web and found some lovely blogs devoted to both cross stitch and Quaker samplers. The Sampler Girl's Blog and her shop Quaker Inspired Blog The world's Greatest Collection of Smalls Too and the original blog The World's Greatest Collection of Smalls I also found a Cross stitch website which sells kits and charts and I fell in love with a chart called A Quaker Christmas 2007 and a chart called Spook-A-Boo So I've plenty of stitching to keep me busy. I hope you have a good week. Jane x