Seven Quick Takes, Episode 16: In which there is an exciting packing crate

It's that time of the week again... 

1. Ze Husband arrived home last night with a disassembled 6' x 3' packing crate in the back of the car. I was going to take a picture, but I can't find the memory card for the camera (technically incompetent? Me? Well, yes). Apparently, he has grand plans for it, so I suspect our activities this weekend may well involve a screwdriver.

2. The EU referendum is less than a week away, and it's all getting rather worrying. For anybody who doesn't know what's going on yet, I wrote this post just for you. In case you hadn't guessed, we're firmly in the "remain" camp round here, and the Leave campaign are doing a bit too well in the polls for our liking. We just have to hope these people see sense in the next six days, otherwise God help us all - because Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage and Rupert Murdoch certainly aren't going to.

3. Having bilingual kids can have unexpected advantages, as I discovered yesterday in a hospital waiting room when my daughter asked, loudly, why a rather overweight man "had a baby in his tummy". Thankfully, she said it in French, and the man in question either didn't understand, or was kind enough to pretend not to. Oof.

4. We have ants in our house, which is pretty much inevitable with small children who drop food on the floor and badly-fitting French windows. Mx and R spent a good half hour building houses, mazes and playgrounds for two of them with bricks. I'm starting to have second thoughts about exterminating them (the ants, not the children) - anything that can keep two under-5s happy for that amount of time has to be good.

5. Disclosure: I typed most of this post in the car, then when I got back into signal range, it went all funny and I lost takes 3 to 7. Now I can't remember what no.5 was, so I'll add it if and when I remember what it was!

6. This morning, I made a hot drink AND drank it before it went cold. If you don't know why this is newsworthy, then you probably don't have children. 

7. In other news, I've started trying to create some kind of social media presence for this blog. There's a Twitter button at the top right of this page, and I'm now on Bloglovin, so if anyone would like to follow, that would be very kind, thankyouverymuch, have some virtual cake (now wih virtual calories!). I won't be joining Instagram any time soon (see point 1), but am contemplating a Facebook page. Thoughts?

Linking up with Kelly for 7QT - time to go and see what everyone else has been up to!

The Year of Finishing Projects, ep. 4: Superhero cape!

I haven't had much time for making things of late, but les gnenfants and I were at a loose end yesterday afternoon, and we had the car, so we went to the fabric shop in search of something sparkly to make a superhero/princess/fairy/witch cape/cloak for their cousin's birthday next week. 

We found this fabric:

Not only was it exactly what we were looking for, it was also a roll-end remnant, and, wonder of wonders, the way the fabric is constructed meant I only needed to hem ONE EDGE. One edge, people!

I folded the top over twice and sewed it down using a zigzag stitch (the fabric is stretchy, a straight stitch wouldn't have worked as well) to make a casing, then sewed a tube from the offcuts and turned it to make a tie strip, which I then threaded through the casing. A couple of stitches to hold the ties in place, and voili voilou*... one superhero cape!

Cape/cloak kindly modelled by M, who is about a foot shorter than the intended recipient.
In real life, she does not have facial hair OR a hat the size of Mars. She is also a foot shorter than the intended recipient.





*voili voilou: an "voila", which I am currently refusing to use because I can't find the accents on my new keyboard, and that word without the accent on the a BURNS MY EYES.

The Year of Finishing Projects, ep. 3

This one has been a while coming...

These are my children's Easter outfits (dresses for the girls, and a waistcoat (US: vest) for R. I only made the fox-print stuff, obviously. 

I used the Prudent Baby Snappy Toddler Shirt pattern (free!) for the dresses - I just extended them to dress length. I also lined mine because I had some lining going spare, and it saved having to use bias binding around the arm-holes. The pattern is really clear, very quick and pretty fun to sew! Just make sure you get the print size right (there are clear instructions on the website). Mx's dress was actually a bit big, so it should do her for a couple of years. 

The waistcoat/vest pattern is here  - also free, also fantastic. I only used two fabrics (lining and foxes) because I wanted the back the same as the front. I only used two buttons - three seemed too many for the age 2 version - and topstitched all around the edges for a sharper finish. 

I'd love to see what anyone else has been making recently - feel free to leave links in the comments !

Seven Quick Takes, episode 7: In which my children willingly eat kale

Hello t'interwebs! It's Friday again, which means it's time for 7QT...

1. I've just finished reading Sophie's Choice and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Knowing what the "choice" was before I read the book obviously changed the experience a bit, and Styron's approach to the Holocaust is nowhere near as shocking now as it was in 1979 (add to that the fact that I studied the historiography of the Holocaust as a specialist subject in my last year at high school, and it loses its originality). What I really didn't like was all the (really) nasty language, which almost made me stop reading before the end of chapter 2. You have been warned...

2. (Hides face in shame) So I may have made my children matching outfits for Easter... This is possibly the last year where they'll all be happy to be matching, so it was now or never. Also, I found a really easy dress pattern on the internet. More to come on that one once I've sewn all the buttons on and taken some pictures! (Mothers of the internet: please don't shoot me. I'm still on maternity leave at the moment and I only have ONE CHILD for six whole hours on a Thursday, which is when these sorts of things happen).

3. I had two heads of cavolo nero (black kale) lurking in the back of the fridge that I wasn't sure what to do with. In the end, I made kale pesto:

• Strip leaves from kale stalks. Discard stalks.
• Plunge leaves into boiling water for 1 minute, then drain, rinse in cold water and squeeze out most of the moisture
• Place kale in blender with a couple of cloves of garlic, a glug (yes, that is a culinary term) of olive oil, salt, pepper, and a handful of blanched almonds 
•  Find toddler willing to press blender button several times over the course of a few minutes. 

We had ours with roasted root vegetables (it being Friday in Lent and all), but it would work pretty well with pasta, gnocchi, etc. I have a jar of preserved garlic cloves in the back of the cupboard at the moment, so I used those: they have a fairly mild flavour and don't need cooking. If you're using normal, raw garlic, though, I'd suggest blanching it with the kale.
I suspect walnuts would be a pretty good substitution for the almonds, and it goes without saying that parmesan cheese would definitely add something... in any case, my kids ate it without complaining, so it's a winner in my books.

4. Also on a culinary note, I have oompa-loompa orange hands at the moment from chopping up butternut squash this morning. I just felt the need to share that. Sorry.

5. Last weekend, Mx asked me if her godmother had fixed Jesus. It took me a while to work out where the idea had come from... turns out she was getting "Jo" (her godmother - who also happens to be a doctor, so you can see where the fixing-people thing comes in) mixed up with "Dieu" (i.e. God). Nice idea, but... no.

6. Pointless philosophical reflection of the day: why is it so hard to find purple shoe polish? Hmmmm. Mx's boots are definitely looking a bit the worse for wear, and I'd like it if they could last until after Easter...

7. I had to change the names of two of my posts when I found out that "BabyLit" is actually a thing. They're now called Baby Edits. Vol. 1 is here and vol. 2 is here.

On that note, have a very happy weekend!

Linking up with Kelly for 7QT.

The Year of Finishing Projects, ep. 1

One of my resolutions for this year is to finish some of the (many) craft projects I have on the go... and hopefully make a bit more space in my craft cupboard. The sewing machine is supposed to live in there, but it has been sat out on top of a bookcase for... (ahem)... a while.

So, I actually finished something yesterday...

A  braided rag rug I've been making for my sister's new house. I've made a few in the past (this is no. 4), but this is the first rectangular one, made by sewing braided strips together. I do them by hand since my sewing machine can't cope with that thickness of fabric, so it's time-consuming, but also fairly mindless - the kind of thing you can do with three small children around (not something you can say about many craft projects!). It was meant to be a Christmas present... well, it's still sort of Christmas until Candlemass, right?

A little closeup: 

 (I tried using this as a blog background, but the file's too big).

One down, lots to go!