Well, as things begin to settle down and life is beginning to feel “normal” (whatever that is) so hopefully this is the return of blogging. I’ve not stopped knitting, although these days quite a bit of my creative & artistic energy gets used up in helping small children make junk models or beaded jewellery or finger paintings or fairy cakes……

First, with the hope that this is not going to turn into a “mommy blog” I have to share a story. When I told my best friend her reaction, after she stopped laughing, was “Well, now you are definitely a mum – you’ve got one of ‘those’ stories!”

So, yesterday morning my youngest is following me around upstairs whilst I’m putting away laundry, tidying bedrooms etc. I leave her stamping around in her bedroom to go into the bathroom. Whilst I’m in the bathroom I notice, as you do, that the sink needs a clean and that, of course, leads to the bath etc and so I’m in there quite a while and haven’t noticed it’s gone ominously quiet outside.

As I open the bathroom door and look out onto the landing I see my youngest freeze in one of those “freeze, I’ve been caught” poses. She is standing in the middle of the landing clutching a large container of baby powder (now empty), she is white from head to foot, there is a trail of white leading in and out of both her bedroom and mine. There is white powder up the walls, on the doors…..everywhere….and she just looks at me and says “oh!”.

Later on the same daughter somehow (we are not certain whether this was accidental or on purpose) emptied a large quantity of bubble solution over our cat….we didn’t find this out until after the kids were all in bed and the cat came in looking very bedraggled and sorry for himself….picture me trying to clean soap solution from a long-haired cat who really doesn’t like being washed, what a fun evening.

On the knitting front though I’m currently working on Gigi from www.knitty.com for me. The yarn was bought on eBay and comes from china so I have little idea what it is. It seems to be a sock weight or similar and is in a deep, scarlet red (which doesn’t photograph well) and black.

When I bought this I had no idea what I was going to make with it I just thought it was interesting and it was a bargain. I also bought a pack of the same yarn in a green/yellow/orange/white combination because I can’t resist a bargain.

So, when I checked out the latest edition of knitty.com and saw this -

I immediately thought of my chinese yarn…and knitting with yarn from china whilst watching the Olympics in Beijing (wooooo! Go Team GB! Congratulations to my heroes Chris Hoy & Bradley Wiggins) seemed very appropriate.

So far I’ve completed the back and am halfway up the left front, the patterning on the back looked great but with the shorter rows on the front I don’t know whether I like the pooling…..

I’m also not sure if it’s going to be too small. I’m knitting the smallest size, XS, as the sizing given seemed right for my new shape (6 months into having 3 kids, giving up an office job for a job where I NEVER sit down I’ve lost over a stone…..and I was only a touch over 9 stone to start with!!!) it’s knitting up rather small. Let you know how it turns out.

I’ve also got out my sewing machine and dusted it off to make this gorgeous little sundress for my middle daughter -

I can’t even remember where I got this rather pretty gingham with embroidered butterflies but I came across it whilst clearing out some cupboards a few months ago and it was just crying out to be a sundress. Whilst walking past the sewing shop in town this weekend they had this on a roll outside the shop door

It was incredibly cheap so I’ve bought enough to make a second dress for the youngest daughter so she can have one as well…her favourite saying at present being “how..how…how ’bout me?” whenever anyone else is given anything.

To round off this creative outpouring my eldest daughter and I made apple pies this weekend. The deep dish apple and blackberry pie looked so delicious that we ate it straight out of the oven so I’m afraid I only have photos of the remains….it did look fantastic though! This was our first try with gluten free pastry for pies and it came out quite well. As gluten free is always more crumbly the shortcrust had a lovely crumbly, crunchy texture…quite pleased…..oh yes, and the apples and blackberries were picked from our garden. Apple pies always make me think of my grandma who loved to make them and taught me a lot about making pastry – the secret is cold hands and don’t mess it around!