The Autumn of Good Intentions

  Summer was delightful in many ways: camping, cooking, walking, seaside holidays and much more including the return to work and that's when everything stopped for a while as it always does.  Apart from babies.  They never stop and once you start one, well, the inevitable is...inevitable.  Let me stop you before you think I have had, am having, or am going to have a baby.  I am not but many other people are popping them out with increasing frequency.  As with my friend Sue.
Amidst all the chaos I had an intense 48 hours of calm.  Making things for babies is thoroughly enjoyable.  The items are so small that although sometimes a little fiddly there is a sense of gratification that arrives much sooner than when making an adult sized equivalent.  What is more you can choose the most expensive wool and the softest fabric knowing you will only need a small amount and that the indulgence is justified.  Babies look lovely in almost anything and can get away with wearing items that would look ridiculous or even suspicious in a size 10, however much one might want to wear similar.

The original idea was to appliqué some animals onto a blanket.  It was simple and not very time consuming.  However, anyone who likes making things may also have experienced the giddy pleasures of coming out of a creative desert and gorging on making.  It's like the first piece of chocolate after lent, or a bank holiday weekend when you think you can fit far too much into the extra 24 hours.  I overdid it.  Big time.

The appliquéd blanket became a brushed cotton backed coverlet which developed into a grassy scene, a few more animals and suddenly there was a tree with owls in it, and individual leaves cut out of different fabrics.
  

By this time there was fabric billowing out of boxes and bags, threads making their way along the carpet from room to room, offcuts and fluff stuck to everything, and the double bed was the hub of creativity.  Once I start something like this I work until I'm too tired to move and so in the early hours I  crawled into a sleeping bag on the single bed and fell ecstatically to sleep.

Evening two.  Having blagged my way through the day and telling my students they'd get their essays back in the next lesson (oops), I hurried back to the LWH and realised what a huge amount of work I'd created for myself.  This is always the case.  There have been very few journeys to parties, dinners, college and even school when I haven't been finishing something off albeit painting my nails, sewing on buttons, putting up a hem or writing a 3,000 word essay.
Consumption of tea was at an all time high and I worked solidly until the late hours of the early morning when it was finished.  No 'I'll just do this bit on the way' or 'It doesn't matter if I safety pin it.'  It had to be finished, perfect and as bright shiny new as the person it was made for; and to the best of my ability it was.
There are morals to this story which I know by heart but will probably never learn.  The obvious being don't leave everything til the last minute but despite my best intentions this has never worked. Don't overcomplicate things is also a good point. But perhaps the most important is not to leave it so long between making things.  It's a bit like crash dieting: everything else might seem better, clothes fit, jobs get done, students' essays get marked but bingeing on anything is not healthy.

Crikey, that is all true but sounds horrendously poncy. Here's the finished result and long live working to deadlines on adrenaline.

The finished article: animals from matching curtain fabric, brushed cotton backing from House of Fraser, everything else reclaimed or vintage.

    

In situ :-)