Life's Just Better With Jam

Of course, it's taken me so long, their feet no longer fit.  Ahem.

We discover, Dormouse Moneybags and me, that all of a sudden a half-term or an Easter or a Christmas holidays is slap bang sitting right on top of us.  Wham!  Just like that.  We're all, what the, how the, where the heck did the time go?  Are our children ever in school?

I like how it looks as if they've signed their feet...

And in those weeks of course there's little point trying to do anything involving the following high falutin' thinky activities - planning, strategy, website editing, product design, image editing.
You know, just the stuff in our jobs.  No way.  Forget it.  And certainly not making products for our lovely (we're curtsying right now, curtsying) customers, who deserve only the highest quality products we can muster.

Add one gorgeous bright red giant bathmat!

But we're addicted to sewing, so we do both attack little projects for our own home, since it doesn't remotely matter if we cock those up.  Yes, I like to make a right old scruffbag of a thing for my gaff.  I don't care about loose threads, scruffy edges, double-stitching, linings, neat hems, market trends, on-trend colourways or nuffink.  No, I just grab some scraps, cut 'em up, hoop up, throw a sausage at the kids, stitch something to something else, lob some squash at the kids, stitch some more bits to some other bits, cut, snip, stitch, say "Yeeees!" to whatever thing they've just asked for (crisps was it? Tequila? Tree-climbing? Fire-starting? No idea, just can't stop in the middle of machine-embroidery), stitch a bit more, pinking shear some edges, bob's your uncle and here's a bowl of ice-cream with chocolate sauce and yes, of course, help yourself to too much telly.

Enter me for Mother of the Year Award, you say?  Oh yes please, do, do.

Machine-embroidered scraps for a picnic blanket

Anyway, so here are the things I'd been meaning to make for donkeys' years, and scruffy though they are, I'm glad I've done them.  They are the very things I love - they inject creativity into the fabric of this house.  They are there to please no-one but me (and if they please other people, hooorah!); they are spontaneous; vintage; sustainable; re-used; and best of all, being used, so I get to have a little cock-eyed smile at them each time I see them.  Slightly smug.  You know that smile.
I must tell you that the bathmat idea is not mine, no - I saw it in passing at a nice blog once, and always meant to do it.  You can find a smashing tute for it here if you're not confident about tackling it freestyleeee....

The picnic blanket idea has been germinating for a while in my bonce.

 

These are all machine-embroidered squares with daft phrases on them, like our Piece & Jam Collection.  Ok, it's going to take me a while, but once I've done 12 or so, I'll throw them together with some other squares to make a picnic blanket - whack an old shower curtain on the back and hey presto, all ready for an English picnic, for which waterproofing is always advisable. A load of foody phrases, coz life is just better with Jam.

Whose voice can you hear now?  Yep.  That's right.  Homer Simpson.

Yes, that is Eddie Izzard, most beloved of this Isle.  There'll be a few more of his by the time this picnic has finished.  Cake or death?

So, now then - I'd like to know any of the following in your comments please...either here or on our Facebook page....

a) What did you make in the holidays, and on a scale of 1-10, how scruffy was it?
b) What were your most shameful hands-off childcare tactics?  Share.  Seriously - I need some tips!
c) More Eddie Izzard phrases for the picnic blanket please.  And by the way, these are for everyone - please make a picnic blanket using them!  Could you pass me the idioms please.  Thank you.