Recent knits

I have recently been knitting, and made the little brown jacket that Eugene is wearing before he was born but now it fits him just right. 

The twins found patterns in a wool shop that they liked, I was pleased they chose different styles as I find it boring to have to repeat the same pattern just after finishing one. 

I was a little concerned when I saw the patterns but thankfully they weren't as complicated as they looked :) 

 

I don't have great photos of them wearing them. Here they are cuddling either Pom or Clouds, I'm not sure which

Hair brushing time :) 

Fortieth Wedding Anniversay

Back in February we celebrated our fortieth wedding anniversary. On the actual date we were in Devon for our grandson, Gilby's birthday party. After the fab space party we all went out for an anniversary supper. 

It's not easy to get all our family together, our eldest daughter and family are missionaries in South Africa so they weren't able to join us and the rest of the family weren't able to get together until March when our son organised a great meal out in London at Roka, an amazing Michelin star contemporary Japanese restaurant. 

We met up at the London Museum where the grandchildren enjoyed some time before going on the the Barbican area and then moving on to Canary Wharf where the restaurant is.

The meal was amazing, we all enjoyed the food including the children who all love sushi. The atmosphere and service all added to the great time had by all. 

Grandpa and Ptimrose were trying to avoid the cracks in the pavement 

Eugene enjoyed some special time with Auntie Amy and the children always love being with their uncles 

As well as it being hard to get everyone together it's also hard to get everyone to look normal, I did say 'nice faces please' but clearly some one didn't hear me

They gave us a lovely big table right near the 'all you can eat' buffet 😊

summer outfits

Some time back I posted these little smocked tops that I made for my twin granddaughters, using a purl bee pattern. 

I had plenty of fabric left over, I had found the vintage seer sucker in a charity shop, so I made a pair of shorts each for a pattern I bought from ellegarrettdesigns on etsy. 

Both the tops and shorts were nice easy patterns and the fabric beautiful to sew with.

Today I received the bottom photo from my daughter of the twins modelling their little outfits :)

The sun is shining today, summer here in the UK hasn't been great so I'm hoping this bank holiday weekend will be good. We are heading into London tomorrow to take care of little Eugene for the day while our son and daughter in law attend a wedding. This is the first time we have looked after Eugene on our own and are really looking forward to spending time with him. We are blessed! 

Have a great weekend! 

Summer Tops

I bought this beautiful vintage seersucker fabric some time back from a charity shop. There was at least two metres of each colour, the light colour is actually white not pink as it looks in the top photo.

I knew at some point I would find a purpose for it. 

So when I came across this lovely pattern on www.purlbee.com I knew the fabric would be perfect. Of course I would have to run that past a couple of little girls first :)

The pattern is for a dress or top depending on the age of the child, so I made tops for the twins. I haven't seen them wearing them yet but hope to get a photo soon.

I used French seams all around, made the bias binding with one of those little gadgets and hand smocked the top.

The pattern was so simple and clear to understand and the fabric was great to work with. 

                                     

                                     

                                     

                         

Mothers Day UK

Mothers Day is  a time of mixed feelings for me, I miss my mother and MIL so much and am so thankful for all that they were to us and our family. I also miss seeing my daughters but know that they are celebrating their own mothers day with their children, those in SA celebrate the day on the same date as those in USA. On Saturday we took a trip into London to meet up with our sons and DIL and enjoyed a lovely brunch together. 

1976

I was sent this photo for Mothers Day all the way from SA (thank goodness for 'whatsapp')

Joe and Jesse are i the centre, our adopted grandsons, baby Hudson has been with our daughter and SIL for over twelve months now, we are praying that there will be an adoption in the near future. The two girls are living in a children's home at the moment and sped time with our daughters family, they would love to adopt them too at some time.

I received beautiful hand drawn cards from the munchkins below :)

Gilby Skipp

Primrose & Maggie

They look different in this photo but they really arent!

Visit from the Grandchildren

We have just had three of our grandchildren visit for a few days, without their parents! This was the first time Gilby had been to our house without them but he did great, he wanted to sleep in with the girls so all three had their beds in our smallest bedroom because the room the girls love to use :)

It's been over a year since they have been to visit, since the girls started full time schools they don't really have the time to come up for weekends now and  as we visit Devon regularly we get to visit them at their house 

 So it was so lovely to have them visit and we managed to cram lots into the days. They had just spent the weekend with their parents at our son and daughter in laws in London so we didn't need to take them into the city, we had lots of fun in the country and also took them to the Roald Dahl museum which was a great hit and to the Tring Natural History museum which they loved, spending their time drawing pictures of all the stuffed animals.

They always love to visit the windmill where they ran and ran and played 'it' with Grandpa. And of course Molly joined in with all the fun!

We have many photos of all our grandchildren standing on this gate starting when they were quite little

                                 

                                  

                                  

                                   

They are like a little gang, three children and a dog :)

Playing 'it' with Grandpa

The weather was perfect and our visit to the windmill ended with a beautiful sunset

Birthdays

Our twin granddaughters have their 7th birthday coming up in November, each year I am busy knitting or sewing right up to the last minute so this year I thought I would be prepared. 

I bought a lovely Sirdar knitting pattern book called Squiggly Knits using Squiggle super chunky yarn which is half acrylic, half wool and beautifully soft.

I began the first waistcoat last Friday and today I have completed the two tea bag hats! 

So I needn't have rushed to get started but am grateful I have completed the task before we have even entered October. The patterns for the waistcoats and hats were so quick to knit up they were a pleasure to make. (I hope they like them)

                              

                                     

                                     

                                      

                                       

Twins Dresses

When the twins were younger my daughter bought a little dress from a charity shop which had a two layered skirt. They loved this dress and wore it until they could no longer squeeze into it. So my daughter asked if I could make them bigger dresses in the same style. 

I had found this pattern some time back in a charity shop and had used part of it to make their princess dresses for Christmas. I knew the pattern was a little too big for them and as I said in my last post,  I often find it hard to make them clothes being so far away and not being able to try them for size as I go along. The beauty of making two identical items is that second time round You can learn from the mistakes of the first!

So I used this pattern and added extra layers of skirts as requested. The girls are very precise about what colours and style fabrics they would like, Primrose wanted narrow pink stripes going vertically down the dress, Maggie wanted wider pink stripes going horizontal across the dress! 

I decided that horizontal stripes just wouldn't look right and so made them both vertical. 

I completed them and mailed them down to Devon, apparently the girls love them...phew :) I think they probably could do with some darts being put in them and so maybe on my next trip down to see them I could add these to make them fit better around the top. 

                              

                                      

                                       

choosing a tree

I have just taken these photos from my daughters instagram page. They went to cut down their Christmas tree at the weekend, they always seem to have great time running around the trees and then choosing which tree they want...maybe one year we will be able to go with them. 

                                   

                                   

                

sixth birthday

I have just returned from a few days in Devon for the twins birthday, Grandpa joined us in time for the party :) they had asked for remote controlled skateboarding dogs!! And Daddy also bought them a skateboard each. (Daddy skateboards too)

We went out for dinner on their birthday to The Oyster Shack which is a favourite eating place for birthdays and then the party was on Saturday. Smurfs were the theme and Mummy excelled herself with wonderful eating delights and special games ending up with all the excited little children toasting marshmallows out on the deck.

It was their turn to bring home the class meer cat for the week so he joined us for dinner

                                   

The Oyster Shack

Uncle Ben sent Gilby a Garfield with the girls gifts....pretty chuffed!

                                 

                                 

                                 

Mummy makes wonderful cakes

Burst balloons around the glass jars to make the elderflower drink look blue :)

                                   

Primrose dressed as Smurfette

I'm not well up on scurf characters and can't remember who Maggie was but she is standing on the blue and white paper bags on the 6th photo down :)