Ally Pally

Early on Saturday morning I left my little ones quietly going about their mornings, and got on the train to London with my wonderful friend Ashleigh (with coffees and knitting in hand). I was mostly very very excited, but also a little anxious. Twelve hours, and so very far apart!


One of the trains was cancelled, so we opted for the underground and a long walk up the deceptively steep hill.

I've never been inside Alexandra Palace before.



The noise, heat, and colour - it was totally overwhelming, and without the more organised presence of Ashleigh I'd have missed a lot just by meandering from one colourful area to another without any rhyme or reason! From when we arrived until about three o'clock the place was packed; jostling enthusiastic crowds of crafters everywhere we turned.

The first stall that really truly blew me away was this: Natali Stewart's hand dyed yarns. They were displayed so gorgeously, and I just wanted to take them all home with me. More subtle palettes are not my default, and the skill with which these colour combinations were put together was so inspiring and very easy on the eye. I could have spent a good long while stroking these beauties.



Natural Dye Studio, of course.



And I spent a fair amount of my budget on buttons, because Textile Garden had an awesome selection of truly gorgeous options. Little red octopus buttons, zakka-style ceramic effect and wooden buttons with stamped and carved designs, tiny square shell buttons - oh, and a lovely little wooden shawl pin. :)



When we got to the end of the main hall and found open space and a cool breeze, we stopped for a much needed drink and sandwich under the huge stained glass window.



Lots of design elements struck me and got me thinking along new lines. There were some beautiful garments on display (those above are from Purl Alpaca Designs) and plenty of creative stitchery of all kinds from artists and art students alike. I have more crazy ideas than ever.





I was very tired by the time we got to this stall (one of the last on our long walk around) so I didn't catch the stall holder's name, but I did very much admire the colourways of this Blue Heron yarn. The entire event had also gone very quiet, making it much easier for us to retrace our steps back to some fabric stalls Ashleigh had wanted to return to. And I bought some Colinette, because how could I not? (I got Toscana Prism, and Popsicle Art, for a cowl and a toddler Versa vest respectively.)

Before hopping back on to the train home, we had dinner in Yo Sushi at the station. I won't confess to how much sushi we had. We enjoyed in immensely, though.

When I walked in through the door, Talia shouted "MUMMMEEEEE!" with a kind of wild glee, and did a little happy dance on the spot. It took her about ten minutes of hugging me to even ask for milk! Apparently through the day she only asked for me once, taking Martin to the door and pointing at it, demanding to go find me in a most put out tone. After that, he had made cupcakes with them, so obviously that suitably distracted her until I arrived. :)

It was a great day out, with the best of company, and I really enjoyed every bit. Even the aching feet. But also, I do have to confess, nursing my sweet teeny person at the end of the day and her falling blissfully asleep in my arms. Yes, with every kind of wonderful distraction, and a day all to myself, I did miss my kidlets. As Ashleigh had observed earlier in the day, "You just can't turn the mummy off!"

Week (ish) in Pictures

1. Somebody got a Thornton's sample...
2. Hand carded Autumn
3. Watching construction
4. Swing!
5. Crunching leaves (again)
6. Octonauts PJs
7. Monochrome (by Jenna)

(Three images, obviously, from the same neighbourhood walk - but I couldn't decide which I liked best.)

Toys Re-evaluated

So, rather a long time ago, I wrote a post about Waldorf toys. How I love and value the open-ended properties of simple natural playthings. And already, even then, I knew that some day compromises of some sort would come. What I didn't know then is how very joyful those compromises would be, and how easy it would be to say "yes" to something that I categorically didn't like but would find endless joy in through the eyes of a child. :)




My second child is now the age my first child was when I wrote that lot of shoulds and oughts. You may have noticed I've chucked out a lot of answers I thought I had, along with some of the hard edges of judgement and expertise (I hope). So here's a re-write of sorts.

The foundation of our playthings are still collected nature (pine cones, shells, stones, sticks), wooden stacking arches, naturally shaped wooden blocks and geometric blocks, play silks, and simple animal and people figures.


Those are the things that are played with every day, and that I would recommend as a basic kit for creative play. Also Lego, still a regular fixture. But other things to. The things that spoke to these kidlets of mine, and which we bought over the last year or so as and when they asked (and as and when we saw things we knew they would love).


I don't appeal to my personal dislike of plastic or my own choices about protecting the environment any more to refuse to buy the plastic toys my children love. They have genuine choices, with the money that I treat as belonging to all of us equally. I don't consider what I allow or don't allow all that much any more at all. I choose generosity, and saying yes. I want to follow the joy.

So, we have Moshi Monsters, and My Little Ponies, and Sylvanians, and Octonauts (I joke that those Sylvanians were the gateway drug). And they live in baskets with our Waldorf-sanctioned wooden toys. And it is all good.

Daybook midweek when it's cold and I'm just coping

Outside my window the sky is bright vivid blue and the wind is bitingly cold. Today is the first day of the year the heating has gone on for an hour in the morning. The overgrown hedge is full of harvest spiders, and the washing line dripping with some little skeins of brightly coloured sock yarn I just dyed in the kitchen.

I am thinking fuzzy not-enough-sleep thoughts about plans for the next couple of days. Morgan and Jenna both have bags packed for sleep overs with friends. I didn't get nearly enough sleep last night to think much beyond that, though.

I am thankful for warm dressing gowns and slippers.

In the kitchen... I've prepared potatoes and boiled eggs, and sliced vegetables for tea. Jenna is going to make fish pie, but I thought I'd get the trickier bits of prep out of the way for her early in the day. I have grilled courgettes and cauliflower cheese in the oven for lunch, because I'm still freezing cold and cheese sauce seems like a pretty good antidote! 

There are FIVE pumpkins on the dining table. We bought four little ones, then my mum brought a gigantic one over, and now I'm thinking we're going to be eating pumpkin-everything next week (especially since she wants to take them to a little local patch, owned by a young lad Jenna's age, to pick their own for carving).

I am wearing a long red pyjama tunic and brown yoga pants. I have no intention whatsoever of getting dressed today. This morning is the first time since Monday I've felt well.

I am creating bits and pieces, no big project right now (apart from a lace hat design I'm a bit frustrated with and am therefore ignoring for the time being). Hand dyed mini skeins for more gift sets and craft kits for the shop. Some yarn just dry ready to knit a hat and a toddler crown.

I am going to the Knitting and Stitching Show in London on Saturday, on the train, just me and Ashleigh. I'm excited, VERY excited, and also a little anxious about being so very far away from baby. She'll be absolutely fine with her Daddy, I'm sure, and yet I can't help quaking a little at the thought of not being able to get back to her if she needs me.

I am wondering whether the music for Mario Kart was specifically designed to be annoying... I just had to ask Jenna to mute it for me so that Rowan's *very long* attempts at playing the game didn't melt my brain!

I am reading City of Lost Souls (book four in The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare). I read the entire first book before realising I had already read it. It's OK, though, and the series has nicely sucked me in and provided useful escapism while I have been in survival mode.

I am hoping that the mini skeins dry quickly, as I'm impatient to photograph them! :)

More importantly I'm hoping that I can shake this feeling of general exhaustion. Lack of sleep the last two nights, with migraine-y I'd-better-not-be-coming-down-with-something-worse-ness, and a huge confidence blow from an unpleasant woman in town on Monday... I'm hoping that some weekending will bring my shine back.

I am looking forward to, well, Saturday obviously. But also looking forwards to Friday and delivery a customer's yarn in person. And very much looking forwards to some Christmas making (and some presents arriving from other small producers, having given myself a break on the make-everything-myself thing and decided to use some of my earnings to support other businesses).

I am learning the difference between Feather and Fan, and Old Shale lace patterns. I thought I had it figured out, and then somehow managed to use the wrong one in a test swatch. I am also learning to NEVER put laundry in the washing machine, or turn the tumble dryer on, without checking that Talia has not put something helpful (like a Wii remote) in the drum...

Around the house there is still a ridiculous, never-ending, amount of laundry. I know. It deserves a mention every time, because otherwise these Daybook posts really can look very perfect-mama. ;)

Some of my favourite things: peppermint tea, novelty cookie cutters, richly golden merino silk yarn, four year old giggles, random questions like, "can crabs recognise each other?", and packets of fun brightly coloured stickers.

A peek into my day...

Seven Days of adventures, rain, and play

1. Oak
2. Late night lego
3. This is TIDY, mkay?
4. Main Lesson Books unschool style ;)
5. Park
6. Home-ed group
7. Walks

Rains, Trains, and Feeling Brave

A good friend arranges to meet up - a really great friend turns up to help you get to arranged meeting place when she hears you're having a hard morning! :)

This whole refusing-to-hibernate thing is working out giving us the strangest adventures this week. On this occasion the adventure was a brilliant fun afternoon on the park in a torrential downpour.





Emma even brought her crochet for me to photograph. Beautiful Emma and her beautiful arts and crafts.

It really did rain a LOT. The children absolutely refused offers to go home, and mine wouldn't even put coats on. By the time we did go home we were all rather cold and totally drenched. Talia fell in a puddle on the way back, and took off half of her clothes, so we kind of ran the last two streets with baby whimpering and the others starting to complain that they were wet. (I refrained from sarcasm. I just thought sarcastic things in my head about children who beg for five more minutes in a freaking thunderstorm only to complain about having been rained on.)



Isn't it a good job that home comes with practically unlimited supplies of hot tea? :)

On Friday I took all four children up into the High Peak by train, to visit a home-ed group who meet once a month. I'd been invited by a fellow unschooler, and assured that I would be made very welcome - first I just had to overcome my fear of taking these four wild ones on public transport long distances...

The travelling is OK, for me, actually. I joke about my kidlets being wild, but they are lovely friendly helpful travelling companions, and they really give me no cause to freak out and/or lay down rules. They are usually very considerate of other passengers, and tend if anything to fight much less in public than when cooped up at home. And yet transporting them gives me the biggest most horrible anxiety attacks, especially when coupled with any kind of time pressure. Trying to get them somewhere on time is my most common panic attack trigger. So it was a really big deal. Still, I was just Going to Do It and Not Freak Out.

Until I paid for our tickets, took the children through the barrier, and was told casually in passing by a guard, "You'll be changing at Sheffield."

I'll WHAT?

Wait a second, I'll be WHAT NOW?

I didn't say that. I must have been radiating about-to-have-a-meltdown though, because he kindly looked up the details and made sure I knew the platform for and name of the connecting train we'd be getting. I stood in that entrance way clutching our tickets feeling stricken. In sight of our actual train.

Honestly, I was terrified. If you've never suffered severe anxiety I'm not sure I can explain it. But I wanted to run. I wanted to gather my little chickies, and run home, and hide there quietly. I did NOT want to get on that train. I'd rather lose the money I'd spent on tickets than lose a child at a station somewhere (or lose my mind in the process of getting there). What if we missed our connection and had to traipse all the way home without making the meet? What if we got to the meet and missed our train home and were stranded for over an hour in the rain in the middle of nowhere and didn't get home until 9pm? All the worst case scenarios flashed through my head, a parade of failures and ways in which I was going to let these kids down and generally be the worst parent in the world.

I said, "OK kids, it's an adventure!" And we got on the train.



(Please excuse Roo with a mouth full of picnic!)

After a while, I start to breathe normally again. I keep saying, "We're fine. We're doing this, and we're fine. They're safe, I'm a great mama, and I'm looking out for them. We're having an adventure. Look how happy they are. We're fine."

They watch out of windows a lot.

Rowan: Look mumma! A horse all by himself, he is so sad!
Me: How do you know he's sad? He might be a really happy horse...
Rowan: Nope. He has a frowny face.

Other passengers react to these happy, curious, lively young people. Some chuckle at how Talia says, "MINE!" and holds out her hands for whatever her sisters have. Some wave back at Rowan as she greets them. Some chat with Jenna a while when she politely asks them if they know which station is next or what the name of their dog is or whether she may offer their baby a biscuit. None of my possible predicted Terrible Things comes to pass (not even the minor everyday ones like Talia trying to take all her clothes off, or Rowan making repetitive annoying four-year-old noises that might bother the other passengers). We arrived at the group totally unscathed.

And it was so worth it. Such a lovely friendly welcoming group, where I didn't even feel like the newbie, let alone the freak I occasionally feel at other social gatherings. ;) It was wonderful to see teenagers and parents hanging out together, affectionate, actually friends. It was wonderful to see the children running together in a pack, and stomping barefoot in puddles, and dancing, and watching the rain. It was wonderful to see families getting involved with their own children, and each other's - asking questions of the kids about known interests, and sharing news, treating each other kindly. I've never got that vibe from a large real life group before.



The return journey, although I didn't so much as know our connecting train's destination, was not so stress-inducing. I knew we'd done it before, and I was confident that I could keep it together. Changing trains again was, of course, a hurrying-across-the-station, carrying the barefooted baby, where-the-heck-are-the-toilets, rush. And then we were on the right train, and on the homeward straight, with a bag of chocolates in my bag for the children who were all hungry again.

Morgan, on the way home: "That train has FOUR cabbages, but this one only has two. [After some delighted laughter from Jenna and I...] Oh, carr-a-ges-es is too hard to say, I'll just say cabbages." :)



Talia fell asleep upright in her chair. The gentleman sitting next to her laughed and helped her get comfortable while I finished reading a story to Rowan, then I scooped up my small sleepy and cuddled her close all the way home. It would have been a perfectly blissful moment, were in not for the fact that Talia had fallen asleep with four chocolates in her mouth at once, and therefore drooled chocolate into my cleavage and all over the inside of the ring sling.

Picture the scene as we waited for our lift home. Me with chocolate baby drool all over me, sitting outside the station with three of my four children barefoot in the sunshine; I felt like a damn lioness.

Autumn Inspirations List

Here's our checklist! You can see we've already been busy with a few ideas, and more than half of our Autumn festivals are already past now, but still so much to cherish in the last dying warmth of this year. My very favourite season.

An Autumn Walk

Some days just start off so badly there is no thinking of any possible reset button that might work. Earlier in the week we had just such a day, with Morgan and Jenna fighting and it all ending up with two ruined dresses and two little girls in tears. Looking at their little heartbroken faces I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry myself, so I sort of did both at once.

When my mum offered to take a couple of children out for a walk, I said "yes" followed quickly by "can we all come?" And so we did.

We played with sycamore spinners and found fairy garlands in the hedgerow (White Bryony). We photographed the leaves turning, found fungus, spotted deadly nightshade, kicked leaves, gathered acorn caps and pine cones, and poked the dirt with a stick.

And it was good.

Belated Yarn Along: lilac sparkles

Knitting: Versa, custom for the shop, in hand dyed purple sparkle silk dk.

Reading: Still didn't start City of Bones. But Jenna and I are almost done with Battle of the Labyrinth which means we're pretty close to the end of Percy Jackson's adventures. :)

Joining in with Ginny and friends.

Simple Woman's Daybook with the smell of Autumn in the air

(So, I wrote this yesterday, but was too busy wrangling small people in the evening to pop the pictures in and edit myself for general coherence. Ah well, it's still a little peek into my Autumnal ordinary beautiful chaotic week.)

Outside my window the sky is all bright white clouds and hints of the brightest blue where the clouds are wind-whipped and light. Yesterday we had full summer again, but today there is a nip in the air. From my back garden, where I went to hang a skein of yarn earlier, the air smells of smoke from a garden fire somewhere near by, and of earth, and of damp grass, and sweet windfall apples.

I am thinking through sort-of maybe plans for more Christmas present makes, but I'm not feeling any sense of urgency yet and I don't have nearly the number of things made up as I had this time last year. I am feeling very much comfortable with the lack of planning, and reckon I might just do some crafty trades during November to make up the lack. :)

I am thankful for the gigantic haul of three bags full of gorgeous tart cooking apples and sweet pears from Ashleigh's parents, whose trees produce more than they can use. It's such fun processing and using good local home-grown free fruit! We had a nice crumble already, and the children made our first batch of apple sauce today (with me doing the peeling and them chopping and cooking).

In the kitchen the slow cooked sweet potato curry is smelling delicious, and the fridge is bursting with fresh vegetables as our weekend meal plans all went out of the window AND our vegetable box arrived today. I will be preparing and freezing some bags of favourite vegetable combinations for stew and ratatouille over the next couple of days.

I am wearing PJs - we did in fact get our planned pyjama day today after such a crazy weekend! Non-matching blue trousers and deep red/pink striped tshirt. Comfortable, if entirely unglamorous. 

I am creating a leafy hat for the shop, right at this moment. I've been dipping in and out of projects a lot this week. Oh and I'm spinning such a gorgeous almost-black yarn right now and dreaming of what I might turn it in to.

I am wondering whether I will get chance to photograph silks tomorrow! The last couple of days have raced by.

I am reading City of Bones. Well, I'm not. I'm about to start. I bought the box set extremely cheaply after reading lots of good reviews, and then saw the very off-putting endorsement by Stephanie Meyer! 

I am looking forward to so many things! I'm looking forwards to walks in the woods and leaf kicking. I'm looking forwards to apple pie (maybe tomorrow). I'm so excited about craft fair plans for the next couple of months. I'm looking forwards to trying some new crafts out really soon. I'm SO looking forwards to sending out my first set of yarn club skeins because I have so so many ideas for colourways. I'm looking forwards to taking a child-free trip with Ashleigh to stroke pretty yarn. :)

I am learning about different kinds of resin, navajo plying, and fibre prep.

Some of my favourite things: Talia saying "peeeeeash" for please. Morgan and Jenna dancing together. Cookies. Rowan coming right up to me just to grin in my face. Peppermint tea. Real beeswax candles.

A few plans for the rest of the week: Dyeing for yarn club (and a very large blanket) as soon as my yarn arrives. Making clay hedgehogs at some point. Museum on Friday. 

A peek into my day:

(Jenna's spinning from earlier today.)


(Making apple sauce.)


(Playing with Musescore.)


(Pulling out an easy fun activity.)


(Gifts from the reenactment event.)

Simple Woman's Daybook