This past week…

“My lady Spring is dressed in green,
she wears a primrose crown..
and little baby buds and twigs are clinging to her gown…

The sun shines if she laughs at all,
and if she weeps, the raindrops fall,
My Lady Spring”

In the last few days, since the spring equinox, the weather has been glorious here; lots of sunshine and above all warmth! I have been line drying my washing and I feel things are shifting in me too; as though I am coming out after a long period of hibernation 🙂  The days are noticeably lengthening and it is so wonderful to enjoy lighter evenings again: such a relief after all the long dark days, I must say.  Things feel so much more full of possibility and our after school hours feel more productive as our energy increases.

Yesterday afternoon after school we sat in the garden sewing little felt primrose children for our nature tables. It felt so good!

My daughters insisted on adding hair – here are our little primrose children.

We are thinking of making some daffodil and tulip children next  🙂

Yesterday was Mothering Sunday (Mother’s Day) in the UK. It always takes place on the fourth Sunday of Lent, three weeks before Easter Sunday, so the date varies every year. Mother’s Day as with so many festivals has become so commercialised as it is yet another money maker. We try to avoid all that. All I really want is to spend time together, enjoying each others company (and perhaps a little less moaning too!!). I was allowed a nice lie in, whilst my daughters busied themselves in the kitchen, preparing a delicious scrambled egg and smoked salmon with some instruction from Daddy.

My eldest daughter also made me a  kefir smoothie (and did all sieving and preparation, which I usually do every day), so that was a lovely treat. My daughters both made me a  present at school. My eldest made an origami tulip, complete with stand and my youngest made a paper flower crown, which I proudly wore at breakfast and dinner 🙂

And my husband bought me an assortment of lovely spring flowers. He knows how much I love fresh flowers. Since the early days of our marriage, I have always felt that if I have fresh flowers in the house,  I am living an abundant life and we generally do enjoy our fair share of floral joy here 🙂 They raise the vibration of a room. I do love them so.

And here I am with my floral crown – queen for the day 😉

I am wearing the infinity cowl  that I finished a little while ago. I love it – so cosy and bright. I am knitting one for each of my daughters – I guess they won’t be needing it until  next year, but they both requested one, so how could I refuse a request for something homemade 🙂

Apart from the sweet gifts and cards, we went out for a few hours, combining an errand to buy chicken feed with a stop off for lunch in the sunshine. My kind of happy!

I always make sure I send my mama friends a loving message on Mother’s Day because we truely are doing an important job, raising the next generation; a job that is so often undervalued, unappreciated or simply taken for granted. It is the perfect opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate each other and our tremendous efforts and acts of great love on behalf of our children. As mamas we don’t often get much positive feedback, especially from our children (!) so small gestures of appreciation mean a lot, I find.

I always smile at this video for Mother’s Day. It says it all. 🙂

I also did a spot of knitting. I have started the cowl neck of this knitted tunic. I know summer is coming, so it is a funny time to start, but I love the purple colour and it brings me joy to work with it.  I was looking for a simple project to just knit in the round and I love purple clothes and I never seem to find anything purple in the shops, so I have decided I am going to create some purple items myself. 🙂

I have never knitted a big project like this for myself. I usually just knit sweaters and cardigans for my daughters, but as my eldest is 10 and the last sweaters I knitted for her are very roomy (and should keep her warm for the next year or two), I didn’t think it was really such a big stretch to believe that I could make myself a sweater. And this one has short sleeves, so that’s a bonus as I am not the keenest knitter of sleeves on double pins!

When we first got married, I tried to knit my husband a striped sweater.  It was frankly a disaster area as I hadn’t knitted in years – the sleeves were too short and it was too short! He never wore it – unsurprisingly!! Luckily I have improved a lot since then; knitting for my daughters as they have been growing, so fingers crossed I can pull it off! On Friday we are travelling down to Cornwall (S.W. England) for a family holiday. I think the 6-7 hours journey will be a good opportunity to make some headway on this project and I always appreciate some mindless knitting in the car, since I can’t look down to knit or crotchet as I get car sick.
We will be away for 10 days in total;  7 days in a holiday cottage in Cornwall and 2 days visiting my husband’s sister’s family, who are farmers, in Devon (also in the S.W England). We are looking forward to a family break and my husband really needs a break from his physical work, especially as he has been working on creating our studio/garage conversion on weekends too. We were intending to take my mother with us, but she isn’t too well unfortunately, so she won’t be able to come, which is such a shame as she could so do with a break (she is still working at nearly 76yrs – out of choice).

I am also making some slow progress on the blanket I mentioned before, using up all our old yarns. It is going to be bright and cheery – just as we like it! 🙂

On a side note, we had our wooden log cabin dismantled over the weekend. We gifted it to some local friends who have lots of land for it to sit happily in. It was a real eyesore in our garden unfortunately and since we took it down, the whole energy in the garden has lifted and we are much happier to be out there. There is definitely something to be said for feng shui! We bought it soon after moving here, nearly three years ago, and didn’t really consider how imposing it would be in the garden. We were just keen to have a studio space outside as soon as possible so my husband could work there (away from the building works) and somewhere for me to craft in. It served its purpose for over two years, for which we are grateful, but none of us was happy with it taking up so much space in the garden.

At the moment there is still a decking stage where the cabin used to stand. The girls are really enjoying using it as a stage and we see many a cat or fox sitting there enjoying the sunshine, bewildered by it all.

The garden doesn’t look much at the moment, but luckily my husband is a Garden Designer and is planning to take some graph paper with him on holiday, so he can re-design the garden with relaxation in mind and plenty of space for plants. We are also letting go of our trampoline and gifting that on too. It has had plenty of use, but our daughters are fine with it going to a new home if it means we can have more plants and flowers. So glad they are on board with that! We have been freecycling lots of things lately, which has felt satisfying – this weekend, we gifted on a dolls house and a pine blanket box as well as two old but working manual cameras that we no longer use – it is great to be able to find a new home for these items where they will be appreciated anew.

Speaking of cameras, my camera needs to be sent in to be mended as it isn’t happy at all and I will be taking my computer in to be seviced too whilst we are away as it is misbehaving, so I shall be taking a break from technology for a little while, which will probably do me good. I do hope I can take a few photos with my husbands camera to share here on my return.

In the meantime, here is one of my favourite spring sites – the forsythia. I have so many fond memories of hanging our Easter eggs from forsythia branches as a child (a German custom), it is always a welcome sight. With a late Easter this year, we are just going to have to enjoy it early. 🙂

Wishing you all the joys of spring and of crafting! 

 Shared at Frontier Dreams Crafting On