Crafting on…on holiday

I am finally back here after a six week break. It feels good to be back!

I had originally planned to write a weekly update on our five week road trip in the States; a diary of sorts, but I got the distinct feeling that things were conspiring against me on that front:  Firstly we left the power cable for my husband’s computer at home, then the wifi wasn’t great in the places when I did have a few moments to write (once we had power), not to mention it taking me far too long to upload even a few photos onto my site. After a few failed attempts, I resigned myself to an enforced rest from all things technological. It freed me to be more present in the moment and to take a break from outside input, except that from my immediate vicinity. So in that way it was a proper break 🙂 I do so benefit from a break from technology – I think we all do!  We can switch off completely in a way that doesn’t seem possible otherwise, despite our best efforts.

I have sooooo many photos – over 700 – and really don’t have the time to write about our trip now, but it was an adventure; fun, wondrous, surprising, interesting and at times very challenging and exhausting.

I shall no doubt write about it as a record of what we did, but I will need time for that (I have so many photos to look through for starters!!) So for now I thought I would drop in and write a little about the crafts we did on holiday 🙂

Because we were only staying for three nights at each location, we settled into a little routine of having a “home day” on the first day. We found the girls needed it; to settle, play and get their bearings. On the second day, we typically went on an outing; to a National Park, to visit a beach or take a hike. It worked out well that way and we did make a few things on those home days.

My daughters completed the pom pom garland by the second house we stayed in and after that we hung it up on our arrival at all the holiday properties 🙂

We also started collecting things for a little nature table which we set up in every holiday home. By the end of the trip we had a quite a little collection of drift wood, redwood bark, blue jay feathers, pine cones and shells – and a borrowed lighthouse:-)

We made some little felt Daisy ‘girls’ when we had a full day of rain, whilst staying in our cosy holiday home in Williams, Arizona (luckily we had sunshine the day after for our visit to the Grand Canyon!). We loved sitting on the porch where we could stay dry despite the rain. Porches are such a lovely addition to any house – you feel more connected to the outside world, yet totally at home.

By the time we got to the next place, the little daisy population had doubled in size – after all daisies always come in little clusters 🙂 I particularly like the ‘girl’ with the purple hair my youngest made.

And here is our nature table in various locations, growing steadily with each journey

A couple more weeks into our trip, we added the felt Dandelion ‘girls’  when we had another quiet day at home and the girls weren’t playing.

The Dandelion and Daisy Children are both made very similarly to the Felt Flower Children I made here, We added hair this time as it felt right with the hats being rather flat. We are thinking of making Poppy Children next 🙂

The girls and Daddy also enjoyed making some tiny things out of Fimo clay for the few Sylvanian family friends they had brought with them. These were dried in the oven.

My daughters also finished sewing their quilts by hand, except for the final quilting, which I will probably do by machine at some point.

As planned we did some tie dyeing!

We managed to find a tie dye kit in colours the girls loved, a lovely purple bucket (!) and some cheap white T-shirts so we were all set :-).

Luckily the house we were staying in had a big outside area and a great washing machine and dryer, so it went pretty effortlessly. We watched a couple of tutorials on youtube, but basically just followed the instructions in the kit.

The girls are really pleased with the results so we bought a selection of satchets of  Koolaid ‘flavours’ from the supermarket to try some more dyeing at home when the opportunity presents itself. Tie dyeing is quite addictive we find!

I also made myself another purple knitted item!

It’s an adult version of this sweater that I made my daughter in June. I just used the child’s pattern and worked out the stitches for a 36 inch bust. It was pretty straightforward. I added another section of the yoke pattern to it as I was unsure of having just three sections over the bust and I added two more button holes, but to be honest, I think it would have looked just fine having the three panels and three buttons as per the original design, but I couldn’t work it out at the time even when trying it on. Laura was very helpful with advice. My eldest daughter has her eye on the short sleeved pullover  version that Laura recently  released. I might try to make it for her Birthday in October. Let’s see.

It took me about three weeks of knitting on the 4-5 hour drives we were taking every few days.

It was an enjoyable knit and I am pleased with the way it turned out. I look forward to wearing it over long sleeved tops come autumn and winter 🙂 I think I may try to find some nicer buttons as the colourful plastic ones are all I had on hand. They look jolly though.

I also knitted myself another Wurm hat.

My friend in Colorado rather liked the turquoise Wurm that I made earlier this year, so as I didn’t get any wear out of it (it being almost summer!), I am going to send it to her as a surprise. This one has a bit more subdued colours, but I like the two colours together. I am going to make another in pink and purple next I think.

I love this pattern as you can guess!

I think that pretty much covers our craft efforts on holiday 🙂 I will be back soon with more updates as the time presents itself. For now we are feeling very jet lagged and things are slow and rather disorientating, but it is good to be back home 🙂