#SilentSunday

Super Super Heroes!

Last weekend saw the 5th birthday of one of my favourite little people, my friend's son Albert. I'm not even going to go into how he can possibly be turning five already when I remember him being just a bump so clearly, because that will just make me feel even older!

His mum is super talented (remember her from here?) but when it comes to themed kids parties she is the best, and she makes everything herself. In the past there has been a Cardboard Box party, Brave Knights, an Ice Cream Sunday party and this year it was Super Heroes! There were brilliant games such as 'Pass the Kryptonite' (a glow stick!), tie up a villain (with loo roll) and jumping over 'skyscrapers'...

We were really unlucky with the weather but the kids didn't seem to mind the wind and rain. The garden shed was transformed into a Super Heroes dining room, complete with bunting made from comics, balloons, the Batmobile and 'kapow!' and 'thwap!' signs...

Wiss said he wanted to go as Batman so I duly whipped up an old-school Batman costume (mainly so I could get him to wear leggings with pants over the top!). He must have known any photos of him wearing said leggings/pants would only come back to haunt him because on the day he refused point blank to wear them. Or the cape. So in fact, my little Batman wore just the t-shirt with brown cords and his anorak instead. Damn him!!!

I wanted to make Albert something for his birthday following the Super Hero theme and I came up with...Secret Albertman! Ssssssshhhhhh, it's a secret! All super heroes have an everyday alias, so I thought Albert should be able to become Albertman easily, you know, when the time is right.

I cut two 'A's' from orange and black jersey, layered them with the black on top and sewed them both onto a black t-shirt 10mm from the edge. I love the way jersey rolls itself up in time, and thought that gradually the 'A' would become a little more prominent, but still not too obvious. I made a cape from the same black and orange jersey fabric and sewed my first ever button holes at each top corner. The cape attaches to the t-shirt using fab orange striped buttons (from Ray-Stitch) so it can be worn or removed as the situation dictates!

Every Super Hero needs a way of communicating so I made a double-sided watch from felt - grey and cream felt for the normal everyday watch which turns over to reveal a flash 'telecommunicator'. Secret Albertman laughs in the face of an iPhone! I wrapped these up along with a secret notebook and a card, 'Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept it...'

Luckily for me Albert chose to accept his mission so maybe one day, if you have a problem, and no one else can help, maybe you could hire 'Secret Albertman'. But keep it under your hat! ;)

Kids Clothes Week Challenge - Autumn 2012!

I'll admit it, I have been feeling a little lost recently. I've not made anything for a while, and I think that I've got so much on my 'To Do' list that I've not really known where to begin. And so I've not begun at all...

One chilly morning last week as I was cycling to work I was thinking that Autumn was properly here, and that the warmer clothes would have to come out, and Wiss would need some new winter clothes, and hang on, have I missed that great event from Elsie Marley this year....? (Yes, this is what I think about as I commute!)



It turns out that I haven't missed it and I even have some time to prepare! For those of you who don't know Kids Clothes Week Challenge runs twice a year and the idea is simple: you spend just an hour every day making some clothes for your child/ren and at the end of the week you'll be surprised to see what you've achieved. It is running from 8-14 October 2012. You can see what I made last year here - and in fact the tractor PJs have only just started to get a bit snug!

It's a great way to finally get round to making some of those things you've been planning but never quite find the time for, and because there are loads of people doing it too you've got lots of support and virtual encouragement. It's just an hour a day but I found that actually I ended up doing more some nights as it gets addictive! There are always some great tutorials on the Elsie Marley blog during this week to inspire you and there is a flikr group for everyone to share what they have made.

While I've been cycling I've been thinking up a list of what I'd like to tackle this time, including some new PJs, some t-shirts to layer up and a yellow scarf. (Lewis's favourite colour is yellow!) I am really excited and it's come at just the right time for me - now I just need to move some boxes around enough to make some space for me to sew! Who else is going to accept the challenge? Sign up at Elsie Marley, and please leave me a message below. I'd love to have some sewing buddies and I look forward to seeing what we can all make!

#SilentSunday

The End of the Summer

Yes, it's true. Summer is officially over. I don't mind too much, although I love warm sunny days and long light evenings, I really like it when the weather turns and there's that crisp bite in the air. Cold days but bright blue skies.

With Autumn comes many of my favourite things: conkers, 'back-to-school' new stationary, opaque tights, my birthday....! But seeing as Summer 2012 was the most fleeting season in recent memory, and we spent most of that precious time house-hunting or house-moving we thought we'd give it a proper send off with a weekend away.

I am really fortunate that I work for an awesome company, and one of the (many) perks is that the office owns a grade II listed weekend cottage near Whipsnade Zoo that we are able to use. Cool, huh? Just wait til you see it...

Holly Frindle was designed by Berthold Lubetkin in the 1930's (he also designed the old Elephant House at Whipsnade and the Penguin Enclosure at London Zoo). It's always reminded me a bit of a hip Big Brother house, and although this bungalow has seen many, many parties it works so well for kids too. I guess that's a sign of great architecture when it works on many levels. It's just a fantastic space to inhabit. There's no stairs to worry about, it's got huge windows with long ledges that make great play surfaces, and we even had space to build a brio railway using EVERY piece of track we own down the long hallway! The boys were in heaven.

As much as I love London, it is always a treat to get away for a break especially in the countryside. We went to the Zoo, played camp and explored, petted the horses, saw the wallabies at the end of the garden, (had a take away and watched x-factor!) You know, all the lovely relaxing things you can do when you're not at home.

The boys (all aged between 2.5 and 3 years old) were brilliant fun and got on so well all weekend. Of course, we couldn't resist taking tons of photos and I even tried to set up an arty photo shoot. Hmmmmmm, it wasn't a huge success....

What I enjoyed most about the weekend was not having to rush anywhere, or try to do a million things in the day. We had time to relax, hang out in our PJs, enjoy ourselves and each other, and I think Wiss really liked having a bit more freedom and adventure. All things I plan to work on now we're back to 'normal life' in London. I'll have to make sure I add 'chillax' on my ever-expanding To Do list! That counts, right?!

So farewell Summer, and hello Autumn. Please be kind and don't rush too quickly towards Christmas!

It's a Small World

Hello! Is anyone still there? I do hope so but it has been absolutely ages since my last post so I wouldn't blame you if you're not!

As you may know already, I moved house about 6 weeks ago and it's taken ages to get to any sort of normality. I blame having a toddler! We have still got loads of unpacked boxes around the place and there's a list as long as my arm of things we should be doing (including replacing the net curtains for something a little more 'us'!) but at the weekends we've been heading out to our new local park instead. Much more fun but not really as productive!

We also had a serious lack of technology when we moved in - no tv aerial and no telephone connection, let along Internet connection. This doesn't sound like much a problem when I type it but it meant no Olympics coverage, no blogging and limited tweeting. Eek! We got the telly situation sorted on day one, we weren't going to miss the Olympics for anything, but the Internet took about 3 weeks. I could still get on line when I was at work but this period was also THE busiest we have been for ages so just never quite found the time.

I was thrilled to get the broadband up and running again, but then there was a new problem... I didn't know what I should blog about anymore! The longer I left it, the more the nerves kicked in. I hadn't been making anything due to the move - all WIPs are on the back, back burner, all the birthday presents we've given this summer have been bought rather than made and I've not had enough time to formulate any big ideas (!) - so what to write about?!

I was going to blog about the end of the summer, the start of crisp autumn days, that back to school feeling and conkers on the ground....and then we went and had the most amazing scorching weekend across the country and summer was back again. The conkers will just have to wait!

I have done a couple of things that I am immensely proud of recently so I thought to break the silence I'd show you those instead. I'm an architectural modelmaker by day, and I work with a team of 6 others to build scale models, often highly detailed....and often this means very repetitive work. My part on this job was to build two 28 storey fire escape stair cases at 1:200 scale. You can see one of them on the right at the back of the building of this photo, and the detail below.

In case you are interested in knowing more, this is a project currently onsite in Sydney called 8 Chifley Square. The photographs are courtesy of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.

The second job I had was to make 140 tiny mobile phones, on stands with price tags for a detailed retail model at 1:25 scale. Boring to make but worthwhile as they look so effective on the model!

So that's what I've been up to this summer - now how about you? I'd love to hear what you've been up to over the last 6 weeks and what you've been making. I really need to dig out the sewing machine from one of the boxes! I'll be back soon, until then....thanks for reading!

It's oh so quiet...

You may have noticed that I've been a little quiet recently. I'm afraid I've been neglecting my blog, Twitter AND my website but it's all for a good reason.... We sold our flat and have moved into a new house!

We put the flat on the market at the start of May, once I'd got the London marathon out of the way, and we had already seen the house we wanted to buy so thought it would all move quickly. But there were a few critical negotiations following the surveys, and it seemed things were going to go slower than we initially thought so we relaxed. And then suddenly everything sped up and we had only one week to pack up our entire lives and move!

In a way, I think it was better that way as there was only so long we could live in 'Boxland'! It definitely unsettled both Lewis and Raoul (the cat) so in a way it was a relief to actually move. We bought a book about moving house for Lewis so that we could start talking about the process and he seemed excited by the 'house with the red door'.

The actual moving day was hard, hard work. But ten hours later all our boxes had been shifted three miles down the road and we waved a sad goodbye to our old flat. But a new chapter for the Tobin family has begun and I'm really excited about it!

I'll be taking a small break from This is Wiss duties - I have a few orders to complete but I'm afraid I won't be taking any more until the 1st September. This should give me time to locate the boxes with my fabric stash and dust off the sewing machine!

We don't have Internet connection at the new house yet so I will only be able to blog during my lunch hour at work! But I'll be back on Twitter soon - I am missing everyone!

Thank you for your patience and I look forward to catching up with you all soon. In the meantime, please feel free to let me know what you're up to this Summer and anything I may be missing out on!

See you soon!