We made a lot of poppies

Last weekend was Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday. It was also the weekend my sister Jo came to visit, along with her OH, Phil. M was very excited as she likes seeing her relatives, which sadly doesn't happen that often due to the distances involved.

We spent some time on Thursday and Friday making poppies from felt with a sewn on button. We made these last year, but they were mainly my effort with M only doing a little of the stitching. This year, once I'd shown her how to sew on a button, M did most of the work herself. She even cut the shapes out of felt.

A lot of sewing practice!

We added a purple poppy to the collection this year after learning they were to represent all the animals who died in wars, particularly the horses who were very much on the front line in WW1.

M spotted a very similar flower hair tie in a children's sewing book I'd bought her for her birthday. After reading the instructions, M had a go, resulting in the white and purple flower with the blue spotted button.  I helped by sewing it onto a hair tie as that bit was too fiddly for M. Still needing to make more flowers, M decided to make another one for her Auntie Jo, but this time we glued it to a pin along with all the poppies.

A flower for Auntie Jo.

These were all lots of fun to make and served well for teaching M how to sew a button on.

We showed Auntie Jo around Brandon Marsh on Saturday.

Auntie Jo and M pretend to be dormice

Brandon Marsh in Autumn

While on Sunday we drove over to The Black Country Living Museum, which is a fantastic place to visit and the location of most of the external filming for a television program called Peaky Blinders, which both Jo and Phil love.

We're oblivious to the TV show, but love history and exploring buildings, so were happy as well.

M experiences a Victorian School.

M experienced her first lesson in a school, taught very tongue in cheek by a Victorian school master. Baffled, M did her best to recite her 12 times tables, learned about Victorian discipline and the rich fossil record of Dudley. She also learned about the famous one eyed dinosaur of Dudley, something M quizzed Dave about later.


Otherwise we wondered around looking at things, talking to the historical interpreters and trying not to get too cold. It was a bitter wind out there! We hid in the old cafe building by the canal to enjoy some chips, sandwiches and a hot drink. M played with her auntie and Jo took a lot of photographs.

I took a couple of photographs too, including the source reference for this drawing of one of the museum horses being plagued by magpies intent on stealing its mane. As we watched, the magpies would go up to the horse's neck and pluck at a hair, resulting in the horse waving its head at the offending bird, which duly flew off only to return less than a minute later.

Drawing of one of the horses at BCLM.

A good day, but gosh we were cold and it took hours before we felt warm again that evening.

Useful Links:
* The Black Country Living Museum - https://www.bclm.co.uk/
* Peaky Blinders - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaky_Blinders_(TV_series)

Hop's new dress

M's sewing aspirations are high and just lately she's moved on from drawing countless pictures of dancers in varying pretty dresses, to wanting to make the dresses themselves. Sadly her lack of sewing skills have led to her improvising, which means making clothes for her toys from paper.

These creations take hours to design and then make, but being paper and held together with tape are not particularly robust. The first outfit ripped when she tried to dress the toy, so after some thought M's solution is to:

• Make the dress bigger than the toy
• Use a dress form - in this case a few toilet rolls

Hop's dress on an improvised dress form.

The dress being modelled by Hop herself.

It may not look like much, but there is a lot of design and knowledge about clothing wrapped up in this dress. If you look there is a bodice and a full, layered skirt. The bodice itself is decorated with bows and the whole garment is sized to fit (albeit large with extra room so it can be put on and taken off) a specific toy rabbit.

I'm impressed.

M tells me she is making Hop some pyjamas next.

In the meantime, I've started trying to improve M's sewing skills but it is slow going. Sewing without an end product is not terribly exciting and it is not a craft which lends itself well to instant results. The results are faster than something like knitting or crochet, but you still need to have patience.

For this reason over the past couple of weeks we've worked some threading and beading, making some dream catchers, wind chimes and necklaces.

We've also done some actual needlework, with real needles...

Making a pompom necklace and working on our French colours.

Patchwork cat wearing her new necklace.

A flower stitched onto card.

A heart stitched onto card.

In the meantime I've been altering costume for M's upcoming dance show. The costumes may have come from a theatrical supplier but they do not take into account the real shape of small children. Fortunately I've been able to limit the alterations to shortening straps and adding extra velcro.

Jazzy's new dress

We bought M a small dress up doll for Christmas called Lottie, who is modelled on a 10 year old girl and went down very well. M decided she needed a friend and dug out Jazzy, who sadly (after 3 years of play) had lost her clothes. Jazzy felt sad and while Lottie offered to lend her friend some clothes, Jazzy is very short and the clothes were too big.

M asked if I could help.

Together we talked about the kind of clothes Jazzy needed, drew some sketches and settled on a pretty dress. M insisted that it should be blue, but I explained I only had white fabric to hand, however I would make it appear to be blue. M was sceptical but Jazzy really needed a dress so agreed.

M fetched her tape measure and we got to work.

Taking careful measurements.

Once the teeny, tiny doll had been measured we drafted out a bodice pattern, which I cut out of white cotton remnants. The skirt was a simple rectangle cut to length and sewn to the bodice.

I used a sewing machine to edge the pieces before sewing the main seams. The skirt was hand gathered then pinned in place before sewing. In all cases I used a .5cm seam allowance. 

Once the dress was assembled I decorated it with blue Sharpie, adding little dots to make a ditzy pattern. M was fascinated and had a go on a piece of fabric herself along side me. Once I was satisfied I no longer had a white dress, I ironed the whole thing which fixed the colour.

Jazzy's new dress which still needs to be closed at the back and have trim added.

At this stage all that was left was to sew on some trim and to close the back. The main problem with sewing the seams was the tiny size of the pattern pieces which made it hard to keep the fabric steady under the presser foot as I sewed. The solution was to ditch the machine and hand sew a piece of ribbon around the waist and little piece of trim to the hem.

Jazzy in her new dress.

Once the trims were on, I hand sewed the back closed and folded over the remaining edges. M doesn't like velcro so I added a press fastening to close, which disrupted the line a bit but did the job.

The back view.

Over all not a bad first effort. Jazzy was delighted with the result. She donned her new dress and ran off to play with her friend Lottie as soon as the last stitch was placed. Of course, Jazzy and Lottie are now planning the rest of their new wardrobe, so I may soon be called upon to sew tiny clothes again. Time to step up my efforts in teaching the small person to sew I think!

Useful Links
* Lottie Dolls - http://uk.lottie.com/

And then there was a tutu

Yesterday really was a hot, sticky sort of day. Really it needed some rain to clear the air, but sadly this didn't arrive until today, coincidentally a few minutes after I'd pegged the last item of laundry onto the line to dry!

After a morning in the park, I settled down for an afternoon of sewing. With only two weeks left until the start of term, I had a tutu to make.

M had already designed her idea of the perfect tutu. We chose suitable tulle together. We visited Hobbycraft for sewing supplies a few weeks back. All I had to do was make a five year's vision reality.

I started on this project two weeks ago, getting a little distracted last week by the need to make a tutu for a horse, but with a deadline looming I wanted to plod on with it yesterday in case something went wrong. I'm always a great believer in leaving yourself time to fix things, rather than having a disaster on your hands at the very last minute.

Last weekend, I'd cut and gathered my tulle, all two hundred pieces of it, securing it to a piece of bias tape. M's chosen colours are pink and turquoise, and she specifically wanted vertical runs of colour, going from waistband to hem, hence I used 15cm rolls of fine, soft tulle. I decided to make the tutu slightly longer at the back, so cut 32cm strips for the front and 35cm for the back. I gathered each strip individually, in a sequence of two, so two pink, then two turquoise, then two pink, etc...

This took a long, long time.

Once the gathers were done, I cut a piece of bias tape 11cm bigger than M's current waist measurement. That was 8cm ease, to get it over her hips and up to 3cm seam allowance (SA). I marked the SA, then pinned the gathered tulle in place, adjusting as I went. I'd gathered in three pieces, one for the front and two for the back (allowing for a centre back join) because it allowed me to control the gathered fabric's distribution.

Pinning the tulle in place was fiddly, mostly because the stuff has a mind of its own.

After that, I sewed it in place very carefully, repeatedly stopping to move the tulle away from the needle and feed dogs, keeping everything as tidy as possible.

Securing gathered tulle to a piece of bias tape.

Yesterday, my task was to add the waistband to the resulting proto-tutu.

My waistband is made from two pieces of satin ribbon, sewn together along once side, pressed, then sewn to make a loop.

I pinned the gathered tulle into the waistband, sewed it in place, folded over and secured it by sewing again, leaving the last 15cm unsewn so I could insert the elastic. I decided to use woven elastic as it is suited to heavy duty waistbands, which seemed appropriate for dancewear.

My hope had been, that by sewing the gathered tulle onto tape first, I'd tame it a little before attaching it to the waistband. I'm not sure I was successful, as it was still really fiddly to get the tulle pinned in place and very slow, careful stitching was required with the sewing machine.

The elastic was a tight fit to the resulting casing, which was why I'd left such a large hole to insert it. I'm glad I did, because some wrestling was involved! I secured the elastic, first to the inside of the waistband, and then to itself, before closing the casing by hand. I had intended to sew it with the machine, but the fit around the elastic and gathered tulle was so tight, I couldn't be sure I'd not catch the elastic, so sewing by hand seemed the safer (and quicker) bet.

Casing closed, a bit of wriggling to evenly distribute the tulle around the elastic and finally I had a finished, wearable, extremely floofy, full tutu. Just as M had planned.

The finished tutu.

Back and side view of the tutu.

Cue a very, very happy little girl.

A tutu for a horse

There has been a lot of talk about tutu's in our house over the past couple of weeks, as M prepares for next term's dance classes. I've promised to make M a new tutu, to her specification, and so I set to cutting and gathering tulle in earnest on Sunday.

I had hoped that Dave might take M out for a bit, but she had other ideas and so we started working on another tutu project for her toy horse, Neigh.

A rummage in my scrap bag turned up some net curtain I'd bought many years ago as a floaty overlayer for a gown. This turned out to be an ideal choice for a horse.

We measured Neigh, with M carefully writing down the horse's waist and 'hip' size, as I demonstrated with the tape measure that the tutu had to open far enough to go over the toy's bottom or it would be impossible to get it on or off. M observed that Neigh has a big bottom and was worried this would make the tutu loose, but I said not to worry, we'd use some elastic.

Ah, elastic. This is a mysterious substance that I have minimal experience of and when I have used it, I've never been that impressed. As I want to add elastic to the back of M's tutu, I felt working with elastic for a small toy might be good practice.

We talked about how long M wanted Neigh's tutu to be, settling on 15cm as it was easy to find a small rule to match the size. I handed M a pair of pinking shears and suggested she cut strips of net curtain but it turned out the shears needed more oomph than M possessed. She managed to cut a little, but in the end asked that I do it.

I threaded up an embroidery needle with buttonhole thread, then showed M how to make a running stitch to gather up the net. M made a valiant effort while I resumed cutting tulle for her tutu. Lots of 'Oh dear's followed as the needle was pulled off the thread, prompting me to suggest M rethread it herself if she could... Much excitement followed when M did indeed manage to thread the needle herself, only to pull it free of the thread again on the next stitch. M persevered for about 30 minutes, before handing the little tutu to me, so I could finish gathering the remaining pieces of netting.

Next up I found some ribbon, showing M how to fold it to make a casing, which I then sewed into a loop, sized to go around the toy horse's bottom. M handed me pins and I attached Neigh's tutu to the ribbon. I asked M if she would like to sew the waistband herself, but she declined, watching me closely instead.

I could tell M was impressed when she eyed the sewing machine and suggested "Do you think the sewing machine needs its own tutu?"

A short while later, the net was sewn in place, the casing flipped over and secured with a gap for the elastic to be threaded in. The elastic was cut to fit Neigh's waist, with a little extra for a seam allowance. This was wrestled into place and sewn together before I closed the last little gap.

A finished tutu, made to fit a horse.

Cue a happy little girl and a happy toy horse.

Felt planetary bodies

Looking back over the past few weeks, we enjoyed a partial eclipse in the UK on the 20th March. Predictably that morning was cloudy, so while it went semi dark, the birds stopped tweeting and the light levels were odd, that was as good as it got.

An eclipse viewed through cloud.

We had however been prepared and had a sheet strung up between the tree, swing frame and washing line, ready to project the sun onto by various means (the colander was the most impressive). We also made pinhole projectors out of cereal boxes.

The cloud parted and we saw this in our pinhole projectors.

Not to worry though, as an eclipse meant lots of talk of the Sun, Earth and Moon and an excuse to craft in felt.

The Sun, Earth and Moon - in felt.

This was the first time I've tried to make planetary bodies out of felt and it was not as easy as I'd hoped. Indeed, it took two attempts to make the moon, as I originally tried to use two layers of felt, one white with holes cut in it glued over a grey layer to try to simulate the Mara. The result of applying glue was felt too stiff on this scale (about the size of the bottom of an egg cup) and I couldn't push a needle through to sew the two halves together!

A lesson learned there.

The Sun was a straight forward pair of circles, the size of one of M's plates, with triangles of felt sewn between the layers. Very easy but effective.

The Sun in progress, together with the Earth.

The Earth was more difficult. M loves Italy because it is boot shaped and believes it should feature prominently on any physrep for the Earth.  I used the bottom of a mug to draw the circles and had to sketch out land masses to fit on a piece of paper. I cut these out and pinned them to the green felt so I could cut around it. Each continent was glued in the appropriate place to a blue circle and then top-stitched to keep it in place.

The Earth in two halves.

The set took me two nights to make up and M painted a bag for them to live in.

M paints the solar system onto a canvas bag.

The vague plan is to make an entire solar system... Eventually.

A dress for Miss Sophie

I'm playing catch up here, trying to remember the things we've done which were blog worthy while I was immersed in Richard III. This post is one I wrote a few weeks ago but never got around to publishing here.

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We've been doing a lot of work with shapes lately, looking at how to use shape stencils to make pictures, playing with magnetic shapes, talking about relative size and measuring shapes on graph paper. I wanted to tie all this together in M's mind with a fun activity, focused on her love of drawing tutus, so I talked to M about needing new clothes for Miss Sophie Bear.

Miss Sophie is a simple knitted bear I made for M last year, complete with a selection of her own clothes. I think it is fair to say that M loves Sophie and she is well played with, not least because she is dressable which M loves to do. Asking M what kind of new clothes Sophie Bear would like, opened the floor gates to many impossible designs which wouldn't have looked out of place on a designers runway.

After allowing M some time to draw fantasy clothes, I explained that while they were fun to look at, could she see Miss Sophie wearing them? Playing in them? Or dancing in them?

M sadly acknowledged they were not very practical.

I asked M if she would like to draw a real dress and we would see if we could make it? This was greeted with much enthusiasm, so we got to work.

After explaining that while I would happily knit Sophie some more clothes, it would take a long time I asked M for suggestions on alternatives. We eventually settled on sewing as a possibility and M grew very excited when I revealed I do actually own a sewing machine. I also admitted I own more than one sewing machine, they sort of multiply... But I hadn't used one since before M was born, so my sewing skills were a little rusty.

First up, I dug out my scrap bag and let M rifle through it, watching with some concern as she pulled out netting and sheer organza scraps to show to Sophie Bear. I had visions of having to sew two slippery, sheer fabrics together to make some sort of puffy dress! After a while and a lot of dancing around with a bear draped in various fabrics, M finally settled on two fabrics. A firm but medium weight blue calendared cotton and a lightweight burgundy silky fabric which would have originally been used for lining.

M explained the blue cotton was firmer, more structured and should be an under-dress as it would support the thinner, more floaty burgundy fabric which would sit on top. I asked M to draw a picture of what she had in mind, which I then reinterpreted in a simple sketch so I could confirm I'd understood what she was after.

Together we measured Miss Sophie Bear, taking down her sizes and learning how to read a tape measure. M had lots of fun playing with the retractable tapes and measured Sophie several times to make sure we'd got the details right.

Measuring Miss Sophie for her new clothes.

With Miss Sophie's measurements on paper, we drafted our pattern. M and I looked at some of M's clothes, studying the shape, the seams, how they were put together. We used 1 cm grid graph paper and rounded all measurements up to whole centimeters and worked together to transfer the measurements taken earlier to the pattern. I kept it simple, Sophie's arms are 'T' shaped, so I decided this dress could be 'T' shaped too with nothing complicated for the sleeves. I added a seam allowance and after watching me for a while M felt confident enough to draw in some of the lines herself.

Drafting our pattern.

There was an odd moment when M told me she was worried and scared about making the dress; she said she was afraid it would go wrong. I gave her a hug and reassured her that I understood her concern and if we were using expensive fabric I'd be a bit anxious too. However, as we are using left over fabric there was nothing to worry about. If things went horribly wrong, it would be a bit disappointing and we'd have lost a little fabric, but we would have learned lots in the process which would mean that next time we'd do better.

We were finally ready to cut out our pattern and then our fabric pieces.

M cuts out our pattern pieces.

Our pattern cut out.

It took us a long, long time to get to this point so I called a halt for a couple of hours so M could recuperate a little. Once she was ready, we got the sewing machine out, dusted it off, threaded it up and I began to sew. It was a bit hair raising, I have to say. M was watching closely, trying to supervise and I had to keep reminding her to keep her fingers out of the way! I've also never sewed anything this tiny on the sewing machine and the burgundy stuff was a nightmare, refusing to stay where it was put. Ideally I should have adjusted the tension, practised and perhaps tacked first so the dress pieces were easier to sew, but with M hovering I wanted to get the job done quickly.

It took me at least an hour and half to sew this little dress together. I edged the burgundy stuff first to stop it from fraying. The blue fabric I pinked much to M's amusement as she decided my pinking shears had a silly name and looked like monster scissors. Normally I'd have pressed the seams, but again I skipped this for speed. A press fastening at the back allows the dress to be closed at the neck.

Miss Sophie, modelling a dress as designed by M.

M was very excited and ran off with the dress as soon as the last stitch was placed. A job well done I think.

World Nursery Rhyme Week 2014

The focus this week has been World Nursery Rhyme week. The idea was to sing and do activities around the theme of five nursery rhymes as set by the organisers.

The chosen songs were:-

• Monday - Old King Cole
• Tuesday - Hey Diddle Diddle
• Wednesday - I Hear Thunder
• Thursday - Oranges and Lemons
• Friday - Five Currant Buns

The organisers had put together a resource pack, but I didn't think much of it. Generic clip-art just didn't hit the spot.

Monday - Old King Cole

The first thing we discovered was I cannot hold the tune of Old King Cole. To M's amusement I kept singing a harmony to the original melody. After my failure to sing properly, M showed me how it was done, holding the tune beautifully.

Next up, some crafts in the form of 'K is for King'.

I drew the K and crown for M to cut out, I also drew a pipe (as in a musical instrument) and bowl, the latter complete with a straw as historically bowl may well have been a drinking vessel. Otherwise this K is entirely M's own work.

K is for King.

We went through a lot of glitter glue.

The K complete, M drew a lot of pictures of King Cole and then made up stories about the poor King’s misfortunes. In M’s tales, the Fiddlers try to rescue the King from many unfortunate situations which start when he forgets to put his pants on, but can’t be bothered to take all his clothes off again so pulls them on over the top of his leggings. All is well until he needs a wee.

Tuesday - Hey Diddle Diddle

Dave took this one as I was at work, helping M to make puppets on sticks so she could act out the story.

Hey Diddle Diddle puppets.

Wednesday - I Hear Thunder

I think Dave was lucky to get this one, as I’d prepared a project on Rain a few weeks back which he could dip into!

M started on this as soon as I left for work, with Dave getting out the percussion instruments for a good old sing song. When Dave felt he’d entertained neighbours for long enough he started on arts and crafts.

I am still waiting to see what they got up to…

Thursday - Oranges and Lemons

I was stuck on this one as I couldn't find arts and crafts projects that were suitable for a four year old, but also likely to catch M's imagination. In the end I decided it was time for a spot of baking.

We made lemon drizzle butter cookies using my standard easy butter cookie recipe, but adding lemon zest to the mix, then topping them with lemon drizzle icing.

For reference:-

6 oz butter

9 oz plain flour

3 oz sugar

zest of one lemon

We put all the ingredients into a bowl and used our fingertips to mix them together. Or rather, I did. M played with the mix, squeezing and rubbing with her palms and enjoying the sensory experience. It didn't matter though. We've made these biscuits before and they are very much foolproof, hence why the recipe is a favourite of mine.

Rub between fingertips until you get a breadcrumb like consistency.

When the mixture reached breadcrumb consistency, we kneaded it together into small balls for rolling out, which I did very gently onto a lightly floured surface. M had a go at rolling out, but this dough is very crumbly and needs a light touch, whereas M tends towards heavy handed with a rolling pin. M had chosen cutters in the form of church bells and candles as per the song and we cut out shapes together, placing them onto greased baking trays.

We pierced the cookies with a fork a few times, then put them into a warm oven (150c) for 12 minutes to bake. Once they were cooled, I drizzled icing made from icing sugar and some of the juice from the lemon I’d zested. I was careful not to overdo it here, the cookie on its own is slightly lemony and I wanted to make sure M would enjoy them rather than be put off by a strong lemon taste. M could have done the drizzling herself, she is good at drizzling having practiced a lot, but my girl was looking tired and said she wanted to watch.

Lemon drizzle butter cookies.

The resulting cookies were very yummy.

Friday - Five Currant Buns

I hadn’t intended to do anything for Five Currant Buns as we’d have normally gone out to a weekly home education meetup in Rugby. However M has had such fun this week that she insisted we stay home and do something today too. She awoke this morning full of cold so I decided a day at home probably was the best course and I suggested we could make five toy currant buns.

We had a bit of confusion as to what a currant bun was and what it should look like, so I asked M to draw a picture of what the buns should be like:-

M's drawing of the ideal currant bun.

While I agreed this looked like a fantastic currant bun, I couldn't see how we could make five buns just like this out of felt in a single day. I’d have wanted to draft a pattern and make a prototype to confirm it came out exactly right. I suggested a compromise, explaining that until recently buns tended to be shallow rather than tall and if M thought about our own buns, they tend to be more like a round cushion.

M insisted that any bun should have icing and a cherry on top, which I agreed with and so we got to work. I drafted a simple pattern template and M helped with pinning it to the felt so it could be cut out. M then pinned the icing to the tops so I could sew them, allowing me to get started on the construction which she watched carefully.

Stuffing the buns was M’s job as was choosing five cherries, i.e. five suitably sized red pompoms. M positioned the cherries in the middle of each stuffed and sewn bun, so I’d know where to sew them, then her mind turned towards sprinkles. Glitter seemed the ideal solution, so M applied glue and glitter to each bun once I’d attached its cherry.

We used PVA to stick felt currants to the bottom of each bun, but it didn’t want to stick so I switched to Tacky Glue, which is thicker PVA. Sadly this took an age to dry and by six, a tired, congested M had had enough of waiting. Playing had to happen, glue or no glue, so play and sing, sing and play we did. Resulting in one very happy little girl.

Five currant buns in a bakers shop, round and fat with a cherry on the top.

I’m really pleased with the way these toy currant buns turned out. I did all the sewing here, but M has been learning to sew using little felt kits with precut pieces and pre-punched holes. This was the first time she’s seen a sewing project through from original idea, design, pattern (OK very simple, but it was a pattern), cutting, pinning, construction, stuffing and embellishing. A slight hiccup with the glue and currants aside, it all came together to give her a functional toy. M has ended the day riding high on the sense of accomplishment this has given her, which has got to have been worth the time spent on those five little toy cakes.

Meet Puff the Dragon

I’d like to take a moment to introduce you to Puff.

Meet Puff the Dragon

Puff is a dragon and he was made for Dave by his mother, probably before 1983, although Dave cannot be absolutely certain. Puff has stayed with Dave all these years, although he says he was stolen for a brief while after Dave returned from University. As you can see, Puff is a fine specimen of a dragon, but whilst Dave is very fond of him, he has spent a good few years snoozing on top of a wardrobe. His peaceful retirement ended when M spotted him a month ago and asked:-

“What’s that?”

Puff was duly retrieved, admired, explained, dusted off and promptly adopted by a happy M.

Once you take a careful look at Puff, you can certainly see why he is so endearing. He’s big to start with. Heavy and very well stuffed. Puff is a toy with presence, gravitas, charisma.

Construction wise, he’s complicated and heavily sculpted, one limb having as many as 13 pieces carefully sewn together. Trim has been carefully applied to give the impression of teeth. His tail still curls around suggesting he once had an adequate counter balance so probably stood on his back legs. The remnants of broken wires can be felt through his once fully posable claws. A reinforced padded tongue lolls out of impressive jaws. His underside is quilted. He still wears his original collar along with name tag. Puff represents many hours of careful sewing, love and attention to detail that my mother-in-law poured into him.

Lack of opportunity and time may have deprived me of my sewing machine, but I can’t help myself when I see something this beautifully, lovingly made. I need to know how Puff was made!

Sadly, my mother-in-law is no longer with us, so I couldn’t quiz her. I asked Dave instead. He told me Puff came from a pattern in a book he had browsed through many times. He said his mother also made a dinosaur called Posh Paws and he admired something called a Heelow Monster (which turns out to be a large American lizard - the gila monster - I live and learn).

Posh Paws I was told, starred in a children’s television show called Swap Shop that Dave loved for its dinosaur content. I didn’t get to watch much television as a kid, so I just nodded. Apparently Posh Paws was this huge purple dinosaur and Dave’s Mum made him one which he promptly loved to death. My mother-in-law, ever ready with her sewing machine made him a second one to replace the first.

A call to my father-in-law revealed a partial title of the book the pattern these three toys allegedly came from - Posh Paws and Friends - which I quickly resolved to Making Posh Paws and his Prehistoric Friends by Jane Gisby, published in 1978.

Cover photo from Amazon.co.uk

Alas, Dave took one look at the cover and shook his head. Apparently the book he was thinking of had Posh Paws and Puff on the cover beside some little rocks.

At this point, all I had to go on was that Dave would recognise the cover, it had dinosaurs and dragons in it and the book must have been published before 1982. The search engine at AbeBooks came to the rescue revealing How to make Dinosaurs and Dragons by Pamela Peake (1976), which doubling back to Amazon revealed the cover:-

Cover photo from Amazon.co.uk

“That’s it!” cried Dave.

But is it?

Dave then said there may have been a third book with the gila monster in it. However, no matter how you look at, that is Puff on the cover so this book would answer the question of how to make a toy similar to him. Not that I want to make a replacement for Puff, he represents Dave’s past and is a link to his mother, who we both agree would be delighted that M thinks so highly of a toy she made all those years ago.

Still my wishlist has several new additions to it; I not only added the two books above but a couple of others from Pamela Peake who certainly seemed to know her soft toys.

For those who might be interested, take a look at:-

Creative Soft Toy Making - Pamela Peake (1974) (I swear that’s Humpty Dumpty off Play School on the cover!)
Making Soft Toys for Children - Pamela Peake (1988)

While undisguisedly vintage, the reviews are good and as the books are instruction manuals I’d hope they’d be as relevant today as when they were published.

Puff sleeping in the living room and accidentally wrapping his jaws around Snake! (3 March 2013)

And now I’ll leave you with another picture of Puff, who no longer sleeps on top of a wardrobe.