Today I am starting a project. Inspired by both Tif at Dottie Angel and Judith Levine I am committing to a year of buying only hand-made or thrifted items for my wardrobe and home wherever possible. Tif calls it ‘a challenge of the utmost kind’. She is right. I am a woman who has a passion for shopping, but as a woman who has also hung up her briefcase and suit in order to raise little pebbles and pursue her small jewellery-making dream, the pursestrings are a little tighter than they once were. So, this challenge ticks two boxes, one green and one thrifty.

Before embarking on this daunting but exciting venture I had to do a little preparation:

I was a little worried about underthings. I audited my flimsies drawer. They were in fairly good order but Tif reassured me that I did not have to rely on coconut halves or crochet triangles anyway. Undies are essentials, so if pants are fit for no more than dusters then new ones are permitted.

I ferreted in my cupboards to see how the land lay in the clothing department. A very good thing happened. I found a pair of jeans I had forgotten about, bought on sale between the pebble babies. ‘These’ I thought, ’shall be my utmost jeans.’ I sewed a little something to them (in a slightly wobbly way) as a mark of make do-ness and to remind me to stay away, if I can, from alluring places. I also recalled a rather lovely recent purchase. Just £15 had bought me a floral sixties tunic dress.  I remembered the thrill of wearing vintage clothing. I was heartened.

Now for homeware. I would like some new curtains for the living room. I get the flutters about fabric with seedhead designs but they are now out of bounds. So, I bought some calico, some Pebeo fabric paints and had a little tinker. I plan to make my own seedhead-y fabric and then my own curtains. Watch this space.

Finally Val’s excellent tuition in the ways of sewing machine righteousness will help in the coming year. Pinafores for small pebbles and skirts for me are what I hope to make with Great Granny P’s machine. If I am tempted to fall off the thrifty wagon I shall ring Val or email Julia, the queen of (clothing) darts and try to make instead of buy.

Here goes…..

(P.S. Due to a tummy followed by a nose situation last week ‘up the hill to spring’ will start in a few days’ time)

I must admit I’m pretty keen for Spring to come along. I visited a blog yesterday that had a countdown to spring as the header. There were 49 days to go. That seems like rather too long a time to me. I have a little plan to try to post every day for a whole week starting on Monday 8th February. I’m going to cast about for heartening images, music and some things to make me laugh if I can. I might call it ‘up the hill to spring’. I’m hoping it’ll help me through the odd dreary day. If it helps anyone else then so much the better. After that week there will be only a little more than a month to go. I think that sounds much more encouraging. If anyone wants to join in next week feel free.

I have been rather lucky in finding some slightly more unusual vintage silver lockets recently. One is a little book engraved with leaves that opens to reveal two spaces for tiny photos and one, which frankly I’m in love with, is engraved with tiny flowers. I found a little engraved heart too. I have given each a little cluster of pearls, crystals and one of my silver flowers as I tend to do, and they’re now sitting in my shop.

I have been making lots of little silver birds for a bridal commission in the last week aswell. Bridesmaids, Aunts, Mum and Mother-in-law are all to receive one hanging from an ivory ribbon as a gift. They’re quite chirpy so I have made an extra one to brighten up the shelves of my shop along with the lockets.

Before the little pieces of silver wended their way onto chains and next to lockets though, I tinkered around and made the top picture. I think it’s Spring in silver land. I’m off to live there for a few days. The view looks nice.

You might have noticed a lack of sewing here on silverpebble (except for the lovely things made by other bloggers). There is a good reason for this. I am daunted by sewing machines and last used one in 1983. Imagine! I wanted to remedy this embarrassing situation so I chatted to Val at Dottycookie, who lives not too far away. She wanted to learn to make things from artclay - the special ceramic I use to make my silver designs. We felt a swap coming on, but a swap of skills, rather than things we had made.

Last week she popped along to the pebbly cottage and we got busy with little pieces of clay with a view to making silvery prettiness.

Dottycookie hands making silvery things.

We squished and rolled, pressed tools into it, baked, filed, smoothed, and fired it. Flames came out. It was exciting.  Most very exciting of all though, after firing it we polished away the white silver oxide from the surface and burnished with a knitting needle. Would you like to see what she made?

There was a momentary concern that, like Lord Percy, we may have made a piece of the purest green, but  they were actually beautiful little Dottycookie designs of the purest silver (that can even be hallmarked!). There was cooing, and then some twiddling and a gorgeous necklace resulted. Job done I think!

Right, now for the other half of the swap….. Time skips forward a week. I currently have my Granny’s sewing machine and first of all Val gave me some tuition in the ways of threading it up. That done, I snipped a bit of calico and ahem, wait for it, you may not believe your eyes, I made some stitches. Your read that correctly - I sewed, using a machine, on a piece of fabric. Oh!

I was very excited indeed. My stitches appeared to be in neat little rows. As though that wasn’t enough we went on to make a little bag, with a ribbon and toggle drawstring, on which I drew a little bird with a fabric pen and sewed on a vintage button. Oh oh!

I MADE this!

I now keep my old marbles in it, in case I lose them, as it were. Thankyou thankyou Val - I am so very giddy about entering the world of machine sewing. I have been meaning to get my bottom in gear in that area for a very long time indeed. FINALLY I have sewed something. A very small something, but it is a very exciting start.

Tweet.

What we both hope now is that you out there will swap some skills.  We reckon that a two hour meet up is enough for the following very important activities:

Chatting

Drinking tea

Eating baked goods (in our case berry muffins and raisin toast)

Swapping a skill

We had two such 2 hour meet ups and as you see, we got results we were both delighted with in this time. Skills top-ups, such as passing on some further crochet, knitting, embroidery or quilting tips could also work. This is not an organised swap as such, but we hope that some more swaps will take place amongst both bloggers and non-bloggers. I have a plan to approach a local basketmaker , teach her to make jewellery and I hope that she might teach me to make willow obelisks for my garden. It’s a sociable and thrifty way to learn new things. Not only that, there will be cake! Cake, as we know, is very important indeed.

So, if anyone decides to do a swap we’d really love to hear about it and see what you have made so contact myself or Dottycookie. Perhaps we will start a flickr group for the swap results.

You may remember this post from last year, when I shared ‘looking treasure’ that I’d found on our holiday. A recent rummage amongst the four floors of magic to be found here unearthed an unassuming-looking little book entitled ‘Children as Artists’ by R.R. Tomlinson. This is book treasure, without a doubt.

The Allotment by Pamela Dickens, age 15

It examines some of the developmental stages of children’s drawings - fascinating stuff - but it also has plates of children’s artwork which my eyes pounced upon.

Lino cut, Stampede of Elephants, by William Jerrens age 13

These images are snapshots in time - this was a second edition, originally published in 1944. These were wartime children.

Portrait of a Fellow Pupil by Betty Jenkins age 13

I have no idea whether any of these young people went on to become artists. Google searching was fruitless, although the girls may have used married names later in life.

Still Life Painting with Snowdrops by Doreen Stokes age 11

The seaside by Joyce Fegan Age 14

These are two of my favourites. They remind me of modern naive-style art and the snowdrops and mackerel are wonderful.

By far the most poignant, though, is the one shown below. When I found it near the back of the book it took me a few moments to realise what I was looking at. This scene* was so commonplace to this child that she painted it.

The Anderson Shelter by Barbara Vincent Age 13

£8 has bought me a priceless and moving piece of history.

* For those who may not know, Anderson Shelters were makeshift corrugated iron huts, constructed in thousands of urban gardens around Britain. When air raid sirens sounded to warn of approaching bombers, families would hide in them, sleeping in bunks until the all clear signal.

During the hubbub leading up to Christmas I managed to get away for an hour or two to meet Alice C. Our meeting place was Anglesey Abbey, famed for its beautiful winter gardens, full of unexpected colour. It was a very special treat to meet Alice, have a beautiful wintry, sunlit walk and discuss everything from blogging to babies.

Image borrowed from here

We both savoured the walk, and we spotted the signs of approaching spring everywhere - clusters of green spikes promising snowdrops, miniature iris and tiny daffodils. My favourite, though, were already beginning to flower - hellebores or Lenten roses. The very first buds were opening. Foolishly I didn’t take my camera but my own hellebores are now doing the same.

After our meeting, excited by meeting an online friend after so long and at the  signs of the next season on its way, I decided to find a way to make some silver hellebores. I wanted a three dimensional five-petalled flower that drooped gently like the real thing and nodded its head slightly as the wearer moved.

This was the result, a simple hellebore necklace with a few little pieces of chain hanging below.

Soon afterwards I came across a rather pretty plain brooch pin that looked perfect for a slightly smaller version. The pin remains exposed when worn and reminds me a little of Roman brooches.

Both pieces are now in my shop, sitting in the little flower bed there. Thankyou Alice for our lovely meeting. (The brooch is now sold).

The snow is old news. It’s melted here so things are back to normal. Whilst things were grim and wintry outside we needed activities to fill the holes left by trips to the swings or playing chase on the village green. We broke out the ‘Sparkly things to make and do’ book.

This book is like blogland for four-year-olds. Just one peep and there are ‘oooooh’s and ‘aaaahhh’s and ‘can we make that?’s.

This is what MissP, her little curly friend and I made earlier in the week. Sparkly fairy tiaras:

Materials: tissue paper, PVA, glitter, pipe cleaners.

Let me tell you though, I was close to making one for myself. I need an antidote to the tax return procrastinating dullards (a recognised medical condition). Do you think if I wore one of these whilst calculating profit (that’s hoping there is any) it might make it less mind-numbing?

As for nineteen-month-old little P, she’s been making bead snakes with her very big wooden beads recently. She drags them about saying ’ssss’. Whilst I made cottage pie one day last week I cast about for something to give her. I found some home-made polymer clay beads in a pot at the back of a cupboard. They’re smallish so I gave her the pot to put the beads in. She discarded the pot immediately and signed to be given the bead string. This is what happened next:

Perhaps my profit will be higher with a little child labour.

Righty ho. It’s time to pick the winner of ‘Pass the Book’.

Now in the past Mr P and I have tried to use slightly different ways to select giveaway winners. There was ‘pearl roulette’, using Mr Ps vintage turntable and ‘Hairy P bingo’ using hairy P’s skills in the kibble department.

This one will be called ‘A selection of cheeses’. We used the trusty random number generator to make a grid of all 42 entrants (I wasn’t fussy about the deadline as bloglines had been a little lazy in listing the post). Then we thought about how to select the final winner. The little Ps came to the rescue. It was lunchtime. As a prelunch snack little bits of cheese were placed on the grid. You know the rest:

By the way, we could have showed you the whole thing (it did happen) but then it would have been ‘cheese bored.’ That is Mr P’s joke by the way. Nice.

Have you noticed that I’m keeping you in suspense?

In manner of the X factor?

The winner is:

…obligatory pause whilst Ant and Dec or their worldwide counterparts shuffle about…..

…..oh, Simon Cowell is adjusting his hair…………

number 26……

Carolyn of Love Stitching Red. Congratulations Carolyn! You will also receive the Palm’s toffee tin and Mr piebird!

If you look closely at the film the two runners up are number 39, French Knots and number 24……

Thimbleanna. Anna you must have the giveaway midas touch! You will both be in receipt of a little birdy and some other little somethings.

Hopefully Carolyn will be happy to read Miss Read, blog her thoughts on it and then pass it on in the same way, along with a few hand-madey treats. I’m hoping she may even bake a pie with Mr PB, although many of you have commented that he might be difficult to part with - I’ll leave possible ‘pass the piebird’ in your hands Carolyn.

Phew, we all enjoyed that here (especially the little Ps).

I’m already on the lookout for the next title for Pass the Book. I’m hoping to do one a month. Let’s see if I manage it.

Now I’m off to fold the washing. Rather less interesting.

Tonight the ‘Pass the Book’ giveaway will close. It’s lovely that so many of you would like to join in already! I found some rather special packaging (an old Palm’s toffee tin) for the prize. The packaging, of course, is for keepsies.

On to the subject of this post. There’s someone I’ve ‘known’ since I began blogging. We’ve exchanged regular comments and emails. We arranged to meet. Twice. We didn’t manage it. Twice. Illness and then great big snow got in the way.

We made eachother a present for our recent weather-thwarted meet up, just before Christmas. As we were unable to exchange them, Mr postie had to do the honours. This was my gift to Jackie:

My second ever brooch.

A little silver seedhead. It might be cow parsley, it might be hogweed.

Look what she made for me:

A felt and velvet embroidered seedhead brooch. Dill perhaps, or wild parsnip.

I adore it. The colours and detail are just exquisite. I keep having to go and look at it. I transfer it from coat, to bag to cardigan and then back again. Then I sit all twitchy and have to go and look at it once more.

We had not conferred. We had not alotted a theme. We had not even mentioned the giving of presents. Neither of us had tried this motif for a brooch before, (although we had both blogged our affection for one of nature’s best designs).

This was serendipity of the loveliest, most surprising kind. Thankyou thankyou Jackie.

Happy New Year! Many many thanks for all your kind comments on my last post. It was wonderful to see my sister over Christmas.

I received a second-hand book as one of my Christmas presents. It is called ‘Miss Read, Time Remembered’ by Dora Saint. It’s a memoir, set in the 1920s and catalogues three years of the seven-year-old Miss Read’s life and education in a rural English community. Her family moves to a Kentish village from London, and suddenly nature and the seasons are important parts of everyday life.

I loved this book. It will not set the world on fire and I don’t believe this, and the other books in its series, are fashionable any more. It is no ‘Da Vinci Code’. It is simply a tiny snapshot of an era past, seen through the eyes of a child who is delighted by her new environment.

Here is a small snippet, about ‘Miss Read’ making toffee with her sister:

‘Having trudged back up the hill we put half a cup of water into a saucepan, a large lump of butter and let it melt.

Then we added the sugar and coconut and stirred assiduously. When it thickened we turned the lovely mess into a meat tin and tried to possess our souls in patience…

Apart from the bliss of having such an enormous amount of sweet stuff all at once, there was the exquisite suspense of waiting to see if it turned out as fudge or toffee.

Either way, we were happy, and there were no prouder cooks in the kingdom.’

As this copy of Miss Read was published over twenty years ago it is slightly frail, so I have covered it in brown paper to give a few more years’ life. I rewrote the title with my new fountain pen and added a little pen illustration, similar to those on its pages.

I enjoyed reading this book so much that I wanted someone else to enjoy it too. That got me thinking. I’m going to pass it on to one of you in a slightly different giveaway to the usual kind, along with two other little somethings. Whoever ‘wins’ the giveaway can read the book, blog their thoughts and pass it on to another blogger in the same way. I’m hoping that in this way quite a few people may enjoy it.

Along with the copy of ‘Miss Read’ will come two little birds:

This little vintage pie blackbird found in a junk shop is a well-loved and well-used fellow and is fond of letting off steam. Pies are one of my favourite foods so they are important in the Pebble household. Comforting, warming and topped with a delicious pastry duvet, few foods deliver in such a satisfying way. Here is Mr Piebird a couple of days ago, having done some sterling work with a feta, spinach and potato pie (with home-made parmesan flaky pastry).

It would be WONDERFUL to see him in the winner’s favourite pie and perhaps even for him to be passed on to sit regally in pies around blogland - that is my earnest pie wish!

Finally, the winner will receive a little hanging bird I have made. Two runners-up will receive these too. Each of these birds seems to have a slightly different character, just like my little silver birds. They’re inspired by a tiny wren who keeps hopping about under the pansies on my patio.

So, now it’s up to you. To have a chance at being the first blogger for me to pass the book and the birds to, leave a comment here. I will leave this open for a week and select the ‘winner’ on the 8th January. I do hope the book is passed on further (so let me know won’t you?). It would be so exciting to see it move from person to person and even from country to country and to see if others enjoy it as much as I did. As for the piebird - he has high hopes for his travels too. He would love to be part of your pie! I can imagine Lord Kitchener in a version of the famous poster: YOUR PIE needs THIS BIRD.

I plan to pass on more books in this way during 2010 so keep a watch out (although I don’t have any more piebirds at the moment!).

All best wishes for 2010 and best of luckxxxx

It’s two and a half years since I saw my sister. A good deal can happen in that amount of time:

Setting up a temporary new life in Melbourne, Australia.

A pregnancy and a birth.

A chance trip on some stairs causing a blow to the head.

A three week coma and the very bleakest of prognoses.

An astonishing, very gradual but definite daily recovery.

An engagement.

A three month trip to Africa.

A wedding, on a beach in Zanzibar,

and this morning at Manchester airport,

a reunion.

Have a wonderful Christmas with your families

xxxxx