I am slowly but surely building up my stock.

If I’m honest, I’m not sure when the shop is going to re-open. It’s not too far off, but I’m loathed to tie myself down to a deadline, and stress myself out.  But – depite how quiet I’m being – things are happening.

I promise!

In fact I’ll be back soon with a top I knit for LR in Oxford Kitchen Yarns DK.

I had this photo saved up for over a month to use yesterday, and then at the last minute… I forgot.

In my defence that’s probably due to the fact that we don’t really celebrate Valentine’s Day. And I was giddy over actually getting some sewing done, and FB having trousers that were long enough for the first time since his growth spurt just after LR was born.

But this heart came from a wasp nest that grew in our allotment shed last summer, inside a bag of straw. We had a good nosy at it one Saturday morning in January, FB and I. Even though wasps are scary.

But all the wasps had gone.

And what they had left behind was pretty. And amazing really.

I really love the Big Butt Baby Pants pattern by Made by Rae – I gave up trying to find trousers that fit over our cloth nappies when FB was small, and anyway it turned out that I liked the trousers I made for him, much more than the ones I saw in the shops.

But they never fit really well until I started using this pattern.

And while the pattern calls for woven fabric I’ve always had great results with jerseys and – here – felted wool. (If you have a serger washable wool jumpers also work well, and have obvious advantages.) This opens up a whole world of charity shop finds that can be given a great new life.

This pair was sewn last night in about half an hour, when FB was in bed and LR was willing to sit on daddy’s knee. There were 6 seams in total, plus a bit of tidying, and because it’s felted I didn’t have to worry about the edges. Good bang for you sewing buck.

And finally – finally – my little boy got some more (warm) trousers to wear.