Things to be thankful for number three: There are only two and a half days left of the longest ever term and so far we have all survived. Just about… Ok, maybe not the longest ever, somebody was telling me the other day that they used to have three terms instead of four so they had thirteen week terms sometimes, so doubly thankful that it wasn’t as long as that.

This week I have mostly been making little bits and pieces and putting off doing boring grey sleeves. The sleeves are making slow but steady progress but are not really photo worthy yet (there is only two thirds of one sleeve so it isn’t very exciting). The little bits and pieces are mostly for the small people’s camp blankets. They have been accumulating badges from Wales and here which have been sitting in my sewing box for months so I thought I should really do something with them. I said I would make them their name out of crochet and sew it on and then some bright spark asked if they could have semaphore instead or maritime flags so that their name was in code and I got a bit carried away and said they could have their name at the top, the flags down one side and the semaphore down the other side but thankfully he said that wasn’t what he meant and could he have his name in code and use all the alphabets together. So this is what we came up with between us. You can have some points if you can work out what the slightly wonky animals are too. I made up the semaphore men and the flag patterns, (that O was a real nuisance to get right!) the letters and the bird were from Moogly and the green creature was from here.

I was feeling brave or possibly foolhardy at the weekend and even taught Small to use the sewing machine to sew his Welsh scarf on to the blanket, he had a practice on one of the Man in the Shed’s hankies and decided he was a bit crooked so when we did the scarf I did the steering and he did the pedal. I still have all my fingers so he has been declared semi-competent at sewing-machining, he just needs to learn how to thread a needle and to practice his steering.

He was pretty good with the seam ripper too so his next job is to cut all the badges off his old Beaver uniform so that we can put those on as well.

Also on the subject of Scouts, slightly wonky animals and little things are a couple of woggles. We made wolf woggles at a Joey fun day (but I did a mouse one because I like to be awkward) out of leather, goggly eyes and permanent marker.  Mine was very wonky and it was bugging me so when I got home I cleaned off the pen with nail polish remover and did it again. I have more different colour pens at home too. It still looks a bit wonky but less so. I think the ears still need to be bigger and the goggly eyes make it look a bit shocked but it’s good enough. Well, I thought it was until I got mistaken for Possum!

My friend Rosella liked it and said she ought to have a rosella one so I had a go at crocheting one for her. Hers is a bit wonky too but good enough. Here is a picture of a real rosella for people who don’t know what they look like. I did do another one first where I used two strands of yarn together which meant I could blend the colours together a bit better where it changes by swapping one strand over a couple of stitches before the other one and I think it was a better shape too but it was too big for a woggle and I would have gone insane sewing all the ends in, this one had far too many as it was!

The other little things I have been making are bookmarks, when we were looking up animal patterns I found Supergurumi and was immediately faced with demands for multiple squashed animal bookmarks. The small people have got one each so far which is keeping them happy for now but I am very tempted to make some more just because the idea of them tickles me. I was brought up on Cicely Mary Barker’s flower fairies and later on had a copy of ‘Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairy Book’ which is very funny (although it’s a bit rude – definitely not a children’s book, they are very naughty fairies…) and the squished animals reminded me of those, I have always had a fairly dark sense of humour starting with Roald Dahl and then Lemony Snicket and I can sing most of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd and most of Tom Lehrer’s songs without batting an eyelid at the lyrics. Anyway, here are a fox and a gecko to be going on with, they don’t seem to be faring any the worse for all their squishedness.