Sweet sleep and pillowcases

Hello again! This week has become a guilty pleasure for me as I normally take time off work in the February half term school holidays to chaperone for ESSPA, Alice's performing arts school. This year they are doing Peter Pan and our Alice is a lost boy for musical theatre and a forest fawn for ballet. Her outfits are rather lovely too. We have English granny and gramps coming to see the show tonight, my mum and dad got to see her almost 4 years ago when they were over from South Africa, I wish we could teleport them here by some magical machine for the show. 


Anyway, to cut long story short I have chaperoned for the last 3 years, my licence ran out in January this year and could not be renewed in time, so I have had this week off with quite a few pockets of "me" time. Time to potter in town, cycle along the coast, oh and to indulge in some charity shop browsing. On Monday I found some pretty pillow cases and embroidered cloth.

One of the pillow cases is a romantic rose from Laura Ashley and is so crushy cotton like, perfect for the sweetest slumber. I was pleased to get two pillow cases of the same old (probably 60's or 70's) fabric and knew exactly what I wanted to do with them. My inspiration was pinned on one of my Pinterest boards here. To say that I have been gagging to make these pretty pillow cases is an understatement, just had no time. So, with the time and pillow cases why not indulge?

I remembered that I had some of this pretty pink crochet cotton in my stash and I bought some fabric dress making pencils for my embroidery efforts.

So yesterday afternoon while Alice was at her dress rehearsal, I promptly got myself into my cosy bed, put Radio 4 on and started on the crochet edge as per this tutorial. 

It didn't take too long to make the borders for the two pillow cases and I was pleased with how straight forward it was to crochet up.

Now, I could not just stop there, look at how "loose/porous" that old fabric is! It needed a stitch or two.

I used my new fabric dress making pencils to write the words knowing that they would easily wash away. I thought of some of the words we have always said to Alice as she has layed down her sleepy head over the years. So here's what I stitched...

Precious child lay down your weary head.

Alice came in at 22h30 last night after her performance and bleary eyed said she loved them. We both like nature's palette of green and pink together and although she has outgrown having all things pink as such she appreciates a hint of it here and there.

My urge to stitch words continues, it really is super easy and if you can thread a needle then you can do it I promise. Start with an easy shape like a circle or square and get confident about back stitching {which enables your stitches to closely follow each other rather than have a space between them}.

It was sooooo lovely to crochet again, I have no plans on what I will be making next but I do hope my inspiration, light bulb moments involve some hooky! I have also finished knitting Alice's socks this week which I will log here sometime soon.


Hope you've enjoyed visiting today, oh and welcome to new followers and oh dear I have been meaning to mention a big THANKS to Little Orphan Skein and Karisma for my blog awards. Much appreciated indeed and heart warming to think that you enjoy popping in. I don't want to sound ungrateful and really appreciate that you think my ramblings are worthy of reading and/or commenting on but as Annie of Knitsofacto blog explained so eloquently here, I am just grateful for a comment and awards have rules and conditions... not something I want on my blog. I have partaken in them before and feel like I have run out of things to say about myself! I really do hope my decision to stop taking awards on board has not offended anyone.

Sending you all warm wishes

and sweet dreams

xox 

ps. If you want to see the most precious handmade bedtime boy quilts do pop over to my beautiful friend Bronwen's blog at Hey cherry and see what she has lovingly created for her boys x