Continuing the garden theme

In July Big Cuckoo said farewell to his school. He had been struggling for some time and although the school had done what they could it became clear he needed more specialised help. His self esteem was fragile and his attitude was one of defeatism. We could see he was happy enough in that he enjoyed his friends but increasingly he was falling into moments of distress and his behaviour was born of frustration and irritation. We took the decision to pull him from main stream, it was a big emotional leap for us all. It's hard to have the realisation that your son is finding things too difficult, that his happiness was being affected, but trickier still to remove him from all he knows, from all his buddies. 

Anyway, I'll blather on no more about this as I have thought and talked about very little else over the past six months. At least that is how it feels, it has been a discussion niggling away in my head in the background for a long time. Happily for us all, mostly for Big, he has settled into his new school, he has made friends and over the past two weeks he has been such a happy child. His confidence has grown and he is motivated anew. I found him the other night with his homework sheets, he was tucked up in bed, chatting away to himself whilst filling out one of those sheets that has letters all over it in dots for him to trace. It was enough to make me want to run about whooping with sheer relief.

Of course, when he left his old school I wanted to thank his teachers and helpers so they all got gifts and a letter each. I made his main teacher (who was a huge support to me when making our decision) and his gorgeous TA a gift rather than giving them a CK book bag I'd bought.

I made his teacher a gardening pinny. I got the pattern from Cath Kidston's book "Sew". 

Loving my shellac'ed nails here. Coordination a gogo!

I reckon she'll use it a lot as she is a keen gardener. She sews a lot too, so I know she appreciated the effort. I did try really hard to be very precise and neat with the stitches.

It didn't take too long to make, I can't say for sure how long it took as I made it in snatches of time over a week.

I popped on a few buttons for embellishment, it needed a little something, my urge was to whack on a great big corsage but I wasn't sure the recipient would agree. The buttons are cute though. May be when I make myself one I'll pop a flower on the crotch area, just for the ridiculousness and the fact that it'll make the large juvenile part of me laugh uproariously. Is it wrong I find myself so funny? Well someone has to laugh at my lame jokes, visual or otherwise.

I popped a pic of the finished pinny on Instagram and my good friend Princess saw it and commented that she knew a person who might like one for their birthday. I'd forgotten this but when I was panicking just days before her birthday that the Cox and Cox wooden angel I'd bought her hadn't arrived I remembered she had said she'd like a pinny.

I love these little charms.

So off I trotted to raid my fabric stash and found a long forgotten meter of this Heather Bailey Fresh Cut fabric. So very Princess, totally the stuff she gravitates towards.

I popped a few weapons in for the pic, she wouldn't put much more than twine
and plant labels in it. Don't worry, she'll not do herself a mischief!

I have thought of several other people who would probably like a gardening pinny for Christmas so I'll have to wait for mine.

♡

I'm getting a shed load of spam emails everyday now. Mostly they are trying to sell me valium and xanax. I wonder what they are trying to tell me?!! They are irritating me no end, I know if I disallow anonymous comments or do the word verification thing they will stop. But I get some marvellous comments from anonymous commenters and I know I find the word verification a pain in the whatsit most if the time. I wonder if there is any other way of preventing my email in box from filling up with all this spam?

Opps, nearly forgot to show the brooch I made for his TA. I saw this over at Coco Rose Diaries (where else!) and have had it on my to make list for over a year. I used this tutorial and it was a really enjoyable little project to make.

I modified the original a little. I ironed on some fabric with bondaweb, I'm not sure I love it like I love the originals I saw. I just hope Big's TA liked it.