I have a whole 8″ Waldorf Snuggle Baby tutorial photographs- with PDF patterns for download!- most of which was done with our small boy beside me, or in this case, on my knee, drawing “daddy and a yourd” (Daddy and a sword); but I have yet to write it out completely. Hopefully, over the weekend…
…As a member of the Irish Parenting Bloggers, I have a fantastic array of blogs to read. One of my favourites is Where Wishes Come From; this week, Sadhbh from WWCF posted this fantastic PDF pattern to make felt unicorns (for free download) I made James’ green one first (he is in green mode at the minute), and when Grace and Liam were deciding on colours, Liam asked for a Pegasus: a unicorn with wings essentially. Grace nearly expired with excitement as that was exactly what she was hoping for! And so, with a minor adjustment to the pattern to make the embroidered wings (which took the longest time: “if you just, you know, sew a few hearts and flowers and spirals and all the things I love on the wings…”) her winged unicorn came to life:
…Fergal found two nests over the weekend that had been blown down in the storm… When we cut hair in our house, we always put the hair out in the garden for the birds to line their nests (not sure where this theory/idea came from!) On inspection of the second, smaller nest we saw it was lined with what looks like James’ hair!
…I have photos of these hens when they first came to live with us a few months ago: they were living skeletons, having come from a battery hen farm. As soon as they arrived, our hens stopped laying in sympathy and despite eating the most extraordinary amount of food and growing healthy and plump there was ne’er an egg to be seen. This week, however, they have all started laying and we are having eggs with everything 🙂 I have spent the week baking: bread, scones, cakes; and Grace has been living on a diet of “breggy egg”(French bread): there is nothing more lovely than fresh eggs from the henhouse…
…Possibly the most popular photo I ever posted on Facebook: I “invented” the Feck-It Cake, a version of chocolate biscuit cake… The ingredients came from our cleared-out junk-press (cupboard): all the random left-over Christmas chocolate bits, mini bars and a half a tin of caramel… fudgy, choccy, yummy:
Feck-It Cake
Melt all the random chocolate bits you can find with 100g of butter and 100g of caramel (in a tin) Add in a packet of bashed-up digestives, (you could add fruit, nuts, rice krispies also at this stage) Press into a paper-lined tin, then melt 200g of chocolate, the rest of the caramel (I had about 100g left) and spread on top. Refridgerate until chilled (or dont, just until its set, then let the hungry mases delve in)
Heaven in a baking tin, frankly. 
Divine Feck it cake! Would love hens (I just have to pluck up the courage to leave the comfort of estate living close to the village) and it’s so nice to see them laying!
..Beautiful post…I grew up with the ‘put the hair in the garden’ thing too, so have my girls! 😉
Love the birds nest! Love them! And yes, I throw hair out the window too! Our neighbours have hairy labradors and each spring when they moult, the birds help themselves to the hair. Oldest Boy found a robins nest last year and it was perfectly, expertly lined with the dog hair.
I have to hide these pegasuses (pegasi) from Mabel or she’ll be badgering me, and I am not remotely crafty enough for this. Also, lazy. Also, the house is coming down with stuffed animals already and I don’t want her to get the idea that I can MAKE them.
What a lovely thing, to find the little nest. I’d never heard of doing that before.
How totally extraordinary, we got rescue hens a few months back( possibly from the same massive hen rescue from a factory??) and all our hens and ducks stopped laying, our neighbours were bereft, as was I , and this week they are all back laying, we got 12 eggs today so I’m thrilled!!
Love the unicorns…my kids would love it so when I get a few minutes will try it.
Love the hair idea, we love looking at nests and often see our Labradors hair in them, never thought to leave out the kids…will do from now on
Love your unicorns and peaguses (???) you’ll children must be delighted! The nests are so beautiful aren’t they, reminds us of their amazing building skills!
Thank you so much for sharing my unicorn pattern, and for testing it out for me! I adore your creations. How fascinating about the hair?! I am definitely going to start leaving some out for the birds. Lovely post, as always. (still drooling over the feck-it cake)
Feckit cake. Love it. The nests are gorgeous. Incredibly jealous of your hens by the way. Maybe next year for us.
Even two or three in the back garden, Caitriona: they ARE messy, but fascinating, and any veg/non meat leftovers etc they will devour!
Sadhbh, I am just so amazed that so many people “did” the hair thing… thought we were just odd!! I was more than delighted to make ad share the pattern, we really enjoyed making it!
I’ve never seen the hair in actual nests before, so wasn’t sure that our theory was more than a theory..! It must be World Hen Laying Week for us all!
Gwen, thats fascinating! What innovative little creatures!
Nicola, I am so surprised that so many people “do” the hair thing; I’ll be forensically checking out any nests I find from now on to see if I can distinguish the hairs!!
A few in the back garden Laura…!! They are such funny, fascinating creatures, your Little Elf would be endlessly amused! x
We always put the hair out for the birds. I’ve seen them take it and I’ve seen them make a molehill out of a mountain of dog hair after I’ve clipped the dog. Oh we are going to have to make the unicorns, I’m going to stop reading your posts, you just add to my to-do list!
Joanna, another hair-for-the-birds-fan I see!! Your little girls would go MAD for the unicorns, ours are in constant play here! X