Getting ready to go back in time.

Over the past week or so, it hit me that our trip to Kentwell Hall had crept up and was getting very close.  A trip to our local charity shops provided several pairs of curtain lining and  I made coifs for K & me.

K's coif

And mine.

M & I had another look and M was very pleased to find a brown duvet cover and pillow case set, which provided a hat for her - she wants to go as a boy.  I also found a orange-brown pair of women's long shorts in a linen material, and a size 8 long brown linen skirt, which I thought might be useful to make things for the girls.

M's hat.

However, given that both the girls and I all need to go in costume, I started to get a bit stressed, as although I have a sewing machine (which I had had serviced), which was given to me by my Grandma, I wasn't sure how to use it!  Admittedly sewing everything by hand would have been more authentic, but not really realistic in terms of getting things done.  Fortunately for me, Z, a friend from Fun Club who is handy with a sewing machine had offered to help me out, so on Tuesday we headed to see her and R, her six year old daughter.  Both Z & I had anticipated the our girls wouldn't really be keen on playing together, as they don't get on particularly well at Fun Club, but the three of them got on really well and K & M now consider R a friend and are very pleased that we're going back again on Friday.

Z showed me how to use my Grandma's sewing machine and all was going really well and we made the first smock for M pretty quickly.  Unfortunately the machine got temperamental and stopped working after that, so we used Z's.  We stayed until we needed to dash home for K & M's piano lessons at 3 o'clock, and in that time between us, thanks mostly to Z's know-how (and more old bed linen!), we'd managed to get smocks for all three of us, turn the shorts into breeches for M and make the skirt rather more Tudor-y, as well cutting out more of the duvet cover to make the waistcoat type thing for both girls.  There's still a bit more to do, but Z has very kindly said she'll finish the two waistcoats and the skirt for me and I'll cut out the aprons for K & M and we should manage them and finish off the rest on Friday morning.

K in her costume so far.

Apart from our Tudor preparations we've been pretty busy so far this week.  On Monday, we went over to Asfordby for a session on the Rainforest, both girls enjoyed making up some colourful frogs from kits, before spending most of the rest of the time enjoying the lovely weather outside.  We came home with some Maths Quest books and a model eye to borrow.  Then the girls went for a walk in a local woods with Brownies in the evening.

Tuesday, after piano lessons, K built the model eye, before korfball after tea.  And today, K did some potion brewing on Pottermore and since the potion had to simmer for an hour, and it tells you in percentage how much of the time you have had, we did some maths.  K told me that she'd already waited 32%, so I asked her approximately what fraction of the time that was and when she didn't seem sure, I asked what fraction 50% would be and that made it clear to her what I was asking and she answered correctly and also told me how many minutes that was.  While she waiting she also did half of the worksheet I'd made her with more subtraction practice.  This time she check each answer with the calculator as she went along and told me that she had got them all right first time.  M has nearly finished her birthday thank you cards.  This week was Drowning Prevention Week at swimming, so they wore pyjamas to their swimming lesson and did life-saving skills.

In other news, we've been carrying on with Charlie Bone and quite often both K & M have been doing knitting while I read.  This morning, I woke up to find a bag with a note on it saying 'Please look after me' and I found this inside, made by M, his name is Bob.

Bob.