Friday 22 June 2012

FO Friday: Tux

Managed to do a fair amount of work on this while camping. Finally finished it this morning.


I think I'm going to add some fabric borders and make it into a small wallhanging.

Monday 18 June 2012

Camping Trip

Despite the weather forecasts for the weekend, we went ahead as planned with our camping trip. It's not too far from home to just ditch and come home if it was really bad. It was our first real pitch with the new tent, the Vango Maritsa 500 (we got it far cheaper than this from Go Outdoors but they don't seem to have ti listed atm).


The campsite we went to was Holme Valley Camping & Caravan Park (yes, it's a v basic website!). We had a lovely time. I have to say that the owners were very friendly and helpful and the showers/toilets were always clean.

The ducks were a little over-friendly though...they ate our leftover curry that was sat outside :-o



We went into Holmfirth on the Saturday and there was lots going on. There was bunting all over the place


We went to Emma's Tea Parlour where Erin had a kids' afternoon tea, which comes with apple juice in a child's tea pot and her own cup and saucer. I thought this was a fantastic idea!

There was cake after too!


It happened to be Holmfirth Arts Festival and there were lots of free workshops in the market. Unfortunately the problem with doing lots of crafts is that I'd already done most of them. the only workshop I fancied was the rag rug one but it was a 2-hour workshop and we didn't have time. I also found I'd missed an evening with Kaffe Fassett. Whoever made the carrot cake that was on sale for 50p, it was delicious!



On Sunday we drove over to Hebden Bridge for a look around the shops and a wander. We bought some tea from a lovely shop; Hebden Tea.


I have been very busy

Unfortunately it doesn't involve a lot of crafting!

Last Tuesday was exam day. I can honestly say I have never felt that ill going into an exam. I think the kids had a bug over the weekend because Orla slept a lot on Sunday evening and Erin kept saying her tummy hurt. I spent some of Monday just sleeping and felt sick most of Tuesday. Luckily when I got into the exam I managed to focus. I finished early and was happy with what I'd done. Of course I'm now going over every tiny mistake - the exam paper is released a couple of days after the exam so I've been able to sit and look at it in detail.

This weekend we've been camping - I'll be doing a post on that soon! While camping I managed to do a little more work on Tux.

Other than that there hasn't been after craft until today when I whizzed up a few crocheted squares that are being donated to Woolly Hugs.

 
 

Sunday 10 June 2012

Finding Things In Cupboards

So I have an old treasure to share with you. This has been tucked away in the little alcove/doorless cupboard in our bedroom since we moved in as it didn't fit with the decor. Before I do though, I'm going to tell you the story behind it.

By coincidence someone on a forum today asked how everyone met their husband/partner and my somewhat amusing reply to this is always "I found him in a cupboard". This is usually followed by a long-winded explanation of how my housemates had invited him round to fix the server that lived in the cupboard next door to the bathroom and he happened to be there when I got back from lectures one day.

Anyway, we ended up moving in together during our final year at York University. It was a little terraced house near the racecourse and was a little unique. The first floor consisted of a bedroom and living room with a bathroom coming off the living room. There were also stairs from the living room into a light, bright attic room. Downstairs there was a galley kitchen at the back, a dining room complete with William Morris wallpaper and at the front of the house, a library! It was lovely; my favourite room. Walls lined with a random selection of old books, two old armchairs and a fireplace.

On a visit to my parents I happened to mention how much I wanted to 'inherit' the painting in their room and my mum told me to just take it. It's a few years ago now but iirc they were taking it down anyway and I told them not to get rid of it. Anyway, it came back to York with us and hung above the fireplace, in the library.

When we eventually moved away from York, it's never really gone with the style of house we've lived it. It still doesn't to be honest but when I came across it today we decided it would go up on the wall anyway.


The painting is The Road To Coniston by Claude Muncaster and my Dad bought it years ago when he married my Mum as his present to her.

What interesting finds have you had?

Friday 8 June 2012

FO Friday: Tea Cosy

Well it should have arrived at my aunty's house today so I'm going to share it with you all.

The pattern for this was from A Passion For Patchwork and, despite double checking the measurements, the pattern piece was too big for the fabric. I have no idea whether the error is in the printing of the pattern piece but having checked the size of my aunty's teapot (small, dinky one luckily!) I just adjusted the pattern to fit the fabric.

The only thing I didn't do was attach a hanging loop.


It was all done from scrap pieces of fabric and wadding. The binding was leftover from the first quilt I made!


I decided to see if my larger teapot would fit in and it did so it will definitely be big enough for my aunty's one.


Here's hoping she likes it :-)

Wednesday 6 June 2012

WIP Weds: One For The Geeks ;-)

What can I say, I just couldn't resist this free pattern. there's a larger version that you can buy but I really liked the small one.

Tux in progress
 

Tuesday 5 June 2012

The Bargello Is Finally Finished

Well this one has been quite a while in the making, or should I say in the "waiting to be quilted pile".

Firstly, my plan had been to do straight lines horizontally and vertically. Then when the top was finished I had that moment where I realised my stupidity. Each strip was moved up/down by half a block so I couldn't do the horizontal lines. After some discussion with my friend and amazing quilter Sarah, I decided to do free motion quilted flowers.

Much practice later I decided that perhaps flowers were a little tricky for me to start with. So I decided on leaves. After some practice of leaves I decided that it was going to be hard on the bargello - it's not as smooth as most quilts because of the construction. So it went to "bag of projects to finish in many years time when I am an expert"!

Then this weekend I decided I needed to finish some bits off. I had too many things on the go and was feeling like I wasn't acheiving anything. So I finished two UFOs. I went back to the original idea and just did vertical lines on the bargello.

Bargello, ready to be hung
I did the binding in white, partly because I happened to have some white and also because I knew exactly where it was going when it was finished and I thought white would be good there. So after a little help from Alan:


We have this pretty view from the top of our stairs:


As for the other finished object, well you'll have to pop back on Friday to see that. It's a gift for a relative and I didn't want anyone to see it before she opens it :-)

 

Friday 1 June 2012

FO Friday & Jubilee

Ok, I admit I'm slightly cheating with FO Friday. Technically this isn't finished as it needs a hoop to display it in and I haven't got one yet. The sewing is finished though and Evelyn was right about it being a cross stitch owl on a branch.


The pattern for this is from Sewingseed and Tina has some gorgeous designs. If you check out her blog there's also a discount code for the shop. You might notice that my owl is in more traditional colours and so doesn't look as modern as Tina's version. Well, that's because I just couldn't wait to start making it so I used the colours I already owned.

The other thing I finished this week (late last night) was cakes for Erin's jubilee party day at school. Today she has gone dressed in red, white and blue. I was hoping to make her something to wear but the school said on their letter that there would be lots of art/craft activities going on and not to send them in anything that you'd mind them getting ruined so I ended up getting a cheap top from Sainsburys instead. She already had leggings but, because the weather has turned wet, I had to send her with her school cardigan too.


When I saw the sign-up sheet for food to bring in, I immediately signed up for buns/cakes as I have a nice easy recipe for cupcakes. I made sure to order caster sugar with my weekly shop and last night at 8pm I started making a batch. All was fine until they had cooled down and I was ready to make the icing. I was out of icing sugar :-o . This was when Orla decided she did not want to sleep. So I ended up icing cakes at 11.30 last night!


Like the cases? They were 95p for 75 at Sainsburys, which I jumped at because the other Jubilee cases I'd seen were £5 for 30-odd.