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I recently bought some wall art stickers for the living room. I thought they would brighten up one of the walls. It's difficult to know what else to put on the wall to be honest. It's next to the chimney so a picture tends to look out of place.

This spurred me on to finish the bird I was making to hang in my crocheted wreath. I'd cut it out and sewn it one Monday night but forgot to take the stuffing with me so had to leave stuffing and sewing up until I got home and it was one of those jobs that just got left. Anyway, it's now finished.

I also managed to finish the bunting for the kitchen yesterday (sorry, will get a pic for the next blog post as I forgot!) so that was two UFO's finished. I started the bunting at the end of October but other things kept getting in the way of finishing it. What usually happens is I think "Oh I'll take X to sewing so I can ask for help with such & such/I need to concentrate on it" and leave all the simple stuff to do at home and then just don't find the time to get all the sewing stuff out.

I also designed a robot applique block for the sampler quilt I'm making. Here it is and I'm really pleased with it!

There's still far too many UFO's for me to list but I'm hoping to get a few finished this year. I only have one item on my crochet UFO list (a cushion cover) but plenty on the sewing/quilting list.

WIP Weds: Yarn FAIL

When I first started making granny squares with my leftover Stylecraft Special I hadn't quite decided what I was going to do with them. Then I decided I'd edge them all with white and join them. The original plan was to make two blankets from the leftovers so I only bought one ball of white to see how it looked. Anyway, I changed my mind about doing two blankets from them as I found I didn't have enough bright, colourful leftovers to give a reasonable balance in both blankets. I decided on a granny stripe for the other as my Aunty's Xmas present had worked up pretty quickly and thought that by alternating every colour with white it would tie in a bit with the granny square blanket (the kids share a room). This meant I used up the white much quicker than expected, so I picked up another ball on Saturday. Well, I did in fact use that one up by Sunday evening. So I picked up another ball while at sewing class on Monday evening thinking it would be enough to finish the granny square blanket and then I could do a batch order for the granny stripe as I'm going to need some of the other colours too.

It wasn't enough. I've run out on the final horizontal join and still have the vertical joins to do. So here it is after I ran out a little after midnight - I was trying to get the squares joined so that I didn't end up joining them in the wrong place!

I might head over to Knit & Natter on Friday and pick up another ball of white while I'm there, though I should be revising really.

Until then I shall have to get on with sewing instead. I have plenty of sewing projects on the go and first up is a Halloween project I started last year. Not a lot left to do on it but it's the fiddly bits that are left.

I've gone round most of the edges and mainly have the features to add (eyes & hair). Hopefully I'll have it finished before this Halloween!!!

More WIP post at Tami's blog and at Frontier Dreams.

Buy British Month

Well it's that time of year again; Buy British Month on Cloth Nappy Addicts. For anyone who doesn't know, it's a month filled with super products, bargains and one-off items from British Work at Home Mums.

This year I've mainly focussed on hand-dyed yarn & clothing, though I'm hoping to add some jewellery before the end too.

My first item was this appliqued top and yarn. I dyed the yarn and have to admit it was a bit of an experiment. I dyed it in the slow cooker by pouring 4 colours of dye into each corner of the slow cooker and allowing it to mix as it wished. I then spotted the fabric while shopping and thought it matched perfectly.


I've also added lots of hand-dyed yarn.






I also added this gorgeous set; an appliqued top, a skirt, bag with pocket in matching fabric and matching large hairclip. I decided to sell this by auction.


Coming up in the rest of the month, I'm hoping to have more yarn, more clothing, some jewellery and I'd like to make something with these two pieces of bamboo velour:


These were dyed with procion mx dyes using the low water immersion (LWI) technique.