Tweet Tweet

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.

For All Seasons? 3KCBWDAY4

Today's theme for Knitting and Crochet Blog Week is whether or not you are a seasonal knitter/crocheter. I have to admit, I'm not really sure.

I like to have a blanket on the go most (if not all) of the time.  This is my current work in progress, though I haven't picked it up in the last few weeks (naughty me!)

WIP: Vintage Vertical Stripe

Every year I say that I'm going to be organised and make winter stuff before winter hits but it rarely happens. I'm not sure if it's because of the weather or season though. I think it's just lack of time generally.

Often I find myself making something seasonal because I'm inspired by someone else's makes. Perhaps I read a blog and the writer has made a scarf and it gives me inspiration to make mine.

Winter In London scarf

Sometimes it could be that I love a pattern someone has come up with and shared at the appropriate seasonal time of year. Sometimes I have crazy ideas like needing to make loads of snowflake decorations for the tree because it needs them

At other times I find myself wondering why I'm making a blanket or quilt in the heat of summer (though in Britain that's a rare feeling).

I guess overall, I am a seasonal crafter...I'm just not convinced it's because I choose to be.

 

Friday Update

Well there's no proper finished object today. It's been a very busy week as I have an assignment due on Wednesday and am trying to cram in a lot of studying that I didn't manage to get done over the Easter holidays. When one part of my life is totally hectic I tend to try and do something very relaxing in my crafting, so I've only worked on my hexagons this week.

I'm enjoying doing these as they're relaxing and it's a much slower pace than when I'm whizzing things through my machine! I've got 68 hexagons so far. I'd like to get to 100 before starting to sew them together. I want enough done so that I don't change my mind and decide to stop at a flower on a cushion or something.

I also need to buy thread before I can sew them together. I was hoping to get some today when I was in the city centre but the market didn't have the colour I wanted and the other shop has such bad lighting I couldn't tell the true colour of the thread so I'll maybe try to nip out somewhere else at the weekend.

Since the weather was so bad earlier this week I didn't really get out but it meant I got to do some crafting with Orla. She loves painting so I opened up a magnet painting set I bought a while ago for the kids. It's basically 10 small tiles, a set of paints and then some self adhesive magnets to stick to the back of the tiles once your paint has dried. She took quite a liking to the black paint so I have seven "black blob" tiles with a few prettier ones!

I love this one:

See that paper behind? Well that's Erin's certificate. She got a Bronze Award at school.

I got to go in this morning and watch her get her award at an assembly.

 

WIP: Bargello

So, I'm still working away on my Bargello quilt. It's actually going to be a wallhanging. We have a bit of wall above the stairs and I hope it'll hang on there.

I've now got the main part of the Bargello done. It (probably) needs some small borders and I need to decide on a colour for binding, as well as deciding how to quilt it. This is the bit I most struggle with. I'd love some swirly, loopy flowers on it to go with the flower print that's in it but I think that might be beyond my capabilities! I also don't really have the time to practice at the moment and I'd like this one finished soon so that I can hang it up.

I'm pleased with the overall look of it but some bits are horrendously wonky. At least above the stairs nobody will get close enough to see how bad some bits are!

 

Sneak Peek at my latest hand dyed yarn

So without revealing the givaway yarn, which is in these pics somewhere ;-) here is my latest batch of dyeing.

I tend to dye as and when the mood hits and of course I have to have the time to do it, which is why it is often sporadic. I have to dye once the kids are in bed or occasionally at a weekend by getting my husband to take them out. It's easiest when they're in bed though because my husband helps out by washing things up as I go along so it gets done much quicker.

Sometimes I choose the colours as I'm dyeing. I often think about what colours will go well together but sometimes when I get the dyes out to start making them up something else whooshes into my head and I go down a totally different route. That yarn above for example was going to be a black and yellow combination when I first got my dyes out.

The two yarns below were dyed in the slow cooker.

The yarn above is made using a splattering technique that gives a huge random mix of colours. I really like using this technique on sock yarn but decided to give it a try on something else this time.

I experimented a little on the next one

This one was dyed at the same time as the purple one above, in the slow cooker.

Something a little brighter

Another slow cooker one

 

FO: Quilted Placemat

It's quite a while since I spotted these lovely red and white fabrics at a stand exhibiting at the Great Northern Quilt Show in Harrogate but I couldn't resist them. They were small pieces (about 10" square) and I think I paid about £1.50 for a pack of 4 pieces.

I was planning on making something for Christmas with them. The stall I bought them from had joined strips of each fabric then cut triangles to make Christmas trees for placemats, etc. I was thinking of doing the same thing and making a table runner or tree skirt or similar. As it happened I just never got round to it and I've now used them for a square placemat to go under the fruit bowl.

I had a bit of a tidy up in the kitchen the other day. This involved moving all the cookbooks to the top of the dresser making space for the scales and fruit bowl and freeing up worktop space.

Here's a close up!

and one without the fruit bowl

The pattern is from A Passion For Patchwork, in fact it's the same as the cushion you can see on the bottom right of the cover. The book gives different dimensions to cut for a few different items.

FO: Hexagon Blanket, Granny Square & Spotty Cushion Covers

So I finally finished the Hexagon Blanket. I don't have accurate amounts for the yarn used because I started with leftovers from the granny ripple blanket. Basically I finished the leftovers and used 1 more ball of each colour, plus maybe half a ball to finish the border rounds.

The first 6 rounds of the hexagons were made in various combinations of lipstick, teal, grey & graphite Stylecraft Special DK. There are no repeated hexagons. Then each of the 39 hexagons had a final seventh round added in parchment, joining each as I went along. I then added the first border round in parchment. I couldn't quite decide what colour to use for the second border round but decided that the first parchement round didn't really look like a border, so I added the second border round in parchment too. I did then ponder adding a third round but decided against it, or rather my husband did.

So, we changed the cover on the sofa so that I could display the blanket nicely:

This gave me an idea of leaving it on the sofa. Of course it needed cushions...luckily I'd finished the granny square cushion cover by sewing three buttons on (that's been waiting a while because it's one of those 5 minute jobs you just never get round to).

And then I dashed into the kitchen to whizz up a couple of spotty cushion covers with the sewing machine. These only took about 20 minutes. They're made with Cath Kidston fabric that I've had for ages. I bought it when visiting the in-laws a few years ago. It had 25% off and I planned to make a bag with it but never got round to it. I am so glad I didn't because I think the cushions look fab! What do you think?

Crafting In Progress

When getting my stuff together for sewing group last night I pondered taking my crocheted cushion cover. All it needs is 3 buttons sewn on and it will be finished, but I decided against it as it really doesn't take long enough so I'd have had to take another project anyway and I'd rather not have too much stuff to take. So I'm going to share the picture of it with you anyway and you'll have to imagine it has buttons on to fasten it.

This is made from Rowan Handknit Cotton. I had to order more of it and luckily I had an Amazon voucher, so I ordered from the Deramores shop on there. It would have been cheaper to order direct from them because of discount vouchers floating around but I'd have had to part with actual cash and I was struggling to know what to spend my voucher on. I was really impressed to find a dispatched email in my inbox just half an hour later and the package arrived less than 24 hours after ordering. So a definite thumbs up from me!

Originally I was going to say how I wasn't very keen on the Rowan Handknit Cotton. I think I don't often use cotton yarns and so they feel odd in my hands when I do I find I tense up quite a lot when using them. Then I started making an Attic24 Happy Flower Decoration with the leftovers, a deep purple I ordered and some random balls of cotton/mostly cotton yarn I had in my yarn box. This is when I realised the Handknit Cotton is far nicer than other cottons. I'm still pondering whether to redo my flower without the pinky cotton as it seemed thinner than the others. I expect I'll end up just making more flowers and keep it anyway!

I still have the ends to weave in, the stalk/leaves to make and the additional bits but I just love the purples in it, which will go really well with the new colour in the living room. It was inspired by this one (check out the last picture)

Fairs, Festivals & Felting

Well first up is the stall pic from my last craft fair! We didn't sell much but plenty of people were interested in the products and took business cards. So many people commented that the felted soaps would make great Christmas presents.

The necklace I'm wearing was made for me by a lady on Cloth Nappy Addicts and that's what got me into felting. I did a course and now I'm hooked on it. More on that later...

This morning I got an interesting email. An eco festival that I'd enquired about have had a last minute cancellation and wanted to know if I could still do it. Well it's an hour and a half from where I live and a bit of a last minute rush but I'm going for it! It's at Lancaster Town Hall for anyone that's interested.

The other thing that's happened this week is I've booked to go on a felted bags course next Saturday. I'm really looking forward to it. Although I already wet felt, I haven't done it with a resist, so far I've only done scarfs, beads and that sort of thing. My daughter loves handbags, even though she's only 17 months old, so I'm hoping to make something for her on the day. Then I'll probably make myself a tester one before making some to sell.

Anyway, I can't really talk so much about felting without showing some pics!

This is a picture of one of the bracelets I've made. It's done by making a square with two layers of fibre (one of each colour). It's then wet with warm soapy water and rolled into a sausage shape. Then the sausage is rolled until it's felted. I then cut it to produce a number of swirly coloured beads.





I've also made a selection of wet felted beads and made a bracelet out of them. Each bead is rolled by hand. I added grey spots to the pink one by needle felting.













Finally, here is a picture of my felted soaps. The soaps were made by Mandy at Fizz 'n' Suds then wet felted by me.













You can find my soaps on my website Crafty 'n' Clothy or on my Folksy site.

Folksy

Folksy is the UK equivalent of Etsy. If you haven't heard of either, where have you been?????!!! Anyway, they're both sites showcasing and selling handmade products. So if you're fed up of the mass-produced stuff on our high streets and are looking for something a bit more unique then these are the sites to check out!



Click the pic above to view my store!

Eek! My house is being taken over...

by my craft stuff!

As if it wasn't enough to take up 3 huge shelves & a baby changing unit in the bedroom, a huge desk in the living room, a set of drawers in the kitchen and a big box in Erin's room, I've now got a huge set of shelves in the living room. They go either side of the sofa and will have 3 shelves above the sofa when Ikea get those back in stock. Now I just have to sort out all my craft bits onto the shelves, which is easier said than done.

At the same time, I'm trying to get ready for Eccleshill Art & Craft Fair this Saturday. I have soaps to felt and felted jewellery to finish. I'll also be taking along my eco-friendly toiletries, including organic virgin coconut oil, shea butter & african black soap - yummy goodiness!

Hope to see you there!