Baby Murloc

I finally got around to finishing this hoop picture for my eldest boy yesterday. Its a creature called a murloc from the game World Of Warcraft, his favourite on line game. I'm always a bit stuck as what to make for him as he has no interest what so ever in crafty stuff unlike my other two children who are always asking me to make something for them so I thought I'd make something based on his hobbies which at the moment only seem to be sports and playing WoW.

Finished Projects

At the moment I'm trying to get around to finishing off some projects which have been hanging about before I start on Christmassy stuff.

I'd been asked by one of the ladies who run the playgroup Little L used to attend if I would knit some dolls clothes for them if they supplied the wool. Two sets of clothes were knitted, a blanket crocheted and a quilt and pillow made while I was making one for Little L. These were dropped off to the playgroup yesterday.

This embroidery was finished off.

It was going to be a bag when I first started but now I can't make my mind up if I should put it on a pillow instead.

When Caleb saw this pattern he thought it was hilarious and asked me to make him some so I stitched some on to felt and added shirring elastic.

Both of the patterns are from  Sublime Stitching . The top one is called Many Mountains and the moustache pattern is a freebie.

A Wander Through The Forest

Hello

I've not been able to get around to posting lately due to a succession of bugs doing the rounds in this house for the past month, colds, sore throats, sickness bugs. At the moment I'm constantly checking Little L for spots as her friend at school was sent home with chicken pox last week but other than that everyone here appears to be back to normal.

Last month before all the illnesses started my husband past his driving test. He has had his motorbike licence for 17 years which meant that he didn't have to sit for the theory test. He only found this out when he tried to book the test after practising theory tests for weeks on the PC. Considering the site for booking the test is government run you would think that this information would be stated somewhere.

Our first trip out was to Delamere Forest which is only about 10 miles away from us. We have been on train before with the boys but it was a new place to Little L. She was really excited before we went but that was because she thought we might see a Gruffalo (her favourite book) and wanted to take some biscuits to coax one out.

No Gruffalo were spotted but plenty of these dens were found made from branches and fern leaves. This one was the largest that the children found.

Lots of different fungi were found.

Caleb (my youngest boy has decided that he doesn't like being called youngest boy or son and told me to just use his name) spotted this one growing on a tree trunk in a bog. He said that he thought it looked like a prawn cracker.

When we were ready for home, all strapped in the car, my husband started patting his pockets and looked a bit panicky. When he had put all our things in the boot, he had put his jacket in there with the car keys in the pocket. So there we were parked up, no mobile, everything in the boot. It's a good job that we don't live too far from the forest. My father in law came to the rescue with some tools to remove a back speaker and from there was able to rummage around in my husbands jacket for the keys.

Quite an eventful first trip out.

Acorn Garland

Last night I felt it was time for a garland change and made this one using an acorn garland tutorial which I saw on A Beautiful Mess blog.

The tutorial uses sticky back vinyl for the wood effect but I thought I'd try using these old sample books instead. I was a bit doubtful of the glue I use working because the samples are plastic but they seem to have held fine and nobody has been hit on the head by a falling acorn so far.

Disclaimer Added

I don't know if anyone has noticed that this blog has never had a disclaimer before but I have had to pop one on. The reason I hadn't put one on before is because everybody knows that I don't sell anything that I make so I never minded if people wanted to use any of my free designs to make things for craft fairs, etc. In light of recent events regarding one of my designs I have been advised to include a disclaimer on this blog. I'm sorry that I have had to do this.

WIP's

My morning has been spent crawling around the floor attaching a binding to this quilt then pinning the batting and backing on. I'm finding this kind of thing far more easier now that Little L is in school as if she sees anything blankety or cover like spread on the floor, she seems to have an uncontrollable urge to crawl underneath it or roll herself up in it. Not ideal especially when I need to work with pins. All that needs doing now is to hand quilt it then sew the binding on to the back. Having never hand quilted before though, I don't know how long it will take me.

Another thing I'm working on is a knitted golly wog from the above pattern. This is for my Mum who loves golly wogs but has never had one. At the moment the pieces I have knit are looking out of proportion, the head looks too small compared to the body and the feet are tiny. Having never made a golly wog before I don't know if this is how they are meant to be or if it is because I am using an old pattern. I'll just have to see how it turns out.

These are two projects which have been hanging around for months and I have not got round to finishing yet. I'm finding the transfer on the embroidery too faint for me to see at night with our appalling lights and I can't seem to get the legs right on the creature.

I am also waiting for a delivery of some wool to start on making some Christmas presents

Creature Keyrings

As soon as I saw these Aimee Ray mythical creature patterns I knew that Little L would love them as key rings. All the children who have started school this year put key rings on their book bags so they can recognise their own bag more easily. At the moment Little L's is a felt bird which I made and her new best friend has taken a shine to it and wants to do a swap so after buying the pattern I set about making one for each of them.

 Little L chose the jackalope and I made the dragon for her friend.

Now that Little L has seen the finished dragon she has decided that she wants one in a different colour so I might be making key rings for a while yet.