My Crafty Year

As 2010 is nearly reached its end I thought that I would look back at the things I had been doing craft wise this year.

1) Crochet seemed to have been my main crafty outlet this year and especially appeared to have a love of making blankets.

2) I learnt how to make an embroidery transfer and even made my own pattern up. Fair enough its no Picasso but as a first attempt I was feeling quite chuffed with myself.

3) I discovered Amigurumi. Having never used crochet to make any toys before, I was soon hooked.

4) I learnt how to read a Japanese crochet pattern.  Having only used UK and US crochet patterns ( written format ) before I was slightly daunted when I first looked at a diagram pattern but it was easy peasey and I soon started whizzing through them.

5) I discovered Ravelry. A free online community site for knitters and crocheters. I could spent hours on there just looking at all the patterns available.

6) My first patchwork quilt was made. Abet a very small one for Little L's dolls cot but I still managed one

7) A wealth of information was found when I discovered a world of crafty blogs. I stumbled on these blogs while I was looking for a craft tutorial one day. I now follow about 60 but not all craft related, some for recipes and some just nice every day ramblings.

For my next crafty year I suppose I will be just going with whatever takes my fancy at the time but one thing I do want and desperately need to do is to organise all my craft things. They are all over the house. In the living room, on the landing, under the bed. As you can imagine this can be a bit inconvenient especially when the children are in bed and I am rummaging around the rooms at night so this is a 'must do' thing.

Just In Time ..

We bought this old cot with the intentions of renovating for Little L for Christmas. This was an absolute age ago and it has only just been finished off tonight. It was left so late as besides a new paint job the only other thing that needed doing was one of the brackets to hold the drop side up was missing so needed replacing . I thought that could easily remedied by a quick trip to B & Q for a bracket but it turned out there was nothing similar there. Luckily I have a very clever husband who made some for it. So after being repainted, I used a Farrow & Hall paint - Pink Ground, it was ready for the lovely original 50's decals that I had found. This did not turn out as expected either as when I tried to remove the backing paper, very carefully, they just came away in bits. With us leaving it till the last minute and the Christmas deliveries being how they are, there was just no chance of getting any more until after the holidays.

Before

After

The mattress was made by cutting a piece of foam to size and covering with calico. I made the sheets and pillow from an old flannelette cot sheet, the pillow case was embroidered and prettied with a crochet edge,I then made a crochet blanket and my first ever patchwork quilt. 

I'm sure Little L will be as pleased as punch when she wakes on Christmas day and receives this cot  to put her baba's in.

A Happy 36th Birthday ...

.. not mine unfortunately. Mine whizzed by a few years ago but my wonderful little sis has turned 36 today.Here she is ALOT younger, posing again .. hehe.

As part of her pressie from us I made her a blankie. On one of her visits she sat on my sofa and covered herself with Little L's blanket, told me how comfy it was and said ' you could just go to sleep under this '. The next minute she was snoozing away. I have gotten used to Jay just dropping off ( she does get up at unheard of hours every day to walk the dogs ).Little L just stared at her, not knowing what to make of the sleeping blankie thief.

Happy Birthday Sleeping Beauty - my lovely little sis x

New Crafty Books

These tatting books were given to me by my friend Jo who ended up with them herself when she was given a pile of cross stitch books. Jo had no interest in them so sent them my way. I've never had a go at tatting so it will be something new for me to try in the new year.

Thank you again Jo and to my friends and family who think of my crafty ways when they send me buttons, wool, felt, etc and anything else they think I may like. x

 

Feeling Christmassy

It doesn't feel as though Christmas will soon be upon here at the moment but I think that is just because we haven't put the tree or decorations up yet so I decided to start the Christmassy feeling off with some seasonal tunes and paper chain making. I discovered that Little L does not care much for Nat King Cole or Bing Crosby. She likes something a little more upbeat. Also I found out that the strips of paper for making paper chains these days have changed since I made them with the boys. They have glue ! . No more waiting for the gallons of slobber to dry then bodge them up with sellotape.

In the afternoon I rustled these up for my mum. Last week my mum had been to a garden centre (she haunts the places at Christmas, drawn to all the lights and decorations) and told me about some little felt trees she had seen. She told me that they were plain felt and just glued together. Now I know she was a bit disgusted at the prices charged for these thrown together items but I don't know if it was also a hint for me to make some or not .. so I made her some anyway. Just hope mine don't get the comments that the offensive little trees in the garden centre did.

For theses I cut out 2 tree shapes with pinking shears and used straight stitch round the edges inserting a small length of ribbon at the top for a loop and a piece of brown felt at the bottom. When I had nearly reached the end, I pushed in a small amount of stuffing. I then sewed on tiny buttons for baubles

Crochet Foodie Thingies

Since last week I have been stuck into my Twinkie Chan book. The patterns are clearly written and easy to follow. First, I made these Strawberry Mitts which I kept for myself,

 the Cupcake Hat for my niece which I'm glad to hear she loves,

then the Cookie Scarf featured on the cover. I decided to make the chocolate chips on the scarf by making french knots instead of sticking on little poms poms as in the book then thought the back of the scarf looked messy so I made more cookie bases and slip stitched together on the last round. While this looks tidier it has made the scarf quite bulky so I'm hoping with a wash and a few wears that it will lose some of the chunkiness.

I'm making some more mitts from the book at the moment and I don't know if the boys were embarrassed or just amused when I pulled my hook and wool from my handbag today while waiting for their orthodontist appointment. We are always in there for quite some time and I managed to crochet one and half cuffs for my mitts. Beats reading magazines which are about 12 months out of date ( and they are the recent ones ).