Friday 30 November 2012

I might be a little bit in love

with hand embroidery....

Seriously! It's awesome, get yourself a hoop, some thread and go go go. I'm in a little gift exchange with some pretty lovely friends of mine, we have a very close affinity with squirrels and I found this fabric which I am in the middle of embellishing with hand embroidery.





 I love it, like totally love it. I can envisage myself doing this for years, until my eyesight fails and my hands are too arthritic to use a needle. Of course I will be curled up under some crocheted blankets by a real log fire.

Christmas is here pretty much, I need to dig out the mini stocking advent calender I made a couple of years age and find some gold coins to go in it. I love it when the house starts to get all decorated and festive. I haven't been able to find an advent candle this years so far, I'll have to look this weekend and hope that there's one out there. I love advent and everything that goes along with it, we thought about going to the Advent service at our nearest cathedral, but I think the children are just a little bit too young. Maybe in a couple of years. 

I was checking the fabric stash in the week and found a fat quarter bundle I'd bought last January, I have always wanted some Christmas bunting in the conservatory and this time I think I've finally got the size of flags right, (nb. LOVE my rotary cutter and mat!). I think I'll make some more soon, it's so satisfying.


We have a rope  light all round the conservatory in a little groove thing. I think it looks lovely reflecting off the roof :o)



Sunday 18 November 2012

What to do when your yarn takes over the lounge

Well, that's the question I pondered last week as I looked down the side of my chair and saw LOTS of woolly goodness. My husband was getting slightly alarmed at the mess (and probably the amount of yarn I seem to have acquired) so I thought I ought to do something about storage. Most of it is yarn in use, or yarn have just finished with so it's kind of separate from the main yarn box (I'm not painting my yarn stash hoarding habits in a good light here am I?). A quick browse on Pinterest and  found it, the perfect yarn box. I delved in my fabric stash (fairly large, but not in a room take over kind of way)  and whizzed up this little beauty. It matches my project bag too - Hurrah for IKEA Rosali fabric and it's yummy floral cheapness!


The tutorial I used to make it can be found here. My box is 10 inches square, it's so easy and obviously I need to make another one judging by the picture!

In hooky news I have been making a couple of Owl hats for customers, this is one of my favourites. I love the sleepy eyed look and loooong beak!

And I finally finished Alice's hummingbird longies, they look lovely knitted up and she wore them to a party last week (pre-lanolising) so they've already been out in public.

I'm also part way through a Mystery knit-a-long on Ravelry. It's being done through this group and s by designer Elena Nodel. She has designed some beautiful things, I particularly love Wild Vanilla. I think one of those will be perfect for Miss Alice in the spring! Here's a picture of the MKAL so far after clue 3!


Tuesday 6 November 2012

More Hoopla

I've started Alice's hoopy thingy for her newly decorated bedroom. I think it's going to be lovely (but I may be slightly bias). She has owl wallpaper on one wall so I took inspiration from that (for inspiration read traced) and decided to do the main bit in felt, and some little embellishments in hand embroidery. I really need to learn some embroidery stitches, so this will be my project for doing that!

This whole site has some pretty comprehensive tutorials on it, so I think I'll use that as my reference and generally wing it.

Alice's Hummingbird longies are knitting up nicely too, the pooling could be better, but part of what I love about variegated wool is that you never really know how it's going to knit up.

There's a group on Ravelry for pooled knits, some of the examples are amazing. Some are not so, but really, what's not to love about anything hand knitted? Oh, you need to see the Ugliest FO thread!  Hobby craft have 3 for 2 on all their yarns at the moment, with that in mind I just bought some Sirdar Click to join in a Mystery KAL on Ravelry, hopefully it'll look nice. With my 2 free balls I bought some Click Chunky, I might make a hat for me with it, what do you think of Capucine?


Anyway, best get my craft on!

Saturday 3 November 2012

Hurray for Hoopla

I am a little bit obsessed with hoopla these days. For those of you who don't know what hoopla is you are in for a TREAT! You know those wooden embroidery hoops? Well, take those hoops, mix them with quality fabrics, cute designs and hand embroidery and you pretty much have hoopla.

I just started following a million hoopla boards on Pinterest, look at this one - awesome, non?


I'm desperate to do one for Alice's bedroom, she has Owl wallpaper and if you've looked at my Pinterest recently you'll have seen a million pins for her room, there might be a few over there on the sidebar --->> (love being able to put my Pinterest feed her on the blog, tres handy)

There's a lovely one here on Etsy that I like, but I want something more. I think I need some embroidered lettering too, I'm not sure what though. I'll keep you all updated with what I decide though (I do know the backing will be a pink gingham!) and I hope you get bitten by the hoopla bug too, I surely can't be alone in that?!

In the meantime, I've been knitting up some super cheap Red Heart yarn I got from Sainsbury's, it was reduced to about £1.30/100g and 3 balls has made a tunic for Alice and a teeny tiny Granny Square blanket (it won't stay that way, I just need to buy more!). 

Next on the list is some more longies for Alice using some gorgeous yarn I got from Jill at Knittybots. I gave her this picture and this is the yarn she dyed me

I've done a couple of full circle skirties recently too. One for a friends rainbow baby's 1st birthday, and the other a jo.knit.sew customer. I've been really please with how they turned out, particularly as I improvised the pattern. 



For now.....get your craft on!