Random Crafty Photos

I'm continuing to sort through my old photos, and I've found a few random snaps that (for one reason or another) I don't think I ever included in a blog post... so I thought I'd share them now!

First up: a photo I took when I was working on my first book, Super-Cute Felt. Slightly messy/chaotic but lots of fun.

Another work in progress pic - sitting on the sofa crocheting my giant granny square blanket.

Me & a big pile of felt!

Sewing in the ends of one of the loop scarves I knitted for my sisters.

Sorting out some photos to hang in my studio...

... and making a list of frames to buy for yet more pictures (buying art = definitely one of my big weaknesses!)

Crates in my studio, full of fabric...

... and felt:

Plus (not crafty, but still colourful) a couple of snap from when I was sorting through all the stuff from my old kitchen, having a bit of a declutter and packing the rest up neatly to be stored until I have a place of my own again.

 I basically never need to buy another mug, bowl or storage jar ever again in my entire life :)

Cosy Sisters

I knitted scarves for my sisters this Christmas... 

They got a long loop scarf each, knitted from fluffy faux-mohair yarn. One in black, and one in cloudy-blue...

... (the blue scarf can be seen in-progress here). I also knitted a third one for myself in a bright peacock-ish green. It is very very cosy but a ridiculously difficult colour to photograph! 

Then the moss green cowl I was knitting for myself turned out to have too high a wool content for me to wear it happily (when will I learn?) so instead it ended up being two cowls, one for each sister :)

Works in Progress

I've started my sky blanket! So much fun. 

The weather is so changeable at the moment that the sky can look totally different within five minutes, so I'm looking out of the window / up at the sky at midday each day and using the weather at that moment as my guide for the day's colours. It's fascinating how many creative choices are involved in translating the English weather into a mere two colours.

I've been noting down my colour choices on my calendar (a pretty one I got free with the craft magazine Mollie Makes at the end of last year) so I can knit the squares in the evening, and (most importantly) keep track of what square matches what day so I'll sew them together in the right order!

I'm definitely in the mood for knitting at the moment. I'm still quite tired after the busy Christmas season, and am spending my evenings curled up on the sofa watching lots of TV and doing some simple knitting. 

My current project is a black scarf - basic garter stitch on big chunky needles, using one strand of soft faux-mohair yarn. Black is always a pain to work with in bad light, but this is so easy to knit that I barely need to look at it (bonus: I can read the subtitles while watching Borgen and still keep knitting, hurrah!) It's very light and fluffy, and quite wide but I'm not sure how long it will end up being yet.

Work-wise I'm mostly doing admin at the moment (yawn), but I have made a start on the slow process of getting restocked after Christmas - beginning with a pile of poppy brooches.

I've also been making some progress on those knitted cushion covers.

The new one is almost finished (all the squares sewn together, all the ends woven in). The two older ones (the pink and the blue) also needed a bit of work as when I first made them I rather short-sightedly stitched the cushion inserts inside them without any way of removing the covers for washing... They've now been unpicked & washed, and all three covers are getting a row of little snap fasteners along one edge so they can easily be removed in the future.

As if I hadn't already sewn in enough yarn ends this week (oh my gosh, so many bits of yarn), I've started sewing in the ends of this stripe-y something that was lurking in my WIP box...

 ... and I've come up with a project for using six of the remaining eight blanket squares leftover from making the knitted cushions. I'm sewing them together in matching pairs...

... then lining them in matching acrylic felt and adding a mini zip...

... to make little coin purses. I've just finished one so far, it was a bit of a "don't measure or plan, just sort of wing it" job, but it turned out quite nicely and the end result is pretty darn cute if I do say so myself. I popped a few of my business cards in this one to add a sense of scale for the photo, but when they're finished the three purses are destined to be gifts for my two sisters and for my mum (who, of course, will get first dibs). 

Now I just need to come up with a plan for the final two non-matching squares. Hmm...

Last Minute Crafting

I'll be keeping my shops open during the next few weeks, and posting parcels when I can (i.e. when my local P.O. is open).

I'm going to be doing my best to keep my working hours to a minimum though, and to generally try hard to wind down and chill out after the busy pre-Christmas selling season. After weeks of rushing to meet posting deadlines and working long hours packing parcels, sewing and replying to emails, it will be very nice to just relax in front of some festive telly... with my knitting, of course!

I've got a few last minute Christmas gifts to finish knitting and stitching, and I've also started knitting a cosy cowl for myself from some skeins of lovely soft yarn I bought earlier this year:

The yarn varies in thickness and is a blend of mossy greens, with a thread of gold running through it. I've never made a cowl before but am just winging it and hoping for the best :)

Photos from a Busy Week

The Christmas posting deadline for UK orders is looming ... please place your order by the end of this weekend if you want your parcel posted before the last posting date!

The last few days of the pre-Christmas season are always pretty hectic. I've kept meaning to blog but kept forgetting - or forgetting to charge my camera batteries / take photos when it was sunny / etc.

So, here are a few catch-up snaps from this week :)

I've been using a yummy new tin to store my current works-in-progress:

It's shaped like a giant bourbon biscuit... I didn't get to eat the biscuits that were inside it originally, but my mum remembered that I had the matching giant custard cream tin and saved the bourbon biccie tin for me. What a star.

Also very yummy - some Charley Harper goodies I treated myself to this week. I saw the gorgeous gift wrap over on What Katie Does and just had to buy some for myself... and couldn't resist buying a few more Charley Harper bits & pieces from Fred Aldous while I was at it. A girl can never have too many things with Charley Harper birds on, right?? 

Talking of What Katie Does, I am rather in love with her new Tea & Books themed print:

The print is available from her Etsy shop, HERE. I may have just ordered one for my new studio...

A nice bit of surprise post arrived yesterday from the nice people at Folksy - a copy of their winter sampler, a mini newspaper with news from Folksy and a gift guide of some of the lovely handmade things for sale on the site.

They also included a rather lovely knitting-themed postcard... I don't know who designed it, but it's quite gorgeous and perfectly suits their new "Modern British Craft" tagline. 

In crafty news, I've made a start on sorting out the pieces for the vintage felt bird ornaments ready for some Christmas crafting... 

... and I've started knitting a very soft and fluffy scarf from some fun faux-mohair yarn:

I bought a whole bundle of this fluffy yarn at my old knitting club's fundraising yarn sale this summer. I didn't have a plan for what I might make with it, but it turns out that two strands knitted together makes a fab chunky knit that's perfect for scarves... plus knitting on those large needles is so quick and easy, it's such a satisfying project for the winter evenings. 

Right, I'm off to eat some home-made mince pies now (my dad bakes a mean mince pie) and do some more knitting...

October Crafting

I'm still in the process of moving house, so things have been a bit quiet on the crafty front this month - not least because most of my craft supplies are packed up in boxes.

I have been doing a little bit of knitting.... well, unravelling and re-knitting!

My mum started knitting this scarf (from some yarn which my sister bought when she briefly attempted to take up knitting) but she unfortunately has had to give up knitting due to problems with her joints, so she asked me to finish it. Our tension is so different that I couldn't just pick up where she left off, and it turned into one of those jobs you keep meaning to do but never get round to, sitting in my knitting stash for many months.

I finally unravelled it a few weeks ago and have been knitting it gradually in the evenings while watching TV. The yarn is lovely and soft and cosy, and the simple rib knit is a perfect switch-off-your-brain soothing project.

I've also been making some festive thankyou cards to send with my shop orders, using the cute mini snowflake stamps I bought from MUJI last year. I've actually run out of my normal thankyou notes at the moment, so I've had to break into the snowflake ones already... well, it's almost winter, right?

In other news, my shop got a nice little mention in CrossStitcher magazine this month:

(Unfortunately there was a bit of a mix-up about my prices... the Goldfinch Brooch is £15, but the 10 felt squares are £5.50 not £2.99 and the 6 mini embroidery hoops are £8 not £5.50)

I've never bought a cross stitch magazine before, but I am totally in love with this one!

It has even inspired me to get my pad of graph paper out and start designing a little something stitchy of my own... but pics of that will have to wait for another day :)

A Cosy Scarf

Brr, it's getting chilly! Time to dig out all my scarves and other knitted things... including this super-soft and super-chunky scarf I knitted in the summer.


The yarn was so thick I kept having to unravel it and start again with fewer stitches as the resulting scarf was just so huge - the finished scarf is a mere 10 stitches across!

I just need to find a darning needle with an eye big enough for that thick yarn and then it'll be perfect for keeping out the autumn chill.