Bibble bobble

Evening folks

Since my crochet escapade with the birdie decoration, which some of you eagle eyed viewers (see what I did there) may have seen on Create and Craft's "knit and natter" with Hayley West and Loen Love, I have done a bit of knitting before having a bit more of a practice with crochet.

I may have mentioned before that I am a huge fan of charity shops.  Whilst I was having a browse during my "can I leave the house for more than an hour without needing to sleep all of the following day" expedition last week I found 3 balls of pom pom yarn for 99p.   So I decided to knit something with it.  A cushion, thought I.  And not being sure how many stitches to cast on, or how big it would end up or how far the yarn would go, I cast on about 30 stitches (16 pompoms) and carried on in garter stitch (knitting - as opposed to purling, each row).   It took 2 balls before the sample was about 12" square.   And looked the same from either side.Which left me with a very small cushion front and and only one ball left.

So I had a bit of a think, and whilst watching Jonathan Ross on Saturday evening, I knitted the other ball into a scarf.  Nearly.  Made a mistake whilst casting off and the whole thing got a ladder right down the middle.   So I unrun/unran it, and started again.    and then changed my mind and decided I'd try making a cushion back but obviously I couldn't do it exactly the same as the front as I only had one ball of yarn.     So I did it on bigger needles and did stocking stitch, so rather than be the same on both sides it's a lot looser and flat on the back.

But I couldn't get a cushion pad small enough so bought a cheap 18" one and just shoved it in.  So the cushion is stuffed to overflowing.  But looks reasonable enough.

It's actually supposed to be the other way round, but I though it looked better like this.

I would like to have another go, but until I get round to buying some more of the pompom yarn, I am continuing with crochet practice.    I am just doing rows, and rows, and rows, of treble crochet (which for our US cousins I believe is double crochet) until I reach the end of the 100g ball of aran.   I'm hoping it will be long enough to form into some sort of cowl type thing.   but I don't think it will be so I might have to put some sort of experimental border on it and maybe some flowers and turn it into something pretty.

Or maybe a corset!


Later folks
xxx

Another attempt at crochet

evening folks
One of my work pals goes to a craft group on a Tuesday evening and every so often she will show me what she's been up to.  They are currently crocheting.   My pal is even more of a learner at crochet than me, so when she asked for my help in doing a circle I tried my best, but have to admit I wasn't much use.   The lunch that we discussed crochet over was nice though.

Apparently her crochet mentor had thought that she would be best off trying a circle as she didn'st seem to be able to get her head round working crochet in rows.  And to encourage her she told her about a rather fabulous blog, which was new to me but apparently very well renowned in crochet blogging circles.  And I can see why.  It's called Attic24 and written by a Mum called Lucy.  Not only does she produce inspiring work, she is a very good blogger as well.   The project my pal is working on is called "Birdie Decoration" and I think it's absolutely adorable.

The same day as our lunch I thought I'd give a circle a go.  Never done one, but how hard could it be?????   Well.  I have to admit that it wasn't as easy as it looked, but I'm a knitter not a crocheter.  I can make up a dishcloth by doing some sort of design that may or may not be an official crochet stitch but ended up kinda square.  But following a pattern when I don't know what the stitches are is a different thing altogether.

Anyway, I did a circle (albeit not completely circular) and left it at that, thinking I'd help my pal out the next time I saw her.  Unfortunately, my cold developed into acute sinusitis, and have not yet returned to work.   And then she asked me if I wanted to go to her Crafty group, just to get me out of the house for an hour or so.  So I went.  And I took my spectacular circular effort.

And she made me finish it -  so here is the finished birdie.  not as great as Lucy's but her's is rather marvellous.

Methinks I need a bit more practise. 

To aid me in this endeavour I have ordered myself some crochet hooks (bog standard ordinary ones).  And whilst I was at it I ordered myself some sock needles (Symfonie ones at that)

Later folks

xxx

Don't make me shout

Well here I am, been home from work sick for nearly 2 weeks.  The second time sick since Christmas, and in fact, if you include my Christmas leave I've only been in work for about 3 weeks since November.  And my 2 hit cold has developed into acute sinusitis, so I now have antibiotics and a nasal spray, to go with my paracetamol, antidepressants and anticonvulsants.  Yes, I am a walking pharmacy.

And it's as much as I can do to stay awake all day, but on Sunday I did manage to have a bit of a play, having been inspired by the marvellous Barbara Gray of Clarity stamps on create and craft.  If you haven't seen her work, or if you haven't seen her new website, go have a look. 

I copied a card she did on the show, and although I forgot to add a bit, I'm very pleased with the result.

I used the Clarity flower frame stamp and the mini pansy.  I used flexmarkers to colour them in.

later folks

xxx

FREE PROMARKERS

Well, not quite, but an opportunity to win some.   You need to follow this link to find out how.   And what's more they are the new limited edition ones.   So go on, you know you want to.   But if you don't want to, then it gives me more of an opportunity

Later folks

xxx

New online store

One of my favourite digi artists around is Beccy Muir from Beccy's place.   Until now she has been generosity itself and her images have been free.  Now she has finally come to her senses and is opening and online store, which is due to open within the next few hours.   If you haven't seen her work go check her out here



And  here's the link to her new store

2 cards

Just a quickie this morning to say I've nearly got my crafting mojo back.

I've joined the PolkaDoodleDandies FB group and we had a challenge to use the sketch that Nikky Hall had done specifically for the group in a project.   I've had a Grand calibur for a little while but not really used it for one reason and another.   I don't have hundreds of dies but I do have Labels 1 in both normal nestie size and grand nestie size.   So after I'd done some colouring I dug out some papers I just happened to have lying around and used various sizes to produce the following

Thee background to the top image is coloured in using linen flexmarker, then I coloured over the top using the focus colours.  A little bit of decoupage going on as well.

Most of the papers used were double sided and I cut the middle bit out of one of the layers to use on another card.   But I didn't know what to do with it.  Now given that my sister had given me some Core-dination card from Crafter's Companion for Christmas and I had not used it I thought I'd have a bit of an experiment.  So using an Impressability stencil and the GC I produce some background paper, and doing the whole sanding down thing made it look quite nice.    So I now had the background prepared, but needed a bit of a focus, so decided I wanted to have a watercolour "something".    So pulled out a stamp (Popcorn the Bear) and my Whispers watercolour pens and had a go.    I'm not entirely happy with the end result, but it's it's passable.

And here it is.

Later folks

xxx



6 weeks or so

I think it's been about 6 weeks since I last did a blog entry, and I've not been very productive in that time, in terms of crafting, but I have done some other stuff.    I'm the first to admit that I'm a bit slovenly around the house, some of this is due to depression, some is down to not having any energy at the end of the working day/week, and some of it's down to pure laziness.  But for some reason, just before Christmas I looked at the house and thought "how the heck have I let it get this bad"  Fortunately I had some time off over the Christmas period and spent nearly all of it scrubbing the ensuite and kitchen.  The rest of this year will be spent maintaining that and trying to do a bit more so that by next Christmas all I'll have to do is flick a duster round and it will be presentable for visitors.

There would be a picture of the nice clean kitchen here, but I've just remembered I took it on my phone, so it's not saved on my laptop.

But what is stored are my photos of my first garden project of 2012 - the shed. 

I didn't actually put the shed up myself, but I did clear the shed base, chop down the tree and assemble the shelves.

i've also decided to start scrapbooking my garden adventure, but haven't started it yet.  I have printed the pictures out, so maybe next weekend.

later folks

xxx