Bought a pure cotton throw in the sales; plain off-white. Crocheted and stitched on a few flowers and gave it a bit of a lift. It will be a Christmas present, along with some soft cotton socks with crochet flowers up the side.
Finished the Little Granny Squares Baby Blanket. Ninety-nine squares, stitched together. Three border rows. Tails all woven in.
All done.
A quick snap of it. Will take a better pic of it when it’s brighter; very dark day, today.
Have got a guy in fixing a leaking pressure vessel in the boiler so am having to clear out shelves of the hot presses so he has access to various valves and drain the system.
Am on hyper alert. Stranger danger. Leaving husband to do all the interaction/communication otherwise I go straight into throw up walls of words gabbling OMG-sort of on my own with man (if husband in different room).
Hopefully, a quickish job so I can relax.
But, totally delighted with myself for finishing the blanket. It’s taken several months (on and off) and been on the floor, been slept on by Charlie and handled regularly so will give it a wash in a gentle laundry liquid and block it out to dry.
But, hey, girl, you bloody did it. Big pat on the back.
Usual run up to Christmas busyness. Most of the decorations are up, except for those with battery lights. Remembered to get some yesterday so just need to go through them and replace the old ones now. Am thinking of the winter solstice and having a bit of a feast and lights to celebrate the beginning of the new cycle of rebirth, the coming of the longer days.
Cake is marzipanned. Have got most of the Christmas dinner pre-prepared ready to heat up on the day. Am making stuffing balls from scratch today – a Mary Berry Biker Boots recipe (so named after mis-reading something about her) and will freeze them.
Finished my winter hare with her gift bag. She’s in place of a stocking for me. Absolutely loved making her.
Have modded the template slightly and made a smaller version:
Her little wooly jumper is crocheted from sequinned yarn.
Got two more ready to sew plus new clothes. I was lucky with a couple of charity shop trawls that found me some lovely dresses with sparkly sequinned tulles over ‘satin’ linings. The lining is great for making pantaloons and knickerbockers. One had a feather trim used for the feather hat above. Loads left. Of everything.
Also working out a crochet pattern to make a ballet wrap cardi (sadly using the last of my souki gold dust yarn – discontinued and can’t get old stock for love nor money) and a big flouncy tutu to set it all off.
Something I’ve not been able to get hold of are the wooden and hardboard boxes of easy peelers… they lend themselves to becoming a beautiful beds for winter hares with space around for small pretty packages. It’s become a bit of a mission to find then transform one.
Managed to finish off the baby blanket and hat for the local animal shelter charity shop. The pattern was fab. It was full of bobbles, shells and Biba windows (that’s my name for them cos they very loosely remind me of the Biba logo:
(bloody Foxtrot Oscar autocorrect… Biba to Boba twice now!)
When you’re crocheting biggish projects, a little variety in the stitches keeps it interesting and this pattern had that. The shop wants it after Christmas to put on their FB auction.
Even bought a gorgeous gift bag to sell it in; sets it off beautifully:
Who wouldn’t want to welcome a new baby with a ‘Guess How Much I Love You’ gift bag? Perfect.
My biggest happy moment recently was finding the Dr Marten brogues that Amazon cancelled the night before they were due to be delivered. Not from Amazon, obviously, but the DM shop itself. Not only were they in stock but cheaper and arriving on Monday. Marvellous. Really made up about that.
Challenging myself to make gingerbread and decorate with royal icing in time for the last wild and wooly meeting of the year. It’s just making the time to get down to it. I have the ingredients and adore the spicy smells in the kitchen while it’s being cooked. Delicious, warm and aromatic.
So, apart from the gingerbread, the Mary Berry Biker Boots stuffing and wrapping Monday’s brogues (can hardly wait to do that) pretty much everything that can be prepared early is done.
Looking forward to the solstice then Christmas Day.
I did. Got a Black Friday deal on the Adobe suite and am back in the Adobe fold. Sadly, There were tools that Affinity just didn’t have that clinched the decision. It’s still a great app and still does some things that beats the pants off Illustrator but it’s just not there yet. One thing Affinity does (at least for now…) is sell full programmes rather than subscriptions so the Affinity suite is still installed and can be used for its strengths when needed.
Christmas Hare
My Christmas fairy Harey is finished and looking sparkly and glam.
She’s instead of a stocking – see the gift bag? Apparently, there is something small but lovely for me for Christmas…. oooh! Don’t you just love waiting for the big day??!
Amazon … bleh. Ordered a pair of Dr Marten brogues (weirdly described as trainers) for Himself a couple of months ago. Despite not being available until between Nov 22 to 29, Amazon took full payment. Queried this as it wasn’t their normal practice but apparently, IS their new normal now. Okey Dokey.
But, come the evening of the Nov 21st, Amazon say they shoes can’t be shipped and they’ve cancelled the order. Got a refund a day or so later so no money lost. Just not a great customer experience and pi**ed off cos the shoes are gorgeous and would have made a brilliant present.
Fairy
Back to fairyland. As always, having made one, better ways of doing some things became apparent so have modified the template and am making a smaller one as a tree dec to trial my ‘improvements’. Making the first one was actually a lot of fun and really enjoyed it.
Can’t believe Christmas is just a few weeks away. We’re putting the tree up on the first and looking forward to decorating with some gorgeous new decorations. The Animal Shelter bazaar is this Sunday, as well, so will be attending.
Baby Blanket and Hat
The crocheted baby blanket is some seven rows from the finish. Matching baby hat is ready, complete with pom-pom. This is for the animal shelter bazaar if I can just get on with it but am being pulled In a few different directions at the moment. Fingers crossed. If not, they’ll auction it on their Facebook page before Christmas.
TK Maxx had some adorable ‘Guess how much I love you’ gift bags and I already had matching tissue paper just perfect for the baby blanket. Will make a lovely present for a new mum and baby for Christmas.
The Moffymakes Etsy shop is not getting a tickle or a tit. Not an admirer, let alone a sale. The high prices might be off-putting but the yarn is very expensive. The baby blanket being donated to the shelter is much, much cheaper.
Do I care? Not really. Am as stressed as Charlie about it:
Gracie is nearly as upset:
Anyway, the time to marzipan the cake is near! The cake smells very heady and alcoholic…lush! Christmas is wonderful and am excited, as usual, for its coming.
And all is good.
Christmas is looming and still gives me thrills. So, am loving all things Christmas related. There are two Christmas cakes (fruity fruity!) being given a weekly dose of brandy feed in the traditional poke-it-with-a-knitting-needle-and-pour-a-good-capful-of-brandy-all-over-the-top kind of way. The plan is to keep one for Easter but we’ll see how that goes.
Also making a Tilda hare Christmas angel. Tilda hares are my favourite Tilda make. Made a few some year’s back so am giving one a makeover and making a new one.
Gathering shiny trimmings is glorious. Amazon delivered a spool of white Tulle; plan is to make a tutu gathered around the tulle rose trim in the pic. Amazon also delivered a spool of really shiny gold metallic twine. Thinking about potential with the sewing machine cording foot on the wings.
Stuffed and ready for stitching together.
Using haemostats to grip and push the stuffing into the little spaces makes the tedious job of stuffing a little less laborious and boring.
Last Christmas I got a box of wool felt pieces, perfect to cut some wings from. Tried out a few ideas… metallic thread with inbuilt decorative stitches (hard to follow a path as the stitches are somewhat unpredictable (as in the needle moves forward, forward, back, side, middle, other side, middle, forward, forward or some other variation). Tried the cording foot with some gold thread. Tried Angelina Fibre. Not hugely happy with the results:
Have some other ideas to have a go at… and more felt… so will maybe have a play later today.
Have been busy with other things that have gone much better. Made this little fella for the local Shoebox Appeal:
Sweet little fella! Hope some little one somewhere loves him to bits when he gets shipped off for Christmas.
A lady at the Wild and Woolies crochet group is organising the appeal locally. Not that Wild and Woolies is our crochet group’s official name – It’s what I call it.
Another lady there makes hats and blankets for the neonatal unit in Crumlin hospital. I’m just working on a baby blanket to donate. The hat is already finished:
The blanket is about three-quarters done.
Delighted with myself for spotting what I think is a beeaauuttiful pottery teapot in a charity shop. It was twenty euro so not a cheapy-cheap find but worth every cent.
I did a Google Reverse Image on it; apparently it’s a Mucros pottery from Killarney. Why would anybody give this away??!! Am now looking at a Honey and Blue teaset from the pottery shop… The shipping would be expensive but so would the cost of fuel, tolls and, no doubt, parking if I went there by car … hmmm
Beautiful but a bit bonkers is the new lightbulb in the lounge lamp:
It’s Colour-Me-Happy and I love it.
Finally, must finish a vintage cross-stitch embroidery initial:
It’s to be framed and is a present for somebody I’m visiting next weekend. Nearly done.
It is done. Unpicked yhe blue flower and the scrappy leafy things and restitched them.
It needs a press, I didn’t hoop, you see. I didn’t want to. Then sort a frame out. I have a wooden one that is perfect. Needs a colour wash and maybe a dry brush of gold acrylic to lightly szuzh it up.
That’s a job for later on.
Love my life! Me and my fab shoes are off out later, DMs if it’s wet, (new and gorgeous) shoes if it manages to stay dry!
Be happy and smile from the heart.
The latest and lovely crochet project on the go. The pattern, ‘Marigold’ is from Bernioli Designs available from Etsy. The yarn is King Cole’s, ‘Riot’ in Juniper.
Been Amigarumin a Moomin. Love the Moomins 🙂
The pattern was free: https://amigurumi.today/amigurumi-moomin-crochet-pattern/
My latest crochet project is a wonderfully textured blanket from Jeanne Steinhilber https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/hugs–kisses-baby-blanket-4. It’s a gorgeous pattern.
I’ve also made another couple of pairs of crocodile stitch cuff booties: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvjhENDVJlk.
xoxo
I like to make baby booties, bonnets and beanies. They use up small amounts of wool, they’re very charming and do some good as they get donated to hospitals for premature babies (am in a little crochet/knitting group).
I found this lovely pattern by Crochet Fix on Ravelry
The pattern is for adults but if you use a smaller hook with thinner wool you get a perfect baby-size beanie. She also includes some variations on the pattern as well. 🙂
I used Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino, an extrafine merino wool and cashmere blend, using 3.25mm hooks for both beanies and the flower embellishments
The stitch pattern reminds me of the stitch used in the ‘Call the Midwife blanket’, follow the link to get the pattern.
The flowers are called Coiled Roses by Pink Milk. You can easily adjust the pattern to make the flowers bigger or smaller. They’re perfect for using up little wooly oddments.
The pointy leaves are from Attic24’s Autumn Leaves and Flowers post. They’re perfect to add a bit of colour.
Here’s a quick and easy crochet pattern for you (please note: American terminology).
Stitches:
DC: Double crochet
HDC: Half double crochet
DC: Double crochet
CH 5 then Slip stitch into the first chain to make a ring
CH 3 then make the following stitches into the ring:
5 DC, CH 3, 5 DC
Join with Slip stitch in third chain of the initial 3 chain
Ch 3
2 SC in each of next 5 DCs
Into the 3-chain space: 2 HDC, CH 3, 2 HDC
2 SC into each of next 5 DCs
Slip stitch into the first chain of this round
Chain 5 then slip stitch into each of the chains starting with second chain from the hook.
Hope you have fun making them!
No More Mondays 