Month: November 2017

A Blissful weekend!

Being a self confessed homebody I love nothing more than pottering around the house, tidying, arranging and crafting whenever possible. With a demanding job I don’t get a vast amount of time pottering at home but  when I do get the chance I make the most of it. Like many people at this time of year, when it can be dark for much of the day, I tend to go into full on hibernation mode, staying in and getting cosy as much as possible. Don’t get me wrong I do like to go out and socialise but no matter how great a time I’ve had out, the best bit for me is always getting back home into the warmth, scented wax burners on, cosy lighting on, a warm drink on hand and a craft project at the ready.

This weekend has just been a blissful mixture of all the things I love best. On Saturday morning little Miss announced she wanted a pyjama day and as I was going out that evening anyway I was happy to oblige. Now sometimes, with a little one in the house, pj days can leave me desperate to get out of the house by lunch time after helping to complete umpty thousand jigsaws, watching cbeebies until my eyeballs want to bleed and being made to crawl around on the floor miaowing pretending to be a cat! Yesterday was, however, refreshingly different! Except for a brief foray into the outside world to do a spot of food shopping we spent the entire day inside. We had a lovely time doing a little bit of baking, watching a minimal amount of tv, doing a couple of puzzles, painting toenails, a little bit of crafting  and some colouring in. Bliss. In the afternoon she took herself off to play in her room, demanding I stayed in the craft room for a while (who was I to argue!). Then she decided she wanted to get in the bath to play with her toy boats and insisted that  put my feet in too so she could wash them! Later in the afternoon a good friend came round with her children and in the evening I went out to a very enjoyable early Christmas function with good friends and work colleagues.

Today has been just as relaxing. Rich took little miss out for breakfast so that I could lie in (which of course, being sods law, I couldn’t) but I managed over an hour of uninterrupted relaxing (slobbing) on the settee with a hot drink, fairy lights on, indulging in a bit of blog reading catch up time. Utter bliss! The rest of the day was spent chilling out in much the same way as yesterday along  with a visit to a friends house this afternoon, where little miss and her friend played beautifully whilst us grown ups got to put the world to rights. This evening Little Miss even decided she needed to go to bed early (absolutely unheard of!) as she was so tired and so here I am catching up on my blog. What a wonderful relaxing weekend.

The only thing needed now to complete the weekend is a little bit of crafty time, so that’s exactly what I’m heading off to do . I hope your weekends were just as enjoyable. Have a great week.

Karen x

 

 

 

Karen  x

Granny stripe/ mojo blanket

What a long journey this blanket has had from when I embarked on the first chain way back in January to finally reaching completion 2 weeks ago. It has been a very spluttering, stop and start kind of journey, it has been worked on solidly for evenings at a time and it has also been abandoned in favour of other projects for weeks at a time. The yarn for this blanket was actually a 4oth present to myself a year and a half ago but I refused to let myself start it until I had finished 2 blankets I had on the go for Christmas presents last Christmas: ‘Hazy Days’ blanket and  Eclectic Mix large granny blanket

I eagerly started it in January but progress on it really slowed down as I began to find it too hard to concentrate on the long rows  due to  struggling with the winter blues which I wrote about here: A blip and a few days away 

I mentioned in a previous post The halfway mark that I was debating what to call the blanket  but have finally decided on ‘the mojo blanket’. It just had to be for 2 reasons. The first being that  its progress was so dependent on how I was feeling at the time and lots of memories of this years struggles are tied up this blanket, the other reason being that just the sight of this blanket now completed, really does lift my spirits. It is such a happy looking blanket, with its vibrant colours and I just love seeing it perched on the back of my settee.

Here it is in its entirety:

I have to warn you that there are quite a few photos  of this blanket. I always like to get an overall shot and maybe a shot of a couple of sections but I just felt that it needed lots of photos to do it justice. There are so may colours in it, it can give you a completely different feel dependning on which section you look at and how close or far away you are. Some sections are super vibrant whereas others are more pastel and sedate. Here take a look for yourself and see what you think:

and here it is with my granny squares blanket (Drum roll please…) :

This sight makes me very happy. Two very different blankets but both bright and happy and that is how they make me feel 🙂

The nitty gritty:

The yarn I used was stylecraft special dk. Now it was my first time using this yarn and I had heard it recommended on so many blogs that I just had to try it out for myself. I wasn’t disappointed, it is a lovely yarn to work with and it really does make for a rather snuggly blanket. It also has the advantage is that there are so many colours to choose from on the colour palette seems to get added to on a regular basis.

Here are the colours I used, although I didn’t keep a track of the order I used them in. I could work it out though if anyone really wanted to know.

Aster, Matador, Lemon, Apricot, Sherbert, Teal, Mocha, Turquoise, Saffron, Pomegranate, Shrimp, Clematis, Wisteria, Bright pink, gold, sage, pistachio: a total of 17 colours, I did order extra for the border though.

As is usually my way with making blankets, I had no plan, other than to use a granny stripe pattern. I selected the colours first over the internet from wool warehouse, using a gut feeling approach, I basically just picked 17 colours I liked and hoped for the best that they would look good together.

 

As I started the blanket I literally used the colour that I felt like using at the time, holding it next to the last row to double check it looked ok.

A lot of things about my work life are planned to the nth degree so I think to plan a blanket fully before making would take the fun out of it for me. Letting a blanket evolve as I make it is much more fun.

The border was ummed and aaahed over for quite some time before I finally got around to doing it. I actually put the blanket away for a good 2 months after finishing the main body of it before starting the border. I just wasn’t quite sure what border to do or what colours to use. In the end I just ordered another ball of a few of the colours I had used and just started, again by just seeing which colour looked right as I went along. when I started the border, I had it in mind that it was only going to be a couple of rows (partly because I thought that would look just fine and partly because I find going around and around the blanket to make the border a tad tedious if I’m honest) but after stepping back and looking at it and seeking the opinion of my husband, we decided it needed to be a bit thicker and so another 3 rows were added.

I didn’t bother to block the blanket as it wasn’t tremendously wiggly and I don’t think handmade blankets should be poker straight anyway. Plus the fact that it was being put into immediate use.

I really am very with how it turned out. Right, time to go and start my next one …

Karen x

 

 

 

Double deskage!

I am ridiculously excited to be able to say that I now have double deskage. So excited in fact, I even made up a new word!

Look at all that lovely crafty space. Eeeeeeeeeeek!

For a while I have been wanting to give the craft/ spare room a bit of a reshuffle and make it more craft room than spare room. For the last few weeks I have been undertaking phase 1, sorting everything into clear boxes. The old boxes were perfectly serviceable but didn’t match and I do l like to be able to see at a glance what is in each box. Plus, I  love any excuse for buying storage boxes, I do get a bit silly over them.

Phase 2 was to sort out the furniture to make space for another desk. So far I have managed to empty out a set of drawers and am now working on clearing out one of the 2 wardrobes to make even more space. I was originally going to buy a drop leaf desk that I could put up when needed but just as I had started to look around for one, a work colleague was giving away a large corner desk for free so I snapped it up!

Phase 3 will be to get rid of the double bed in favour of a sofa bed (the room is used as a guest room for 4 weeks out of the year at most so a pull out bed that can double as relaxing crafty space will definitely suffice). Hopefully this will happen in the new year.

For now though I shall wallow in the glory of double deskdom! I now have space to be able to leave the sewing machine out and still have the other desk for other crafty pursuits and the occasional bit of work if I must! I am so so excited about getting the sewing machine out again, it hasn’t seen the light of day in almost 2 years (because I’m just too lazy to keep getting it out and putting it away again after use) and has been calling me recently. I have so many ideas for sewing projects but am forcing myself to hold off for a bit longer to finish other wips. It really wont be long though, so watch this space…

Karen x

3D heart bunting

I actually made these hearts a couple of years ago, inspired by an episode of Kirsty Allsops handmade Christmas programmes. I got a bit carried away with making lots of hearts but never actually got around to doing anything with them until now. In the half term holiday I had a look through my wips and decided that I was going to try to steadily work my way through them, so many of them being so near completion. So, I set about sewing loops onto the hearts and then sliding them onto a length of ribbon and sewing them in to place to stop them slipping. It literally took me about an hour, I’ve no idea really why I didn’t get around to it before 🙄 But as with all wips that stay wips for a while, other crafty makes just seem to come to the forefront.

Anyway, here is the finished bunting 😀

Here is how I made the hearts:

1. Draw around a heart shape twice on the reverse of the material and cut out.

2. Draw around the same heart on bondaweb and cut out.

3. Iron the bondaweb onto the reverse of one of the hearts and remove the backing.

4 Pin the hearts with reverse sides touching ( if you want to sew any buttons or embellishments on do it before pinning)

5. Using embroidery thread sew a running stitch around the heart, leaving a small hole for the stuffing. Don’t tie the thread off and leave enough for a couple more stitches.

6. Stuff the heart and finish the running stitch. Not on the back of the heart or if possible hide the knot inside the heart.

7. Iron around the edges of the heart to seal the bondaweb to the second heart.

Im really pleased with how the bunting turned out and although it hasn’t been hung up yet is almost certainly going to be an addition to my craft room. I’ve still got lots of 3D hearts left and even more cut out ready to make so there may be more bunting to come soon.

 

Karen X