Random Unconnected Makes, and Fabric!

Well, I've got a few different things to show you today!  First is a felt heart hanger I've made for a new baby girl, whose name begins with E:

Excuse the bad lighting.

I'd previously made the same thing for her big sister, in a different colourway, which I've blogged about before, so now they've got one each:

The Lumberjack and I went to Somerset on Saturday, and popped to Bristol Ikea on the way back, where I bought some fabric!  I'd seen some lovely Rosali fabric on Sew Ray Me's blog, and was keen to have some myself.  I wanted it in both the blue and the white, but they only had the white.  Then... would you believe it... the Lumberjack persuaded me to get the polka-dot fabric too!  I was ready to leave with just my bit of Rosali.  (What a man!)

I think they both go well with the green fabric I bought fairly recently:

Not actually sure what to make with them - I really should start using up some of my stash!

Not only that - but I've been struggling to find an outfit for a wedding I'm going to.  Well, as we were passing Cribbs Causeway (big shopping mall in Bristol) on our way to Somerset, the Lumberjack suggested we pop into John Lewis and have a look for a dress for me - who is this man?!  (I was given a strict one hour time slot, as we needed to get to his Gran's house.  Not to mention that the thought of spending any longer in a shopping mall is his idea of hell!).  We found a lovely royal blue dress, ivory fascinator, and this bag reduced from £22 to £6.50 - bargain!!

It's meant to look gathered and scrunched!

It matches the dress perfectly, and I've already got ivory shoes and an ivory wrap which match the ivory fascinator.  I thought I'd add a little something handmade to the bag to bring the ivory into play...

It's a brooch which can be pinned to the front of the bag, made with royal blue satiny material, ivory voiley type material (not sure what you call it!) and little pearly beads that I clustered together.

I had everything I needed to make the brooch, so it cost me nothing other than my time.  I can't believe how well the blue fabric matches the bag - a stroke of luck!

The back (obviously)

This has been a rather unconnected post - perhaps I should have split it into different posts, but I thought I'd throw it all into one, with gay abandon!

Mini Hearts

Hi to my recent new followers!  Lovely to have you following!  Thanks also for the great comments on my African Flower cushion in the last post - I'm still loving it, and so pleased I actually finally finished it!


It got me a bit inspired to finish off other long-standing projects.  I started making some teeny tiny hearts last year some time - and I've finally done some more:

They are the ones with the ends sewn in... there are another six I need to do that for!  Here they all are together...

I'll show you more when I've finished sewing the ends in and put them all together.


Just a quick post from me today :o)

The "Finally, At Long Last, What Took You So Long?" Ta-Dah!!!

Finally it's done!!!!!  My African Flower Cushion!

Long-standing followers of my blog will have seen the start of this a long time ago!  Back on the 1st of June last year, I blogged about the start of an African Flower Runner.  Well, over a year later it has morphed from a runner into a cushion, and is FINALLY finished!


It's not going to live on the sofa in the photo - that's my parents' sofa - I took it round to show it off.  There is better light in their living room, so I took a couple of photos there.


I can't believe it's taken me so long to finish (but there have been a lot of other projects finished in that time) and I'm amazed that I love it just as much as I did when I started!  I love the colours together.


I had the front all sorted a few weeks ago - I'd done all the half-flowers that I blogged about recently.  I also had to straighten out the other sides, which were wavy like this:

I managed to find a way to fill in, with a couple of rows of varying stitches, so that it looked like this:

I was quite amazed I managed to get it pretty straight.


Here is the finished square - ready for a back:

I ummed and ahhed about the back for a while - I kind of just wanted the thing finished to be honest.  I wanted to do the quickest thing I could do to get it finished as soon as possible.  But somehow I ended up deciding that it must have a crocheted back, which took a few weeks!  (I'm a bit slow/have a full-time job/easily distracted/lazy - choose your favourite reason (excuse) for it taking me so long!)  Although, it's nothing compared to how long the front took!


I gave you a sneak peak recently... and here it is in it's completed glory...

I think I love it as much as the front!!  Rows of double (US) crochet stripes with three little pink buttons to fasten it.  So simple, yet effective.

This is going to be my second June Monthly Make.  (It was finished this month, and the back was done in June - even if the rest has been going on for a year!)


It will also be part of a Pretty Crafty Home (see sidebar).


It's made in King Cole Bamboo Cotton - 50% bamboo, 50% cotton.  I love the feel and look of it.  It's quite splitty to work with, but you get used to it, and I love the end result.

I better get my craft list out and cross it off the list - yay!  I'm so glad it's finally done, and very pleased with it!

Button's Christening!

Thanks for the lovely comments on my recent posts - I always appreciate them.


Today was the Christening of my gorgeous little nephew, Button!  This is the present I made to hang in his nursery:

I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do.  I searched and searched online for a pattern, but could find nothing that felt right.  I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted, but I knew I'd know when I found it.  Well, I didn't find it!  But I managed to come up with this myself - and I'm really pleased with it!  I found an alphabet online that I used for the letters and numbers - and I saw the rabbit on something, and copied it onto paper to use in the design - I think I changed one stitch I wasn't happy with.  The rest just evolved as I worked on it!

I love it framed in the embroidery hoop, with a ribbon bow and hanging loop.  I painted the embroidery hoop light blue to tie in with the design.

This is going to be my June Monthly Make!


Another present I bought was this beautiful wooden rattle, engraved with his name and date of birth:

It's such a lovely Christening present (even if I say so myself!) - something special to keep.

It was a lovely day - I'm just chilling out now after the morning service and an afternoon eating buffet food, eating cake, and having a few drinks!

Sneak Peak...

I'm busy crocheting away, trying to finish something!!

Here is a sneak peak of it!  Hopefully it won't be too long before I can show you the finished item!!  I hope it comes out as I plan... eek scary...

I also found time to make some millionaire's shortbread today:

I accidentally burned the first lot of chocolate for the top, and it went all clumpy and weird, and there didn't appear to be any way of saving it.  Very annoying!  Especially as I thought I had done all the hard bits, and the final bit was just to melt the chocolate and pour it on top - typical!  I had to nip out to the shop and get another bar to melt.  It was all worth it, though - it tastes really good.  Surprisingly it didn't fall apart when I cut it and  removed it from the tin either - who'd have thought it!

Jubilee Heart

As always, thanks all for the lovely comments on my posts, they are always enjoyed and gratefully received.


I gave you a peek in my last post at the project I had started... it was the free kit from the Cross Stitcher magazine.  I managed to get it finished in bed this morning!  Just scraping in at the start of the Jubilee weekend!

I'm quite pleased with the finished item.  I'm not really that into the British themed thing (I know, travesty!) but I thought it would be nice to have a souvenir of the Jubilee, and I do like it now it's finished!

I wasn't that impressed with the kit, though.  I thought the felt was stiff and cheap.  The embroidery threads also felt cheap and weren't very nice to work with.  They weren't nice and smooth, they were fibrey, splitty and break-y (I can't think of the real words to describe them, so they'll have to do!!).  The needle they provided you with was so thin and flimsy, and a nightmare to thread with the cheap splitty thread!  Yes, I have loads of my own needles I could have used - but I was stubbornly insisting on using what I was provided with in the kit (for some unfathomable reason - as it only made my life more difficult!)  In the end, while doing the blanket stitch, the needle actually snapped in half! I did then reach for one of my needles which was far better to work with.  (I know, why didn't I use it all along - damn my weird ideas!)  Also, the thread was cut into such short lengths, that I seemed to be constantly tying the ends off and starting a new thread, which was annoying.  None more so than when doing the blanket stitch!!  If I had my own thread, I'd have cut a piece long enough to go all the way round - as I really struggle with ending blanket stitch.  (If anyone has any genius method to end blanket stitch, while keeping the stitches looking neat and uniform, PLEASE let me know!!!)  Usually it's bad enough having to do it once at the end - but I had to do it FIVE (yes, five!!) times to sew up the heart!  Even more difficult when you then have to start again, and somehow join the new to the old, to keep the proper blanket stitch effect going.  There is one point where I made a rather bad job, which is annoying me in the pictures!  Oh well...  Oh, and it said that the kit provided you with everything you need to make the heart - but it didn't provide filling.  This isn't a problem for me, as I had filling - but they should have specified that it wasn't included.


Wow, what a rant!!!  I don't usually get rant-y in my posts!  And I guess it was a free kit, included with the magazine, so maybe I shouldn't complain.  But I have now, too late!!  ;o)


But on the plus side, I am pleased with the end result after all that moaning, and the finished item doesn't seem cheap.  Oh, and the soluble cross stitch fabric thingy you use to sew through onto the felt was pretty cool!

So - happy long bank holiday people!  Enjoy the Jubilee celebrations!

Prettiness...

In my last post I meant to show you another pretty thing I have recently acquired, but annoyingly forgot to include it in my post... it was a little present, for no particular reason, from Roon (my lovely sister-in-law) - aren't unexpected presents the best?!

Lovely 'HOME' blocks!  Don't they look so lovely next to my little quilt?!

The sun was in the wrong place, so this looks a bit dingy I'm afraid - poor photography skills!  I guess I should say that it was my camera that was in the wrong place - the sun was merrily shining in the sky where it should have been!!!  Heheheeee...

Thanks again Roon!!

Oh, and I have been meaning to say a big thank you to Hazel, for awarding me with the Sunshine award!  Go check out her blog, Ramblings and Such - she's recently renovated a dresser and chest of drawers that look really great.


I'm really sorry, but I'm not going to answer the questions or pass the award on (I know, what kind of an evil witch am I?!) - I've done a few in the past, and am running out of blogs that I haven't already passed awards onto!  I do really appreciate the thought, though - thank you Hazel.


And before I go, a picture of what I've just started working on (let's forget all the projects I should be finishing...!)

I'll show you more when (if!) I get it finished!


Oh... and one last thing - it was the Lumberjack's birthday yesterday... here is the cake I baked him:

We had such a lovely day out in the sunshine at Hinton Ampner - such a pretty place!


I hope you've all been enjoying the weekend and the beautiful weather!  :o)

"The Girl Needs a Craft Room"

The subject of this post is a quote from the Lumberjack!  It was said a week ago Sunday, while he was happily immersed in motorbike racing on TV (World Superbikes, Moto GP, British Superbikes... one or all of them, who knows!) and I was happily immersed in my mini-quilt mat/runner!  In fact, the full quote went... "There are pins everywhere!  The girl needs a craft room".  I couldn't agree more!  :o)  Living in a one-bedroom flat and not having a table, I have to use my ironing board as a sewing machine station, and sew standing up.  My living room floor becomes my craft table... hence the pins scattered willy nilly in any place I happened to settle myself on the floor for any particular stage of proceedings!  There really were clusters of pins all over the place!

I just remembered that I took a picture on my phone of my living room a few months back, in the middle of a crafting session, so here it is...!  Imagine trying to sit and relax in that room?!

Well... I will continue to dream of having a craft room one day - where I can have prettiness and organisation, lovely storage showing off piles of fabric, reels of ribbon, jars of buttons... excuse me while I drift off into this lovely fantasy...!

But until then, here is the prettiness I am enjoying at the moment:

A new PiP Studio milk jug!!  Only £6.99 - I thought that wasn't too bad for a bit of PiP magic!

These fabric/ribbon/tape thingies (not sure what you call them!) that were given to me by the Lumberjack's mum, that she used on clothes she'd made for him when he was little!  We think they are from the late 70s!!

Some pretty fabric that called to me from the fabric shop in town - £1.75 for half a metre... I couldn't resist!  (It would look lovely amongst a pile of fabric in my imaginary craft room!)

And today... I spotted and bought this:

The Cross Stitcher magazine!  I've not really done any proper cross-stitching for years (apart from when I did the name on the PE bag for my friends daughter a while back).  I also don't usually buy magazines.  But for some reason, this called to me!  I Just loved those retro deer on the front - so cool!  It also comes with a kit to stitch a jubilee heart that I'll have to try to fit in around my many unfinished projects!

(Yes, that is my quilt appearing as the background in some of these pictures!  Not that I love it or anything!!!)  Hehehehe!

Oh, and just for fun here is a picture of me in a Minnie Mouse costume, from a work's fancy dress party on a boat on the Thames I went to on Friday!

It was such a good night!  Really good fun!

Well - this has been far too long and waffley today... so I will leave you now!

Tilda Mini-Quilt Runner Ta-Dah!!

I have been working hard with the Tilda Charm Pack I showed you in my last post.  Trying something new to me... a bit of patchwork quilting!

I didn't really take any pictures along the way, but I picked 15 of the 20 charms, and sewed them together in a 3 x 5 rectangle.  I then put wadding and a plain pink backing behind them, and quilted them together (on the machine) along the stitch lines between the squares.  Stitching in the ditch I believe it's called!  (Or attempting to, anyway - there were a few wobbles, but not too bad on the whole).

That was pretty scary doing the quilting part - worrying I was going to ruin it all!

Then I cut and joined a couple of strips of pale pink polka-dot material to make the binding (after much research on the internet, as I didn't have a clue what I was doing!)  It all seemed very tricky and I did a fair bit of searching for some kind of cheat's way - but in the end just went for what seemed to be the proper way of binding.

I machine sewed it to the front, then hand-sewed the back of the binding - here I am above, part way through the hand sewing.  (I did trim back the wadding before doing each side).

After all my reluctance over the binding, I actually really enjoyed it!  So satisfying, and not as tricky as I thought.  Here is a nice little corner above!

I even like the look of the back of the quilt - it looks all cosy and squishy...

The binding was hand-sewn at the back, and it was really nice and relaxing to do.  Looks pretty neat I think!

The finished item is a little matt/runner for my coffee table... ta-dah!!

I love it!  The only bit that annoys me is where I've kind of pulled it a bit while doing one of the vertical quilting lines, so a couple of the squares seem to be pulling towards the top.  It is irritating, but I'm hoping it's not too noticeable, and am trying to remind myself that this is my first attempt at quilting!

So, there you have it!!  This is my May Monthly Make, and also part of me making a Pretty Crafty Home!  (See side-bar for these).

Oh, and I've been given an award - more about that next time, as I really should be getting ready for work, not faffing about doing blog posts!!!)

What I've Been Up To...

Firstly, thanks for everyone who entered my giveaway, and hi to all new followers!  Thanks for all the lovely comments too.


Oh, and for those who are interested in the new job... sorry, I've been a bit quiet about it!  I'm halfway through my 6th week already - the time has really flown!  I miss my friends from my old job, but the people at the new place are friendly and the job is good, so I'm happy!  It already feels like I've been there for ages.  It's only a six month contract, but I would like it to carry on afterwards... we'll see... fingers crossed!


Onto craft!!  I've got many half finished things going on, but have had a sudden desire to do something with these...

(Sorry for the dingy lighting... I blame the weather!)

They are the contents of a Tilda Charm Pack!  I won them last year from The Krafty Cupcake, but they are one of those things that I'm too scared to use!  I really must get over this issue!  I take them out every now and then, arrange them into pretty arrangements, then put them away again!  I've got an idea of something I might use them for, so I can see and appreciate them properly... watch this space...


I am also trying to finish my African Flower cushion!!!  I really must finish it before starting a new project!  I've been crocheting half-flowers to square off the hexagons so I can make a 16 inch square suitable for a cushion...

I am slowly but surely getting closer to the finish, helped with some nagging persuasion from the Lumberjack!  He is very keen to see it finished - probably because he is fed up with coming round to my flat to encounter half-finished projects littering every surface!  (Also he does really like the colours and design!)


Hopefully I'll have something finished to show you before long!

And the Winner is.......!!

Well... the day is here!  Time to pick the winner of my giveaway!


I put the names into my PiP Studio bowl...

Here we see the hand of the Lumberjack as he picked a name...

And the winner is........


....ooohhh.....


.....who's it going to be....??!!.....

Congratulations Becky J!!  (Becky's blog is The Fluff Pot)  Becky was one of my first followers, so it was really nice to see her name on that bit of paper!  The poor woman has been reading my nonsense for over a year... the universe clearly decided she deserves some compensation!


I'm sorry for everyone else who entered and didn't get picked out of the bowl... I'll have to do another giveaway!!


Becky, please email me with your address, and I'll get this posted out to you!  :o)