Sunday, April 29, 2007

Maisie Quilt Pictures!

I finally finished this last night, although I have to say, making a strippey quilt is much quicker than making a small square patchwork one. I am really plaesed with the way it turned out and the way the colours work together, and the pink gingham border made it all come together nicely and made what was a little too funky, a bit more my sister, if you get my drift!
Anyway, we went to visit them this morning and my new baby neice Maisie is soooooo gorgeous, with loads of dark hair. Aaaaah! My sister really loved the quilt as well, (let's hope she wasn't just saying that because I'll have it back if she was!!) The back I did just in plain pale pink, so she can always turn it over if she feels a ittle queasy!!! Luckily M is a fully reversible letter!




Saturday, April 28, 2007

Mini Update

I've been a bad blogger this week...I must be better. Just a small post to say that I have been busy, the swing jacket is coming along, but my sister had a baby this week and I am visiting tomorrow. I have made the baby a quilt and it will hopefully be finished today. I just need to bind the edge. I will post the pictures this weekend. I do love it, I made it from the funky fabrics I got last week, but my sister isn't a funky sort of person, but I'm hoping the baby is! Also, I have ordered some fabric and a pattern to make an Amy Butler Madison bag. Can't wait til that comes!

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Shopping Trip Swag.....


I went to Sunflower fabrics in Bedford, which is my local fabric shop. I can ALWAYS manage to spend a reasonable amount of money...so imagine my delight to find a lady in there who is shutting her yarn shop and selling all her stock off to Maggie from the fabric shop!!!! What a great result. I bought her entire stock of Rowan wool cotton and some cashsoft baby, all for £2 each. I could have bought more, but I resisted (a bit). I got some lovely fabric for a new quilt I have planned, and my daughter bought some lining for her felting project..which has since gone horribly wrong. It was going to be a washbag, and is now a small pencil pot...enough said I think!

The project I have in mind for these delicious balls is the Mason Dixon log cabin blanket. I'm collecting from now on!...

Well, my mother in law who is here for a few days, and my daughter are knitting in the sun in the garden, and I am crocheting. The squares are coming along nicely but I am about to run out of the green so I shall be back to the swing jacket while I await new supplies!

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Still knitting!


Just a quick update! On the crochet front, I have done 7 big squares and 4 small ones. I still haven't blocked them, but I love them still. It's hard to find time to do them though because with knitting, you can watch tv and knit...with crochet, I have to look at the square the whole time!!! When I do look up, it takes me a while to zone back into reality!!! I am hoping this is because I'm a novice crocheter. Thank god for films like Night at the Museum which you can watch without having to see! On the swing jacket front, I am getting there! The sleeve is nearly done and I just then have the left front and the other sleeve and all the small pieces left to do. I have given myself until the end of May as a target.....
In the meantime, I am off to my favourite fabric shop today to spend some money!!
Just an aside, I have aClustrmap on the side of my blog which shows where you guys all click in from...I can't believe how far and wide everyone is! I love to look on it.....I hope you are having such nice weather as we are here in the UK at the moment. Long may it last!

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Youtube help

The really helpful tutorial I found (the lady with the loud radio) is here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rphbKaAMKDE
I am off to try the babette blanket squares today, thanks to help from Jess and Pam. Will keep you posted!

Friday, April 13, 2007

Tada!!!!!!!

Now you know I've been desperately trying to master a granny square over the last few weeks. My house has been littered with small incidents like this...

Well, yesterday my 15 year old daughter recommended that I find a tutorial on youtube. I thought it was called utube, and I have thought of going on it before, as my very weird next door neighbour likes to take videos of my comings and goings and keep them (I blame her extremely dull and boring life). Anyway, I explained to my daughter that I had in fact read crochet for beginners, been shown twice and looked at loads of online picturesand was still managing to make mutant rather than granny squares. She was persistent and in the end I did a search and there was a great video clip of a woman with a loud radio in the background showing me how to make a granny square. You'll never guess what......

THE PENNY HAS FINALLY DROPPED!!!!!!!!!!

Check out my successes......

Proud close up.....

I am truly addicted and have joined a grannyalong! I shall put the button on the right hand bar when I can work out how!
However, there is a down side that I hadn't thought of to crochet......

ps. let me know if you are having the same problems as me and I will let you have the link to the crochet lady's video clip.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

The Quilt is Finished


Hooray!!!!! I finished it this morning and the heart quilt is finally somewhere other than on my knnee or my desk....it is in it's final resting place in the spare room. When I first put it up, I wasn't sure if I liked it there, but it's growing on me. I think it's just weird to see it somewhere else after it took so long to do. I now have that lovely feeling of having finished something and now I'm going to get going on all the other wips. I feel spurred on. How long will it last before I start something new????Actually, small confession...I started something new already. Woops, didn't mean to, it was just an accident that turned into a great idea. Will post about it soon. In the meantime, apologies for so many photos of the same thing...but I LOVE IT! (and the reverse side too!)


Saturday, April 07, 2007

Crochet on the Beach

We went to the coast today, for us, that's the east coast. Whilst it was warm (not for many of you out there....17 degrees), it was windy, hence the beach shelter. I bought that in a camping shop last summer, and it never really has been used. Oh, except for the time when me and my sister took our 2 girls to the coast one VERY windy warm day last summer. The girls had to sit in it to keep it from blowing away. When they walked the 2 miles out to the water...this is the east coast remember...it DID blow away and, embarrasingly, an elderly man with brown knees which looked as if they were melting off the bone, had to rush and cling on to it for me. Yes, I had to run in my bikini, and I don't have much that stays still while I walk, never mind run.

Anyway, today I took my crochet to the beach and did a few rounds.



Some of you regular readers may remember that Floss loves the beach. Today was no exception. Happy Easter to you all. Tomorrow I shall be happily drowning in Cadburys chocolate, for there is no other....

Friday, April 06, 2007

WARNING:MULTIPLE UFOs

Before you embark on reading this post, I must warn you that it is full of pictures of things that aren't finished. I have a timescale, but it has been and gone...and am feeling a little like I am swimming against the tide. I shall keep going, but I am sure that there is something else waiting around the corner for me to start any day now and I am beginning to panic....
It all began when, at 10pm last night, I decided to have a clear out of the shelf(s) where the cookery books were precariously balanced. By midnight, I had cleaned the whole room and, were it not for the fact that my family had gone to bed, I would have carried on and done the entire house through the night. You know the feeling when you get the cleaning bug, you have to make the most of it because if you stop, it might not reappear again for a long time...
Anyway, I did go to bed, and woke up early with THE VERY SAME BUG. Now, nearly all of the rooms in my house are done and I went to start on the work room, when I spied the pile.....Hmmm, I thought, if I take pictures, that will stave off the need to tidy. It was then I knew..... THE BUG had gone.
I give you the list of "stuff in progress".... goodbye cleaning bug, please come back soon, but not too soon.....

This is the Phildar swing jacket. The back is finished and the right front is about a third done.

I love the pocket...

This is the Flo cardigan. You knit the whole thing in one and the hole is the sleeve opening. I've gone off this a bit, but I think it might be nice to wear on chilly summer evenings, so I'll persevere (at some point).

This quilt needs to get finished over the weekend as it's for my spare room and I have visitors next week. That's the plan for it anyway!

This is the noni bobbles bag. I love this, but you see those bobbles on the left, well, they start off like the squares on the right, and believe me, they are complete pain to do, and SOOOOO tedious. You have to make 12 squares in three sizes in a load of different colours. It's cascade 220 yarn, ok to work with, but believe me, it's a whole LOT of bobbles. I must get on with it though. I am putting it off as well because I am scared that when I felt it in the machine, the brown of the bag will run into the pinkness of the bobbles and ruin all my hard work. Any advice on this gratefully received...

This is a big quilt that, I have to admit, has been a wip for a couple of years. Enough said.

This one is a version of the green Debbie Bliss bag I knitted and felted, but I am experimenting with longer straps and a slightly bigger bag. It's not an exact science as felting in a machine is a bit hit and miss, but we'll see...

And finally, a photo of my work room. As you can see, it was really the only room in the whole house that didn't get tidied up. I'll just have to convince myself and my family that you need mess to be creative, you need mess to.........

Monday, April 02, 2007

Swing Jacket update

The back of the jacket is finally finished. I am feeling a little bit back at square one, well, not even that yet, but I shall start the right front again today and hopefully I'll start seeing some real progress. Good job I'm quite a patient person! This weekend I spent digging in the garden, I even went to the gym yesterday so I am expecting some real progress on the weight loss front as well. Although, come to think of it, we went out for dinner last night and then I went to the cinema and ate popcorn. Scrap the weight loss idea!! We saw The Hills Have Eyes 2! It's a very jumpy and bloody film, but I don't mind gore...at least you know with films like that, that they won't end up in your bedroom at night, if you know what I mean...
Anyway, no pictures of the jacket at the moment, so I though I would show you one of one of my cats in the sunshine springness that was yesterday...