Old Projects

I've had a busy few weeks trying to finish off a couple of old projects, one project in particular was a pattern from All About Ami for a chunky shrug, I blogged about this last October, yes, that is how long it's been in my basket. I'm very pleased how it has turned out it is very thick and warm. The pattern was very easy to follow, the only problem I had is that I crochet very tightly and I therefore needed two extra balls of wool to finish it off. I also decided to add a button, the one I choose is made from spalted oak I bought them from Natural Organic Crafts they have a shop on Etsy.

I have also been playing around with needle felting again, this time my Auntie gave me two silver vintage salt and pepper pots I decided to incorporate them into my needle felting and came up with this.

To make the small toadstools stand up I wound some cream felt around small pieces of pipe cleaner and then gently needle felted them. Once I had finished this I decided to make a smaller version, this time using a vintage thimble.

My last old project involved acorns, last year I had collected lots of acorns I wasn't too sure what I would do with them but I thought I would keep them and at some point I would think of something. The 'something' turned into replacing the acorns and making little coloured acorns to fit in the caps. I didn't use a needle for this, I tried the wet felting method instead. I had very sore hands by the time I had finished them, I think next time I will wear thin rubber gloves instead. To attach the acorn to the cap I used a glue gun. I then attached string to them so it was a little easier to tie them to some corkscrew Hazel branches I had.

I am now free to start my new project which involves a subscription to Little Box of Crochet, more on this in my next blog post.

 

 

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Christmas Fair

It's been a busy couple of weeks, I have been crocheting jackets and flowers for my posy bottles, making cards and stitching hearts filled with lavender for my stall at Urswick Christmas Fair, which is this Sunday at Urswick Recreation Hall from 10am until 3pm, if anyone is in the area. It's a popular fair with plenty of stalls, I'm really looking forward to it.

I love crocheting my little posy bottle jackets and flowers. I only use merino wool, Debbie Bliss, Millamia, Patons and Drops all have an excellent colour selection. The bottles I use are all dated from the late 1890's to 1930's as far as I know. I'm lucky enough to go metal detecting with my father and in between we also dig for bottles, which I love doing.

I have also been making Sunbonnet Sue needle/pin cases using felt, fabric, embroidery and vintage buttons. Each case has a safety pin on the front and needles and pins inside. I've made quite a few of these in all different colours.

Last but not least as I have mentioned in my other posts I have an allotment and always have plenty of fruit at the end of the season, so I have been making a lot of jam, I supply my family and friends with jam and any left over I sell. This year I have been making blackcurrant, red gooseberry, plum and redcurrant which I will also be selling at the fair.

I am still crocheting my shrug, which I mentioned in my last post, it's coming along really well. Although, I did have to order three more balls of wool as I have found out I am an extremely tight knitter! Hopefully I should have this finished soon and will post photographs.

 

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Out and About

It has been a gorgeous day today, lovely warm weather much better than we had last night which was heavy rain and hailstones. I took my dog Tilly on a nice walk around the village this morning, not too long as she's getting older now and just likes to go at her own pace, which is normally slow, sniffing everything and anything in sight.

She even made a friend this morning, a cow, and decided it needed a groom and licked all over its face, to my amazement the cow just stood there looking down at her, not bothered at all and then suddenly the cow licked Tilly's entire face, mutual grooming I guess!

Tilly was a little bit tired when we got home and needed a nap, so while she was napping I finished off crocheting a daffodil for a little project I was doing, a posy vase.

 

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Crochet and Fabric Keyrings

As I mentioned in my previous post I had received two lovely presents, in return I made the two ladies crochet/fabric keyrings. As they are filled with lavender they could also be used as a pomander for your wardrobe, I have a few of these myself.

The fabric is from Harlequin, a small offcut from the Scrap Store, the lace is vintage and was made by my great great grandmother. I decided to use a mauve colour merino wool to match the flowers on the fabric. I lightly stuffed the holder and filled with english lavender which I had grown in my allotment.

The double flower pattern I have used is from Attic 24

 

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Crocheted Christmas Holly and Berry Bottle

In November I went metal detecting with my dad and one of the items I unearthed was a 1900's square gin bottle, I loved the shape and decided I wanted to do something Christmassy with it.

I selected a couple of Christmas colour yarns, Patons Merino Extrafine DK in shade 00173 green for the main part of the bottle and Millamia Natural Soft Merino in Moss for the holly leaves, Patons Merino Extrafine DK in shade 00131 red for the berries.

I didn't have a particular pattern for this I crocheted a foundation chain and joined it to make a circle. I then ensured it fit around the base of the bottle, I double crocheted around the foundation chain over and over until I got towards the top, when I then needed to reduce my stitches to ensure it would fit nice and snug around the neck of the bottle.

The pattern I used for the holly and berry leaves is from Attic 24.

My Uncle cut some of his willow for me and sprayed it white, I love the effect.

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Rain, rain go away...

This weekend I decided I would paint my garden benches a lovely bay tree green, I opened my curtains this morning and instead of the sunny day I imagined, it was raining, dull and windy, so bang goes that idea.

I decided instead to finish off some embroidery. I love embroidery, I have been doing it for over 25 years. I am very lucky as I have a lot of my grandmother's embroidery transfers, needles, rings, thread, material, probably enough to carry on doing for the next 25 years.

I bought some Dorma pillowcases a couple of months ago and transferred some vintage violets on them.

The Dorma pillowcases are in a shade called Heather and I decided to embroider the flowers in different shades of purple-pink colours. I apologise as I know the thread is from DMC but it is vintage thread and they did not have the DMC colour numbers on them. The stems and leaves are a mixture of two different green colours, two threads of a medium green colour and one thread of a light green colour.

I have only used four different embroidery stitches for the pillowcases.

• French knot - for the centre of some of the flowers
• Stem stitch - for the flower stems
• Long and short stitch - for one of the main flowers (pink and purple middle flower)
• Satin stitch - for the rest of the flowers

The pillowcases do look a little bit crinkled but that is because I have had a hoop around the embroidery transfer, once they have been washed and ironed they will be completely flat and won't look crinkled/puckered.

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