and we stitched happily ever after

And we stitched happily ever after.....

I can finally reveal some of the embroidery I have been doing. I wanted to make a special birthday present for AC, my sewing buddy. I don't actually have a photo of the birthday present (yet), but I made one for myself, so this is it.

The design is from 'Patchwork Loves Embroidery' by Gail Pan.  The birthday effort has buttons and piping, but mine adorns a bag that was made at speed so is a little more simple! It's now my embroidery project bag. 

Nb I found that the Christmas ferrero rocher box is perfect for my selection of embroidery perle thread no. 8! It stops them getting all muddled up in my new bag. 

A flock of tea cosies

A sheep tea cosy update. All three are finished and I have placed a ban on making any more. That is at least until I've finished some of the other stuff that remains unfinished whilst tea cosy's take over the universe! This time I'm keeping one for myself!

My favourite cosy is the one made from super chunky wool in the front.

Sheep Tea Cosy

I really can't resist a crochet sheep. Inspired by the Shaun the Sheep film which cheered me up immensely when I was feeling under the weather with a horrible cold, I made up a tea cosy pattern. It took a little while to work out the pattern and the size, but once I cracked it I've now started 2 more. I'm not supposed to be making sheep as I've a couple of other unfinished items that are pending completion, but this has kept me amused for the last week so I'm going to keep going until I've fulfilled my current sheep obsession. The first two cosy's were made with chunky wool for which I used a 5.5mm crochet hook, but then I found some super chunky wool which needed an 8mm hook. This one was super fast to make with fewer bobbles and I actually like the lumpier look to it, should one actually analyse these things in any depth at all. As I said - Sheep Obsession. I have other sheep tea cosy ideas using loop stitch or a wensleydale style with ringlets. It really could run and run.........baaaaaaaarmy.

Sheep tea cosy

More tea cosy's underway

Crochet little monster and octopus

Baby Boom

Octopus and monster

There has been a bit of a baby boom in my little circle of friends and colleagues so this has caused a crochet octobaby boom. Here is yet another octopus with a little monster friend for baby's big brother. This has actually been a repeat performance as I made a matching pair for mum's twin sister! 

Crochet Christmas Elf

Christmas Elf

Scandinavian style

The Christmas elf was a two year project. It should have been finished for Christmas 2016 but I ran out of time so before Christmas so it was put away unfinished due to lack of interest. This year however, my Christmas mojo returned and he was finished. I hate to leave things unfinished. I'm really good at starting new things, but  have to make a (sometimes) herculean effort to finish everything.  The weather has been so dim and dismal the lighting on the photo doesn't really do justice to his fluffy sparkly beard. Maybe next year I'll take his photo again. Incidentally, the pattern was from a Simply Crochet magazine in 2016. I've kept the magazine because there were a few other coordinating items that might make an appearance next Christmas.

Home Made Christmas is finally revealed!

basket case

Christmas 2017

I've fallen tragically behind with all blogging so this is a quick post about the Christmas homemade presents. This year I happened upon some reduced yarn in the local Boyes shop. The yarn is a sort of  'net' like composition which is typically used to make frilly scarves but was absolutely fantastic as a super chunky yarn to make sturdy little baskets. The best bit about it was that it has a sparkle and so perfect for little christmassy baskets! All in all I made 21 of the blessed things, so was quite glad when it was all done and wrapped. I did make use of the  frill potential on a few of the baskets - I was desperate for a bit of variation!

Christmas at Chatsworth House

We visited Chatsworth House to see the Christmas decorations as part of our annual 'sisters Christmas' day out. The decorations are always beautiful and it is such a treat to take a day off work and do something purely indulgent and christmassy. The theme this year was 'Dickens' so there were lots of beautiful traditionally decorated Christmas trees.

I know it's not very Christmassy, but I the toilets at the entrance to Chatsworth House are just so decadent that they are worthy of a mention!

Bonfire Night

A belated bonfire night post. It seems that we are building quite a tradition with bonfire night at the barns before we are even living there. Last year I really thought that we would be living in our new home but once again we were scavenging around the building site to build a bonfire ready for a Guy Fawkes night. It was a lovely evening, if a little chilly. In fact it became too light when the moon rose! We lit the fire, had a few fireworks and then tucked into some bonfire food and mulled wine. Then we enjoyed a couple of commercial fireworks displays across the valley (for free!) and had a lovely time playing with sparklers!