My First crochet flower

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Early this year I promised myself I’d give crochet a try. Recently I have been buying Simply crochet magazine, it has some lovely projects for all levels and I adore the mandala’s and granny squares, this month they had flowers.

Sadly though, my poor little brain couldn’t work out the meaning of the patterns, even the ones they said were simple, but I am VERY new to it all. So I headed off to You Tube as I’m a visual learner so I tried there instead. YEY

Here are the flowers I made

Crochet flowers

Now you see the one in the middle, it wasn’t meant to be like that it was meant to be the start of a circle but I kept getting those big chains over the top. They were trebles into the center of the ring, {sob} its driving me nuts but I can’t stop the big loops. I think its my tension that is off, but can’t sort it yet. I did so well with double crochet so can’t see why I’m having such problems with these.

I was trying for the pattern by Wink on page 58 of issue 5 of Simply Crochet Hooked on Handmade.

If anyone can shed any light on what I’m doing wrong shout up, I’d love to sort this out.

Links

Here is the video tutorial that I followed to make this flower, thanks to The Making Spot for such a clear easy to understand tutorial

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

 

***Update***

 

After watching this flower tutorial and another one and having a practice, I realised what I was doing wrong, the chain 3 was only meant to be at the start of the round, not for every repeat. DOH!!! Simple once you know eh!!! I’m now much further into the pattern and have definitely had a light bulb moment with the crochet. Hunting out more flower,motif tutorials on You Tube. Gimme a shout if you know of any

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Healing Hugs, my third shawl

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Today I’d like to share a picture of my latest project, this is my third shawl and I just love it.

Healing hugs shawl, my third shawl.

The yarn is Sirdar, Connemara and the colour way is Wayfarer. Sadly this colourway has now been discontinued and it was thanks to a friend on Pheonix Knitting forum, who told me about Hejhog that I was able to get some to make this shawl. I fell in love with this colour-way when I saw it on a garment but the shop had already sold out of it.

Sirdar: Connemara; Chunky. Colour way Wayfarer

The pattern was a freebie from Lion Brand Yarns. Its called Simple Triangle shawl. If you haven’t knitted for long its a great step up project. The new techniques I learnt with this pattern were yarn overs, which is what creates the holes. Its everso simple to create and the finished result makes it look so much harder and more complex than it is. There was only one row that was one to keep a very close eye on, the rest were either knit, pearl and a few knit two together’s along the way.

Links

• Splendid Triangle Shawl (smaller) by Lion Brand
• Sirdar; Connemrara Chunky yarn colour ways

Three separate links to Sirdar there, the first will take you to Sirdar website’s home page, the next to details about the Connemara yarn and the last to the colourways available in the yarn.

I see they have also discontinued Horn Pipe which is the lovely natural tones I made my long slipper socks with

Have my eye on the next project, but more about that another time.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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My second Cable

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Today I’d like to share a picture of my second attempt with knitting cables. This time The Braid Cable.

Braid Cable

The instructions for how to knit this, were found in The Knitting Guide for Dummies page 169.

Spring cleaning the studio is going amazingly well, the good weather has made a big difference to my ability to move so I’m making the most of it. After over 3 years of being injured one way or another and every move causing so much pain, everything kinda just got dumped in there, rather than going to its ‘home’.

It’s looking like an episode from; The Horder Next door out there at the moment, but its a work in progress so I’m ok with that. I’ve emptied boxes n things out so items are stored together and only in boxes of a required size. Tools are at last together so I’ll be able to find things again. The pile of un-identified stuff on the left hand side, has been categorised into Tools, materials and Surfaces. Anything in cupboards that was in the ‘wrong’ place or had no box in the cupboard also went into those boxes.

Sorting like this creates space to better organize what I have in the cupboards and keeps related things together. The cupboards then end up with a little space which I hope will be enough for when I do the final sort through of the boxes on the left. Now they are in Tools, materials and surfaces they will be quicker to sort through and just go to their related homes. (gotta have a dream )

My biggest issue with creating has been that because things were so all over the place it mean so much searching to get things together to create I didn’t have the energy to actually make things. Hoping now I’ve got it a bit more organized, when the weather and my body can behave that I’ll be more motivated to paint n create again. Have missed painting but its been so dark here.

No you don’t want to see a picture, it ain’t pretty! That said, I have been very disciplined so that I have left at least one surface at the chair out there, clear so I have a space that I could use. I hate the sinking feeling that I got in there, when opening the door and just seeing a whole pile of stuff that needs sorting, instead of the haven of peace and creativity that it once was.

De cluttering is very good, its calming. Now I’m getting the space to make the things I want and need to use easy to get at, rather than a fight. A way to go yet, but a great start. What have you all been up too?

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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Happy Easter, welcome to British Summer time, brrr

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Had to share this picture taken earlier in March.

Daffs in the snow, 12th March 2013

Happy Easter and welcome to British Summer Time! The clocks changed last night to BST the joke being that its still like winter! We have been lucky and the snow you see in the picture only lasted a couple of days. Thoughts and prayers for those who weren’t so lucky and have been snowed in and with power cuts. Feel especially sorry for the poor farmers and their animals who have been unable to get to the animals to feed them.

Even the daffodils couldn’t believe the weather

Daffs in the snow, 12th March 2013

The cold weather brought the Fieldfare back, will get the picture edited and posted soon.

How have you fared with the weather in the last few weeks?

Best wishes

Billie

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Handmade with Love: Orange Biscuits

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Do not fear, this is still a paper-craft blog, but the light is so low here at the moment that paper-craft and painting are difficult to do. In the meantime, I’ve been experimenting with some baking and yarn crafts to see if I like them. Today I’d like to share a picture of some cookies that I recently made.

Orange biscuits

These were from the book; Complete Baking by Martha Day on page 47. They were simple to make but they came out far too crisp for my own liking. This was due mainly to the fact that the element in our top oven was recently replaced so it’s now cooking MUCH hotter than it ever used to, so it’s a lottery whether what comes out will be edible, or not. I did learn that you can eat cake that has a black top to it, just peel off the black bits from the top and its OK(ish).

Before baking it, I tried the dough and worried that I had made a mistake adding salt to the mix. It was listed in the recipe but I tend to leave it out as I use salted butter and most recipes tell you to use unsalted, so I figure any required butter is already in there. As it turned out, they were fine, although the orange zest and juice had left only a little orange flavour to the biscuit after baking. To increase the orange tang, I used the rest of the orange juice left over to mix with icing sugar and added some as a glaze to a few of the biscuits.

I also tried to run some chocolate ‘zig-zag’ style across the biscuits…and learnt that once chocolate has left the hot bowl it tends to hug the spoon and not want to leave it. A more play school like desperation set in and instead I used the spoon to dab chocolate on the biscuits instead. As you can imagine those weren’t the most photo worthy results, so I took a pic of the plain biscuits instead. DH is a star, didn’t mind a bit that they wouldn’t have done well on the catwalk and said they tasted fine. That said they were ‘dunkers’, rather than biscuits to crunch through. I much prefer the almond biscuits I make from that book, and they will be next on the baking list

How about you, what do you love to bake? I’d love to make sweets n chocolates but being a clumsy sort this does sound like a recipe for disaster right? Anyone know of any easy books for making chocolates or sweets? Do leave me a comment if you have found any books that you would recommend for a total newbie

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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Mother’s Day Card & a dilemma!

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Today I’d like to share a picture of the Mothers Day card I made for my MIL. Its the first card I’ve made in ages.

Mothers Day Card 2013

Created using digikits and Craft Artist v1. Digikit used True Romantics by Angie Hinksman. I’m a big fan of Anna Griffin and this kit reminded me of AG style papers. Especially the roses. The large pearl in the picture isn’t part of the digikit and isn’t on the card, its to cover the photo of DH & his Mum, who aren’t keen on having their photos being on the internet

Links

• Daisy Trail From here you can find out more about Serif Craft Artist and digikits
• Angie Hinksman Digikits available by this designer.
• True Romantics

Hope she likes it

What are you making Mum for Sunday?

A nasty surprise at the bottom of the garden!

When I went out to my studio at the bottom of the garden to collect a rubber stamp, I discovered a nasty shock. Most of my stamps are stored in  metal drawers, inside a cupboard, inside an unheated garage. I have feared the rubber may not like this situation but DH reassured me that given the stamps were inside drawers, inside a cupboard they would be fine.

After seeing Indigo blu on C&C the other day, I decided to hunt out my checkered stamp and off mount it (remove it from the wooden block), so that I could try a technique shown on the demo. I wanted to apply just part of the stamp, rather than the whole image and have been considering ‘offing’ this stamp from its block, for some time. Now the stamp in question is elderly! It was an elderly stamp when I got it in the sale in a shop and has been ignored in the drawer, save for an occasional coating of stamp conditioner to ward off the worst of any issues its dislike of the storage situation might create. I have noticed that very old stamps have a tendency to leave their foam backing and to lift a bit. Having decided to remove this stamp from its block, I dug my nail under the edge of the rubber stamp itself and it lifted off the foam easy as pie. Now in this case, that was a good thing, but I had the idea that perhaps a couple of other stamps may be more useful off their blocks, so I found those too. I was horrified that these newer stamps, also lifted off their foam backing just as easily eeekkkk!!!   :0

Terror set in at this point and I left the studio in shock, afraid to touch any more stamps and risk damaging any of them further. Now the question is, has storing the stamps in these conditions caused the glue in the backing to perish and therefore most of them will be in this condition? Or is it just because it’s winter and very cold, perhaps this happens each winter and they will be ok by the warmer weather. I don’t normally mistreat my stamps by digging at them with my fingernail, and they have been stored like this for about 5 or so years.

Dilema

Have you un-mounted any of your wood mounted stamps? Did you regret it?

• Do I un-mount my precious wood mounted stamps so I can store them in a smaller space and maybe as a result have room to bring them indoors or hope for the best and leave them where they are?
• I haven’t done a great deal of rubber stamping in the last few years, partially due to poor health the digi side of crafting has taken more of my time.
• Think I might use the stamps more if they were unmounted as they would be easier to store and easier to position on a project.
• I’d like to use the stamps in a different way to in the past. I am tempted to use some (OMG am I really going to do this?) maybe even with acrylic paint or mediums. This seems more the way my creativity is going and I’d like to try using them with a brayer, ie rolling a brayer over the stamp so using the stamp flat on the table, would make that easier.

DH just got back and said it could be that the glues often get weaker bonds in the cold weather, it might all be fine when it gets warmer. Given the stamps are over 5 years old it could just be that the glue has come to the end of its natural life.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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Mother’s Day Gift: Hot Water Bottle Cover

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Today I’d like to share a picture of the knitted hot water bottle cover I made for my mother in law for Mothers Day.

Hand knitted hot water bottle cover from ‘The Little Knitting Company’ kit.

The project was from a kit I saw on C&C, lucky I bought it a while ago as it took ages to work out what I was doing. Luckily after getting in touch with the company, there was a revision in the pattern which helped it make more sence and they also linked to a tutorial for how to do the tie for the top,which I got a bit stuck on.

Sure hope she likes it, I seem to have an allergy to wool and sneezed like I had a cold throughout the project. No more wool for me! The yarn was called Geko and is 85% wool, 15% alpaca. It shed a lot of fibres as I knitted it, so maybe that’s what made me sneeze so much.

Have since found some more hot water bottle cover designs on Ravelry so I’d make MIL another one, but out of different yarn MIL is never far from a hot water bottle cover and these covers look like a much more cozy option to cuddle up to.

My fave hot water bottle cover pattern (design-wise I haven’t tried it yet!) is; All you Need – a classic.

Make Mum smile, make her something special with time and love. You know she will treasure it, and prob show all her friends too

Thoughts and prayers for everyone (like me) whose Mothers are no longer with them.

Links

• The Little Knitting Company
• Hot Water bottle Kit

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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