Whimsy

I am loving embroidery.

I don't have time to be doing anything crafty... Lots of assessments and boring stuff coming up. But that makes the corners of my mouth point downwards... And that's just not fun! So this is what I did this evening! The patterns are from a book called A Rainbow Of Stitches and its marvelous! Please note! This book is nearly exactly the same as a book called Made In France which is equally as lovely just has a few less designs in. I didn't see this info anywhere on the Amazon page, so ended up buying both! Which was annoying but also now belongs to mother. The book is lovely though! It has a bit of everything in, and is soooo worth the money! 

That's Christmas embroidery hoop art number two done! And it didn't take up a lot of time I should have been spending on work so its all okay!

My two favourite things combined.

Having a hot water bottle makes the cosy blanket evenings EVEN more warm, and I actually find myself wishing it was cold enough to use one!

But they are so boring looking aren't they? Yeah, loads of them come with covers, some lovely, some...not so lovely. But I can't help myself from saying 'Well, I could make it myself.' And it's nice knowing that I actually could.

So I did.

I love the feeling of choosing materials and slowly seeing them turning into something else. Transformational.

So it only follows that I have often seen pictures of people spinning their own wool and yarn, and envying it. This is still somewhere I haven't ventured, but...

I'm pretty sure this is the next best thing. It's sort of a cheats way of making your very own yarn. All you need to do is choose two colours that look just lovely together... choose a slightly larger hook that you would usually use for just one strand... and off you go!

Just hold the two together and carry on how you normally would. Just make sure you have both colours on the hook at all times and you should be good to go!

See how pretty it can look?

I first tried this idea when I knitted my mum some slippers. Knitting this way does work, but every ten or so stitches, you have to unwind the balls as they twist around each other. This doesn't happen with crochet. Which is rather nice.

So once I had made the two sides to fit the bottle... I realised that I probably should have accounted for the sides... basically... it didn't fit. So I just did a round of trebles around the edge. And then it magically fitted. AND because I only did this in one colour, it framed it rather nicely...

Oh! And I wans't very happy with it being so plain... so I thought I would combine my two favorite crafts... so lets add some cross stitch to the front! This chart is from Cath Kidston's Stitch! But cross stitching on crochet was quute confusing... so it's best to choose something you'll be able to adapt quite easily. I made many mistakes.

But those mistakes have made it mine. Even more unique. Even more from my mind. Even more proud of it.

 What makes these even better is how quick they are to make! This one took me a day... and that was not non stop... I would say this one took me three hours. I need to change the heart a bit and round off the left side, and like everything I make, it is by no means perfect. But that makes it nicer. 

My bed is probably the happiest thing to look at on a dark evening.

Dala Horses

I love em. You may have seen I'm one of my recent posts about lino printing a dala horse design... Since then I got my copy of Cross Stitcher... And guess what?! A dala horse... And I wasted no time! (Actually I regularly waste time... Not the point!)

I really want to paint the frame white soon... But for now I think my little horsey looks pretty spiffing, sitting up high, keeping guard of the room.

Fresh Air

We should all try to get out into the fresh air more often.

I love the feel of the cold air on my cheeks. Much more than I love the heat on my face...

Today we went on a walk. There is something very nice about getting lost for a couple of hours and only being able to judge the time based on our tummy rumbles.

My OH likes to say 'let's get lost' a lot. We then proceed to the most unwalked in, most umtrampled area of the park or woods.

We don't have days like today enough. If only we could make the effort more often... it makes the tired feeling in the evening so much more worth it!

Today also gave me well needed chance to get to grips with my SLR. After a while of moaning and giving up because I don't know how... I think I got some okay results.

On another note, I am interested, are you a constant reader of mine? What could I do better? What would appeal more to people?

Abi x x

Granny Chic

Now, if there's something I LOVE it's a crafty book...

Granny Chic is the newest bestest thing to come from Ted and Agnes and Dottie Angel and I was seeing it everywhere on Instagram. People had posted pictures of some of the pages from the book, and it soon went staright to the top of my 'Books I really want but haven't got any money' list.

So when I saw it in The Works for only £5.99 but heart did a fluttery thing and I snatched it up. (There were quite a few on the shelf and I was the only one in the shop so the snatching wasn't nessesary...)

You can sort of just tell from the fornt cover that its going to be amazing. It is the only book I own where I want to make everything. EVERYTHING. That's going to take up a lot of time. 

But, depending on how you look at it, luckily, it didnt take me long to get started. On one hand, I get to make pretty things and dream of having an amazing caravan, on the other.... my uni work suffers even more! 

The pretty things win. 

So I took a stool I have long ago crocheted a cosy for, and made it even better! 

I had always felt it was missing something, so I added the doily. A direct inspiration from the book!

But it doesn't stop there...

I was doing a round of the charity shop... which is always nice. People don't seem to want the same things as me, so I usually find some good bargains, and since car boots are way too cold now... charity shops it is! And I saw something out of the corner of my eye... I was too excited... ANYWAY... It was a soon to be lovely old granny chic-ed up lampshade! Just realised that in my excitement I didn't take a before and after photo!

After stripping the fabric off it, it sat on the coffee table in the living room looking at me for about a day before I knew what I wanted to do with it.

Ribbon is always a winner!

And ta da! I couldn't really be more pleased with this. It fits in so nicely in my room, and the fairy lights make the perfect light to watch rubbish tv on 4OD.

It's a shame that my degree doesn't fill me with this kind of satisfaction. Oh well! Not long now...

I think I might go and hibernate in my duvet while I real some super interesting peer- reviewed articles from some lovely journals now.

 Or I'll do some more embroidery...

Stitching Away

So I have started something else.

I have never really tried hand embroidery before... By looking through some really pretty books has given me the push! It seemed like quite a natural progression from the cross stitch anyway...

I love it.

It's like doodling - which I am awful at. I can only doodle hearts, stars, cups of tea and those weird interlocking Celtic type knit things which look like an S that everyone used to draw in middle school. And stick people.

But doodling with thread! Yaaay!

So I made a toadstool house. Of course. It was meant to be a Christmas decoration, but it's going to live in the Singer all year round. Until I move out of course.



And then I remembered that I acquired some sparkly aida that I didn't think I would ever actually use.... But Christmas is coming you know!

So this happened...

And now... Well now I really need to be getting in with uni work. The amount of work I need to be doing seems to directly correlate with how much I don't want to do it. So this is currently happening.... Happy Thursday everyone!!

A Printy Weekend

The other day I got very excited because I cut and printed my very first lino cutting! Yay!

If you know me well, you'll know that things like this make me very happy. You'll also know that when I do something new I become OBSESSED. 

So it's only fitting that I spent most of my weekend cutting bits of lino, stabbing my thumb with a blade and printing stuff! Here's some sneaky peeks... (the thing I really want to show you, I can't. It's my design for my Christmas cards...) 

 Oh, and just a quick note on where the whole lino cutting idea came from... The Mollie Makes Christmas book. Buy it. Seriously. RRP is £10 and it is so worth that!  

So this Dala horse was originally an embroidery design from the Christmas issue of Mollie Makes (starting to sound like an advert for them!) from a whole year ago... and whilst I LOVE this design... I wanted something of my own... which I am not sharing with you all just yet...

But I seriously couldn't be happier with how it turned out! 

 

This was entirely the boyfriends idea. (in fact it was my idea, he was just the one to cut it out)

Then these little fishes happened... I rather like them. 

So there we have it! Some, but not all of my lino cuttings from the weekend. If you are inspired, I really would suggest buying the Mollie Makes book, it's lovely. And all the rest of the projects in there are inspiring too! And if I can do something which takes this much care, and only stab myself in the hand once, then you can to! Hurrah! 

Gathered

Now... We all know and love Mollie Makes, and have done for a while... 

So imagine my excitement when I heard that they were bringing out a new, weekly, iPad magazine!

Have you seen it yet? If not, then why not!? 

Since hearing about it, I looked regularly to see if the app was in the app store... then last Thursday it was there. 

The only thing I was worrying about was how much it was going to be! (I already have many magazine subscriptions) 

But at £2.99 a month - that's at least four issues, is a bit of a steal! 

AND it looks beautiful! 

 

It's nice to meet you too! 

And thanks for adding ANOTHER craft I need to do onto my list. I really want to make those needle felted acorns... 

I'm a printer!

No, not an electrical one!

The other day I got some lino and a lino cutting tool. (As if I needed another craft to get obsessed over!)

I have been putting off making my first cut since Saturday because I wanted to take my time and do it properly.... But then another argument with student finance later... I found myself cutting out a little birdy design! And I'm rather pleased! It's by no means perfect... But practise makes perfect right?! ;)

Cosy Cosy Autumn...

Ooh I don't know about you, but I have definitely been feeling the cold! I love the cold. My favourite sort of day is one where you leave the house and the air feels crisp on your skin. Reminds me I'm alive! (Not that I didn't know already!)

Plus these sorts of days come with the additional bonus that I have an amazing excuse to make things like this!

The colours are so lovely and bright! Sometimes when I'm on the bus feeling sick or sitting in a lecture feeling bored... I look at this and it literally brightens up my mood!

Christmas starts here!

At school, rehearsals for the Christmas carol concert started in September. This used to make me very happy. 

I recently bought the Mollie Makes Christmas book which is quite new out. This book contains all the best things about Mollie Makes - I think the reason I love it is because its FULL of projects (as you would expect). It inspired me to have a totally hand made Christmas as far as decorations go! It is very exciting... 

So I was even happier when I realised my list of things to make was as long as a chocolate bar! Because this meant I could start now! (A chocolate bar doesn't seem long but these things take time! A lot more time than the chocolate would last anyway...)

But never fear! I have started, and not without some weird looks from onlookers when they realised that that was red AND green I was working with... And only red and green. That can only mean one thing!