Three Beautiful Things

The sun came out on Thursday!  I've started marking the sunny days on my calendar to remind myself I have actually seen the sun recently!!  With all that lovely light I snatched up my camera and ran around taking photos.  It's a bit of a flowery post today but I'm just loving that I have some colour in my house again and some gorgeous flowers too.

There you are, three lots of gorgeousness dotted around and smelling heavenly.  I'm just wishing that spring would hurry up and arrive soon.  I'm itching to get outside and start work on the garden and we have big plans on the veggie front this year!

A little bit flitty and flighty

I've been a little bit flitty and flighty on the craft front recently, which is most unlike me.  Usually I like to finish one project before launching into the next - unless I'm not getting on well with a project and then it just gets parked - usually indefinitely!  Anyway, here I have lots of projects on the go, all of which are going well but there are just too many!!!  Which to do?  Things haven't been helped by some deadlines that have come up, a fancy dress party - yes someone might be going as a wizard!  A birthday - ok I've gone a bit mad on that one - more on that later!  Valentine's day - yes that has passed but those hearts do need felting and I've wool for some more and I might add some embellishments . . .  The list goes on.

Luckily every cloud has a silver lining and the cloud came in the form of a very spotty Flopsy Bunny.  Yes I thought she had some inbuilt immunity to chicken pox the number of times she'd been exposed to it and not got it, but somehow, out of nowhere spots appeared and there we were house bound for a week.  Hmmm what to do . . . .!  So the silver lining has meant that I have managed to crack on with all my projects in a rather flitty and flighty way, while administering to the sick and playing with the toddler - who no doubt will be ensuring another house bound week in the near future!

So the birthday, well, that deserves a post all to itself, not least that not much has been made yet and so in my usual style it will have to form part of the I.O.U. birthday present list.  But I did get the above made and I have to say, I'm very pleased with my efforts!  My first try at needle felting.  Now, any guesses as to what I'll be making . . . .?

Love is in the air : Part 2

A couple of cute little hearts waiting to be felted, and maybe a couple more to join them before they jump into the washing machine.  What a great way to use up left over yarn and a really quick and easy pattern too once I had got my head around what I needed to do.  Again, I found the pattern on Ravelry but you can also find it here.  So I learnt two new techniques with this pattern - who'd have thought it with such a little project!!  I had never tried the figure of 8 method of casting on so that you get equal numbers of stitches on two needles and then knit the front and the back at the same time, but I found a really good clear explanation over at Hello Yarn.  The tops of the hearts are finished off using the Kitchener stitch and I found a good explanation of it at Knitty: little of purls of wisdom.  It always amazes me that you can find out anything on the internet!!!

Anyway, with the help of these lovely blogs I managed to make my hearts.  I did realise as I started to write yesterday's and today's posts that I do get a bit carried away with themes sometimes - I had my Bunny Obsession last year - although I have a feeling that is ongoing  - I have a post or two coming up on that theme!  And I'm obviously going through a bit of a heart thing at the moment!  Now what to do with the hearts when they are finished . . . .!

Love is in the air : Part 1

We've gone all romantic here, well a bit heart obsessed if I'm honest!  These little hearts were such fun to make.  Flopsy Bunny and I had a very sticky time making them last week.  I found the idea on Ravelry (where else!!) if you are signed up to the site you can find the receipe/pattern here.  But they are just so easy to do, all you need is some wool, heart shaped biscuit cutters and some corn starch glue or I think PVA glue would work just as well!  Flopsy Bunny decided it was a bit too messy, which surprised me as she came home from school with glue in her hair and on her sweatshirt - maybe there can be too much messy play at times!!  She enjoyed cutting the wool and choosing the colours though and left the messy stuff to me.  Which from mine and the kitchen's sake was a result!!!

 

Anyway hope you have a Happy Valentine's Day!!

Sweetheart knitting

Ah February, love must be in the air as I've been knitting hearts!  This is version #2 of this cushion.  The first version involved a patchwork of knitted squares which I sewed together but somehow the sewing together bit didn't really give the finish I was after.  So a bit of frogging later (luckily this is quite a small cushion so I didn't feel too bad about pulling it apart and starting again!), here I am with version #2.  Slightly bigger than the first attempt as I realised that the smallest cushion pad I could get was 10"x10".  It would be lovely if you could let me know what you think - obviously it hasn't been blocked yet and I haven't done the back! - but I was thinking this might be the pattern I use for my knitting workshop!  Do you think it would be the sort of thing a beginner knitter might like to do?  Please be honest . . .!

I think the glorious sunny weather is having an effect on my creativity.  I really did feel I was hibernating in January and not much was done at all.  But now the sun is out, there is blue sky, birds are singing and I have lots and lots of projects in my head.  Next on the knitting front I am planning to knit myself a hat, I need to get on with this before it warms up too much, otherwise I won't get any wear out of it!  Then there's the wizard outfit . . . well fabric has now been bought and a pattern too.   I was thinking I might design something myself but realised I didn't really have time and there was an absolutely gorgeous one in the pattern books which was just what I had in mind!  So there we go.  Flopsy Bunny has requested some knitted clothes for her various animals so I have a very full to do list.

Hopefully I will have a finished cushion to show you shortly and who knows what else!