I Just Couldn’t Resist

replacing our old chipped coffee mugs with a few of these ‘Sip One Knit One’ coffee mugs from the local Spotlight 20% off sale this week. I don’t know what it i swith coffee cups in this house. Everytie someone comes around all I can find is broken chipped mugs. Mugs that I am embarrassed to offer to my friends.  Now it feels great to be able to offer them coffee in such beatiful mugs (or is that me just being biased as I have an obsession with knitting)

Gorgous, aren’t they?

It has been one of those frustrating weeks where I have been bsy with WIP (Works in Progress) bt not  alot finished …that was until late this afternoon  when I sewed up some bunting flags for Miss17-tomorrow’s b;day.

A night of cutting the flags, 3 hours of decorating the edges with pinking shears  had me wondering why an earth I’d started.  late this afternoon I got a chance to pt them together and knew why I’d bothered. I jst get so excited with fabric and colour. This bunting has no particular theme other than to be bright and stand out. I’m sure it will look great strung between the trees toorrow at the local park. In the mean time I just had to try them  out so strung them in the house for Miss17 to wake up to in the morning.

I have  a couple of knitting projects on the go at the moment.  Number one on the list to be completed is a Spring Butterfly  top/cardy… designed by my friend Rachel who  comes up with the cutest wee tops for girls.

To finish off…I found this pic lying on the floor ….  not sure which of my wee artists did this but since I have a soft spot for rainbows and bright colours I wanted to share.

Untangled and Lost

in Crafty Blogs.

I am attempting to keep up with nurturing my new found  crafty mojo by taking time out each day .  Todays project was not hard at all…. shouldn’t have taken long at all ……that was until I saw the tangle that the beautiful hand dyed yarn was in.

It took more than a couple of hours to get the yarn wound up into two small balls.  After that it didn’t seem long at all before the yarn morphed into some very girly crocheted squares. I love to crochet…it reminds me of my nana Ruby who taught me to crochet many years ago. I made my first crochet blanket when I was 11/12.  I remember taking it into school to work on it in my lunch break….even back then I was facinated by colours and impatient to put them together to see the finished article.

It was no different this time as I was impatient to see how this pretty verigated yarn crocheted up. Yarn that I had hand dyed a few years ago on a girly/crafty weekend and has sat in my stash waiting for inspiration to strike. Yay for a little more stash busting.

The lighter one reminds me of strawberry yogurt and the darker one of blackberry smoothie.

I have been spending my evenings getting lost in crafty blogs.  All thanks to my friend Sheryl from Shortly Stitches who has signed up for Blogtoberfest.  I followed a link…and then another…and then I was lost and before I realised it was 5am in the morning and the sun was about to come up.

For  those of you who get excited about fabric and knitting and general craftiness here are a few that I have been looking at.

Jo from Crazy Crafter NZ has a give away of an interchangable needle case and some accessories (no..no needles) running. Head on over and sign up and while you are there take a look at  her blog. She has an easy felt needle case tutorial there. Wish I had seen that last week when I made my wee gifties. I just thought it out in my head from a memory of my mum’s one when I was a kid.

I have stumbled upon Humel at I Speak Melsh who creates cute craftiness from paper. Check out her tutorial for a mirror frame. The finished frame is beautiful.  Humel is another that is generously gifting some craftiness away for Blogtoberfest. Check it out here to enter.

ust when I thought I was heading to bed for the night I found my way to  Melanie who has crocheted the most awesome jug cover and is giving away a crochet tea cosy. I haven’t had time to go through her blog yet (bed is calling) but just had to share her crochet with you.  Just looking at that beautiful cover she has made has inspired me to check out some crochet patterns and learn to read them.

Creative Friends

Lately I have had many reasons to be thankful for friends.

My friend Sheryl came for a visit (she’s the skinny one)

Sheryl knits (and she sews)…she  manages to complete so many projects that I am in awe. Now I know her secret. I’m sure she won’t mind me sharing it with you all. She has about 3 knitting projects on the go and whenever she sits down she has her needles in her hand.  I tried this for two days and it really works…a row here and a row there and you’d be surprised at how much knitting has been achieved by the end of the day. Sheryl had some beautiful project bags that I drooled over and now she is running a give away for a similar bag filled with goodies over at  Shortly Stitches 

My friend Kat turned up to my house this week with a simple but stunning b’day cake for Caj who was turning 5. 

With the b’day quilt consuming every spare minute I didn’t even give a thought to a cake. Thanks Kat for saving the day and putting a big grin on one wee boy’s face. Also Kat made some summer pajammas for Caj which he absolutely loves (and I haven’t had time to photograph yet)

And a big thanks to my friend Michelle (no blog as far as I know) who had me arrive and take over her sewing machine, livingroom and evenings (well into the next day) two nights in a row. She encouraged me and shared her skills to enable me to make a very special quilt.

50 plus 5

A 50th and a 5th b’day in our house…..the same day even.

And my new found mojo has been working overtime.

Two days before the man’s 50th I had a masive urge to make him a quilt for his gift.  I was wanting a gift that had meaning to him and that suited his personality. His first passion is kayakking but with no suitable fabric that depicted that I went with his next passion…the NZ bush and wikderness.Now I am not a quilter. (I made my friend Michelle did most of the sewing on the front panel (still to be finished off) quilt that I made for Miss 16 last Christmas.)

I could only work on it evenings at Michelle’s house as it was a big big secret…. and they turned out to be two very long evenings..working into the early hours of the morning.  I can say that I did it all myself ‘cept for the handsewing of the binding which saw M and I stitching as we watched infomercials on the telly coz that was all there was in the early hours of the morning.

Michelle completing the last stitch

And the finished product.

 I am yet to take some more detailed close up pics

And just so that Caj had something special ‘made by his mum’ for his b’day I whipped up a few bunting  flags to brighten up our livingroom. After a quick hunt through my fabric stash (and a chance to do a little stash bust) a pirate theme seemed perfect for him. Thanks to Beth from stitch.rip.repeat for the tutorial.  I made a few alterations but the basic tutorial is great and very easy to follow.

Spring has Sprung

and along with spring my creative mojo has emerged from hybernation.

A spring swap with friends (something small for everyone) saw me try my hand at making bias binding. Thanks to encouragement from my friend Abbe and our local Spotlight I picked up some quilters cotton at $5/metre (yep…that is very cheap for quilting cotton here in New Zealand) and a small bias making tool. My thoughts while making it that it was slow and time consuming. I’m sure that it will become faster as I make more.

But so worth it for the end result…beautiful patterned bias tape all ready for use.

Onto the secret gifts (which aren’t going to be secret any longer once I put up pics) I was in such a hurry to try out the bias that I’m afraid  my sewing isn’t up to my normal standard. Never mind…friends are very forgiving (I hope:-)). Eight wee giftees later and I am so pleased how they turned out. I started off with an idea in my head but then went to visit my friend Michelle (who is  a beautiful quilter…something I just do not have the patience for) and was inspired by a small wall hanging she had made,  No..I did not make a wall hanging but used the idea of the quilt pattern to design somethign of my very own that is based on the same item my mum had in her sewing box many years ago.

Something small Something useful (coz at the end of the day I am a pracical soul and do not want to put time and energy into something that won’t get used)

See my bias binding in action?

BACK ONLINE

Our big move over with…never want to do that again in a hurry…last straw was the computer packing a sad two days after the move

At present the sewing/creative space is an unpacking/sorting space with a gillion black rubbish sacks full of ‘treasures’ to be sorted and stowed away.

Sewing gears lost in the abyss (‘cept for the overlocker that the repairman has ‘lost’ while servicing it) so it has been knitting here for me.

Last week managed a cute roll brim hat for Finny (photos to come). Knitted with Cleckheaton’s Kaleidoscope dark Pink Mix this was a fast knit on 5-5mm circulars.:-)

Also knitted a roll brim hat each for Zel and Flo in their hockey team colours. Saturday mornings up on the hockey field i smore often than not cold with a bitter wind. i did not enjoy knitting these…knitted on 4mm circulars in DK / 8 ply. I think it was having to knit them in colours that did not appeal to me that put me off…and the second similar hat was torture…even though an easy and resonably fast knit. (pics to come)

My Vintage Purls sock club yarn is sitting here ready to be started. With the computer dying I could not teach myself magic loop or the cast on method that is reccommended.

This project is going to be a challenge for me because believe it or not..I have never knitted socks.  Am pleased that the pattern is a toe up one as that way makews more sense to me:-)

Since my swift is packed away somewhere I had to make good use of the available teen:-)

Dreaming

of fabric and threads  ……. as I pack up my house my fingers are itching …..  for the time and space to create …. dreaming of a time when my sewing room will in order …… dreaming of shelves of fabric … yarn neatly stowed away ….. of projects to be started

Not long to our big move

New Skills

Back in February I got together with some crafty friends to hang out for a few days.  Thanks to Nova I learned to felt …. needle felt. My first (and so far only) ever go at needle felting. (’scuse the crappy pic..taken at night)

I was really pleased with how this turned out (and how easy it was to do). So pleased that I recently sent it away for my pin cushion swap that I took part in with some friends from TNN.  (Though to be  honest it was very hard to part with)

I  also  crocheted flowers to make a keyring (for another swap) which went into the post recently (much to my extreme embarrassment a little more than a tad late)

I must say thanks to my friend Annie who not only  encouraged me when life got a little hard but also reached out and took over a couple of my swaps. Thank you Annie

Country Chick Goes City

Crafting has taken a back seat these past few months.  A few wee items (to be shared when my camera is unearthed from where ever the kids have had it) but on the whole life has been taken up with…well….life.

The next month will be taken up with sorting / decluttering /packing in readiness for a major move.   I am finding it easy to sort and put out the kids clothes…but my stash of fabric…..that is another story…not to mention the slowly growing stash of yarns as well.  Just how does one go about parting with one’s fabrics when they just might have a use one day…might be just what I need at 11pm at night when all else is closed? 

Luckily our new home boasts a sewing room….a large sewing room……one so large that I’ve even consented to having the tv room share my sewing space (coz I love to have company in the dead of night when all else is sleeping) and I will still have plenty of room for my stash.  I have already purchased two large shelves from the demolition yard in anticipation of the move. A couple of coats of paint and they will look clean and pristine ready for my fabrics. 

The exitement of such a huge crafting space has had me overlook the little things like lack of kitchen (we were going to put one in but the lure of a heat pump for my sewing room won out over a workable kitchen….I mean…how can one be creative when you are wrapped in a blanket shivering from the cold) , the three small bedrooms that I need to fit 9 of us into (yes…I could use my sewing space as a sleeping area…but then where would I store my stash).  Actually…the most exciting thing about the move is the time it will free up. We will be two minutes walk from the centre of town (country chick goes city) . I will no longer have to play taxi to the teen kids in our household. By my reckoning this move will free up  at least 5-6 hrs a day….hours that I can devote to my obsessions passions…..now that is truly something to get excited about

Watch this space

After a Long Break

From blogging not creating I am back.

The past few months have been  our summer here in NZ and our family follow the circus.

Camping at Prana Festival

Yes…one wee girl was lucky to celebrate her birthday at Prana. Our friend Achmed remembered from last year and baked this special cake for her and she is wearing her Hungry Caterpillar Dress that mummy made,

Buskers festival

Kai Iwi Lakes Circus Festival

 

I even had time for a little knitting while camping. Finally I knitted up Finny’s first rainbow dress  I say first because after this one I  knitted  another and have yet a third on my needles.)

 A trip to Le Grand Cique

 

 

 

 

 

 Saint Paddy’s Day

Notice the green tunic Finny is wearing. You can also see Zel and Flo wearing their’s in the first pic…..was up to 4.30am the night before throwing them together….really pleased how they turned out…..wee tunic top/dress with the hood lined in contrasting fabric.

More snippets to come.