Category: blogs

Absolutely love it!

stitchesoftime3 Comments

Hello everyone

Am very excited this week as the Splendid Sampler  people have not only released the most gorgeous paper-pieced block but also a great bonus idea of what to do with it.

The block was released on Thursday and is called Stitching Fashion and it was designed by Charise.

Charise stitching_fashion_pic_yellow -small

I have visited her blog before and love her designs. She has step by step instructions at this post and you can download the pattern from the Splendid Sampler here.

There is also a Periscope video here by Alyssa from Penguin and Fish.

It was obviously very popular as there have been so many beautiful blocks made since then. All pictures come from the Splendid Sampler site and the Facebook page and are by,  (in no particular order), Carrie, Debbie, Lydia, Maria, Maudy and Amanda, brilliant work ladies.

Charise also has an Etsy shop with many more gorgeous paper pieced things. I was looking at her Flickr group  as well and came across this fab idea made with one of her other patterns for a vintage dress that could just as easily be made with this one.

Barbie Doll Tidy

This is by Miss Ginny from England, you are a star and I love this!

As is that wasn’t enough excitement yesterday a bonus project for this block was released, this cute notions pouch available from Craftsy here. Charise also has her patterns for sale here as well including some lovely free vintage blocks.

SplendidNotionsPouch - medium

Don’t you think this would make a great make up bag gift as well without the spool , or storage for all those Barbie shoes and accessories. Makes me wish Ellie was little again as I used to love making things for her Barbie dolls.

We once spent the Easter holidays making an entire Barbie flat out of large cardboard boxes, with real carpet and wallpaper and all the furniture made out of cereal packets!

I am going to go back and look at some more of Charise’s patterns, have never done any paper piecing as have been put off by all the little bits but look at the cuteness of this that she made as a block a while ago. I also really enjoyed making the sewing machine cover and that was 33 pieces and 9 hours but great sense of achievement .Photo from her Flickr site.

Charise paper pieced sewing composite -small

Right am off to spend the rest of the weekend hand sewing braid while watching mindless television! Have been super busy at work including working the last two weekends as well so really looking forward to doing very little that needs a brain.

Have only about 10 feet of the braid left to go on Ellie’s coat and that needs to be finished for next weekend as we have an event at Ashby de la Zouche Castle. And I get to finally go and see her new flat and the chapel at Clumber Park 🙂

Have a lovely weekend and week ahead and thanks for visiting, oh and enjoy the Bank Holiday next Monday if you are in the UK, you never know it might even be sunny!

Spring resolutions

stitchesoftime2 Comments

I don’t really make New Year’s resolutions. I have had the same one for the last 10 years now to do more fun stuff and less housework and boring stuff but have been inspired by the prospect of Spring and a bit more time and nicer weather to think about sorting and getting on with stuff.

I am not going to do this – that would be foolish and would not help support all those lovely  businesses run by hardworking women who share my passion for fabric.

Stash joke

So I am going to tackle the WIP pile! It is not very big but now that I am on a roll with the machine I am going to get the few projects that have been waiting for me to have some serious sewing time sorted.

I am not going to set a time frame for finishing everything but am going to try and complete one a month.

First one to be done is the cover for my new sewing machine. When I bought it in July I promised it a new cover and the poor thing has been languishing under its flimsy plastic one every since.

You may remember that I bought a lovely sewing machine themed spool rack last year and that my lovely children bought me the matching hook set for Christmas.

I found some great sewing machine panels that I thought would maybe look good as a hanging in the craft room and decided that one of those would make a pretty cover.

My chosen panel comes from the Snapshots Quilt Along  held last year by the Fat Quarter Shop blog. This is a great set of patterns and they raised money as well as for each download they suggested that you donate to a children’s hospital.

Here is a picture of the full quilt from Pat Sloan’s blog.

Snapshots quilt along quilt

The block is called Sew On and Sew On and there were some lovely versions made like these ones from the Flickr group by Pam Kitty Morning and Stamperville using the original colourway from the pattern.

Snapshots sewing machine - Flicker Pam Kitty Morning small

Snapshots sewing machine - Flicker Stamperville small

I got as far as cutting this out last year and then the machine had a bit of wobbly, probably due to lack of nice cover so I had not had chance to sew it together.

So last Sunday I pulled all of the pieces out of the WIPs box and got them assembled.

sewing machine cover 1

The pattern suggests labelling each of the 32 pieces with Alphabitties, those little letter labels seen in the above photo but I don’t have any of those so used normal sticky labels cut into pieces which meant I could put dimensions as well as the pattern colour on to keep track while I sewed them together.

sewing machine cover 2

I found the video of how to sew the picture on the Fat Quarter shop blog very useful, it took a couple of hours but soon had this lovely picture.

sewing machine cover 3

I had thought I had enough fabric to do a single piece back as I had picked up some more of the turquoise print in a local craft shop a couple of months ago but when  I unfolded the fat quarter it had fade marks along all of the fold lines so I had to be creative.

I did a pieced back with some 1 inch patches from the rest of the scraps.

sewing machine cover 4

I just ended up quilting in the ditch, I know I did the machine quilting course a while ago but need a bit more practise before I ruin something I have spent hours on!

So here it is a back and front view over a chair and in situ, went for a simple side tied and bound finish with the last of the turquoise strips.

sewing machine cover 5

sewing machine cover 6

sewing machine cover 7

I am extraordinarily pleased with this, even though it took about 9 hours in total including hand stitching the binding it was well worth it and my machine is very happy!

I am counting this as another project for the Sewing Bucket List – number 11 a project from a PDF pattern.

I also love the camera block they designed for the backing.

Snapshots Camera block -small

Not much crafting will be going on here this weekend, we have Ofsted (government inspectors) due in on Monday at work so have been busy with prep for that and the things I didn’t get done this week I need to do tomorrow.

Roll on next weekend 🙂

Hope you have a nice rest of the weekend and week ahead and see you soon, thanks for visiting.

 

May miniature madness

stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello there, happy 1st of May.Hope that you are all having all had a good weekend, I am thoroughly enjoying the extended weekend here.

It is not feeling very Spring like yet but luckily all the snow has melted. Could not believe it when I woke up on Friday morning as it was all completely white. Bizarre even for Yorkshire.

I have always been drawn to making little things, whenever I craft it always seems to end up being a small project, mini hexagon patchwork, cross stitch so small you need a magnifier to do it, knitting little animal parts, I am always making tiny things. Ellie’s Barbie dolls used to be well kitted out with clothes 🙂

Maybe it is because I don’t have much time and like to get things finished, or maybe I was a pixie in a previous life but most of my projects seem to end up small. I take great inspiration from crafters like Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts  as she loves making things out of tiny scraps.

This weekend I excelled in making small things, I started with a basket (another!) and wanted to use up a small piece of the fusible foam that I had left. This became a basket which is only 3 inches high – so cute! I used Perle thread to topstitch which gives a great definition to the top edge.

bags may mini 3

Being a make do and mend sort of crafter I used the cut outs from the bottom of the bag again to make a pincushion only this time decided to add from my scrap drawer and use half square triangles so here is a very tiny pincushion.

Pictures show bag and front and I suppose it is a Bow Tie block.

bags may mini 4

This is only two inches across and I am very pleased with how neat my seams are, even the one underneath the button has great matching. I might crack this piecing lark after all.

bags may mini 6

There was a small piece left over from cutting as well so I thought a little needlebook would be nice, this is just less than two inches wide and is lined with batting and has a little bit of felt inside. Both pincushion and needlebook have detachable straps as well.

bags may mini 7

I am very pleased with everything even though it did take hours to make as most of it needed to be hand stitched as it was too small to machine. And look I am using stash less that a week after it arrived in the house, before it has time to go off 🙂

bags may mini 8

I did make a normal sized one as well, this is the very cute sheep fabric, look at that one knitting.

bags may mini 2

bags may mini 1

The pattern, Friends of the One Hour Basket by Kelby Sews, is very well written and easy to follow but I have made some adjustments to the process that I have detailed here in case they are useful.

  • When I cut out the squares from the bottom of the padded exterior section I tack the bottom and side seams flat, this seems to make it stand up easier without rocking.
  • I tack the handles into place before sewing the lining so that they stay still as I found the first couple slipped out of place when I pulled the lining up.
  • I hand stitch the lining inside at the top rather than topstitching, I am not the neatest machine sewer and like not having a line on the patterned fabric.
  • I iron the bag again at the end, both on the inside which makes the lining stick down to the other side of the fusible fleece and carefully around the outside, trying not to iron my hand as I hold it 😉

With my extra day tomorrow I am going to do something different and make something for my sewing room, something I have been meaning to do for a while, don’t know how far I will get but watch this space.

Hope you have a great Bank Holiday if you are in the UK and commiserations if it is just a normal Monday for you. Thanks for visiting and have a great week ahead.

 

 

‘What this old fabric? I’ve had it for ages darling!’

stitchesoftime4 Comments

Do you ever feel that you have to hide your stash enhancements from your nearest and dearest? Luckily for me my family completely understand my need to buy fabric.

Well Ellie very much appreciates knowing that she can raid the craft room whenever she needs to and I don’t think Jake would be bothered unless I spent all of the food budget on fabric and didn’t feed him when he comes back for the summer 🙂

I have recently been reading a great blog called Dresden Lane  whose tag line is, ‘sometimes I distract myself from buying fabric by sewing with it’, which I think sums up many of us.

Love this joke that I found. That is so me!

 

fabric buying joke

I have had a few lovely deliveries this week, one of the other compensations about not going away this last weekend for the re-enactment event was that I had more in my treats budget this month for fabric as I had a very economical weekend here at home.

As I mentioned I found some very cute sheep fabric – this grey one was from Thread and Loop and the red one from Marilyn’s Patchwork Mania , both from Ebay via an image search.

fabric April 3

fabric April 1

These very unusual sheep hexagons come from The Vintage Fabric Market  and I will applique them onto some linen.

fabric April 2

I was lucky enough to find some more of the lovely Makower Sew Retro Notions fabric, which is now out of print, both the small motif and the larger ones.

The small motif one on the bottom came from Lovely Jubbly Fabrics and the larger print from Fabrics and Much More.

fabric April 7

I was also really pleased to find some more of some of my favourite type of designs, this blue with little red roses comes in several colourways and versions and I also bought a similar fabric in purple.

fabric April 4

This along with an ivory version of the lovely French sewing notions fabric that I used last weekend in grey comes from a site called Always Knitting and Sewing. I think this might be my favourite sewing notions fabric, I love the detail in these adverts.

fabric April 6

fabric April 5

This shop has lots of the very pretty ditsy flowers and floral prints that I love and some very pretty bundles, so tempted but am being good for now! Look at these lovelies though.

bundle-10-fat-quarters-cream-floral-Always Knitting and Sewing

Pink fabric - Always K and S bundle

I am trying to buy more sets of fabric, I have had a tendency in the past just to buy random things that I like and have ended up with a very eclectic collection where nothing goes together.

I have a very random assortment of dinosaurs, cats, elephants, rabbits, tigers, penguins and owls and lots of other novelty things that I can’t yet find as use for. At least Mum has done something good with the dinosaurs now but still have a bit of menagerie to rehome!

My plans for this weekend are to turn some of this into baskets and to get on with some medieval kit – still got 30 feet of braid to put on Ellie’s outfit and a surcoat to make, though thankfully not as complex as the checkerboard from last year!

Hope you have a lovely weekend and enjoy the Bank Holiday if you are in the UK – yippee an extra weekend day 🙂 🙂

Thanks for visiting.

Serendipity and other happy things

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Serendipity is one of my favourite words. It means, ‘the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way’, and I particularly love it when I get crafting serendipity.

This happens a lot as I am always finding great things on blogs or fabric that goes really well with intended projects which was what happened at Simply Solids on Saturday.

Last month’s Stichery Club by Jenny of Elefantz included this cute design, picture from Jenny’s website. I have already used the little birds on my Happy Happy block but want to make the whole thing as well at some point.ELEFANTZ the topiary tree

So I was very pleased to see this fabric on the shelves at Simply Solids.

Machine quilting course 13

They had lots of different colours but I thought this was very pretty. I can use the centre of the flower for the main design and the rest for the surrounding fabric. I think it will make a cute bag.

There was also a great machine quilting resource mentioned at the course, Leah Day and when I got home and found her website I realised that I had come across her before.

Her Free Motion Quilting Project  has shared 365 designs for quilting and they are all in the gallery here. Each design also has a video showing you how to do it, an incredibly generous resource.

I have added her book to my Amazon wish list as think that would be a very useful addition to my quilting library.

Leah Day 365 quilting designs book

She also has two other books that just have the beginner and intermediate designs in them so think I might start with those. You never know though after my recent success I could become a machine quilting genius after all!

I have also just ordered this PDF pattern from Acorn Quilt and Gift Company  , it  is one I found from a link from Jenny’s website I think and I have wanted it for ages but was not sure what I would do with it.

Betsys Closet In Stitches

A friend from knitting group has just had a baby girl and I think that one of these designs would make a gorgeous baby card so am planning to stitch that in Spain as well.

It is so cute and  I love the quilted border as well. There is also a fully appliqued version as well which is just as lovely.

Betsys Closet applique

Look at this little dress, and the quilting around it. One day maybe!

Betsy Closet Sunday Dress

Am fast approaching project wish overload as there are so many things that I want to do. I take comfort from the fact that the end of the teaching year is only a couple of months away and that means getting home at a reasonable time and in the light so my productivity always increases then.

And the fact that I am using this blog partly as a retirement resource for me as well for the time when I can devote all day everyday to crafting!!

Meanwhile hope that you all have a lovely next couple of weeks, I am very lucky and will be doing lots of resting and crafting so I hope that you have fun and will see you all soon.

Thanks for visiting.

Kaizen and the art of machine quilting

stitchesoftime2 Comments

Hello everyone, hope that you are all well and happy.

I have just finished reading the book Ellie bought me last week and at the end Cassandra talks about, ‘kaizen’, the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement while being happy with what you are doing now and that just about sums up my machine quilting course at Simply Solids yesterday.

In fact I would go further and say that I am very happy with what I achieved. Last summer I did a course with Gillian Travis and though it was mainly about applique she was encouraging us to use machine quilting and embroidery to finish our work and she talked about ‘drawing with the machine’ but I was too scared to try.

This was partly why I booked onto this course taught by Charlotte Jeffrey who blogs under the name Quiltification. She also has a Pinterest board here.

She started by showing us some of her work and it is gorgeous. I love the contrast of the simplicity of this piecing on the quilt made with ombre squares in contrast with the amazing quilting including her, ‘mandala’, design.

Machine quilting course 5

 

She also brought this beautiful one that I didn’t get chance to get a picture of at the course so this is from her website. I love these heart shaped leaves.

Quiltification quilt 1

She was very encouraging and in no time at all I had moved from wonky lines and writing my name to curves and then freestyle daisies. It was really brilliant and has given me so much confidence.

We started practising on calico and then I decided to do a little test on some silk and I love it so much I brought it home, bound it and will be using it as a coaster, I have created a little piece of art and I am very pleased 🙂

Quilted coaster 1

Helen from knitting group was there as well, she is very good with a machine and created these beautiful samples, love her writing practise!

I also bought a little bit more stash, it would have been very rude not to and almost impossible to resist the temptation when you are sitting surrounded by gorgeous fabric all day.

This is the latest Bonnie and Camille design from Moda, ‘Vintage Picnic’, there are some beautiful prints here in five different colourways.

Moda Vintage Picnic all colours

 

Can’t decide which is my favourite print but I do love this cross stitch inspired one.

Vintage picnic cross stitch fabric

 

I bought a charm pack as I like having all of the colours in a range to choose from.

Machine quilting course 14

Machine quilting course 12

There are some gorgeous quilt patterns for the design, these are two of my favourites, Nantucket and Summertime.

Vintage picnic quilt pattern 1

 

 

Vintage picnic quilt pattern 2 Summerville

Had a fab day and am looking forward to doing some more quilting courses with Simply Solids in the summer. I always really enjoy going on courses and it is such a beautiful shop. I also always come away with something lovely 🙂

Their new schedule will be posted on Monday so I will be booking myself a little something, maybe as a birthday treat!

Have a very packed week ahead, sadly not  practising machine quilting  😦 but then am off to Spain for two weeks so shall be doing lots of hand stitching, reading and knitting in the sun.

I am also going to celebrate a late Mother’s Day and an early birthday with my wonderful Mum so am very much looking forward to that.

We are having a little trip to Madrid as well so will be no doubt posting some pictures of beautiful buildings when I get back.

Until then take care and thanks for visiting.

 

A lovely crafting weekend!

stitchesoftime2 Comments

 

Hello everyone

Hope that you have had a great weekend, here in the UK it has been Mother’s Day and I had planned a Crafternoon so I have had a thoroughly splendid time and got flowers as well!

Mothers Day Flowers

Ellie came up for both days, we had the usual cake and pink fizz in the company of Sarah, Helen and Sharon from knitting group and then on Sunday had a little trip out.

Can’t show you much from the Crafternoon as everyone but me was working on secret projects, Sarah for her new knitting book due out later this year and Ellie and Helen on gifts.

March crafternoon 1

March crafternoon 2

I thought I would start on a bit of paper piecing for Christmas – never too early!

Our planned visits further afield on Sunday were curtailed by heavy snow on Friday but we still had a lovely time and I have some new things to show you.

Firstly a couple of lovely quilt books, one bought by me last week and the other from my children, credit due to Ellie for spotting this in the National Trust gift shop! Apparently when she told him what she was planning Jake said he didn’t think I needed another quilt book, how wrong 😉

Quilt books - Mothers day 1

As you know I love textile history and this gorgeous book, ‘A World of Quilts’, by Cassandra Ellis is all about making historic quilts, the author has used mainly recycled material and this gives the quilts a wonderful vintage look.

Each of the quilt patterns has a little bit of history with it and the finished quilts are beautifully photographed. A really excellent present!

Quilt books - Mothers day 2

Quilt books - Mothers day 3

Quilt books - Mothers day 4

I bought this one, ‘Tile Quilt Revival’,   from Amazon recently as I came across a reference to the tile quilts on a blog. Again they are based on historic quilts and have some really unusual designs.

Quilt books - tile book 1

The quilts are made from applique which is done onto a plain background with spaces between the pieces giving the appearance of grout. Here is a better picture of the cover quilt.

Quilt books - tile book 3

There are some wonderful patterns in here and as I have established I am much better at applique than piecing so am very drawn to this quilt style.

I have also been doing some applique myself, this is one of the Splendid Sampler blocks I mentioned previously, Happy Happy by Jen Kingwell .

Splendid Sampler Block 4 Happy-Happy-Block-picture

I really liked the pattern and all of the examples that I was seeing so have been spending most of the last week working on this.

SS Happy Happy Block 1

The fabric is a Liberty print for the vase and the flowers are all made from part of a Moda Best Wishes charm pack. I am improving my skills at chain stitch as well and am very pleased how this has come out.

SS Happy Happy Block 3

Am adding a couple of Jenny’s cute birds to the piece to finish it off.

I love the way that everyone has interpreted this design differently, there are buttons, fussy cut flowers and so many beautiful fabrics.

On this mosaic are designs from Lori, Nantje, Dianna, Kandy, Heather, Coralie, Jill, Beth, Christine and Alicia, all pictures from the Splendid Sampler blog and Facebook page. Wonderful work ladies!

Have an exciting weekend ahead as well as am off to another quilting course at Simply Solids on Saturday learning how to improve my freestyle machine quilting. Will share progress with that on Sunday.

Have a lovely rest of the week, take care and thanks for visiting.

 

A whole lot of quilting going on..

stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello everyone

Not by me I hasten to add as my productivity is at an all time low at the moment on the quilting front.

I am sure my mojo will return as soon as time spent away from the house decreases, we have had some lovely sunny weather recently so I am looking forward to long summer days and time at my machine.

Winter is always a time for hunkering down on the sofa with a fleecy blanket and knitting and embroidery for me however I am keeping up to date with what is going on in the quilting world and though I would share these with you in case you have missed earlier posts.

The Splendid Sampler is really taking off with an amazing 16,000 plus members on the Facebook group and more that are joining in who are not using that forum. The first three blocks have been released and can be found here.

I really like the first heart block from Pat Sloan and this looks about my level of piecing 😉

Feb14_PatSloan_HeartsA_Block

I am loving the Facebook page as well and all of the great colour combinations that people have used for the first three blocks.

These are beautiful fabrics and are made by, clockwise from top left, Debbie Miller, Karen Saw, Susan Burtrum and Lisa Leimone. Brilliant work ladies!

Also really like this fussy cut one from Stacy Mcgee Lee, love the Elizabethan motif here and great use of colour.

Stacy Mcgee Lee - SS 3 blocks

I have also discovered a new quilt designer, The Patchsmith , and have bought a couple of her books as gifts for a certain quilting buddy who shall remain nameless at present.

Amanda specialises in mug rugs and her designs are gorgeous and can be scaled up and down and the individual motifs used in all sorts of ways.

Go and have a look at her Craftsy store, the individual patterns are only £ 1.42 which I think is really good value. This one is especially calling to me for some reason!

Patchsmith AppliqueandMugRugAlphabet_1

And this is one of the cutest designs I have ever seen, I love it.

Patchsmith Whale mug rug

The books that I have bought are the Christmas and Hobby designs. I think the reindeer on the front cover would be brilliant on a child’s stocking.

By the way I am not affiliated with any of the sites that I tell you about or get any reward from these links, I just like sharing the loveliness that I find with you.

I am planning another fairly quiet weekend at home, only have this weekend free as next weekend we are having a crafternoon, never to early to start on those Christmas ornaments.The weekend after that I am at a machine embroidery workshop! How very exciting and craftilicious!

Hope you are having a lovely time, thanks for visiting.

A Good Yarn

stitchesoftime2 Comments

Hello everyone

Am back from a very lovely week of relaxing in Spain where I did very little in the way of crafting, I do have a completed dress for a mouse which I will post about later once it is on said animal, however I did do lots and lots of reading.

Jenny of Elefantz has just sent us her Stitchery Club for Feb and in it is a great design for any book lover, in the middle on the right hand side,  as well as all this beautiful stuff! Picture from Jenny’s web site.

ELEFANTZ club feb 2016 cover

You can buy just this set of patterns from Jenny’s Craftsy store or sign up for the Stitchery Club, it would make a great Mother’s Day present. The March designs also look excellent, will get stitching again once the mouse is put together!

I am now just over half way through the, ‘Blossom Street Series’, by Debbie Macomber and am loving them. I just cannot resist a new book and  I come across books that I want to read in many different ways.

I found Debbie through a TV series and I love her writing, at first sight the books look very much like traditional romance novels but they actually deal with all sorts of themes including cancer, infertility, alcoholism, adoption and drug use in a sensitive, interesting and real life way. Have just ordered the last five of this series 🙂

It varies what attracts me about a book, sometimes it is the cover illustration or the title that catches my eye, other times it may be a review in a magazine or a link from Amazon.

Their marketing strategy always gets me, that ‘other people also read’ has led me to buy far more than I intended and discover some great authors.

Another person that I have been really enjoying at the moment is Rosanna Ley, I had, ‘The Saffron Trail’, on my Amazon wish list when my Mum gave it to me and picked up, ‘The Road to Mandalay’, in a charity shop.

Again beautifully written and with the added bonus of settings in Morocco, Devon, Cornwall and Myanmar that just make me want to travel more… if that is possible. The cover pictures are wonderful, am lucky enough to have visited the place on, ‘The Saffron Trail’, book cover on a trip to Morocco.

And I was once again tempted by the ‘buy one get one half price’ in the airport WH Smiths and treated myself to another from my wish list, ‘The Versions of Us’, by Laura Barnet. A truly lovely book, wonderful plot lines and so nice to have such talented people to read.

Book - versions of us

I have also just finished, ‘Great Continental Railway Journeys,’ based on the series with Michael Portillo that I have watched for further inspiration for travel.

Really enjoyable all about the history of the railway development in Europe so has improved my knowledge of general history and geography as well.

Railway book 1

Next up is another treat to self, ‘Great Railway Journeys of the World‘, I love train travel and am planning more trips in the future so thought I would get some inspiration from here.

Great Railway Journeys of the World book

What about you, what attracts you about a book? Got any favourites to share?

Hope that you are having a lovely week whatever you are doing, thanks for visiting and see you again soon.

 

Knitting geniuses and a knitting numpty

stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello everyone

I have made a start on the Sarah and Ann’s Knit Along, in fact I have made 3 starts on it 😦

My great excitement last year about being able to knit in the round meant that I thought that I would have no problems with the pattern.

It is a very well written pattern but for some reason I started knitting backwards from rear of the needles rather than the front so ended up with it being back to front.

Anyway lovely Sarah helped me out at knitting group so I have started again. I have chosen two of my favourite colours and my favourite wool Debbie Bliss Sublime.

Sarah's knit along 1

I am going to be in Spain all next week so hope that I will get chance to do more work on it. At the moment it is just two not very impressive rows!

Sarah's knit along 2

If you would like more information about the Knit Along you can go to the Ravelry group and look at the discussion. Sarah and Ann have a video introducing themselves on Youtube as well.

It is really lovely to know such talented people, their designs are stunning. I have already told you about Sarah’s Elven Reckoning book but she has other really lovely designs as well including lots smaller designs for hats etc.

Here are a couple of my favourites, pictures from her her web site. Firstly the Alexandria fingerless gloves .

Alexandria+Gauntlets-logo+1

Next the Bella cowl. Wouldn’t these make lovely gifts especially in matching yarn.

Sarah's Bella Cowl

I don’t know if I would ever be able to do any of Ann’s designs, they are amazing and so pretty but maybe beyond me at the moment, especially if I can’t work out which way round I am knitting!

This is the stunning Hedgerow jumper – picture from Ann’s Ravelry page   , isn’t it just beautiful.

Ann Kingstone Hedgerow jumper

A group of friends knitted themselves one each, it looks fabulous in any colour, again picture from Ann’s Ravelry pattern page.

Ann Kingstone Hedgerow group shot- small

I have made good progress with the mouse though so am not feeling like a complete numpty. It is so cute – just look at the lovely furry yarn and those little ears!

Mouse parts 1

Mouse parts 2

I have knitted most of the little ballet cardigan as well, this has been really quick to do so I think that all my little girl animals are going to have to have cardigans now, it is so sweet.

Ballet cardigan

I am nearly all packed to go away, just my knitting to add and I am also taking my beautiful Printemps fabric for some hexi making.

I shall catch up with you all when I get back in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile have fun and thanks for visiting.