Hello there

Hope that you all had a lovely festive season – we did despite colds and flu for all of us at some point over the time but we all had a lovely time if very hectic. Everyone has gone now (there were 8 people and a very cute dog in the house for all of Xmas with 13 on Boxing Day so it was very busy and lively) – since then I have mainly being lying on the sofa knitting and stitching – ahh bliss! I had lots of very lovely pressies – lots of books and lots of DVDs to watch while I stitch and knit.

I will start with pics of the festivities – my sister and her kids Sam and Sarah joined us this year as well as my Mum and Nana as it was Sam’s 18th birthday on Christmas Eve so we had a festive bar-b-que at my brother’s house (he likes fires!). I did not get a good pic of Sam blowing out his sparkler candles but here is a slightly fuzzy one of the cake I made him – the sparklers spelled out his name.

 I spent a lot of time cooking and tried out some of my new recipes and had a great time – here is the Xmas dinner table with my new table decs, as well as the little fabric trees that I made I had bought some silver tree name place holders and a new gold table runner from Spain so was very pleased with the way that it all looked.

My lovely sister-in-law Amanda , who is also a big JBW Designs fan,  stitched me a card for Xmas and guess what she chose? The reindeer that I have just made two of for my aunt and cousin – I have made him into an ornie so he can hang on the tree again next year as well.

 

She has also lent me some of her JBW patterns so that I can make more ornies – think I will start on the top tree next.

I have already started on my next lot of ornies – I completed one before Xmas and one just after – these are from the new JBW Designs stocking sets that I treated myself to just before Xmas. One is for my Mum but is hanging on my tree at the moment for safe keeping!

 

 

I am really enjoying these as they are so cute and quick to stitch. They are only about 2″ high.

Have cast on for the last little bit of gift knitting – a purple hat in Sublime which needs to be finished by the end of next week along with the matching wristwarmers. Good job I am not doing anything much for the next few days! I will probably be having a very quiet New Year – the kids are out but I am still full of cold so am planning a night in with the telly and my crafting!

Hope that you have a lovely time whatever you do and wishing you all a very happy 2011!

Thanks for visiting.

I had a comment on the last post about my talented friends from someone whose name seemed familiar to me and when I looked at her blog I realised that she runs a business designing and selling miniature embroidery kits for dolls’ houses and some years ago I bought one of her kits for Ellie’s dolls’ house.

Sadly I didn’t take any pics of all the stuff I made for the house which has now found a new home with the neighbours who have seven girls so it should get a lot of use! Ellie and I had great fun over a number of years buying and making all the things for the house and I made quite a few miniature embroidered things such as rugs and cushions as well as some bedding.

My visitor is called Janet Granger and she has a blog  and a website Janet Granger Designs  where she sells her kits and charts. I hope she won’t mind me sharing a pic of some of the things she does with you – I love these little bolster cushions – they are so cute!

She has all sorts of wonderful things like rugs, cushions, tea cosies, bell pulls,  chair seats etc and loads of coordinating sets  in 1/12 scale. Do go and have a  look at all the prettiness!

I very much admire people who are creative as I feel I really struggle with the original ideas bit – I can put things together and think I have a good eye for colour and co-ordination etc. but don’t ever do very much that is original. However I am working on this. Doing things like the textile course I did last year helped and I am hoping to do some City and Guilds courses in future years that will stimulate me more I am sure.

I am still cracking on with my little business venture , making ornies for the Oakwell Hall  Craft event on the 5th Dec . I have been putting together more of the kits for my little Xmas trees today as I have finished all of the ones I am going to make up. We will see how they sell and if successful I may look at doing more fairs next year – there are lots around here and I can quite happily make ornies all year round to build up stock in time!

I have also been making more of the Sue Schofield  Springwood House Designs  baubles and cones that I use to raise funds for the school in Nepal. These are the ones that Ellie and I finished last week. They just need the ribbons putting onto the top of the cones but I need to go and buy some more large pins from Sue who will be at the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show the week after next.

 

 

I have also ben re-making some of my own ornies so that they co-ordinate better as they have tended to be developed randomly over the years so I am now trying to tie them all to the same colours. Really would like to keep all the ones I make and have them everywhere but the children already seem to the think that the house is over decorated at Xmas – there is of course no such thing as too much Xmas fabric loveliness!

I have been busy on the knitting front as well – am halfway through the lace pattern scarf and did have an attempt at sock knitting on four double-pointed needles this week ably assisted by my lovely friend Judy who came round for a masterclass. Sadly I did not get it quite right and ended up with a very mysterious loop however did get the hang of using four needles which at one point did seem a bit like trying to knit with spaghetti so will attempt those again.

Have also been making a stitched gift for a friend – finished it too late to take decent pics tonight but will do that tomorrow before I go to see her -am off to my lovely Marsden for her birthday treat!

Thanks for visiting.

Well I have had a very lovely weekend – it has been very sunny all week which was great news as I was having a new roof put on the conservatory so I needed fine weather for that. So we started the weekend with me admiring the shiny clean roof that was not full of cracks and holes and green mould where the rain had got in! It is now raining quite hard which will be a good test of how waterproof the new roof is! 

The first of many in the title of the post is the first of the reindeer ornies that I have chosen as my multi stitch ornie for this Xmas. I normally do about 10 for special friends and family – I have part completed another reindeer one but I love the JBW designs and they are so easy to do so have decided that this one I will do about 7 of with for a particular group of friends and some individual ones of different designs for other people. I will back this with one of my many pretty Xmas fabrics ( have got a few of those!) and a little sleigh charm. 

The last of many is possibly the last BBQ of the season on Saturday with my brother Ben and his partner and Amanda and definitely the last little fire of the year as I have now used up all my wood – though Ben said he can get me more if needed. I so love sitting round the fire – it is one of the best things about re-enactment and this was us enjoying the warmth. 

I do also need a new fire pit before next year – this one is a couple of years old but unfortunately has suffered from all the frost we have had and the surround is slowly disintegrating. I shall treat myself as a welcoming Spring present next year. 

Amanda and Ben are off to Spain tomorrow (lucky things!) to stay in our house for a few days and then go off camping so I hope they have a fab time. Amanda works at Oakwell Hall  a 16th century house near here where my knitting group are off to next weekend. From the look of the lovely pics on the web there should be plenty of textiles there so I will take my camera!

We have been invited to take part in their Heritage Weekend as part of a display of crafts so we shall be knitting and teaching people how to knit. I am really looking forward to that as have never been to the Hall. Amanda has also mentioned that they have an Xmas Craft Fair there in December so I may be able to go and show some more of my baubles and pine cones and raise some more funds for the school in Nepal which again would be lovely. 

I do love Xmas and all the decorations – and I am planning to make some more this year – inspired by my reading of the Elm Quilt book series I want to do some more patchwork trees as in the pic below and maybe even a wall hanging for the hall. Things should be made a lot easier by the fact that my new sewing machine arrived on Friday! Complete with loads of free reels of thread. Have not had chance to play with it yet but am hoping to get some time to do that later this week or at the weekend. Things are hotting up though as term starts a week on Monday for me so back to the grindstone! 

I do hope that you had a good weekend – thanks for visiting.

Well despite a not so brilliant start yesterday with the technology thingies I have had a lovely weekend. I abandoned the computer yesterday afternoon and went out to do some shopping – calling in on the way for a bit of Knit and Natter at my local yarn store, Woolly Minded and Beady Eyed. I am glad to say I seem to have cracked the problem with the variegated wool and the wristwarmers so the second of the pair should be finished soon.  

I finished the stitching on the pressie for my friend late last night – just got the border to finish tonight and am planning to make it up tomorrow. She keeps chickens so I thought it would be an appropriate present and I have some fab chicken fabric to back it with.  

The design is called Rooster (surprise that!) and is from the wonderful JBW Designs  – I am going to treat myself to some of their Xmas ones this year – might even find time to stitch one for my tree as well as all of the gifts. Sew and Sew web site  do the largest range of designs I have found for the UK. I am very tempted by so many of their designs but particularly this one as I am stitching another reindeer design as my gift ornie for this year so it would maybe be nice to vary it. 

Or maybe the Xmas pud just for me … 

But the stocking is also very cute … 

And then there is the Snow Globe … 

And two lovely tree motif samplers (but I have done a lot of trees over the years!) 

If you have a preference let me know in a comment as I am going to have a hard time deciding! 

We have also been busy in the garden – ably assisted by Jake I have been trimming laurel hedges, cutting grass and generally tidying up and it looks very lovely – all that rain has done it good! Have also been baking and have made my first ever Lemon Drizzle Cake (a request from Jake) from the recipe on Nigella’s website.  

Have also been doing lots of lovely reading, being holiday season I had bought lots of books and then went to the local library with Jake – I don’t normally visit the library as I have lots of books already in hand and really love buying them (and so quick and so cheap and so easy – thanks to Amazon!) but was browsing and came across a couple of books about quilting – novels with a quilt theme. I have heard of these from knitting and stitching friends so borrowed the two they had and finished the first one in a day. So I went and found a load more on the lovely Amazon.  

They are called the Elm Creek Novels by Jennifer Chiaverini and you can see them here at the Amazon listing. I really like the way that they are historically based  novels as well as about quilting and about the women that quilt. Though I have not really done much quilting myself I love looking at quilts and finding out about the history of quilts and quilting so this is literary heaven – with very good storylines too!  

I had just finished reading the Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill   

which was excellent and the first Elm Creek Book I read was The Sugar Camp Quilt which is set in the North USA during the time of the fight against slavery. An excellent book and a very interesting read after the Hill book.  

I treated myself to two anthologies of the first Elm Creek 6 books and another 2 based around Xmas and New Year themes as they were all very cheap in a bundled new book deal.  

 That should keep me going for a while – all the rest in the series are very cheap  second hand on Amazon as well.  

Don’t know if I will be able to post again this week and we are away next weekend – we are going to Tribfest in Beverley – a music festival composed entirely of tribute bands! My sister went last year and said it was great so we are meeting up with her and the kids and her friend for a weekend of boogieing! I have not been to a festival since about 1988 (though have been to lots of live music during the last few years which I really love) so am really looking forward to this!  

Thanks for visiting.