Welcome to my Blog, a Crafting Year

Hello
I taught myself to knit in 2011 I have been posting photos of my knitting creations on facebook but as I am starting to bore my friends I have created this blog to record my progress. Then I thought I might try my hand at other crafts and see how I get along. I will try a different craft every month and you can read about my successes and failures and even laugh at my photos as I try different things like felting, crochet, sewing, papercrafts etc and try and make a few things from the kids favourite book Star Wars crafts, amongst others...lets see how it goes

Monday, 20 February 2012

Wool

I promised pictures of the wool I have bought for the knitted and crocheted jumper so here it is


Sorry the picture is sideways but I can't work out how to change it! (let me know if you do)


Its a really beautiful steely blue colour which I had to photograph in natural light and the sun was shining this morning even if it was a bit chilly


I won't be able to start it tonight though as the only 3mm needles I have are kids ones so are too short plus I promised a friend that Monday nights would be Gym nights so I am very reluctantly off to the temple of pain to start my running programme again after a break of about a year....wish me luck

Sunday, 19 February 2012

blocking and finishing

I have made loads of hearts this week so have got to the point of assembly but first I had to block the hearts to make them flatter as the corners were tending to curl.
I pinned them out on a towel then sprayed them all with water and left them to dry over night





Next I needed to decorate the hearts sewing on the buttons and ribbons I showed you last week.
After this I started a new chain stich to connect them all Chain 25 Double crochet (dc) into the picot at the top of the hearts then chain 15 until the next heart. I have 16 hearts so this took a while.
Once done I did a 2nd row of dc then changed colours for the 3rd and 4th rows

Here are a few pictures of the decorations






The finished item


Now of course arises the question of where to put it....

So what next?

I am due to start paper crafting in March but I've not chosen a project yet so I thought I would find a project that is both knitting and crochet so I turned to volume 1 of the fabulous book 'A stitch in time' 
I recieved Vol 2 for Christmas and blogged about it I now have Vol 1 :o)


And I have found this pattern


A moss stitch knitted jumper with crochet trimmings
I have bought the wool a dk cotton - I will post pictures tomorrow when I have natural light but its blue.
Here is the photo from the book


Its on 3mm needles so I reckon it'll take quite a lot of swearing to make....

Happy Crafting
Sharon

Thursday, 16 February 2012

Buttons and beads

I love haberdashery shops they are my favourite places in the world and I love love love buttons, beads and ribbons so these are the few treasures I bought to decorate the hearts


So I guess I had better got on and make a few more

But first here is Noah and George with Noah's new teddy blanket

 He looks happy with it :o)

Wednesday, 15 February 2012

New books

Bought this today, just couldn't resist

 
the kids just loved it and have already placed their orders

I also got this
 
Which has loads of great ideas for tarting up your clothes and making things for the house. I particularly like the ideas for reusing ties and will be stealing some old ties out of my husbands wardrobe 
(he's a scientist, he'll just set fire to a tie!)

But this month is all about Crochet and I still have 2 classes to do so the book will go on the shelf for the next couple of weeks.