Furtling in December

 I hope your Christmas went well and looking forward to the New Year. Just before Christmas David fell ill with a bad cold/flu (there’s a lot of it about)so ours was a quiet one, keeping away from people as much as possible.  At the beginning of this month the younger grandchildren, their parents and us met Father Christmas at Moors Valley Railway, which everyone enjoyed.

Anyway, you’re not here for Father Christmas, you want to know if I’ve been busy making stuff! I finished a present for Sarah. I’d already made fingerless gloves and deduced to make matching socks, with just a smidgeon of yarn left, literally playing yarn chicken and won. The toes are different, but the stripes on both socks matched really well.  The yarn is a King Cole Zig Zag.

Alongside this I was following The Bakery Bears’ Advent Calendar and making the Nutcracker socks, which was supposed to be made in 3 colours. I used 10. They were oddments or mini skeins that I had in stash. I’d like to try the pattern in a single colour and alternating the knit and purl rows for the stripes.

I really enjoyed the variety of stitches and colours.

I’ve picked up a simple bit of crochet using a ball of James C Brett Sssh, which is a slightly fluffy double knit yarn with colour changes.  A half square granny stitch shawl.

It is steadily growing.

For sewing I finished the cats cross stitch, which I’ve had from early 2000’s.   Not sure how or where I will display this, but the sewing is done.

I’ve started to stitch some hexie flowers onto 6.5” squares. These may take some time, but I’m in no hurry.

For Christmas David bought me a Lego kit of an Orchid. Since I received it I’ve built it in stages and recorded that on my Facebook page (which feeds through to my Instagram. 

And it’s starting to look orchid-like now. I hope to get this finished on New Year’s Day.

I was too impatient to get started on some embroidery, so I started on this.

I bought a pdf pattern from EmBeaRoidery on Etsy of my star sign (others are available). I’m sewing this on  Moda Grunge fabric. Should be interesting. This is next year’s project so I’m just one day ahead.

So wishing you all a Happy New Year for 2024

Joining in with Mini Archie’s December Furtle Around the Blogosphere.  Onwards to next year…

Plans For 2024

 As the end of 2023 is not far away, I’ve been thinking about what I want to do in 2024.  Some projects will run from this year to the next and I try not to be drawn into the next big thing on social media and also to use what I have. It makes sense to use the resources I have before buying more and I have got a lot I can draw on

So I have a new sparkly new project which is a Crochet Along (CAL) and I have purchased a yarn pack, so that is my treat for the new year.  This the Sungold blanket by Lucy of Attic 24 . It would seem I’ve fallen of the ‘using what I’ve got’ perch already, but this will certainly brighten the dark, post-Christmas days of winter. This CAL will start of 5 January.

I bought some Aran yarn last year to make a cardigan for David. I made a start a few weeks ago but it is hibernating until the Christmas holidays.  As it has a lot of cables I think it will take a while, being interspersed with the crochet blanket too, but he’s in no hurry.

For embroidery I have made myself a new fabric book and intend to concentrate on stitches.  I used wadding ‘pages’ and neutral coloured fabrics have been sewn in readiness. 

When it was my birthday last month I bought a pdf pattern from EmBeaRoidery of my star sign. This time I will be using thread from stash and onto some Moda Grunge fabric.

I will be continuing to add to my paper craft project based on Botany. I bought the book kit in October from Craft 4 Crafters, by Janie’s Originals.  The book cover and pages made, just need to add to the pages. I have been collected pieces to add to the book.

Added to my fabric stash has been smaller pieces of fabrics from my Mum as she no longer quilts. The larger pieces went to my local Project Linus group to use.  I have made a top, yet to be quilted, which will also go to them once I’ve done that and there may be more quilts to follow. This was started from the blue squares that were already cut out.

I also have a plethora of quilted items which may go to Linus as well, but next year I will be contacting family to see if any things, like wall hangings will appeal.  I’ve been finding that there’s so much stuffed in the wardrobe that’s not seen the light of day for a while and it’s time to move on.

Also it’s time to move on my skills. Sarah (my daughter) wants to know how to crochet and I have a crochet starter book that she can also work from (though there also some good You Tube tutorials out there too).  Doing a lot of crafty things with her daughter makes her want to try new things.  My daughter in law wanted to learn to knit during lockdown but all I could pass on were needles, yarn and more tutorials, so it would be good to teach her to knit (or maybe crochet).

I’m sure this list is not exhaustive, so there will be plenty to keep me busy for the start of 2024.

November Furtling

 It’s December 

No avoiding it now, we’re heading for Christmas 🎅 

There has been some Furtling in November.  I finished my #100hexies100days challenge and wrote a blog post about it here. Below are photos of the last couple of weeks of the challenge.

Above is Sweet and Salty, the colours remind me of Refreshers sweets. Below is Free form and I chose some Japanese inspired fabrics for the last hexies.

I’m taking out and finishing another cross stitch.  I have no idea when I started this one, but the copyright of the pattern is 2000, so it’s this side of the Millenium! It was picked up like this

Below is how it looks now.  There’s another cat peeping to the left, a paw print on the bottle right, a pincushion and more detail on the machine.

I’ve made a quilt from half square triangles, the coloured squares started out at 6”. This was backed with large scraps of fleece. That’s finished and passed onto Project Linus.

I also made a quilt top, when. I found small blue squares already cut. This was from my Mum’s stash (she no longer quilts). I added the white fabrics to them, then larger green squares, bordered with dark green.  I will find some fleece to back this one.

I’ve also done some secret sewing (time of year, so I can’t show just yet).

I’ve made a crochet hexie cardigan for myself, which I wrote about earlier this month here.

I followed a You Tube tutorial by Craft and a Cuppa, though there is a paid pattern too.

Progress has been made on Sarah’s cardigan, all the pieces knitted ready to be sewn together and button bands to be done. I hope to get that finished next week.  Again there is more secret knitting on the needles that I can’t show here just yet.

 

I also made a pair of socks for myself as part of ‘Sockoween’ last month. They are short socks using the Hobbity stitch pattern, which is a Patreon pattern by Kay Jones of The Bakery Bears.  I used yarn from stash by local yarn dyer, Country Mouse Yarns (shop of Etsy). I would normally knit magic loop with circular needles, but this time I used double pointed needles. A bit more cumbersome for me so my next socks are being knitted on magic loop again. Look below and see how that large orange stripe goes across both feet!

Some paper crafting has taken place too.  Local card shop had a workshop at the beginning of the month and I wanted to learn colour effects as done by Cardio Crafts.  I quite enjoyed that but I’m not giving the card away. I think I need a bit more practice with blending the inks

This month’s ATC theme is Christmas, so a tea bag folded Christmas tree will be in the post (it’s a type of paper folding and no tea bags were used in the making of this!  This was a gold painted background with green ombré paper folded and little sticky gems for the ‘lights’

And as you will see above an Iris folded card which used the ombré paper pink/purple and green/blue which gave a lovely pastel effect, which is my monthly marker.  All these paper makes may not make much difference this year’s Christmas but I hope will get me ahead for next Christmas (possibly).

Another Christmas make is this fabric folded cone, which I made at TG craft group.  I hadn’t put my name down for this workshop but there was a space.

Now in the spirit of Christmas I’ve made a Christmas pudding, which is in the slow cooker as I write this.  The cake might be made tomorrow as the dried fruit is marinating in fruit juice and a little Sherry.  Tomorrow is the Townswomen’s Guild regional federation Christmas Carol service in Dorchester.  Next week we’re getting the decorations up and I’m really beginning to look forward to the festivities. 

So November, besides being a birthday month was a busy one too.

Looking forward further I’ve recently started an Aran cardigan for David using those gert big 400g balls of yarn (just 2 needed for his cardigan) which doesn’t make it a portable knit, but postponed now until after the Christmas holiday.  Hopefully share more of that next month.

And lastly I bought one of these

The crochet along (CAL) will start at the beginning of next month.

Joining Mini Archie for the November Furtle Around the Blogosphere.

100 Hexies 100 Days

 I took part in the 100 day challenge on Instagram from 1st August to 10 November, which amounted to 15 weeks of themes.  This was hosted by Maranelle (@sewfoxymama).  I last took part in this 4 years ago (2019, I was sure it was later!).  Although I have posted my progress the last few months but thought I’d do a run through of the hexies.

Week 1 was 5 days  

Theme: This is me.  Well I wear glasses, I knit, I read (and quilt), enjoy heritage railways and live near the Jurassic coast.

Week 2 - Summer Vibes

Ice Cream (I appliquéd this hexie), sea gull (though not in Breton jumpers), deck chair stripes, cocktail glasses (for the social outings) flowers (visiting gardens) butterflies, beach huts and parasols.

Week 3 - Notions

Sewing machine, iron, rotary cutters, scissors, safety pins, dressmakers pins, cotton reels.

Week 4 - Flower Power

Various floral fabrics used to fit the theme.

Week 5 - Rainbow

I arranged these hexies in an arc using the colours in rainbow order and I found a fabric to create a rainbow themed background, instead of the usual red Grunge fabric.

Week 6 -  Paw-some

I managed a few animal themed hexies, but a couple of “claw some” had to fill the gap. So a chicken and an owl made an appearance.

Week 7 - Love

I found some fabrics that I really love by “Love From Beth” (see the selvedge) so I included those with my hexie challenge that week.

Week 8 - I-Spy

I had some difficulty trying to think of what to make of this theme but found a couple of foxes in the white/black fabric, a tiny quote in the written fabric, an eye in part of the scissors.

Week 9 - Magic

I ran out of ideas with this, so went with how to turn a mini charm square into a hexie. That was magic.

Week 10 - Micro Mini 

This was when I started using a hexagon cut out and why I hadn’t thought of that before is a mystery to me. It did help with fussy cutting and I cut sections of this fabric, but it didn’t really fit the theme.

Micro house plants? 

Week 11 - Berry cute

I didn’t have many berries, so added some lemon slices.  It’s still fruit.

Week 12 - Celebrate.  

Party came to mind and I used the Cocktail Party by Lewis and Irene (it’s an old range).

Week 13 - Grateful.

I used a panel of labels that were given away at Festival of Quilts a few years ago. The stamped ones were from a stamp set by Flying Tiger.

Week 14 - Sweet and Salty 

This is now the penultimate week and I was really foxed by this theme.  Looking up Sweet and Salty turns out to refer to popcorn.  I decided I was going to go off topic and use these Tula Pink fabrics and these then reminded me of Refreshers, a sherbet sweet (below is an image).  Not so off topic after all.

Final week. Week 15 - Freestyle 

I used some Japanese themed fabrics for the last hexies.  There should have been 6 for this week, but 7 makes up a ‘flower’ of hexies.

I enjoyed this challenge and I have joined the hexies into ‘flowers’.  I have in mind to make another Kingfisher quilt, a design by Jodie of Tales of Cloth, but at the moment they are just patiently waiting.