Everything All at Once

 November and December can be overwhelming with our birthdays and anniversary mixed up with the upcoming Christmas holiday, present buying and events all going on.  To add to this I’ve also gone and decided to buy a new (to me) car, so service and MOT’s will also have to be done in future Decembers.

I collect it next week and it’s my third Jazz.  This one is a hybrid and I’ll have to get used to driving an automatic, which I haven’t done for some years. New bits and bobs to get used to in a newer car but I’m sure I’ll get used to it.

So there’s not been much time for sewing, 

David and I celebrated our anniversary with a trip to Branksome (between Poole and Bournemouth) to see Christmas Trees at the local church, which is an annual event. It really makes Christmas for me, with none of the pressure of present and food buying. They are decorated by local groups and organisations. Below are just a few of the 50 trees on display.

Following seeing the trees we went to Westbourne and the arcade there has shops and what is notes to be the smallest cinema, which shows old films and often have vintage film posters for advertising. I was amazed by this one.

And you have to stay and watch the last 10 minutes of the film.  I’ve not seen a movie there before so it may be our must visit next year! 

It’s December 🎄

 This month’s marker

Hazel is getting to be a show off! 

And it’s not long to Christmas and the tree is up already.

Just before the end of last month I received something that I pre-ordered ages ago and you’ll think this barmy, but I bought an iron!! Not just any old iron…..

A fancy Tula Pink Oliso iron! Bright pink with little fishes on. It has a silicone shark shaped iron rest, an on/off switch, a bright light at the front to see where you’re ironing. It is a steam iron so it has the function to spray or have a blast of steam and the sole plate is non stick. All that in a small project iron and it’s quite weighty for its size. Just brilliant. 

With some birthday money I treated myself to a neck light.  I’ve wondered about getting one for a while for knitting in the evenings and it’s really good. It’s in purple but the photo shows pink ( especially when the lights are on.

The lights bright or dimmed (as with most LED lights nowadays. 

It makes a change for me to spend on new gadgets.  

End of November 🍁

 November is at an end and December is to make an appearance, though it seems it’s been around for a while with the Christmas ads 

November has been a month of finishes.  First off I finished  pair of socks (for me). This pair was made as part of last month’s Sockoween, a celebration of sock knitting in October by The Bakery Bears.  The sock pattern I knitted was the Incantation socks, The main colour is Pumpkin Patch by The Crafty Bird with the orange yarn by Blue Fern Yarns. 

Another finish, though this had hibernated, was David’s cardigan. Needing the front bands doing I had put this off.  I just need to get some buttons, but as he doesn’t often button his cardigans there’s no hurry. So I finished this cardigan in just under a year.

This was knitted in Aran, 

 

Some more crochet squares on the Yorkshire Blanket have been made.  I completed these 4 to add to my collection.

 Mill wheel

And a final knitty finish is Hazel the Crofter Sheep. This was a kit by Lucy Locketland as part of the Year of Little Cotton Rabbits.  I’d been waiting for a sheep kit to be released and I bought this at Yarndale. I was going to wait until the Christmas holidays, but I wanted a new cast on. I like the little small scale stitching. Her dress curled up at the hem so I had to block it to straighten out.

As well as the dress she also has a shawl, boots and a knitting belt with small scale knitting on cocktail stick knitting needles. She has joins other sheep on the sheep shelf.

A quick knitted make was this pair of mittens for my granddaughter. She choose the colour and I added the daisies to make sure she puts them on the correct hands.

As for sewing I’ve been making pouches for my friend to raise funds for the local Project Linus group. The photo below is just a few of them.

I tried using a couple of squares with a Japanese theme, below, and I’ve kept this.

I’ve finished off a quilt from Project Linus that I’ve put together

Following a Dorset Creative Embroiderers workshop in October, I made this cover for a jar using strips over wadding strips in the style of the Camden Bag. Great for using up scraps and there might be some more next year.

I also finished an embroidery that has been lingering most of this year.  It’s called a Bag of Flowers (I think?). It was a project from a very old issue of Inspirations magazine that was a project started at embroidery group. I sewed this design onto some blue Moda Grunge fabric. I had a floral button that went well with this.

I framed an embroidery that was finished earlier this year.  This is a design by Em Bea Roidery (on Etsy). I taped some purple fabric onto a hoop and finished off with felt on the reverse, just the day before my birthday last week.

So it seems I’ve kept busy in November.  I may not be quite so productive in December as Christmas takes precedence over anything else. We plan to go away and enjoy some Christmas lights in Cornwall during this month.  

Some November Finishes

 I have endeavoured to get some things finished to clear my room (and my mind too!). So here are some finishes I’ve done today.  I had a couple of half finished items from Embroidery group projects, the first being this small pouch with embroidered flowers which was started back in the summer.

Having decided that the embroidered part was finished, I machine sewed the flap then the bag part, which is lined.  I finished off with a flower button and loop.  It’s all ready for the mini exhibition for December’s meeting of our makes this year.   To go with that from last month’s meeting a technique of joining wadded tubes similar to that of the Camden Bag, which has been popular with quilters. This was a project to make plant pot holders, but instead I used this to make a jar holder (its previous life was to hold pickle) and this uses strips of wadding and fabric (both of which I have a lot of).  Another item for the mini exhibition. 

Another finish, all in one Saturday was this book group book, a subsection of the local Townswomen’s Guild.  The group borrow a set of books from the library service  and this month’s is Behind the Seams by Esme Young. A very readable biography and the type that seems as though she’s reading it to you. 

I’m pleased I’ve finished three things today

November 🎇

 Here’s the monthly marker for this month. One of the Yorkshire blanket squares.

I have a finish for this month already

The Incantation Socks, part of Sockoween  (making October sock month) by The Bakery Bears, though the pattern can be purchased on Ravelry, as design by Kay Jones.  I’d used a 4 ply sock yarn by The Crafty Bird, called Pumpkin Patch and it was teamed with an orange mini skein from Blue Fern Yarns for the heel.

I will have to get a few finishes done, but having finished the socks I allowed myself a new start with the Hazel the sheep kit.  I bought this at Yarndale from Lucy Locketland as I enjoyed making Florrie the Fox earlier in the year. 

I’ve got as far as making the shawl for my sheep.

But I’ve also been busy sewing and making pouches that can be sold to help provide funds for Project Linus. I start with a quilted square and use an oversized zip which get cut down once inserted.  There’s a pile of 10 now waiting for the squares off each corner to create a boxy shape.

This week has also involves some sorting out. As my crafts include sewing, knitting, crochet and some paper crafting there’s not quite enough room for everything. During this year I’ve also acquired my mum’s sewing things too, as she is no longer sewing, which has had to be absorbed into my room.  To this end I’ve put some cross stitch patterns for sale, some fabrics have gone to Project Linus.  Earlier this year I had a sales table but I didn’t sell a lot. So I’m trying to make some sort of order to make things easier to access.  It’s not easy to move things along, but this week I have sold a screen printing kit. That’s a little progress.

So that’s been my November so far

End of October 👻

 No ghostly goings on here, just quietly going about things and crafting.

I’ve spent the past few days making squares which will become zippy pouches.  Mainly sew and flip strips  onto wadding and fabric background square bases. It’s using up scraps of strippy pieces and making a bit more room in my scrap box.  

I’ve even used some scrap pieces of wadding to make large pieces of ‘Franken-wadding’ below you can see how many pieces in one square. I just overlap slightly and zigzag on the widest stitch to join together.  It’s good enough for small projects and uses up waste wadding pieces. My friend has kindly given me some zips to help get the pouches done.

This month I finished of a Project Linus quilt with a sea theme 

And finished the quilt top of another quilt. That’ll probably be layered and quilted this weekend. This is another boys quilt, this time with sports gear.

The Project Linus group supply the kits to make the quilts which are ready to sew so returning the completed quilt back next month.

There has been some knitting done as my granddaughter requested some mittens because she lost her gloves. This is a Sirdar pattern from the book of accessories featuring gloves and socks.

I’ve also been knitting a pair of socks taking part in Sockoween and found that some yarn I bought at Yarndale back in 2022 had autumnal colours and I matched that with a mini skein I bought as part of a set at the same festival this year. The first sock is below and with the second sock I’ve just got past the heel and picked up the stitches for the instep decreases after working the heel.  The pattern used are the Incantation socks by Kay Jones of The Bakery Bears here

I’ve also been working on the Yorkshire Blanket CAL. I started this late on and the CAL is approaching the end with the joining the blocks together with contrasting yarn. I’m probably not going to finish this before Christmas, but that’s ok. We’ve got plenty of crochet blankets, but this pattern is more about the learning of new techniques to me rather than a race to get a blanket done. I’ve made 9 blocks of the 12 different designs so far. There are meant to be 2 of each block, so there’s 15 blocks to do, which may take me to the end of year (at least).

In my previous post I did some paper crafting, and there’s more detail here

I hope for November to get some finishes.  The socks, the pouches, and the Linus quilt top at least. Looking forward to next month.

Some Paper Faffery

 Sorry if it’s been a little while but there’s not been much going on.  Last Monday I went to Hotchpotch craft group and made Christmas cards (sorry, I didn’t mean to mention the C word just yet). It was an enjoyable morning with friends. 

These were made from triangles of Christmas paper and the offcuts paired to make another set of trees.

Today I made small boxes from a Zoom by Jan from the Townswomen’s Guild Internet group.  It needed double sided card so I used some pink card from The Range.  I needed a whole punch but couldn’t locate a single hole punch that I had so had to use an office two hole punch. Needles to say one of the boxes has numerous holes in it! The second one went much better.

While having the paper crafting stuff out I opened an old kit that a friend gave me last week. This is an old Stampin’ Up kit to make cards and a book mark. I tried to follow the instructions but one or two bits were missing, I think. So I did my own thing.

This was an owl kit. There were instructions to decorate a money box, but I didn’t have that. I made a card and a bookmark from this.

There was another kit to make more cards I’ve layered up but I’ve left blank to decorate later.

My friend also gave me a box making kit and this was already perforated ready to make up.  They’re sort of Christmassy and would be hand for small gifts (as are the ones I made earlier).

But I’ve not completely gone over to the dark side. There has been some knitting action as I finished a sock this weekend. This is the Icantation sock, pattern by Kay Jones, in autumnal colours as my entry to Sockoween.

And there’s been a quilt top too. This is a Project Linus quilt kit I collected the week before.