End of November

 November is birthday month in our family. My Mum, David and I all have birthdays this month, with mine being last Saturday.  I don’t often receive flowers, but had 3 lots this time, so the living room looks like a florists!

I got myself a birthday treat and bought a pouch from Mrs Moog  who makes these lovely Herdwick sheep pouches.

And it looks lovely with the other sheep on my sheep shelf.  It’s big enough for a bit of sock knitting or a similar small project.  

My sister gave me some local gin (made in Sherborne), really Christmassy, for which I bought some elderflower tonic to go with it.  Oh yes, and behind that is a small jar of marmalade infused with the gin, which is rather yummy too).

Now this time of year is about secret crafting so I can’t show much here. But I can share this

It’s a folder for my circular needles to keep them in order.

And it has 6  pockets with vinyl fronts. It’s a download pattern by Aneela Hoey called a Flip Pocket Folio.  I’ve used fabrics from stash, which I think is called Radiance for the cover and inside with a variety of Moda Grunge fabrics for the pockets and bindings. I also attempted to attach popper fastenings, which took a while getting to grips with.  Not perfect, but they work and I’m pleased with that.

While shopping in Sainsbury’s the other day I found amongst the small amount of sewing gifts for Christmas, some fat quarters of fabrics with a kitchen theme. The photos are the wrong way round, but anyway, the pack of 5 fat quarters has come in useful for making a toddler sized apron, a couple of ‘tea towels’, and I’ll make a pair of oven gloves.  These will be for my youngest granddaughter who will be getting a toy kitchen for Christmas.

I think that’s all for November, getting ready for Christmas and making a start on the pudding.  The fruit is soaking in citrus juice and Calvados overnight before I put the other ingredients in and cooking in the slow cooker tomorrow. The decorations will start coming down from the loft soon, though we’ve had a small string of fairy lights on the mantelpiece for several weeks to brighten things up.

Roll on December! 🎄

November Musings

 Not a lot happening it seems with lockdown happening this month (it doesn’t finish until 2 December, currently- let’s hope things ease again after then).  So a bit of time spent on making my contribution towards TG Christmas cards and digging out some paper crafting stuff from ages ago as well as using cardstock given to me. I don’t do paper crafting so it was a change to do make these.

All apart from the bottom left (which was the sample I worked from) I made and I used some images to add a bit more festive decoration.

Here’s a close up of one of the completed cards.

I made some time to make some Siblings Together blocks, all sent off and received. Below are two rainbow blocks for this month’s Bee Mama Kerry.

And some pinwheel blocks for Nicky’s mini block drive.

But my finish so far for this month is my Seedhead socks.  They look fab and I must give them a wash and block so I can wear them. Here is a ‘sockfie’ below.

As for a possible future project, a new CAL has been announced by Lucy of Attic24 starting in January, am I tempted to make another blanket? (Image below from Lucy’s blog).

Still keeping busy.

I Forgot to Mention....

 I received a postcard last week.  This was a swap organised by the UK Quilters Unites postcard group last month, but the deadline came up but the swappers  names and addresses weren’t emailed until recently.  So this was the card I made. The theme was Alphabet, I chose D and made it from 2 Dunkards Path blocks.  This was sent from me (in Dorset) to Jean (in Devon) so my choice of the letter was appropriate.

I was sent the letter S from Ren, which was a machine embroidered card with some glittery thread for the wings and the S. The lilies on the card may be coincidental as the photos of the cards made are sharedon the group page on Facebook before posting, but meaning of the name Susan (or my spelling which is Suzan) is Hebrew for lily.   There is a reference to this  on Wikipedia 

Really pretty, isn’t it.

October Furtling

 It’s November, where did October go? Other months during lockdown and the easing afterwards went slower, I’m sure.  

The photo above comes courtesy of the Acer trees of Kingston Lacy (our local NT haunt) , we went there a couple of weeks ago to take in the Autumn colours, but I expect that by now the trees are bare, especially with the high winds over this weekend.

At the end of September and beginning October we went for a couple of  days away to Liskeard and ventured to the Lost Gardens of Heligan and Truro. Then explored Liskeard town and made our way home via Kingshayes, near Tiverton. So it was good to see some different scenery and the last trip away for this year by looks of things.

I have managed to meet up with a few friends for walks or knit and natter (which has to be indoors now after having Thursday mornings outside during the summer); the West Country Embroiders via Zoom this month so a little bit of socialising but not too much. Now that lockdown will start again soon

With the WCE I received instructions and pattern to make a fabric jug so I readied myself with the cut out pieces to make it and after the meeting I decided to crack on and make it

I have lost a bit of sewing mojo so I’ve sewn what I’ve needed to do this month.  So I’ve made blocks for Siblings Together bees, one which I didn’t show last month and this month

October’s blocks

September’s blocks

I had a Project Linus fabric pack to make up

Other than that it’s been Crochet and knitting. I finished the Aria blanket, which I’m really pleased about.

It was just lovely to work on and the photo doesn’t do justice to how vibrant the colour is.  The pattern is by Lucy of Attic 24. She’s been posting daily blogs for October so pop over and have a look.

I’ve also taken part in a mini CAL by Coastal Crochet of 5 Coastal Coasters, which have been fun to make  And can read about that on my last post.

Having made the Aria blanket I returned to my knitting and have knitted all the pieces for my purple cardigan, but they’ve got the be sewn together, then the button/buttonhole bands knitted.  I’m hoping this’ll be a November finish, together with my Seedhead socks.  No pics of the cardi, but I have got a ‘sockfie’ of the first sock.

I started the second sock on Wednesday and I’m now well on the way to getting that finished.  I’m getting better at the Judy’s Magic Cast on, improving on my short row heel turn and Jenny’s stretchy bind (cast) off too.  I made a purple pair a little while ago without the Seedhead patterning and I think this pattern is a good toe up sock pattern that works well for me.

So I’m still keeping busy and hope that the sewing mojo returns for November to get some Christmas 🎄 stuff done, see how we go.  I’m linking up with Mini Archie’s Furtle Around the Blogosphere 

Coastal Crochet Coasters

 Since the end of last week I’ve followed a daily Crochet A Long hosted by Coastal Crochet Making crochet coasters.  I posted my mine as I’ve made them on Instagram.  I have a small collection of cotton yarns for crochet in a small fabric bowl, which are a mix of Schepjes, Rico and Sirdar Happy.  I have found the Rico a bit coarse to crochet with and the Schepjes (the small yarn balls) quite smooth but a little thinner, but between them got a nice colour combination to make the coasters.

The first was this Octagonal one, quite an easy to follow pattern

The second was a bit more challenging, working in the round and changing colours

Day 3 was this little starfish one. I’ve made a star shape before for my Christmas Advent wreath from last year so that was easy

Day 4 was a seaside scene for this square coaster

And lastly for day 5 was this lovely scalloped coaster, which I made in pastel ice cream colours (well, when at the beach you have to have ice cream!)

The whole collection together 

With the recent rainy and windy days of autumn, it’s good to enjoy the last days of summer.  This was a really fun little CAL.

It’s Been a While....

 I’ve not been up to much so there’s not been to much to share.  A little bit of hand sewing here and there was punctuated by making a fabric jug following the West Country Embroiderers Zoom meeting last week.

There was a pattern and instructions beforehand, which I prepared prior to the meeting and I went on to sew together afterwards.  Inside hides a jam jar to display the fake flowers.  I would have liked to have used Bondaweb to attach the outside fabric to the pelmet Vilene but in its absence I used fabric glue pen to hold the fabric in place and while I sewed the seams they were held together with binding clips.  

I’ve been reading a lot recently.  With the Townswomen’s Guild book group recently restarting I read The Miniaturist by Jessica Burton, which was a bit slow for me but became a lot more interesting about halfway through to the point I could not put it down.  I then found on Facebook that a book by Tracy Chevalier called A Single Thread was on offer as an e-book for just 99p, so bought this through Apple Books (it’s also available through Amazon’s Kindle app). This is a really good book which takes a real location, Winchester Cathedral and one of the characters, was a real person and building a story around them. This was another can’t put down read and really enjoyed this book. I’ve got another week and a bit until the next TG book group so I must find something else to read in the meantime. If there’s been a good thing to come out of these times, it has made me make time to read.  

Last week David and I went to Kingston Lacy, the local NT house and gardens near Wimborne.  We reckoned it would be good to take in the Autumn colour as the Acers there turn some lovely shades as they lose their leaves and we were not disappointed.

To think that just in a couple of weeks these trees will be bare.

Progress is being made on my cardigan (second sleeve in progress) and the Aria blanket (I’ve now started the border).  More about those in another post.

October and a Trip Away

 

The photo above is of one of the Dahlias in a display at The Vyne, a National Trust property near Basingstoke at the beginning of last month, on one of our days out.  As it’s autumn places are getting a little quieter and making it easier to get out an about now, so we planned a short break of a couple of nights in Liskeard, north Cornwall and booked a visit to the Lost Gardens of Heligan.  Due to the rain we thought this would be a disaster,  but rebooked the afternoon and the rain eased and there was even some sunshine.

Above is a distant view to Mevagissy and the sea (though it merges into the grey of the sky!)

The Mud Maiden with a all her greenery.

Walking through the Jungle on a boardwalk which surrounds the area and below David and I tackled the rope bridge.  The feeling wasn’t so strange walking across, but felt wobbly for a few seconds after getting of it.

It did turn out to be a really good afternoon, even if the day didn’t start as well as we hoped, isn’t that always the way?

We spent some time in Liskeard town as we had another venue booked to visit on our way home.  It’s only a little town, but with a few interesting shops.  I added to my fabric stash at Painters, which we previously knew as an arts and crafts shop, but there are changes afoot and the business is on the move and only sell fabric and yarn.  Here’s my modest purchases

(Ignore the black fabric, my friend gave me this sheep fabric the week before).  Some green fabric, a bit of purple Kaffe, and (I surprised myself with this) 3 quarters of Tula Pink fabric from different ranges.

We were aware of a few crocheted and knitted items in some shops, like the crochet sausages in the butcher’s shop, or the large key in the shoe repairer’s shop and a knitted bookworm in a bookshop. Until we came to an empty shop on a corner of a street that had crocheted Mandalas in the windows. Here’s just a selection, but there is a lot of reflection.

The display is organised by 3 Bags Full. A local group who organise an annual yarn festival in the town, every October and would have been on the weekend on 17th and 18th.  Along with other exhibitions held this year, this one will also be online, but they took over this former florist’s shop to ‘yarn bomb’ it.  The large mandalas are made over hula hoops and the small ones cover old CDs. We thought it was really brilliant.

Pop over to the link above to 3 Bags Full and you will be yarnbombing from other years.

From Liskeard we headed North before going home to Knightshayes a National Trust property near Tiverton, which is a bit north of where we’d normally travel to get back to Dorset, but not too much out of our way. We did get caught in showers, but not too much, so a gentle walk around the grounds and woodland. It is one of the few places that has opened the house since lockdown as it can operate a one way system and it is a Victorian house built in the Gothic style popular at the time.

This is the stables, used for the visitor centre

The the house, the photos had to be lightened because if was so cloudy and dull.  Although photos could be taken with flash and I couldn’t resist the medieval style ceiling in the main reception room.

Outside I liked the gate near beside the house, which looked rusty, with flowers and leaves.

So that was our trip away.  Back home again and catching up things, like the blog, and thinking this may be the last time this year we have a break, but not the last time we go for days out I hope.