Wednesday 29 June 2011

Peek-a-boo Project

It's that Handmaiden Sea Silk again - this time with a selection of glass and wooden beads...

Any suggestions of what the final item will be...?

Tuesday 28 June 2011

Deflating!

I've been feeling very bloaty in my stomach in the afternoons recently and I think it's to do with eating commercially-made bread. 

This article in the Telegraph newspaper discusses the situation, and makes sense to me! 

So I'm having a few days of reduced bread intake to help reduce the discomfort. Here's a tasty bread-free quick lunch I made yesterday in a few minutes - Summer Pasta Salad:

  • Boil a handful of pasta bows for 10 minutes, drain and cool slightly by rinsing under cold water, then put in your serving bowl.
  • Stir in a handful of washed, shredded spinach leaves and leave for a minute to soften slightly.
  • Stir in a spoonful of sundried-tomato pesto and mix thoroughly. 
  • Add a handful of chopped yellow sweet pepper, a slice of cooked diced ham, and a few quartered cherry tomatoes.
  • Season and enjoy!

Monday 27 June 2011

THEAjewellery giveaway

I've been browsing round a few different Etsy teams recently, and happily found a great giveaway via the Craftcult team!

THEAjewellery is giving away some fabulous beads in return for a little linkage across the web - not much to ask for!

Details can be found on her blog.

There are so many beautiful items in her shop, that I can't begin to link to them all. 

However this gorgeous casual necklace is one of my current favourites.

Take a look and see which you love!

Friday 24 June 2011

Lining a bag - sewing for dummies!

I do have a sewing machine but I rarely use it. Most of the sewing I do is darning tears, re-sewing split seams, re-attaching buttons, etc.

But I have this crochet bag - worked from the pattern I have for sale in my Etsy shop.

I love the bag - the weight, size, colours, etc, but I don't use it. It flops about quite a lot and I always intended to line it. Well finally I got round to it! 

I had chosen some gorgeous patchwork cotton to use months ago. I had matching thread, so here's how I did it.

First I made a couple of very rough paper templates from a sheet of paper from the recycling. 

One template for the front/back, and one for the side/base. 

I used this to cut my fabric.

I pinned, tacked, then seamed the sides to the base. 

Then pinned, tacked & seamed the front to the sides & base, and repeated for the back. 


The corners were tricky, and are not the neatest things in the world, but they're never going to be seen, so I figure there are worse things in life. :)

I put the liner inside the bag so I knew how far down to pin the top hem. 

I sewed around the top, then hand-sewed the lining into the bag. 


Done - easily, since I could manage it! 

Hopefully I'll get to use the bag now.

Tuesday 21 June 2011

Galaxy mania!

More galaxy brooches awaiting their beads...

Which is your favourite colourway?

Monday 20 June 2011

Skeined!

First up - Happy Father's Day! Hope all Dad's everywhere had a fab day, whatever you did :)

Last night and this evening I spent reskeining a couple of 500gram megaskeins of DK merino superwash wool.

I bought them from Fyberspates a while back, and have finally got round to wanting to dye them and get them into my Etsy shop!

I wanted to divide each megaskein into 50gram skeins ready for dyeing. I knew how many metres of the wool there was per kilo, so I calculated the length for 50grams from that.

I know that my niddy noddy winds a skein of 1.9metres each time round, so I could calculate from that how many times I had to wind around to make each skein.

I added a couple more winds each time for good measure - nobody likes underweight skeins!

It didn't take as long as I thought, and my arms lasted out. Now I have a gorgeous pile of 50gram skeins ready for the dye pot!

Sunday 12 June 2011

WWKIP Truro 2011

Yesterday was this year's World Wide Knit In Public Day and I went along to the Truro meet-up - which was fab!

I got to see some knitty friends and spend 4 hours chatting, knitting (and tinking!), enthusing, laughing, and generally having a good time.

We had a small swap bag of goodies for anyone and everyone to add to or take from - which was narrowly missed by a seagull poo incident! I donated some yarn and knitting mags and ended up with a large ball of the white pompom scarf yarn.

One of my favourite creations was Anna's gorgeous crocheted hat, made by her very talented sister.

Also Carol brought along her gorgeous wedding wrap she is knitting for her daughter from Kidsilk Haze, but I was so preoccupied with feeling how soft it was that I completely forgot to photograph it!

We were yarn-bombed by Cornwall's Graffiti Grannies, and many shoppers stopped to marvel at the fantastic knitted bike park covers - such amazing shapes showed off the knitting beautifully.
 



I also loved the pretty crochet flower garland and knitted butterflies in the palm tree!

 
A few people were brave enough to have a go with the extreme knitting needles - I really must try them one of these days!

I also met up, quite by chance, with lovely fellow Etsian Vanessa from Magpie & Butterfly, who hand-makes the most beautiful beads, stitch markers, and buttons.

Of course I ended up buying some of the irresistable buttons, which you will no doubt see on some of my handknits in my Etsy shop soon.

Can't wait for the next meet-up!

Friday 10 June 2011

Crocheting the galaxy

I've been hooked on crochet this week - excuse the pun!

I decided to replenish my stock of Galaxy brooches ahead of the local craft fair I'm doing at Kingsley Village next month.

These sold well at the Christmas craft fairs I did; this time I chose more summery colour schemes.

I actually made 4 but youngest daughter has claimed one already!

Tuesday 7 June 2011

More treasuries

Seems like it's Treasuries week - I've been lucky enough to be included in 2 more lovely collections! Can you spot my items?