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...?

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!

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!

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.

Galaxy mania!

More galaxy brooches awaiting their beads...

Which is your favourite colourway?

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!

Peek-a-boo Project

White cashmerino fingerless mitts.... lush!

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!

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!

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?

Ahoy chocoholics!

Why is it..?

.. that I have found a great yarn and the colours I like but now can't find any reliable UK stockists?!

I'm referring to Crystal Palace Panda Cotton, which is a lovely soft blend of cotton and bamboo with added elastic for a little bit of stretch.

It's perfect for summer pull-on fashion mitts and  hairbands that don't give you a headache from being too tight!

I've had a bit of a frenzy using up what I have of the yarn, resulting in a few new listings in my Etsy shop - the kids strawberry lime mitts and strawberry lime hairband to go with the teen/adult mitts already there.

If anyone knows of a good UK or even European stockist of this yarn please let me know!

BTW: I have an offer on if you buy the hairband with either pair of mitts - buy both together and I'll refund 20% of the total item cost!

200th Sale Offer

My Etsy shop has had 199 sales, yay! I'm keen to cross the 200 marker, so I'm offering a very special deal:

Be the buyer of the 200th item from my shop and buy any other item (lower or same price) at the same time for half price and also get free shipping on both!

Take a look!

Sad times

We've had a very sad week. Last Sunday morning one of our lovely kitties, Poppet, didn't come back home for her breakfast. After much searching, we found her little body on a grass verge at the side of the road. She had been hit by a car and had died of head injuries.

My daughters had chosen Poppet and her sister, Tiggy, from a litter of kittens when they were just 1 week old. We had visited them every week, playing with them and watching them grow, until they were old enough to come and live with us, just 11 months ago. 

We had loved and nurtured them both, and seen them develop into beautiful, healthy, fun, loving cats, with completely different personalities.

Poppet was the more timid one initially, but had grown into the adventurer, exploring everywhere, running up trees with amazing ease. She was incredibly gentle, playful, and loving. We were all devastated by her death, and we miss her terribly.

Her spirit was released, and we still glimpse her out of the corner of our eyes now and again. Hopefully she will stay and play for a while yet, and then maybe find another way to be part of our everyday lives again.

Her body has been cremated, and the ashes are coming back home today, so that they will stay in the garden where she loved to explore so much.

Sad times.

The Bond is back!

I'm so pleased that I've finally managed to get the time and space to get my Bond knitting machine back up and running.

It's been at least 10 years since I last regularly used it! Thankfully it's all in great order and working faultlessly.

I think machine knitting must be a bit like riding a bicycle as I haven't fogotten how to do most of it.

I've already finished and listed my first completed project - the lovely half-sleeve shrug.

I used a gorgeous variegated purple mercerised pure cotton yarn, machine-knitted the main body, handknitted the ribbing, and crocheted the lower edging and flower brooch pin.

It's a great little cover-up for summer, and my eldest daughter is already requesting one for herself!

May's Emerald

Apparently emerald is the birthstone for May, and the green-themed treasuries have been popping up all over.

I've been included in a few lovelies - check them out!

Princess Garter revealed!

Finally the Peek-a-boo Project is finished!

I'm very proud to present the Princess Silk Beaded Garter.

I have crocheted this in my own design using the luxurious HandMaiden Sea Silk yarn in shade "Nova Scotia".

It is threaded with gorgeous turquoise and lime satin and organza ribbons, and incorporates dozens of tiny glass seed beads around the lower edge.

The ribbons hide co-ordinating turquoise elastic for comfort. It was tricky finding narrow elastic in the right colour, but JosyRose had exactly what I wanted at a great price.

I'm so pleased with this project. There is a lot more of this yarn left, and I'm hoping to come up with a more lacy ornate design next. Watch this space!

Yummy new yarns

Remember the dye pot I showed you? Well here are the results:

Superwash Bluefaced Leicester sock yarn in shade "Emerald Isle" - so vibrant!

I used 3 shades of Jacquard dyes mixed in different ratios.

There are just 3 skeins of this delicious colourway currently in my shop, so don't miss yours!

The following day I got the dye pot out again, with 2 skeins of British Bluefaced Leicester aran yarn to transform.

This time I was looking for some slightly softer shades, and played with 2 of the Jacquard dye colours in the blue range.

Out of the pot came "Mediterranean Mood" - still vibrant but a softer tone - and again currently available in my shop.

The shades in this yarn remind me of the beautiful sea we saw around Turkey when we honeymooned there back in 1996!

Off to sea!

Well not quite, but nearly...

A couple of days ago we went on a boat trip from Truro to Falmouth with friends. 

It was a great day out, and the first time we've done anything like that with the children.

The route is down the river from Truro to the estuary at Falmouth, and takes about 1 hour each way.

Along the way we heard commentary picking out places of interest, one of which is a mussel farm!

Anchored ropes hang down into the river and the mussels attach to them. They take around 2 years to mature, then they are scraped off, cleaned and sent to restaurants and shops.

Amazing what you learn on a day out!

Colour naming

When listing new items on Etsy it's often difficult to think of different names for colours that buyers may search for. 

A comprehensive list of colour names would be very useful - and here it is on Wikipedia.

The colour names are alphabetically listed with samples and their values in the first section, then in the second section they are grouped by colour - very handy!