And the winner is …

Almost a month ago I announced a giveaway for an African flower scarf. I said that I would announce the winner either on March 12th (the 2 month birthday of my baby blog) or when I got 20 followers. Well, today I got 20 followers – one day before my second birthday! How exciting 🙂

Just a little reminder – this is the scarf that is being given away…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I have all the names of those who commented on the post on sticky notes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I folded them in half (so they wouldn’t all stick together!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

I put them into my lovely Joules hat and gave them a good old shake up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the person I pulled out of the hat is…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Congratulations! I’ll post the scarf off to you early this week 🙂 Enjoy the cosiness while it’s still (just about) cold enough! Oh, and you can have a little look at Stocki’s blog here 🙂

Ok, after all that excitement let me just quickly show you another couple of pretty pics. First of all, I managed to finish my third set of boxes yesterday.

And here they are all together! I still need to sort out all the stuff on the top, but the clutter on the inside is all sorted 🙂

After covering all these little drawers I had some little bits of paper left. I really didn’t want to throw them away as they are just far too pretty. But what to use them for? Just as I was wondering this a packet of pegs caught my eye. I really have no idea where they came from, or why I have them. I’ve obviously used some of them in the past, but there were at least 3/4 of a packet left. And the scraps of paper were just the right size to cover them! How pretty?!

These are the only ones I have at the moment, but plan to spend some time this evening making more. Will show you when they’re done 🙂

Yet another cushion (and a giveaway reminder)

For some reason I just love cushions. Even more, I love making cushion covers. I think because they can generally be finished pretty quickly (which doesn’t leave me much time to get distracted) and are a great way of trying out new skills with a relatively small amount of yarn or fabric. After the success of the Granny Square cushion (the pic to the right) I decided to make another one. This one is bigger, to fit an 18 inch cushion, and instead of crocheting both sides I wanted to try using a jumper as backing (as seen over at attic24).

So, I carefully cut off the buttons and added them to my colourful button jar. This picture doesn’t really show the true colour of the jumper very well – it’s a lot pinker than it looks here.

 

 

 

 

Then I cut along the seams of one arm and cut the front of the jumper off. (This is a bit closer to the actual colour.) I carefully measured out and cut each piece so that I would have overlapping flaps for the back.

So by this point in the day I was planning to sit down and show you wonderful pictures of the finished product.

No such luck.

Have you got any idea how hard it is to bind the edges of a curling jumper on a sewing machine?! All I wanted to do was a simple zig zag stitch all the way around so it wouldn’t fray and unravel where it’d been cut. But to start with it got jammed so I had to pull it a little, which stretched it, so it ended up wobbly. Then it just wouldn’t go straight no matter how hard I tried – so frustrating!

By now I have mangaed to zig zag around all the raw edges, wobbly though they are, but really wasn’t feeling the love so decided to leave it until tomorrow when I’ll hopefully be in a better frame of mind.

But while I’m here, let me remind you about the African Flower Scarf Giveaway! It’s only 8 days now until my blog is 2 months old (so exciting!) and to celebrate I’m giving away this scarf 🙂 If you’d like a chance to win it, please leave a comment at the bottom of this post. On 12th March I’ll put all the names of those who have commented into a high tec hat and pick out a winner.

In the meantime, enjoy the last few relaxing hours of Sunday before another week begins!

 

Once every four years

Happy leap day everyone! I don’t know about you, but today hasn’t been that different to any other really, but it kinda feels like it needs mentioning simply because it doesn’t happen that often.

So today hasn’t been particularly special, just pretty crazy. And the day isn’t over yet and I still have a long to do list. So instead of getting on with it I thought I’d write about it instead! Don’t you just love procrastination?!

Anyway, what with having a kinda crazy week, I’ve not felt like crafting much. I come home exhausted and still have things to do for the following day, so I get on and do them as quickly as I can so I can fall into bed as soon as possible. How rock and roll am I?! Hopefully next week will be calmer and I’ll be able to get back into the crafting groove.

But for now, here is a little selection of what I’ve been up to this month. A nice lot of colour to liven up a pretty gloomy month 🙂

African flower scarf giveaway

After just a few more hours work the scarf is finished! It took me a while to decide on the order I wanted the flowers to be in, but had fun shuffling them all around on the floor.

I then worked a round of treble stitches (US doubles) around each flower in dark purple, joining them as I went along.

After they were all attached I worked two rows of double stitches (US singles) around the whole lot to strengthen them.

At this stage it was nearly finished, but was quite curly! A bit like a sandwich a few days old. It kinda looked ok, but not quite.

 

 

So then came the blocking process. I’ve not done this before, but it seemed to work quite well. I stretched the scarf out across a couple of towels, the pinned each point to hold it in place. I then spritzed it with a nice fine mist of water and left it to dry for 24 hours.

This afternoon I removed all the pins (which was a lot quicker than putting them all in) and ta-dah! Had my properly finished scarf 🙂

And here it is:

If you would like a chance to win this scarf, just post a comment on this post. I will draw a winner either on 12th March, or when I get 20 followers. So get commenting!

On another note, I was having a little browse at some lovely blogs yesterday, and came across Stocki, where I read about a truly great idea! Jill is making a Beautiful Blogger Blanket, made up from squares sent in by people from all around the world. (Click here and scroll to the bottom of the page if you want to be involved yourself, but be quick about it as the closing date is next week!) I couldn’t resist and whipped up a couple of Granny Squares to be part of it.

The one on the left is based on a pattern found here at Rose Hip – just lovely. And the one on the right is a plain old Granny Square, as taught to me by my very own Granny!

A Granny and a Giveaway

I know after yesterday’s cliffhanger you’re all on the edge of your seats just waiting to find out what I’ve been making.

But you’ll have to wait just a few more minutes while I show you my completely, properly, absolutely finished cushion.

It measures just over 14 inches across (that’s about 36cm). The cushion I tried it out with is a 14 inch, but I think it would look a lot better (just generally plumper and more cosy) with a 15 or 16 inch. But I didn’t have one of those, so the 14 inch had to do. You can see that it’s slightly squished on the bottom left corner – that wouldn’t happen with a fatter cushion. You may also have noticed that I didn’t take off the other cushion cover, which is why you can see a few black lines underneath – oops!

But what a wonderfully large Granny Square. Yum!

Anyway, here’s the front (or the back, depending on whether or not you like to look at the buttons or not. I personally think that the buttons are a key feature, but if you see them only as a functional aspect for closing you may prefer to keep them hidden. That is entirely up to you.)

And just one close up of one of the buttons, handsewn and tied with pink embroidery thread. I took pictures of all five, so be grateful I didn’t force all of them on you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, my new project.  You may remember that last week I had a go at making African flowers (see my first attempts here). Well, I’ve come back to them and made loads! I took this picture early this evening. Five lovely little flowers.

 

 

 

 

 

Mere hours later they have increased. I now have seventeen flowers that are ready to be edged and made into a scarf! I apologise for the quality of the photo, but it’s really quite gloomy in here at the moment, and it’s hard to find somewhere with better light.

But you get an idea of the colours anyway.

The main reason I’m so excited about this particular scarf is that it will be my very first giveaway!

I have to say that I got the idea from Katie over at Booty-licious (now one of my new favourite blogs) who did a giveaway to celebrate 20 followers.

I thought I’d do things a little differently – I will make up the scarf and probably get it finished over the next day or so. If you would like to win it all you have to do is leave a comment under this post. I will then put your name in a hat (ever so sophisticated, I know). I will draw a name from the hat either on March 12th (to celebrate the two month birthday of my blog) or when I get 20 followers – whichever happens first. So it’s really up to you how soon I draw a name! (If you want to follow just click the button at the top on the right, the one that says ‘follow the creativity’.)

This is open across the world, so even if you don’t live in the UK feel free to enter.

And by the way, thank you to the people who are already following me – you make me feel very special 🙂