The One Year Giveaway

The time has come – details of the giveaway are finally here! (I just know you’ve been sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for this moment!)

My blog is about to have it’s first birthday. My intention was to announce the giveaway winner on the actual day – then I realised that I’m going away that weekend and won’t have internet access. So instead I’ll announce the winner the day before, on Friday 11th Jan. That gives you one whole week to enter.

But I’m guessing you’d like to have a look at what you could win (because who wants to enter a giveaway with a rubbish gift at the end of it?!)

The winner will receive…

…a pink egg cosy

…a duck egg blue fabric flower brooch

…6 red and white paper covered pegs

…a skinny, ripply scarf

…a jar of yummy goodies (you can choose a jar of honey roasted peanuts, malteesers, iced gems or crunchie rocks)

There may also be one or two other little goodies that nestle themselves in amongst the shredded paper 🙂

If you’d like a chance to win, all you have to do is leave a comment at the bottom of this post telling me which item you would most like to win (this might give me a clue as to what other goodies to include for you!).

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New Year, New Giveaway

Happy New Year!

Before I get to the looking forward part, I wanted to do a quick look back. These are some of the things I made/came across/thought were pretty enough to photograph through 2012.

January

February

 

MMarch

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Looking through so many pictures made me realise just how much I’d made last year. Some months were a lot more productive than others, but I’ve enjoyed my creativity very much this year.

I wrote last January about my habit of starting things that I never get round to finishing. I still do that – I have a box of unfinished projects (that I’ve managed to lose somehow!) but I’ve learnt a lot even from the things that I’ve not completed. I’m hoping that 2013 will be the year when I learn to finish the things I start, but even if I can’t manage that I’m sure I’ll continue to learn a lot of other things along the way. I hope you’ll continue to join me on my creative journey!

One last thing before I go. On 12th January it will be my One Year Blogging Birthday! I decided it’s about time for another giveaway, and my Blogging Birthday seemed like a great time to do it. I’ll announce the details of the giveaway at some point over the next couple of days, so watch this space 🙂

Operation Christmas Child

A few weeks ago my friend announced that she didn’t want presents for her birthday this year – or at least, not presents for herself. Instead, she asked for donations to a shoebox. You may remember (if you’ve been reading long enough) that I started making a few things for Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes earlier in the year.

Well, I have to say that all my ideas of stocking up on hats, gloves and scarves over the year didn’t work out quite how I imagined it would. Basically, I got distracted! So by this point I don’t have nearly as many goodies as I had once thought. But my lunchtime knitting has been going rather well, and just this morning I finished the scarf I’ve been working on over the last couple of weeks.

I also popped into the wool shop in town this afternoon to see what they had, and found some lovely chunky wool. I started knitting with it almost as soon as I got home, and 35 minutes later I had another scarf! I’ve decided that chunky wool is definitely the way forward!

Last week I decided that a hat or two would be good to include too, so started looking around on ravelry (what a great place!) and came across a pattern for this hat.

I was also inspired by several other patterns to make this one. The flowers are from an Attic 24 pattern.

So now I have a lovely little pile of woolly goodies ready to take to my friend later 🙂

 

Catching up

Autumn has definately arrived here in the UK. The days are feeling much colder and I have spent every day this week with a scarf firmly wrapped around my neck. I’m quite an odd person as I really don’t like being too cold, but I love autumn! It’s my favourite season – I love watching the trees change to glorious reds and yellows, I love the golden glow of the morning sun, and I love getting wrapped up in scarves and gloves. My favourite days of all are those when it’s really cold, but when the sun is brightly lighting up all the wonderful colours of the trees. 

The lakeside Pantheon at the National Trust’s Stourhead House near Warminster.

Of course, we’re not quite at that stage yet (and knowing what our crazy weather is like, we may yet have another mini summer before we enter the full glory of autumn) but I’m looking forward to crunching through fallen leaves and getting wafts of sweet, smoky air as the neighbours light their fires.

Autumn also makes me want to knit. I sort of dabble all year round (although this year my focus has mainly been on crochet) but the colder months seem much more suited to knitting than when it’s warmer. As I seem to have so little time in the evenings to just sit and be creative I’ve come up with another solution – I’ve taken my knitting to school! I usually spend the first part of my lunch break in the classroom, tidying up from the morning, getting ahead with some marking or setting up for the afternoon. But I try to make sure I have at least half an hour in the staff room, and after I’ve eaten lunch I normally have at least 10-15 mins of just chatting before the bell goes. So that chatting time has now become knitting time. I’m only making a scarf, so I don’t really need to concentrate, meaning that I can still be sociable. But it’s a lovely relaxing end to the lunch hour before doing battle with an art or science lesson.

Helen’s first ever crochet circle – so much better than my first circle was!

I’ve also taken Debbi’s advice (see her comment here) and set aside Tuesday evenings as my craft time. This week that involved teaching a crochet class! That actually makes it sound grander than it was – a few friends and friends of friends gathered together and I attempted to show them how to get started on crochet. I was expecting it to be really stressful (I’ve only ever tried to teach crochet to one person at a time before, not a whole group) but thanks to my friend Emma (who’s far more professional than I am!) who lent a helping hand, it was a really fun evening.

Helen’s second circle – she started this at home with no help from anyone. What a star pupil!

One thing Emma and I both learnt was that there is often more than one way of doing something in crochet. Pretty much everything I do one way, she does another way! We tried to make it as simple as possible for people, so hopefully they weren’t too confused! I saw one of our ‘students’ yesterady – she came bounding up to me asking when the next crochet evening would be! This is someone who claims she doesn’t have a crafty bone in her body, so I was so excited that she’d enjoyed it enough to want to do it again. And she’s been practising at home too!

As well as teaching others, I’ve also managed to add a few more rounds to the granny blanket I’m making for a friend (she’s going to give it to her Nan for Christmas).

I’ve also enjoyed flicking through a couple of mags – I’m already getting very excited about all the Christmas stuff and am planning out some projects. I think that realistically I won’t have time to make them all, but I can dream!

And finally – I was recently nominated for a couple of awards. Rainbow Junkie passed on the beautiful blogger award…

…and the wonderful team member readership award!

Thank you so much for your generosity in nominating me for two awards! I really feel like I don’t deserve them as I’m hardly posting anything these days, but thanks for your encouragement! I’m not going to pass them on at the moment, but may do at some point in the future.

Now I’m off to catch up on some blog reading – I have about 120 new blogs sitting in my inbox demanding my attention! Enjoy your evening, and I’ll maybe see you in another couple of weeks 🙂

New scarf

My belief is that you can never have too many scarves. You never know when you might need one (even in the middle of the summer if you live in Britain) and it’s important to have as many colours and styles as possible. Right?

Or is it just me?

Anyway, at New Wine last week I was merrily browsing round the market place, when a whole host of scarves just jumped out at me. And one in particular caught my eye.

So pretty! And (nearly) the same colour pink as my handbag. The downside – it was just before payday and I couldn’t afford it. I was sure it would be snapped up, but when I went back a few days later it was still there! So of course I bought it before anyone else could get their hands on it.

Now, it cost me more than I would usually pay for a scarf. But it was well worth it. Firstly because it’s been handmade – just look at the tiny stitches quilting 3 layers together. And they’re all so neat! I don’t think I could make all my stitches so similar in size. How many hours must this have taken?!

Secondly it was worth it because it’s recycled. Each scarf was made from an old sari. Presumably one which was too full of holes to be worn any more (I’m guessing this from the small patches in random places) and would otherwise have been thrown away.

Thirdly it was worth it because each scarf tells a story. The women in India who make them have been rescued from human trafficking. From what I understand, Sari Bari was set up to help these women to build a new life for themselves. Each scarf (and all their other products) has a label with the name of the woman who made it.

So not only was I getting a beautiful new scarf, I was helping Uma to build a new life for herself. This is by far the best scarf that I have ever bought!

Find out more about Sari Bari here, or have a look at some of their beautiful products on their UK website here, or their US website here.

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 🙂