I got this kit from the Purl Bee for my birthday, I was SUPER excited about it. I like the idea of embroidery but find it rather daunting, this was perfect for me as it was quite open stitching and I learnt loads of different stitches.

The kit comes with everything you need plus a whole stitch booklet (type-written) and really detailed hand-written instructions. This made it feel very cottagy and vintage.

Basically I couldn’t put it down, it was so much fun to do.

I need to get it framed and then it will take pride of place in my Haberdashery.

For my next project I’d like to try these goldfinches, maybe for my grandmother, or there are some amazing jacobean samplers around, but what would I DO with them? Answers on a postcard…

I’ve been spending a LOT of time on Pinterest recently and I thought I’d put it to good use by sharing the pretty things with you. I was browsing recently and on discovering the oilcloth below was reminded of our brilliant mexican party last year which got me in the mood for this:

MEXICAN FRIDAY!

Find them on Pinterest:

Beautiful Embroidery
Bling Piñata
Hand-Painted Tiles
Mexican Oilcloth
Penguin in a Sombrero Egg Cup
Seven Layer Chilli Dip Shot

Disclaimer:
It’s annoying but Lightbox (the image plug-in I use on here) won’t allow me to create a gallery with links to the original pins. Hence the list beneath the gallery, I know it looks shit but I can’t do anything about it. Sorry.

I have been training in Ju Jitsu for sometime now, it’s a bit of a contradiction that we are a club who enjoy baking and craft, not just the girls either. Some examples:

• Home made masks for our masked ball – including a robot triceratops one!
• Cakes, burgers and Gingerbread jitsuka for a club BBQ
• A piñata made from scratch
• Many excellent fancy dress costumes, always cobbled together at the last minute.

In addition to this we seem to be growing in yarn craft aficionados and this week had our first crochet club.

Christina wanted to learn to make amigarumi and is very new to crochet so we decided to go for something easy and I chose this cute little penguin from Lion Brand Yarn, it’s a free pattern and have simple, clear instructions so it’s ideal.

The lesson went fairly well, Christina is a very calm crafter whilst Emily and I are prone to fits of tantrum, which meant Emily’s penguin at one point was dashed to the ground mid stitch and left there in disgrace for 15 minutes after which she discovered it actually DID have the right number of stitches… We had chocolate and fish and chips and tea and listened to Radio 2, it was very civilised. As everyone has now mastered the basics I think we’ll have a go at these next time.

I’m calling this the ruffle-e-funt, for obvious reasons. I have recently discovered that colour work is ‘my thing’, I really enjoy the knitting but I love the finished article, love it I tell you!

I wanted to make something for Lizzy’s baby that she could wear, maybe when she’s a little older than newborn and I found this pattern on Ravelry and immediately fell in love with it. I was concerned it might be a bit beyond me but I have to say it’s a brilliant pattern, really easy to follow, well written and knits up beautifully, it’s excellent value for money too as it makes 4 sizes (newborn to 2yrs) and includes blank yoke charts for you to create your own fairisle pattern if you choose. I made the 6-12 months size but I would say it’s slightly larger than that, although, I really have no idea how big babies are so this is all conjecture.

I used this 100% merino superwash which is warm and soft but you can bung in the machine at 40ºC, which I assume is quite important when you have a small child. Very affordable too, I will be using it again!

I bought these buttons a while ago at a market in France on a whim with no idea what I would use them for but they were perfect for this. Don’t you just love how they come on that retro card, I almost didn’t want to cut them off…

This is my first cardigan ever and my biggest fairisle project to date and, to be honest, I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself. Okay so the buttons aren’t quite the same colour as the wool and my gauge was ever-so-slightly off but on the whole I think it’s beautiful, even if I do say so myself. If I were to knit it again, which I definitely WILL, I think I would add a band of the white zig zag pattern at the bottom of the body and sleeves too.

Looking forward to a photo of Beatrix in this little number!

Delicious!

I found this on the Joy of Baking website, genius in that it includes cup AND weight measurements, simple enough but most sites don’t bother, and I don’t have cups. I didn’t bother with the glaze, I CBA with glazes in general so I just squeezed lemon juice over the top and dusted with caster sugar. Just as good and 5% of the effort.

Also I took these photos on my new iPhone 4,  I’ve finally upgraded from ‘my first nokia’ to a real phone, so exciting! I need to do some work on my photography in general but I understand there are some convincing apps to assist me now I’ve joined the iPhone club. Watch this space.

So I watched Kirstie’s Handmade Christmas Home this evening, if I’m being honest I was a little prejudiced as I found her ‘Homemade Home’ really disappointing as she never really made anything, she just had a quick try and tehn paid someone huge sums of money to do it well – which, I think, sort of defeats the point. But anyway, rant over this is what I thought about the Christmas episode:

The first quarter was just her going shopping in Covent Garden food market, to my amazement she bought mince pies, probably the easiest thing to make at Christmas.

One of my favourite quotes;

‘you learn much more about food when you shop at markets’

and then… oh my god she’s got a defender! ‘I really live in the country you know, I’ve got a landrover…’

Mince Pies
The good 10 mins on how to decorate mince pies was wasted on me, I think they look yummy without any edible glitter (which looked awful and really unappetising) and I loved Kirstie staring in open-mouthed bemusement at ‘homemade’ mince meat – crazy! Apparently she has given mince pies a new lease of life – ha

Candles
Anyway it got much better after this, she goes to make candles, she picks a really beautiful mould and made cup cake candles in a silicon muffin tin which I thought was  a really good idea and not just for Christmas either, I will definitely be making these for birthday presents.

Embroidered Napkins
She had an embroidery lesson which was good, they drew the basic pattern onto the fabric with pencil, it had never occurred to me to do that – the Embroiderers Guild were brilliant, really innovative and the pattern Kirstie sewed was simple but beautiful. I always think embroidery is too hard and time consuming but I could definitely have a go at this sort of project.

Chocolate Truffles
The truffles were really impressive and I do think I could make them at home, but to be honest they were overcomplicated, I think the ones you make with cake crumbs are just as nice if not as posh.

Crackers
For me Kirstie (and her expert trainer) missed the whole point of making your own crackers – personalisation. She just shoved some chocolates in them whereas if you label them you can give people a gift they might actually want, like a nail varnish, cigar, little brooch etc. They were very pretty though and I have only ever made them from a kit but I might have a go next year from scratch, it looked pretty straightforward.

Food
‘I don’t want to ruin Christmas by worrying about the food’ WTF?! You’ll ruin Christmas by NOT worrying about the food – it’s the most important bit!

I really liked the idea of stuffing bay leaves under the turkey skin, plus there were some good tips on what herbs to use and, put it in a hot oven for 45mins first to get golden crispy skin etc but I think pre-cooking veg is a bit over the top, to then microwave or oven cook the next day – surely that’s just doing the work twice?

Place Settings
Ooh golden pears for place settings – I LIKE! Using sugar syrup as glue and sheets of 25ct gold leaf the pears looked really beautiful but £38 for 25 sheets and one per pear needed – maybe one for some really special friends… There is a tutorial here (which is where I got the picture from).

There were some other really good tips thrown in almost by accident here and there; for example, brush fruit with egg white and roll in sugar, this is a really good centre piece and so easy, I’m definitely doing that. And the edible stars you can scatter into your drinks were really fun too.

In summary then, it just annoys me that she never makes anything completely herself, just has a go at one and then gets bored – and says things like ‘the joy of homemade’ and all her guests are cooing over the stuff she ‘made’ – it really undermines the crafting ethos for me, the beauty of homemade is the thought and time that goes into it, which you don’t get from buying it all, how is that any different from a normal ‘consumer’ Christmas?

I came runner up!

Check out all the winners and runner ups here

Most Innovative Piece as chosen by Wayne Hemingway:

Christmas Cake Stand by Lickety Split Craft

Wayne Hemingway MBE, who’s been at the forefront of British design for yonks, initially with Red or Dead and now moving into architecture and built environment (inc. sheds!). He was also instrumental in educating all of us daily with his slot on The Big Breakfast.

If you want to bid on it you can do so on ebay and all the money for all the items goes to Sue Ryder Care so it’s well worth it, there are some really beautiful things that people have made as well as great stocking fillers and novelty items.

Quick update

This is the feedback from the person who bought my cake stand:

Oh we had a nice family day out at the show, Amber, Ange and I arrived with many old ladies and students for a day of craft related fun.

We methodically made our way around the show, there was a lot of rubbish but also some great stuff, the first stand we stopped at had these cool kits to make your own rosette from Fabrications. For £10 you get a bag full of ribbon, fabric strips and circles, lace, wool, buttons, safety pins, a reel of cotton (on a nice wooden reel, ooh) two needles and a ‘loom’. It’s all scraps and offcuts and gives you instructions on three different ways to make rosette type brooches.

For the loom method you wind various bits of stuff (fabric, ribbon, wool) round the pins in a figure of eight, sew in-between the pins in a star pattern then embellish with lace, buttons, sequins etc

What do you think?

Obviously it’s a first attempt but I think the loom will be great. There’s enough stuff to make loads of brooches but it’s a really good way to use up pretty fabric leftovers, bits of ribbon from wedding invites (for example…) and other pretty things you hoarded for no particular reason but can’t bear to throw away.

I also bought an off-cut to make some napkins:

and we bought some quilting fabric, giant ric rac, humungus knitting needles to knit with cut-up blankets to make rugs (they are the size of broom handles).

The graduate show was fantastic, really inspired stuff,I bought a cute bird brooch 

but the real exhibition stuff was depressingly beautiful. A couple of my favourites:

Katie Almond,  Paper and Ceramics
Jenny Hall, Artist and Maker

There was also a woman who had embellished/embroidered huge shells, they were really cool in a sort of matrix-y way in it’s artificiality but still really natural and flowing, stupidly I have misplaced her card though – humph.

Overall not bad for a tenner but it’s just a shame there weren’t more interactive stands, ideas and freebies.