Snoods ahoy!

I'm so happy it's gone a bit chilly, let's get out the snoods!

The blog world seems to have gone mad for them thanks to Karen! Here is one I've just crocheted (using a pattern I blogged last year) which I think will be a Christmas pressie for some lucky person:

It's crocheted from a gorgeous pink wool I got in Loop in Islington, and the flower is done from some cream yarn I had in my stash. I love it and don't want to give it away! It's slightly less snuggly than my snoods from last year as I only used one ball, but I think it still works.

I've also just bought a knitted snood kit from the lovely Nest in Crouch End. They make up their own little knitting kits which are very cute. It combines lace knitting (which I'm attempting to master) and circular needles (which I've never used) so it should be an interesting project.  I don't normally buy craft kits, but they had one knitted up in the shop and I fell in love, what can I say. Plus it's not like it's a mass produced kit so slightly less unoriginal...? Anyway. I'm looking forward to getting started.

I've also got a giant granny square blanket on the go, think it might be next winter by the time it's done though.

Mm time for a mince pie and a cuppa.

Cx

Merry Christmas everyone

Just a quick post to say I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas and that you all got to wherever you wanted to be. I managed to get from London to my parents house in Northern Ireland with very little hassle - big thanks to Stansted and Easyjet! Matt drove our plucky little car from London to Duns in the Scottish Borders all on his own as well, I'm so happy he made it ok, had visions of him spending Christmas alone stuck in a snowdrift somewhere around Berwick!

I'd also like to thank everyone who's commented on or read my little fledgling blog over the last two months - you're all so lovely.

Happy Christmas

Cxx

Obligatory snow photo - the view from my bedroom

I'll have a blue, (flu) Christmas...

I've been feeling very sorry for myself over the last week. My lovely boyfriend brought home a flu virus last Friday, what a thoughtful gift. I succumbed very suddenly on Sunday night (really, I went from feeling ok to being a shaking wreck in the space of about 30 mins) and have been house bound ever since. I missed panto with The Hoff and my work team Christmas meal and secret santa. Being ill over the festive season SUCKS! It's strange for me because I always think of myself as one of those people who doesn't really get sick, and that even if I did I'd just get on with things of course. This illness has taught me a bit of a lesson - i.e. that bodies don't respond to a 'stern talking to' and that I should have more patience with others when they're ill.

As a result I've done almost no crafting. All I've really done this week is watch tv and read blogs - I never want to watch another episode of Friends again and you lot need to write more - I've read everything!

I had been hoping to buy and cut the fabric for my Colette Rooibos before Christmas, but that just isn't going to happen. Anyway, enough moaning, I did manage some little bits and pieces of crafting towards the end of the week - Matt bought me some lovely buttons and ribbons as part of my Christmas present (we don't spend the 25th together so we had our 'pre-Christmas-Christmas yesterday) so I had a bit of a play and made this little bracelet:

Here's a close up:

It's just a couple of lines of treble crochet and the button stitched on. I put a little circle of felt on the inside of the wool where the button is attached to strengthen the stitch a bit and save it pulling at the wool too much. To be honest I'll probably repurpose this button in the near future but for now it's the star of this little bracelet. 

I also made some more little Christmas decorations:

It's a little crochet heart (made from Pip's tutorial) with a little glass bauble (left over from my wreath project) attached underneath. I'm going to make more and string them along my window. Maybe. I'm only in my little London flat for two more days then I'm off to my parents in Northern Ireland (flights allowing - keep EVERYTHING crossed!) so it hardly seems worth it. 

What else can I do with the ribbons and buttons I got? I'm suffering from a bit of a (hopefully flu induced) creativity blockage. Here's the haul:

Boy did a pretty good job eh? Apparently my 'real' present is yet to come (illness and snow thwarted his Christmas shopping plans) - yay!

Cx

An update and some links to spread the festive cheer!

a little cross stitch I made last year...who doesn't <3 tea?

Hello, happy Tuesday! What are you all crafting?

I have a few projects on the go this week - I have finally finished the Simplicity dress I started making with Liberty fabric back in....June? I won't have time to take any photos until the weekend though (and I am hankering after a better camera as my photographs leave a lot to be desired - most are iPhone pics), so I'll post the results then. And last night was spent extremely pleasantly watching Elf and playing about making fabric brooch prototypes. I think I'm happy with the results now, so I'll hopefully find time this week to perfect them and maybe write up a wee tutorial in case any of you like them enough to make them yourselves.

In the meantime this week, and in spite of an impending cold, I will be attempting to keep up my festive cheer by avidly following :

• Elsie who blogs at A Beautiful Mess and her '12 Days of Handmade' project
  
• the Penniless Guide to Christmas for the frugally festive
  
• and perhaps, if I'm VERY lucky, making it along to the Rust open day to pick out my Christmas pressies from my boyfriend Matt (ha, wishful thinking - I have picked out my engagement ring from there, sadly it is £3550 so a little more saving is required). Rust is run by the lovely Artemis who writes one of my favourite blogs, Tales of A Junkaholic. 

Luckily my work is feeling pretty festive just now, so it's not hard to get in the spirit. The two pics below are from the photo booth at our Christmas party (I think I suit a moustache? Perhaps I should have done Movember), and the Narnia themed events that are going on in and around the library - can you see Aslan hiding amongst the trees? You entered Narnia via a massive wardrobe, I kid you not. It looked magical!

Snowflake garland and Christmas festivities

This week has been light on the crafting as it's been filled instead with Christmas festivities.

Tuesday night was mulled wine night at Drink Shop & Do. For just £1 we were given all we needed to sew mulled wine sachets and fill them up with cloves, bay, nutmeg and cinnamon. There was also a tempting array of cakes and cocktails on offer, and we all went for the 'Hot Granny' which was delicious. I was particularly charmed by the tiny candy cane that comes on the side! Karen from Did You Make That organised the meet up and it was lovely to meet both her and Tilly for the first time. I've been a fan of their blogs for months now so it was great to finally put faces to names. I loved that we were all wearing handmade things as well. Tilly and Karen have both blogged about the event much more eloquently than I could so check out their postings!

Wednesday night myself and my colleagues went to the Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park where we froze our toes off drinking mulled cider, trying to knock coconuts off sticks, were snowed on rather heavily and invented our signature dance moves for the work Christmas party....

...which was on Friday! Today has been largely spent recovering. We had lots (too much?) wine, dancing and a photo booth with a dressing up box, all on the house.

So this week all I've managed to craft is a crocheted snowflake garland using this tutorial from Attic 24. Here's a close up:

And this is it hanging in pride of place on my fireplace (please excuse the rubbish photos, I'm too tired to take any properly):

I plan to get back on the crafting horse tomorrow and finish off the snood I've been making for my sister (who just got engaged yesterday! She's 5 years younger than me and I am not yet engaged so I have mixed feelings about this. Humph.). I made it ages ago but have yet to decide how to embellish it. Flowers, bows, a felt badge with liberty appliqué...I can't decide!

And now for some Alan Partridge and another cup of tea.

More Christmas wreaths

I've mentioned previously on this blog how obsessed I've been with wreaths this Christmas. It all started here when I fell in love with the felted wreath on the Pickles blog. I promise this is the last wreath post (for this year at least). Unless I come across any more brilliant ones.

My other half doesn't like anything too twee or 'country cottagey' so I've steered clear of anything using branches and berries, although there are plenty of tutorials for those online if that's your thing.

I decided I wanted a bauble wreath but didn't fancy the price tags on the ones I saw in Paperchase, plus they weren't quite what I wanted. I stocked up on little glass baubles, grabbed a wire hanger (those things are tougher than they look!) and came up with this:

I have to say, threading baubles is extremely therapeutic following a day of tube strike madness in London - can anyone beat a 2.5 hour morning commute (bearing in mind I live less than 5 miles from work)? I could have walked it quicker. Anyway, I digress. I threaded the baubles straight onto the wire for a more 3D effect (yes I know life is 3D, I guess I just mean it looks the same from the back), so it took a LOT of baubles! You could probably use less if you used wire to keep the baubles round to the front. I made the flower using this tutorial from Marie at A Sewing Odyssey.

It's currently displayed in my fireplace along with lots of other magic and sparkle!

I blogged last week that I'd fallen in love with this tinsel wreath that I saw on the Creature Comforts blog. I hunted high and low in Crouch End for tinsel to no avail, but finally came across some in the Alexandra Palace garden shop - yay! Here's my interpretation:

It looks a little brash in this photo, but when all the fairy lights are lit it's gorgeously twinkly and festive. I may switch the crocheted heart for a flower at some point.

If you're looking for more inspiration, EZ at Creature Comforts posted a fantastic round up of the best DIY wreaths. The Channel 4 website also have a few good ideas here. 

I'm off to sip the rest of my red wine (it'll soon be time to mull it, I LOVE the smell) and play about with the crocheted snowflake wreath I have in progress. Stay cosy everyone. 

Cxx

The best garland?

Garland? Is that the right description? Or just a festive chain? I dunno, but I've just come across the Pretty Much Penniless blog and fallen in love with this idea of making a garland (or whatever you want to call it) out of old keys and bits of jewellery:

(image from www.prettymuchpenniless.com)

I think this is AWESOME, I'm completely charmed by the idea. I'd keep it up all year round if I'm honest (don't tell the boy, he doesn't like clutter and he hopefully just wouldn't notice if I 'forgot' to take it down...)

Happy Saturday everyone, I hope you've all got lovely days planned? It's freezing here (although not as cold as for my Scottish friends who are ankle deep in snow) so I'm planning a lazy day doing some Christmas shopping online, watching old films and drinking gingerbread lattes. I woke up with some sort of weird spot/bite on my face so I don't particularly feel like facing the world anyway!

Cxx

Christmas hearts and bunting

This week, amongst other crafty endeavours, I've been making some Christmas decorations.

I used this tutorial to make these heart decorations:

I'd already made a tiny string of them in pink just because, but using this chunky wool and a size 8 hook makes really cute big hearts. I think I'll make a lot of them and string them by the window.

I've also made this 'ho ho ho' bunting.

I used red and white felt and a checked ribbon I found in my stash. I think it's quite cute, I'm going to put it underneath my wreath (when I finally manage to make one - I may just cave and buy this one from Paperchase). I haven't decided what to put on the blank pieces yet - thinking snowflakes on the red, but what on the white? A stocking? I think it should stick to the red and white colour scheme. What do you think? 

Carly xo

Christmas inspiration...

Image from the Attic 24 blog

I don't know about you but Christmas is my favourite time of year. I'm really excited about this Christmas as it's our first in this flat, and the first time we've not had pesky flatmates getting in the way! I'm trying to make a lot of my own Christmas decorations and have been trawling the web for inspiration. The Boy doesn't like things to look too folksy or twee, so I'm trying to avoid anything too country cottagey. These are some of my favourites ideas/makes: 

• A selection of wreaths from Good Housekeeping - I loved the idea of using ice and cherries to create an outdoor one - if only I didn't live in a flat!
  
• These crocheted snowflakes are lovely (see pic above) - Lucy from Attic 24 has kindly provided a tutorial which I'm planning to have a go at tonight.
  
• For me, this wreath is the one. I think it's just great. However I have been completely unable to find any silver tinsel - thwarted! Crouch End must be too sophis for such tacky decorations. 

Image from the Creature Comforts blog

• Yarn wreaths (I'm a little obsessed with wreaths this year, can you tell?) from Danielle who blogs at Take Heart - they look really simple to make but I think they make really lovely festive decorations.
  
• These little animal baubles are SO cute, I am definitely going to try making a version of the owl! I like these little heart ones too. A perfect project for sitting in front of the telly with a glass of vino..
  
• This string of origami boxes are just gorgeous - I absolutely love them. If only I could bring myself to rip up an old book...

Image taken from Creature Comforts blog

• This 'whatnot tree' is a great alternative for those (like me) who don't have room for a proper tree. I'm off to Ally Pally in the next couple of days to hunt for twigs!
  
• This garland from Anthropologie has the perfect style balance between folksy and funky.
  
• I've absolutely fallen in love with this little felt deer bauble from Lowell and Son's etsy shop:

That's just some of the lovely ideas I've found online - you're all such an inspiration! I'll pop back in a few days to update on how I'm getting on with my own projects. How are you decorating your home this year? Have you any crafty Christmassy ideas you'd like to share? I'd love to see what other people are doing.

Have a lovely evening, I'm off now to finish sewing up my Simplicity 2591 - slightly disappointed as preliminary fittings lead me to think it's going to make me look fat, but we shall see...I'll post the outcome (good or bad) here once I'm all finished up.

Carly xx

Yawn

Yep. Yawn. I've been a bit under the weather for the last week or so and as a consequence the crafting (and therefore blogging) has taken a bit of a back seat. I'll get back on track over the following week as I'm on annual leave, woop woop! I've got a trip to Hobbycraft planned for tomorrow (my first ever visit, I'm very excited!), and then a week of crafting. My plans are to:

Finish off the dress I started in June
It's Simplicity 2591, as inspired by Karen at Did You Make That? I'm using a Liberty print fabric and I love it so much! I laid it to the side, learnt to crochet and so forgot about my past as a wannabe seamstress.

Make Christmas decorations
I'm thinking wreaths, bunting and other decorations. My flat is too small for a tree. I'm taking inspiration from several places, including here, and from one of my new favourite blogs, Creature Comforts who have loads of inspiring Christmassy ideas.

Finish off half made Christmas gifts and start more
Snoods, wristlets, coffee cup holders...

In the meantime as this is a rubbish post, please see this AWESOME video that I came across via the lovely Shopholly:

Snuggly snoods: tutorial

I am officially in LOVE with snoods this year. I've crocheted two so far and am working on my third which will be a Christmas gift. I didn't follow any pattern, just played about and this was the outcome.

This blue one was my first attempt - I stopped when I ran out of blue wool, but I don't really use it much as I think it needs to be bigger. The cherries motif is just a series of crocheted circles, I think it turned out quite cute.

I am re-creating the one I'm wearing in the photograph above as a Christmas gift as I love mine so much. I can't decide whether to decorate it with a bow, or with cherries or with crocheted flowers...or something else?

Another difference with the one I'm currently working on is that I am crocheting it in a continuous round so that there is not a join up the back.

Anyway, just in case any of you would like to know how I made them, here's a little tutorial - they're easy peasy!


You need:
A big fat crochet hook (I used 8mm)
Big fat wool (I used 1.5 balls of Rowan Big Wool)

I'm using UK crochet terms, but I've linked to videos (some of which use the US terminology just to make it more confusing!) so you can see exactly what I mean.

Row 1
Chain 60 (this fits as shown in the pic of me above - but you could make it longer so you can wind it round your neck a couple of times, or shorter so it sits more snugly) * join into a circle with a slip stitch

Row 2
Chain 2 * treble crochet (tr) into each chain along the original row * when you've got all the way round slip stitch into the very first stitch treble crochet to join

Row 3
Chain 1 * double crochet (dc) into each treble * slip stitch into the first double crochet in the row to join

Rows 4 - end
Repeat rows 2 and 3 until you get to the length you like. I did 8 reps altogether to get one measuring about 35 cm. It might be nice to make it even longer though so that you can pull it up over your head!

Bow
The bow is really simple too. I used  a 3 mm hook.
Chain 20 * half treble crochet into 3rd chain from hook and all the way along the row * chain 2 and repeat for 7-8 rows or until the bow is as large as you want it to be.

To do the middle of the bow, chain 8 * htc into 3rd chain from hook and all the way along * finish off and stitch together to form a bow.

Stitch it all together, weave in the ends and snuggle up!

Christmas wreath

This Christmas wreath from Heidi and Anna at the Pickles blog is just beautiful. I love the styling with the bunting and stag head too. I found it while googling Christmas wreaths, in desperate need of inspiration for the one I'm trying to make. Everything I try is either too twee or just not as I imagined (the tin foil incarnation was particularly foul).

Finding these felt balls online seems to be harder than I imagined, have found a few UK stockists on Folksy but they all seem to be sold out. A more intensive google session is required I think, unless anyone knows where else I can find them?

I will post a pic of my wreath once I've decided what it will be....it's currently wrapped in red wool with white crocheted hearts and flowers on, but I don't like it either. Watch this space...

Space invaders Christmas cross stitch!

How cool is this wonderful space invaders cross stitch pattern? I absolutely love it and it is definitely going on my to-do list. (from even-star's Flickr stream and via the craftzine blog)

Another Christmas idea and the Day From Hell

So far, today has not treated me kindly. Wednesday, I do not like you.

I opened my eyes this morning and checked my phone to see the time. 9.55. Cue lots of OMG! WHAT? I was meant to be at work 25 minutes ago! I texted my boss to say I was running REALLY late and got ready at lightning speed, all the while wondering how such a travesty had happened. I never sleep solidly through til 9.55, not even on the weekend. Arrive at work just before 11 only to run into a colleague at the door - I then proceeded to panic her by shouting 'How are you so late as well?!'. Confusion ensued and it finally came to light that my iPhone was an hour and a half ahead of itself (it also thought it was Sunday, which I hadn't noticed) and I was bang on time for work. Cue much embarrassment. I'd texted my boss at around 8am to say I was late! Plus I walk past a massive clock tower every day, STUPID.

So, as a result I've felt extremely discombobulated all day, a bit sick and very tired and can't wait to go home. After work I'm planning to head home via the massive Paperchase on Tottenham Court Road to pick up crafty things and a Secret Santa gift - I've not been before but apparently it's 3 floors of stationery goodness! Love Paperchase. I'm then going to play about with my Scrabble picture Christmas idea, drink wine and watch The Apprentice.

The Scrabble picture is something I thought of the other day. This is one of my preliminary shots:

taken using the Hipstamatic app for iPhone to get the retro feel

Cute isn't it? I think so anyway. It's for my wee sister (who is called Laura, funnily enough). I am still not sure what to do with it. My ideas so far are:

• leave as is, put in a simple but nice frame
• add in something else to the bottom left corner - maybe a snapshot of her?
• put in a box frame so I can put actual objects in front of the print

I have a tendency to over-work things so any feedback or even any BETTER ideas would be appreciated! I'm off to post this on Crafty Christmas Club too to see if any of the lovely ladies over there have any feedback!

Christmas baubles: tutorial (from Meet me at Mike's)

(Image taken from Meet me at Mike's blog)

I can't wait to try making these gorgeous crocheted Christmas baubles. Pip over at Meet me at Mike's has kindly posted a tutorial. I'll let you know how I get on!

The weekend

Gearing up for the weekend, what is everyone up to?

I plan to crash in front of the tv tonight, eschewing fireworks on Clapham Common for my sofa (although I'm sure I shall feel very left out as all my work friends will be out at the fireworks). I'm not feeling too hot this week so socialising is not top of my list. I will be mostly:

• crocheting up the snood I'm making for my sister for Christmas
• finishing up the iPod cover I'm making for my sister's birthday (priority)
• attempting to finish up the Liberty print dress I started way back in....June??

Will hopefully get round to formally introducing myself and my Crafty Christmas Plans on Tilly's Crafty Christmas blog. 

I may also be tempted across the road to the Haberdashery for the Barboot event tonight - but the call of my sofa may be too strong!

snow globes: tutorial

I bloody LOVE these snow globes as seen on the Well Worn blog (pics courtesy of www.antropologie.com)

There's a tutorial and some more lovely pictures to look at over at Well Worn.