Thursday 28 June 2012

Mini Hearts

Hi to my recent new followers!  Lovely to have you following!  Thanks also for the great comments on my African Flower cushion in the last post - I'm still loving it, and so pleased I actually finally finished it!


It got me a bit inspired to finish off other long-standing projects.  I started making some teeny tiny hearts last year some time - and I've finally done some more:




They are the ones with the ends sewn in... there are another six I need to do that for!  Here they all are together...




I'll show you more when I've finished sewing the ends in and put them all together.


Just a quick post from me today :o)



Sunday 24 June 2012

The "Finally, At Long Last, What Took You So Long?" Ta-Dah!!!

Finally it's done!!!!!  My African Flower Cushion!




Long-standing followers of my blog will have seen the start of this a long time ago!  Back on the 1st of June last year, I blogged about the start of an African Flower Runner.  Well, over a year later it has morphed from a runner into a cushion, and is FINALLY finished!


It's not going to live on the sofa in the photo - that's my parents' sofa - I took it round to show it off.  There is better light in their living room, so I took a couple of photos there.


I can't believe it's taken me so long to finish (but there have been a lot of other projects finished in that time) and I'm amazed that I love it just as much as I did when I started!  I love the colours together.


I had the front all sorted a few weeks ago - I'd done all the half-flowers that I blogged about recently.  I also had to straighten out the other sides, which were wavy like this:




I managed to find a way to fill in, with a couple of rows of varying stitches, so that it looked like this:




I was quite amazed I managed to get it pretty straight.


Here is the finished square - ready for a back:




I ummed and ahhed about the back for a while - I kind of just wanted the thing finished to be honest.  I wanted to do the quickest thing I could do to get it finished as soon as possible.  But somehow I ended up deciding that it must have a crocheted back, which took a few weeks!  (I'm a bit slow/have a full-time job/easily distracted/lazy - choose your favourite reason (excuse) for it taking me so long!)  Although, it's nothing compared to how long the front took!


I gave you a sneak peak recently... and here it is in it's completed glory...




I think I love it as much as the front!!  Rows of double (US) crochet stripes with three little pink buttons to fasten it.  So simple, yet effective.




This is going to be my second June Monthly Make.  (It was finished this month, and the back was done in June - even if the rest has been going on for a year!)


It will also be part of a Pretty Crafty Home (see sidebar).


It's made in King Cole Bamboo Cotton - 50% bamboo, 50% cotton.  I love the feel and look of it.  It's quite splitty to work with, but you get used to it, and I love the end result.




I better get my craft list out and cross it off the list - yay!  I'm so glad it's finally done, and very pleased with it!



Sunday 17 June 2012

Button's Christening!

Thanks for the lovely comments on my recent posts - I always appreciate them.


Today was the Christening of my gorgeous little nephew, Button!  This is the present I made to hang in his nursery:




I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do.  I searched and searched online for a pattern, but could find nothing that felt right.  I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted, but I knew I'd know when I found it.  Well, I didn't find it!  But I managed to come up with this myself - and I'm really pleased with it!  I found an alphabet online that I used for the letters and numbers - and I saw the rabbit on something, and copied it onto paper to use in the design - I think I changed one stitch I wasn't happy with.  The rest just evolved as I worked on it!




I love it framed in the embroidery hoop, with a ribbon bow and hanging loop.  I painted the embroidery hoop light blue to tie in with the design.




This is going to be my June Monthly Make!


Another present I bought was this beautiful wooden rattle, engraved with his name and date of birth:




It's such a lovely Christening present (even if I say so myself!) - something special to keep.




It was a lovely day - I'm just chilling out now after the morning service and an afternoon eating buffet food, eating cake, and having a few drinks!



Saturday 9 June 2012

Sneak Peak...

I'm busy crocheting away, trying to finish something!!


Here is a sneak peak of it!  Hopefully it won't be too long before I can show you the finished item!!  I hope it comes out as I plan... eek scary...

I also found time to make some millionaire's shortbread today:


I accidentally burned the first lot of chocolate for the top, and it went all clumpy and weird, and there didn't appear to be any way of saving it.  Very annoying!  Especially as I thought I had done all the hard bits, and the final bit was just to melt the chocolate and pour it on top - typical!  I had to nip out to the shop and get another bar to melt.  It was all worth it, though - it tastes really good.  Surprisingly it didn't fall apart when I cut it and  removed it from the tin either - who'd have thought it!


Saturday 2 June 2012

Jubilee Heart

As always, thanks all for the lovely comments on my posts, they are always enjoyed and gratefully received.


I gave you a peek in my last post at the project I had started... it was the free kit from the Cross Stitcher magazine.  I managed to get it finished in bed this morning!  Just scraping in at the start of the Jubilee weekend!




I'm quite pleased with the finished item.  I'm not really that into the British themed thing (I know, travesty!) but I thought it would be nice to have a souvenir of the Jubilee, and I do like it now it's finished!




I wasn't that impressed with the kit, though.  I thought the felt was stiff and cheap.  The embroidery threads also felt cheap and weren't very nice to work with.  They weren't nice and smooth, they were fibrey, splitty and break-y (I can't think of the real words to describe them, so they'll have to do!!).  The needle they provided you with was so thin and flimsy, and a nightmare to thread with the cheap splitty thread!  Yes, I have loads of my own needles I could have used - but I was stubbornly insisting on using what I was provided with in the kit (for some unfathomable reason - as it only made my life more difficult!)  In the end, while doing the blanket stitch, the needle actually snapped in half! I did then reach for one of my needles which was far better to work with.  (I know, why didn't I use it all along - damn my weird ideas!)  Also, the thread was cut into such short lengths, that I seemed to be constantly tying the ends off and starting a new thread, which was annoying.  None more so than when doing the blanket stitch!!  If I had my own thread, I'd have cut a piece long enough to go all the way round - as I really struggle with ending blanket stitch.  (If anyone has any genius method to end blanket stitch, while keeping the stitches looking neat and uniform, PLEASE let me know!!!)  Usually it's bad enough having to do it once at the end - but I had to do it FIVE (yes, five!!) times to sew up the heart!  Even more difficult when you then have to start again, and somehow join the new to the old, to keep the proper blanket stitch effect going.  There is one point where I made a rather bad job, which is annoying me in the pictures!  Oh well...  Oh, and it said that the kit provided you with everything you need to make the heart - but it didn't provide filling.  This isn't a problem for me, as I had filling - but they should have specified that it wasn't included.


Wow, what a rant!!!  I don't usually get rant-y in my posts!  And I guess it was a free kit, included with the magazine, so maybe I shouldn't complain.  But I have now, too late!!  ;o)


But on the plus side, I am pleased with the end result after all that moaning, and the finished item doesn't seem cheap.  Oh, and the soluble cross stitch fabric thingy you use to sew through onto the felt was pretty cool!




So - happy long bank holiday people!  Enjoy the Jubilee celebrations!



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