:: New To Me Fun ::

Isn't is great when you get new-to-me stuff? I am a massive fan of Ebay, charity shops, car boot sales, you name it, if it's second hand I'm there! 

This last week I had some time to kill and decided to visit a local charity shop and picked up a fabulous red corduroy coat for £4. Bargain! I didn't like the buttons that were on the coat which was just as well as there were two missing! but never fear, new buttons have been purchased and as soon as I find myself some red thread they will be on the coat. I have taken some 'before' photos of my coat but right now they are trapped inside my camera so I will show the befores just as soon as I have some afters to share.

In other news my brother has passed his old iphone to me! How lucky am I? I was most excited as now I can use instagram which I have been looking longing at for some time. I have actually only taken one photo with it so far and here it is! Hmmmmn tea :) x

::The Art Of Crochet Third Quarter::

I have recently finished sewing together the third quarter of the Art Of Crochet partwork.  I have surprised my self that I have been able to keep up with all this crochet lark.  Although the crochet itself has got easier it has also become less interesting as a result.  The complete blanket is made up of 120 squares (from 120 issues) and there are many  many repeats of the pattrens, but they are good for practice and to be able to compare squares and see progress. When I started square one I hadn't actually managed to crochet yet and here I am now whizzing up squares and thinking they are boring!

Here are a couple of photos of the new section.  I haven't sewn it together yet as we use the first half of the blanket and I don't want to turn it into an unwieldy 'L' shape. So now we have one big blanket and one small blanket kicking around on the back of the sofa! Next stop one huge blanket wheeeeeeeeeeeee!

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::Welcome 2012::

Welcome to the New Year! Hope it is going well for you so far.

I am trying to take advantage of the quieter times and shorter days, spending time on the computer redoing my banners. I am also looking into building a new website through moonfruit . Currently made by val is hosted by Wix but it is flash based so can sometimes take a while to load and also, can't be viewed on mobile devices that don't support Flash, so I thought perhaps moonfruit might be the way to go they also let you add a shop so that is helpful, but as with these things it takes AGES, I am not know for my patience :)

I have started to make more fairy doors in the hope that I can build up a nice stock for the coming year. Other business plans include taking some new photos and launching some new stock items which I have in the pipeline although these might need to wait until the boys have gone back to school.  Well it is good to have plans, I never like the pressure of resolutions, so plans sound good to me.
 

Cheeeese!

I love cheese, so imagine my excitement when I was buying some mini babybels for my son and it came with a mini 'meltpot'

Before:

During:

After:

Basically you place a babybel in the little tray, zap it in the microwave for 20 seconds and then you have a little melty pot of cheese! Sadly though, I was a little disappointed, although the resultant melted cheese tasted great, it was less fondue and more hot chewy cheese, it cooled too quickly and I ended up eating it more or less in one go, which wasn't good as I wouldn't eat a whole babybel in one go. I also thought the cheese was quite hot so not sure I will let my son near it!

So there you go I thought it was a great idea but sadly it doesn't seem to work in practice.

Now to think up a good use for he little pot!

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Percival

I have been wanting to make a pin cushion for ages so I finally got around to making this wee guy:

 He was supposed to be stuffed with only polyfill but as he was to be a pin cushion I put a cardboard circle in first to give him a flat base to sit on and I filled him half full with poly beads to weigh him down, finally finishing with polyfill. I think he turned out quite good!

 

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Today I .....

Moulded ....

dried ....

 and painted ....

These are all different doors, unfortunately I am unable to mould, dry and paint a door all in the same day, just like the expensive phone advertisments, some sequences have been shortened.

The painted doors only have their first coat applied, kinda look like they are made of toffee nom nom.

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Amineko!

A while back when I was wandering around the web I came across a lovely crocheted cat called Amineko. He stars in his own book 'Hello my Name is Amineko' and, how generous, the creator of the pattern - Nekoyama shares the pattern on Ravelry - for free!

Well, I just had to have a go at making one, and here he is!

The thing that makes him/them supercute is the fact they are slightly weighted in the bum area, and in the arms and legs so they can pose. Although he seems to enjoy sleeping. A lot. Cats eh?

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New Month

Well hello September!

Today I have started with great enthusiasm. I have joined in with a Folksy group - September Embers, whereby we must list at least one item a day for the whole month. I joined this last year, in September as well it turns out, must be my 'get up and go' month! I think I almost managed to list every day, weekends are a bit of a challenge as I often don't even switch on the computer over the weekend. I will try and see how far I can get.

Today I listed a wee pink fairy door hopefully I can sustain my enthusiasm and I will have  full shop by Christmas :)

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New camera

Our new camera arrived yesterday.

It is one of those things that you look forward to, can't wait for, then it arrives and it has so many buttons and functions that you don't quite know where to start! So I have decided to start on full auto mode and work my way up =)

Here are a couple of shots I took in the garden during some (very) short bursts of sun.








Since I took these I have found out there is a sports mode - to improve my bee shots :) and also a flower mode!! Well, you see I am learning and moving on already.

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On The Up

Well I have been busy for the last few weeks with the boys being off for the summer. I know I have said it before but I really like them being off school. I much prefer the relaxed nature of the days and no dreaded alarm clock beep! Sadly tomorrow it all ends :( Yup it is the old back to school day tomorrow. Boo!

However I have been really busy today. A while ago I made a new design fairy door. After making and painting literally hundreds of my current design I felt some change was in order. It has been a real trial and error to get the moulding compound to behave itself. I have suffered so many air bubbles I was becoming quite despondant, but today I actually managed an almost, dare I say it, bubble free mould! Sometimes smaller air bubbles don't show in the casting but I was getting huge ones aargh. Anyway today I was calm and took my time, tried not to panic and yay! it worked. I currently have three new moulds and hopefully some more on the way. I am so pleased I managed to get it right. All the more frustrating of course as I obviously had done it before but couldn't remember how.

I am also on a mission to make a huge batch of doors so I can restock my Folksy and Misi shops. Wow they are looking sparse :( I have a problem I shouldn't complain about but I have been selling my Fairy Doors in wonderful shop called the Gift Gallery, in York (in the Shambles no less!) and they are selling so fast I can hardly keep up. Great for my bank balance but not so great for my online shop stock. So I am trying to make, make, make and get ahead of myself before the Christmas rush. We shall see. (It won't happen ;) )

In other news, we ordered a new camera which should arrive tomorrow. How very exciting. So my plan is to take lots of nice photographs of my new doors. I would also like to re do my banner but that is a long term goal.

So, new school year, new fairy doors, new photos, new.....?

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Garden

It is sunny again today, yippee! It means I can keep up with my washing which, though sadly domestic, is something that keeps me happy!

I also realised that a lot of the flowers that have been blooming in my garden have sadly bloomed their last, so I thought I would take some photos of some of the flowers that remain.

The majority of the flowers have been grown from seed by Master M. and Master A. It seems like such a long time since we bought the seeds, dug the compost out the compost bin, and planted, and watered, and waited, and watered and waited...and then we had little seedlings which we planted out and how they grew! The boys have been so pleased with the results :)





These were all grown from seeds except the Fuschia which is a really old bush that has lived in this garden forever.

Oh and I have to mention out teeny apples growing on our (very modest) apple tree. It won't be long before they are full size apples - can't wait!


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The Art Of Crochet So Far ..

Wow I knew I hadn't blogged for ages but hadn't realised it had been this long!

Just thought I would share with you some photos of my blanket so far that I have been making with 'The Art Of Crochet' partworks magazine. If you are not aware of the magazine, every week you get a ball of yarn and instructions to crochet a square, eventually each square is sewn together into a large vintage style blanket. There are also loads of other patterns in the magazine as well.

I have really been enjoying the magazine because not only did it teach me to crochet in the first place, it has taught me stitches and techniques that I would probably never have attempted ( and a couple I never want to attempt again!!) because I am determined to get my blanket finished.

This is only the second time that the magazine has published the making up instructions, it does get a bit frustrationing waiting on the instructions when I have had a huge pile of squares waiting patiently, but now I have a whole half blanket!

I am pleased with my progress so far :)










I will try and not leave it so long until I blog again!!

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