A Bit of a Makeover

Mmmmmn, its been a while since my last post hasn't it!
I have spent a good many days working on the garden in the last couple of weeks, but that isn't really an excuse for not blogging. We do have a house full (3 sons and one future daughter in law in residence and two more girlfriends here a lot of the time - yes, we often have to cook for seven!!), but that isn't the reason either - that is a bonus! Believe me , they are so much fun!

The trouble is I like to spend so much of my free time either making stuff for Etsy, or making for other charities that I'm finding it hard to find the inclination to blog about general crafting.
I have a feeling there are going to be a lot more posts about stitching and knitting than there are about papercrafting (so what's new I hear you say!)

If you think you can, then you can!

I think it was Henry Ford who said "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you are usually right" Well, I've hovered between the two over the last few days, but positive thinking must have won out in the end because I did manage to achieve what I set out to do ( but not without a little stamping of feet, swearing and tearing out of hair in the process!)

Ever since I was a child I've always made up my own knitting patterns. The pattern I buy is never quite the idea that I had in my head so I've always adapted them to suit me better. These two rabbits grew in just this way and I put them into my Etsy shop late last summer. I thought it would be a good idea to sell the pattern, as I can't keep up with demand for the finished rabbits, but its been a real test of my determination. To start with, I knew exactly what all those hastily written scribbles that meandered over my jotter meant, but I couldn't excpect anyone else to - they needed it all written out in proper "knitting pattern language". So I've sat for what seems like days on end with patterns in front of me, scrutinising them to see how they were written, whether you use capital letters at the start of lines, whether you put full stops after abbreviations - all the things I've looked at a thousand times, but never really looked at properly. There were plenty of times when I walked away saying " I just can't do this!" Instructions for papercrafting projects just seemed so easy compared to this.

Next I had to sit and knit what I had written, without looking at my much loved scribbles, just to make absolutely sure someone else would be able to understand it, and that the rabbits turned out right. When I eventually put the pattern up for sale last night, it was with a mixture of relief that I had actually finished at last and trepidation that it might not make sense to someone else.
You can imagine how happy I was this morning to find that someone had bought the pattern, and then nigh on overjoyed when they emailed me back to say they were very pleased with it.

You know what - the task wasn't so hard after all!!!
Suddenly there are a thousand and one ideas for patterns all vying for prime postion in my head right now. Can I do another one? Sure can!

Craft, Hobby & Stitch Show

I spent the day the Craft, Hobby and Stitch Trade Show at the NEC, which is always one of the highlights of the year. Maybe its because I went on the Monday and not the Sunday, but it did seem a quieter show than usual. This was actually an advantage as I was able to spend plenty of time stopping to chat as I met old friends and also meant that I could get close to the demos.
Here is Tim Holz demoing a resist technique with embossing powder and Distress Inks...

and this is his floral wreath made from grunge paper.

I also watched Suze Weinberg demonstrating Melt Pot art - nothing particularly new, but it did make me promise myself to have another play with this technique later in the week.

I went back to the Personal Impressions stand 3 times in the hope of seeing my friend Lindsay, but each time she wasn't there!! Where were you Lindsay??

My other favourites from the show were all textile related. Viridian was definitely the best yarn stand -

http://www.viridianyarn.com/ . They produce wonderful sock yarns and have some great designers on board. My hands hurt too much if I use the finer yarns these days, but I still like to admire them.

There were plenty of Ooohs and Aaahs on the The Button Company stand. As well as selling buttons, they are distributing for The Cinnamon Patch. This is a french company producing wonderful kits that are a unique mixture of patchwork and embroidery and combine felt with cotton fabric. They were right up my street! http://www.thecinnamonpatch.com/

So its been a fantastic day, full of eye candy, and a wonderful antidote to the grey, biting cold outdoors. My head is swimming with ideas - now all I need is the time to put them into practice!

Where DID January go?

I can't believe how fast the time has gone, and how bad I've been at blogging this month. So what have I been doing that has kept me otherwise occupied, you might ask.....well very little it seems!

At the start of the month I revelled in the snow - the breathtaking beauty of it all, the way normal activities just ground to a halt and the way everyone was talking about it. I went for long walks in it, I spent ages clearing it off my car every day and I just looked at it. If it was beautiful during the day it was mind bogglingly incredible at night.

I had a large order for knitted baby shoes, so that kept me out of mischief for a while, and then a few days ago the same person asked if I could come up with a baby beanie with a flower embellishment. This was just the push that I needed. Having spent the month tootling along, basically enjoying myself I was up for a new challenge. Although I have knitted all my life, I have never really mastered crochet properly. i have a blitz every now and again,trying to improve my skill, but always revert back to knitting. I managed the daisy fine, but then I tried to do a crocheted leaf. Uh oh! I spent all one afternoon trying to do a crochet leaf! I was never ever happy enough with my efforts, so in the end I knitted them. I'm really pleased with the outcome, even though I'm not going to enjoy sewing them up - all those ends to sew in !

I've also been doing some more bookbinding, and perfecting a new technique, but I'm going to leave that for a February blog!

Walking on water

I thought I would share these pictures of one of our cats that we took a couple of days after Christmas. The snow had just dissappeared from the lawn, but the pond was only just beginning to thaw. It has one very large, free floating sheet of ice across it. This is Saffie, gingerly testing it out to see if it would take her weight. As you can see, water did immediately flood over the top of the ice, but I'm happy to say she made it safely to the other side.

Christmas was a very hectic as we has a total of 9 people in our house but was thoroughly enjoyable. I have managed to do some crafting since though. These are two pictures of a hard backed journal I have made using an exposed binding style called Long Stitch, Link Stitch. It is one of my favourites at the moment.

The dream wording is stamped and then inked to co-ordinate with the cover papers. I made the book cloth for the spine specifically for this journal. I cut the cloth a little wider than I needed, but backed just the
correct width with Bondaweb. This meant I could fray the edges before I ironed on the backing paper

I'm pleased with the effect, so I think it will be popping up on a few more of my jounals soon.

Finally, I thought I'd just share one of my crafting Christmas presents with you

- "Taking Flight" by Kelly Rae Roberts.

It is as it says on the cover a mixture of techniques an inspiration. Its a book to dip into many many times, each time finding something new, and above all its a book to pick up when you are feeling negative or frustrated with your craft work, because I can assure you it will change all the "I can't"s into "I can"s. I thoroughly recommend it.