Doctor Foster went to Gloucester

Look what arrived in the mail all the way from England.  I'd be wanting one for ages but they were quite pricey from the areas that I lived in London so I'd given up looking.  I haven't lived in Gloucester but love it anyway.  My uncle is a bus driver and was given some old bus blinds and very kindly posted one off to me!

I went and bought some dowel and borrowed the young boys saw from his tool kit then sewed across top and bottom making a hole for dowel to thread through then tied some rope to hang.

And look on the back, they have what name of town is on other side, wondered how they knew when to stop winding!!!

And ta-dah!! Need to move those hats now!  

Goodbye

Today we are saying goodbye to our craft night friend Leeanne, she passed away on Saturday.  So last night we made a lovely wreath for her, we all do different crafts so we had flowers made from fabric, crocheted and felted.

Leeanne was full of knowledge, whenever we needed some ideas she was full of them.  We had a lovely evening sitting round the table making this for her.  We will miss her at craft night.  

And here we are picnicing last month on a garden tour celebrating Lillie's 8th birthday.  She'd ask me every week when am I going to get blogging again so Leeanne here it is, this ones for you,  I will keep at it now, have loads to tell, later.

Rest in peace Leeanne, we'll miss you

Hettie the Hedgehog

 

 

This is Hettie the Hedgehog, she is very soft and cuddly and goes to bed with Lillie every night.  She was very easy to crochet and now is waiting for two wee hedgehogs to be created!  Have the patterns waiting.

 

 

She looks like she had an old nana perm in her hair spikes!

 

And check out my new needle case my friend bought all the way back from London.

You can get hedgehog pattern here from Liz Ward or Simply Crochet magazine issue 11

Dyeing crochet cotton

A while back I bought a bag of white cotton including half a front of a jumper knitted up and the 80's pattern from the Sallies for a few bucks.  Thought I could dye it to suit my living room, and the colours in my curtains to make a wall full of mandalas.  So this is how it goes... 

I started to search online how to dye with plants and food and had a bag of cranberries in the freezer so used them to dye the below lot.  I had to do it all as soon as i 'd started reading up about it!!  Took about a week to dry and faded alot so then I thought I'd just buy some dyes.



This is the curtain fabric that I wanted to match the cotton to. 

 

 

 

 


I went to Spotlight and got some blue and red dylon dyes and found some green food colouring in the cupboard so here they are below. 
They just looked so lovely in the pot!! like coloured spaghetti!!

 

 

 

 

 

Once I'd done the red and blue and taken cotton out I tipped colours together and made purple!  Yah!!!

 

And here they are all wound up, still a bit damp but wanted to crack on making the mandalas so the basket has been living by the fire to finish off drying them.  The yellow one I already had.  Very pleased with the results!

 

Mandalas for Yarndale 2014

I've been busy making and playing round with mandalas and this is one I've sent to Lucy from Attic 24 to display at Yarndale 2014 in Yorkshire.  Mine is the top one and my friend Kara made the bottom one.  Mine is made with cotton and Kara's is wool.  You paint PVA glue on the back and they go a bit stiffer so can hang flat on wall.  They are really easy and quick to make and look lovely.  Lucy has a pattern in her above link.  And she has a Pinterest board with all the hundreds of mandalas she has received so far.

Lately

 

This is what we've been up to lately........its a bit old but still having trouble loading photos, better do loads more while I can !!

 

Every second tuesday six of us come to my house for a bit of craft, a cuppa, lots of yummy food and a chat. Some of us crochet, some mend, and others make all kinds of things.

 

 

New hats for the kids, got this great book from the library, first I got out the wool stash then they chose what they wanted and as I prefer to crochet this is what they ended up with, a koala and a bear, not sure about bears eyes, bit creepy!!  The pattern was so easy and just measure the head and can make any size you need with some easy calculations

 

http://www.chroniclesofthechristianmom.com/2011/11/basic-earflap-hat-pattern.html

 

 

 

 

 

Little brother wasn't keen on having his photo taken so big sis modelled his hat.

 

 

And from the Simply Crochet magazine some lovely heart squares, hoping to make enough for a blanket, I really need to concentrate making them though.

 

 

 

And our wee friend Maddie got a new petal house from the op shop but had no one to live in it so I made her a couple of wee mice.

 

Miss Lillie had art deco day at school, they played lots of old games from the 1930's and learnt all about the 1931 earthquake that rocked Napier.

 

And finally we have been enjoying lots of yummy feijoas, our trees are only small but the feijoas are massive this year, apple and feijoa juice is a favourite, feijoas go in whole, skin and all. 

 

 

Fabric flowers using up scrap fabric

 

 

These fabric flowers are a great way to use up some of your bigger scraps.  You could make smaller or bigger than I have or even join bits together. And I had to go and collect all the sticks that I have been throwing over into the orchard that fall on my driveway!
 

You will need

Strips of fabric

Glue gun

Sticks

Needle and thread or sewing machine

 

First you need to cut strips about 13cm by 115cm, some of mine were shorter, just used up what I had.

 

Iron them in half long ways then cut out like below, rectangle strip in about 10cm then scallop the cut raw fabric edge, scallops about 7cm wide.

Next open out and run a gathering stitch all along the folded ironed edge. (forgot to photgraph that bit!)  And normal stitch along scalloped edge.

Then gather up along floded edge then you are ready to glue.

Tie the end in a knot and place onto stick and glue, you can fiddle round to make it a nice little bud if you feel the need.

The just start glueing round bit by bit and holding just till it sets till you have a nice looking flower.

Idea was from here so take a look for a more detailed tutorial.