A Crafty Family Christmas

Christmas, a time for friends & family, peace on earth and a good bit of art & craft. It's not just me who's been busy this Christmas, art & craft runs in the family.

My Mum & Auntie made Christmas cards. 

Mum's embroidered card

Auntie's hand painted card

 I made my own Christmas cards by stenciling onto plain cards.
 I used the spirograph that my sister bought me last Christmas to make gift tags.

 My daughter made large paper stars of various sizes  to decorate the school hall for the Christmas Carol concert.  

This star was over a meter tall 

She also made pin cushions for her Mum & Grandma. Great presents - just what we need for our sewing projects.

I made presents for my loved ones.

Lavender bags

Padded coat hangers for Mum & aunties

A cross stitch cushion for Mum

Briony's Tea Cosy

My art & craft  friend at work, like me, enjoys a good cup of tea. She asked me to make a tea cosy. Due to the style of teapot she wanted a cosy with out any slits for the spout & handle. 

A hat pattern was the obvious choice I used a pattern that I found on Raverly - the knitting community website.

It was knitted on 5mm double pointed needles using 2 strand of DK wool. The needles were free with a copy of Let's Knit magazine and I love knitting with them.

A couple of evenings work and the tea cosy was complete.

Bea-Bea helps out

Charity Blanket for Refuge

Simply Knitting magazine had an appeal for knitted squares to make blankets for the domestic violence charity Refuge.  

http://simplyknitting.themakingspot.com/blog/refuge-comfort-blanket-campaign-the-details

I thought that as a knitting club we could make a contribution. It would also me a good way to use up some left over DK wool in my stash.

I knitted a few squares whilst I was on holiday. It took a couple of attempts to get the square the right size - 6x6 inches. I settled on a 5 knit 5 purl moss stitch over 6 rows on 5mm needles. A knitted a couple more squares and then & got a bit carried away. I had almost enough to make a child's blanket. 

My friend had made a few squares, but decided that they were too pale to fit my colour scheme. I lent her some blue wool and she made squares to match mine & help complete the blanket.

As usual, I finished sewing it all together at 11pm the night before I had to post it. It was worth the late night knowing that it will help to keep a child in a Refuge safe house warm.

Remembrance Day Poppy

I'd knitted a poppy a couple of years ago using a pattern from the Royal British Legion website. It knitted up rather large and was OK to wear on my coat, but a bit too much for everyday wear in the office. I looked around on the web for a new pattern and came across a wonderful pattern by 

Laura Chau.

http://www.cosmicpluto.com/blog/poppy-for-remembrance/

It took me several attempts to get going. The first round consisted of 8 stitches across 4 needles, using black wool. Working in artificial light in the evenings, meant that I was having trouble seeing what I was doing.  I decided that I needed a way to label the needles so ordered some stitch stoppers on e-bay. Being me, I didn't have the patience to wait for them, so I raided my daughter's art & craft cupboard and found some Hama beads that were just the right size to fit the needles. 

 I labelled the Hama beads 1 to 4. This helped me keep track of each row of the round. 

By the time I got to the 4th round and was using the red wool, the work was large enough for me to see the rounds and I didn't need to counters.

Ready to cast off

Badge pin attached top the back of the finished poppy

Thank you Laura for the fantastic pattern.

My newly knitted poppy 
alongside my old knitted poppy



Bea-Bea helps out 

Halloween Makes

 Halloween is always a good time for a bit of art and craft. 

This year I found a plain wood Halloween sign in Hobbycraft which I painted.

There were the usual pumpkin lanterns.

I made some bunting from a sparkly spider web material. I hung some in the garden, but it was a bit too see through, so I made some more for indoors.

Halloween makes from previous years

Bat party bags made from
 cardboard tubes,
crepe paper & card.

Knitted Pumpkins
 (Jean Greenhowe Jiffy Knits)

Ghost dish
painted at Wellington Country Park

Teapot Bag

Following on from the success of making my daughter a new PE bag, I had to make one for myself in a more adventurous design.  I was inspired by a design in my quilting book which I decided to enhance with pockets and a couple of other touches.

So,  it was off to one of my favourite shops, The Fabric Warehouse, for some fabric to make a bag for my dance shoes. I had in mind a dance themed fabric, but the ballroom one I found wasn't really me, I'd really wanted a ballet theme. What I did find was a fantastic teapot print. Nothing at all to do with dance but very me.

Pocket lined and pressed

I made 2 pockets from a the fabric that I had chosen for the handles.

Pocket was sewn to the bag lining
 before the lining was sewn together 

I used wadding to pad the bag and lined it with a contrasting plain blue fabric.

Lining in place

Interface ironed to the handle panel
 and handles pinned in place

 

Handles ready to be attached



Handles attached to the bag and
ready for magnetic clasps to be added.

2 magnetic clasps were added which weren't in the original design.

Position of the clasp marked ready for
the fabric to be cut using a stitch ripper

Clasp pushed through the fabric and
 backed with a square of wadding

Back in place and arms folded over

Clasp in place

 The handle panel was hand stitched to the lining inside the bag and my work was done.

The finished bag



Autumn in the garden

The last of the potatoes have been harvested.

                                                                                                                                

It's time to sweep up the leaves and pack delicate garden decorations away for the winter.

The vines have produced a few bunches of grapes this year.
The pumpkins have taken over the vegetable patch. 

I'm not sure if they will be ready for Halloween though.