Crocheted Shawl
But first a bit of eye candy! Have you heard of Gudrun Sjoden clothing? Its gorgeous, as are the catologues. I’ve been getting them for a couple of years now and I love their clothing and photography and colours and shapes…
The latest one came in the post today and it is just beautiful, I can look at the pages for hours. I think this is my favourite
Obviously even if I could afford it, I would look a complete muppet, not an ethereal beauty gliding round the streets of Barry like I’d imagine, but I can dream!
How fabulous is this too!
And now the finished shawl, it’s not my friends birthday till October so I’m going to have to put it somewhere safe and I have a new project to add to my list, I want one in turquoise! The pattern was quite easy and the gorgeous lace weight wool I got from fyberspates was an absolute dream. When I saw how fine it was I was initially terrified, but you soon get used to it and it is definatly worth persevering as it is so soft and light on your shoulders.
(as with all my pictures if you hold your mouse over it you can enlarge them)
Jane
Holidays!
If it’s possible, I love the Forest of Dean more now than before. We have been quite a few times but this time staying a week enabled us to really see it properly. The site we stayed on was gorgeous, Bracelands, right in the middle of the forest, surrounded by tree’s and the absolute best thing about the whole week, barring the weekend of course was the fact that the English schools hadn’t broken up yet so nowhere was busy, which is really useful when you have a couple of fearless nutters riding at top speed through the forest…
It really made a nice change, all our holidays are beach themed as our boys are complete water babies (as is the big boy too actually) so it was nice to not have sand everywhere and to be surrounded by gorgeous, beautiful green everywhere.
So as well as a couple of days cycling we had a wonderful afternoon doing this:
and this view is from above where we were kyaking:
and we only had one afternoon of this:
Which turned out to be very fortuitous as we went to the cinema in Gloucester and guess what was next door, yes, would you believe it, a Hobbycraft! The gods were obviously smiling down on me as the night before I had finished the lace shawl (pictures in a couple of days when I have blocked it) and had nothing to do and I know I’m on this 2010 Crafts neutral challenge, but I couldn’t not crochet for 3 more days! So I bought a pamphlet on cable and some wool (in the sale!). But I’ll leave that for another post!
Working through that list!
So far I have:
- finish of the lace weight shawl for friend
- finish of the backs of the 3 cushion fronts I’ve worked while footy has been on
- sew the above cushions together
- finish of crafteroo challange of space invader themed object (don’t ask)
- find a way to open the door to my workroom
- buy cotton and get on with next idea for Beads and Beyond mag before next week
- finish off 2 new scarflette ideas I’ve almost done
- make birthday pressie for niece
- DO NOT START ANYTHING NEW INCLUDING THE NEW PATTERN AND WOOL I’VE JUS T SECRETLY BOUGHT
Not bad, trying to cram it all in 3 days before the monsters are off for 7 weeks. Yes, 7 weeks! Don’t get me wrong I love having them off in the holidays, but 7 weeks!
Well, I know I’m not going to get the shawl finished, but that’s not needed till October and I plan to get on with it this week as we are taking the van to the Forest of Dean and Brecon for the week, its a good transportable project especially if the forcast is right i.e. lots of rain : (
I’m scrapping the idea for Beads and Beyond mag, I just can’t fit that in as well but it will store for another time.
I’ve finished the present for my neice, though I did get a bit carried away with it and what was going to be an afternoon project turned into 3 days, I’ll post some photos when she’s received it but I think she is going to love it, I certainly loved making it!
There are several other UFO’s and god knows how many ideas going round my head also an exciting new magazine project going on but, thats all for now, me hubby and the boys are off cycling, kyaking and most probably puddle jumping – a lot…
See you in a week!
Space Invaders (but not as you know it)
Wahey, I can cross something off my list, I’ve finished my crafteroo Space Invader themed challange!
So, after doing a bit of research on the internet about space invaders, the general idea seems to be black/white/neon colours and boxy shapes. None of that appealed to me, plus, I like to change things a bit!
So I’ve gone soft and girly though If I’m being honest it does look a bit more jelly than invader. However, sticking with the craft neutral 2010 challange (which I’m doing quite well at, my stash is slowly disappearing) I used this bright pink crochet cotton that I really can’t imagine using for, well, anything much. I tried a couple of ideas, but my fave one, a crocheted patchwork cushion in nice muted autumninal colours, with the space invader image picked out in slightly darker shades would have taken till next year. So I resized it to pincushion size I mean, who doesn’t love a pin cushion?!
Carrying on with my crochet patchwork idea would have made a pincushion the size of a pillow so after a bit more thinking I came up with the idea of freeforming it!
Obviously its more likely to gum you as opposed to shoot you, but its definatley a space invader – of the friendly kind!
A bit more upcycling
I know its not on my list, but I saw this competition on the wonderful makers online blog
Spurred on by something I’ve been working on for a magazine article, one thing led to another and before you knew it I was cutting up plastic bags.
I kinda have done something similar for the folksy upcycle christmas challange last year, where I cut up a duvet and made that doily floor rug, but this had to be something new, so I thought more delicate.
So this
became this
became this
and with the aid of a crochet hook became this
and with the addition of bits from charity shops and an old chandelier – became this!
What do you think? I really like it, the flowers look pearlescent and rich and feel gloriously soft and light. which I think contrasts nicly with the chunky chain.
Glamorous evening wear, just don’t tell anyone its from a Morrisons plastic bag!
Crochet and Cannabis!
I am aware that I have been lacking on the posting front. I have been crocheting but I can’t seem to settle to any one thing at the minute, my shops have been neglected, ideas started and left, for some reason I have 3 books on the go at the minute when I’m not particualry doing much reading, even the house is starting to complain about it’s severe neglect.
On the plus side the insurance have come through, so we can finally get the back room sorted which should spur me on. I don’t think I mentioned that before, did I? It turns out our lovely quiet neighbours were in fact cultivating a cannabis factory in their house, £800,000.00 worth.
I used to see these people being interviewed on the news saying that they had no idea that Mr and Mrs A were doing various horrible things next door to them and think, ‘how unobservant can you be’, well errmmm…
I am in and out a lot, we have our bedroom windows open most of the year, I pride myself on my sense of smell though admittidly I’m not that observant, George Clooney could walk in front of me and I probably wouldn’t notice (unless he was carrying a pile of wool of course).
Turns out the police had them under observation for a while – how I didn’t hear them coming and going with SHED LOADS of soil and irrigation stuff I don’t know. The police knocked on my door to warn me they were going to raid it and to ask me if I had noticed anything. The stupid thing is I wouldn’t let them in because they were in plain clothes, I don’t know what a police card looks like and to be honest they looked dodgy the way they were both crowding in the door way! “No”, I said “they’re lovely, polite, friendly and very quiet, we probably make more noise than them I joked!” “Didn’t you smell anything?” they asked?
So it was all very exciting for a day, lots of police, a bit of running about and a lovely smell pervaded the street for a couple of days as they emptied the house - then the water started coming through. Though it did take a couple of days for super observant me to notice. I did notice a shadow on the wall by the door, over a couple of days… then I saw it at night and thought, ‘that can’t still be a shadow’ (I do get there eventually) put my hand on it and the wall paper started to fall away. It has now spread into the kitchen and started to bring the floor up, the lesson being drugs bad, insurance good!
So, that is getting sorted, I however am not, so I thought in my great tradition of list writing, I am going to list not everything, duh, that would take a week in itself, no, just the important stuff – crochet:
- finish of the lace weight shawl for friend
- finish of the backs of the 3 cushion fronts I’ve worked while footy has been on
- sew the above cushions together
- finish of crafteroo challange of space invader themed object (don’t ask)
- find a way to open the door to my workroom
- buy cotton and get on with next idea for Beads and Beyond mag before next week
- finish off 2 new scarflette ideas I’ve almost done
- make birthday pressie for niece
- DO NOT START ANYTHING NEW INCLUDING THE NEW PATTERN AND WOOL I’VE JUS T SECRETLY BOUGHT
There are several other UFO’s but being UFO’s for so long now I don’t think they count?
Finally to prove I am crocheting, a peek at my space invader concoction:
A Dream Within a Dream
I received my atc over the weekend from the brilliant Joolz . She had remembered a photo of her’s I’d loved ages ago, and used it in her dreams atc to me! I have some wonderful internet friends!
And that quote too, from such a wonderful poem (A Dream within a Dream by Edgar Allen Poe), so beautifully sad;
‘All that we see or seem
is but a dream within a dream’.
But I think that line read alone with that almost etheral scene behind it is beautiful.
A perfect ‘dreams’ atc, thanks Joolz x
I’m a winner!
I’ve kinda lost my crafting mojo for a while, but I’ve still been reading the blogs I follow as thats my contact with a nice place where I can loose myself for a bit.
Some of them do the occasional give away too, which is wonderful, and as you might have guessed through the title I won a pendant from Damselfly Gemma’s lovely blog! She does some gorgeous silver work which I’m extremely jealous about, I’d love to have a go some day.
So yesterday in the post I received this gorgeous little box
containing this!
and a close up
Its a beautiful glass bead with lots of different flowers that go through it, is milliflori the right word (I’m sure someone will tell me, please!) with a silver bail that is beautifully shaped that contrasts perfectly with the smooth perfection of the glass bead.
Isn’t it simply beautiful, I love it and best of all it goes with everything, Gemma – you are wonderful!
