fluffy bunny

I really have cracked out the craft books recently!  This little project is from Stitched with Love by Mandy Shaw and was totally inspired by Susan.  It's a bunny, how could I pass that up, and why had I forgotten I had this pattern?

I used some wool felt I had to hand and decked her out in red.  

I added some simple embroidery and then sewed her up with blanket stitch.

She's plain on the back.  Hang on!  There's something missing!

Aaaah, that's better!  She was hanging up for a couple of days in the living room before I noticed!

Harrogate stash

On Friday and Saturday me and my wonderful mum went to the Knitting and Stitching show at Harrogate.  We stay overnight to make it all a bit more leisurely.  It's a good job we do as the place is rammed!  I thought you might like to see my goodies?

Yarn for a pair of fingerless mittens I want to make

Wool roving and fancy threads for a little felt picture I have in mind.

A goldwork kit that's actually a copper work kit and is done on canvas.

Me and mum went halves on this one. This is proper goldwork, but in silver if that makes sense!  We got two patterns and the materials needed to make them both.

They come with leather, and silver threads and metal threads...

And all kinds of other threads that I've forgotten about!  We watched a lady doing a demo and it really didn't seem as hard as I've always thought it would be, so I'm going to take the plunge!

This little fella is a magnetic needle minder.  I couldn't leave him behind!

I didn't intend to buy any fabrics, but at £2 a FQ I couldn't resist.  The car one is to make a crayon roll for my nephew.  The other two are just because.

These were £5 for three and I think they'd look lovely with a bit of embroidery, I have something in mind! In the background is a metre of brown corduroy which is for a bag I'm planning.

I bought this pattern and a roll of fusible binding tape to try the stained glass technique.  I wanted to try this and as the pattern is Rennie Mackintosh, how could I resist?

And how could I resist this bunny who has a little bunny in her garland!  I found the perfect FQ of white fleece on the stall opposite so it was clearly meant to be.

I bought a couple of beadweaving kits.  They're beginners kits but I love the designs and the prices were too good to pass up.

This is my jewellery making stash.  Some of it was from Harrogate but most came from the Bead Show that me and mum went to on Sunday... it was a craftstashalicious weekend!

I bet you all think I'm crazy.  I've got a list of WIPs and kits as long as an orangutan's arm, but I'm adding to it.  Ah well!

playing with fimo

Following the craft class, I wanted to try some more polymer clay techniques I'd had my eye on.  The first is an imprint technique from the book Patterns in Polymer by Julie Picarello 

I created a layered stack and then used various items to imprint it.  I didn't have many items I could use, I need to keep a good eye out and maybe visit B&Q.   Above I mainly used cutters, but the crosses are a screwdriver, the circles at the top are from a spool and the wavy lines are a cutter.

This really terrible shot is of the layers.  I can't get a decent in-progress shot of some crafts, like polymer clay, as I do them downstairs in the dining room which has a special film on the window so people can't see in.  It means that the light is also blocked.  Working on a garish cutting board doesn't help either!

The idea is to cut thin slices.  I didn't succeed with that!  Most of mine were wedges or about 10mm thick!  Here's a couple of the slices.

Don't you think this one looks like a frog!

I cut a couple of decent areas out with cutters and I'll turn them into brooches.  The failure of this made me want to try again, but this time I started at the beginning with something a bit more basic from the same book.

Not so bad!  But they're also very thick.  I wish I hadn't cut the large one out so asymmetrically.

I then pulled out The Art of Polymer Clay Millefiori Techniques by Donna Kato.  The striped cane was fine.  What I did with it... not so much!

OK, so back to an old technique that I know is a success.  I've made these before, but not in blue.  I am going to make them into necklaces, the small round ones are beads which have been pieced through the sides.

Still managed to make a mess of this though!  So the marks?

blackwork 2

Following on from last week's blackwork post, I thought I'd show you the rest of the blackwork I did.  Tucked in my New Anchor Book of Blackwork Embroidery Stitches were some loose leaves torn from a magazine, one of the cross stitching ones I think.  My mum gave me the book so I'm not sure where they came from.  On a Christmas tree decoration roll, I set to.

I was really pleased with this holly as I had the perfect green in my stash.  I suppose I could have done the berries as buttons.... I might try that.

This star (and the only black piece of blackwork I've done!) was a nightmare to sew.  I couldn't get the patterns to align properly despite recounting dozens of times!

Above is the design Snowflowers by Jeanne Dansby.  I had this saved as a PDF so I'm afraid I don't have a link for you.  I went with red for pointsetters and I love it.  It's so delicate.  I added green size 10 seed beads into the diamonds.

This was another free design from Borduurblog, that link will take you to a page with lots of blackwork designs.

Now I just have to get these sewn up into ornaments.  If you fancy giving blackwork a try, I have loads of free patterns saved on my Blackwork Pinterest board.

craft class fimo

Guess you can't guess where I went to a craft class?  Yep, The Bead Shop Nottingham.  This was was using foils with polymer clay.  I can't remember what the foils were called but they were thin sheets which you could rub onto the clay before it is baked.

The photos aren't brilliant as I really struggled to capture the shine from the foils.  I used pale blue and dark blue clay and different colours and patterns of the foils.  As you can see, the foil didn't transfer completely.  I found it really hard to get the foil to transfer.

I do like the cracked and crackle effect that you get with these foils. 

Of course, I also played with the blue foils.  One was solid blue, the other a very garish holographic effect which was too much as a sheet but works well on these small shapes. 

I cut the hearts using heart cutters and poked a hole in each one as I'd like to make a dangly necklace.

The tutor also showed us how to do rolled beads.  The blue ones aren't that great, I'm not keen on the colour of the clay.  I rolled over the foil after it was applied with an acrylic roller.  That flattened the clay a bit and so broke up the foil.  I do like that effect.

I much prefer the black ones though.

I struggled to get a good photo of these too, but I think this one isn't that bad!

pile of puds

Christmas is approaching fast.  OK, so not that fast, but it is if you have a craft fair at the beginning of December and sold out of your most popular stock.  

Yep, these little fellas were an unexpected hit last year.  They're hand sewn from felt with a blanket stitch and a little button and ribbon bow to represent holly.

They're pretty diddy, about 5cm so are the perfect size for your tree.

See? 

french knitting

You may have noticed that I didn't do a Wipocalypse post at the end of October.  No?  You didn't notice?  Didn't think so... I'm under doctor's orders not to put myself under any stress whatsover and even though it's a self-imposed challenge with no real consequences, I can't help getting competitive (with myself?) so I'm going to do the next, and final Wipocalypse round up at the end of December and whatever I achieve, I achieve.  

That was my rather long link into a post about French Knitting, or Spool Knitting as I believe it's sometimes called.  I acquired this little bee French Knitter at Harrogate last year and have been pondering it for a while.

I started with some lightweight DK yarn.  I love the texture and pattern, but I'm not really sure what it could be used for.

My real objective was to use wire to create jewellery, perhaps with beads trapped inside.  It didn't work out.  The silver wire is very fine, 36 gauge I think, and didn't hold its shape at all.  I moved on to 28 guage, but still no success.  I'm not sure if the problem is the shape of the pins at the top of the spool.  Has anyone tried French Knitting with wire?  Did you succeed?  I could do with some tips as I would like this to work!

As the wire was such a flop (literally), I thought I'd try with some other materials I had to hand.  The green one is 1mm rattail and the bottom one is cord.  I quite like them, but again, I don't know what I'd use them for.

The photo below shows the rattail and cord version with the yarn version.  The yarn provides a much tighter weave though I wasn't pulling any harder or knitting any more tightly. 

Hmmm, I'm going to go back to pondering French Knitting.

blackwork 1

I've not been very well and haven't been to work in a while.  I don't really want to go into it, but my condition means that quite a few of my days have been spent reclining on the sofa, watching TV and stitching.  I got the urge to do some blackwork.  Wow, is blackwork addictive.

I started with the book Blackwork by Sonia Lucano which is full of beautiful photos and loads of charts.  Blackwork does not have to be stitched in black, you can stitch it in any colour you like.  It's a counted form of embroidery, not unlike cross stitch, but using simple backstitch to make geometric forms.  I stitched on Aida as it's easier than evenweave.

This flower is stitched in pink and green on 14 count Aida.  I'm going to make it into a lavender sachet.

And I will do the same for this purple and green flower.

I've included a ruler in this shot of the pink heart to show you the scale - those are cm not inches.  I hope my husband never reads this post, one of his biggest bugbears in life is the misuse of the word ruler.  He would ask me if I really used a King to show scale...

These are so quick to do, a couple of hours with coffee breaks maybe.  I wanted to try one of the sampler style blocks, the top right and bottom row are both from Blackwork, but the top left is filling number 15 from The New Anchor Book of Blackwork Embroidery Stitches.

This one has really whet my appetite and I'm going to tackle a large piece with multiple squares, probably in black.  I think I need to practice on evenweave first as that would look nicer.

Finally I stitched a snowflake from Blackwork in white on a light blue Aida.  This will be a christmas tree ornament.  I say finally but I didn't stop there... I won't bore you with the rest right now, I'll show you next week instead!

What do you think?  Do you like the look of blackwork?  Have you tried it?