Secret Santa

It's Saturday, I've finished all my Christmas shopping and all my obligational makes.  So I'm free.  I decided to do some sewing.  I went up to my sewing room.  An hour later I came downstairs having had a right good tidy up and rearrange!  Now I'm failing to make anything again!

I don't have much to show you.  I'd got tons to show you and in my wisdom was posting every day, I really shouldn't have as now I've run out of stuff!

There's just this...

This is very hard to make out as it's crocheted in black yarn.  It's a bear hat.  An adult bear hat.  For a man.  We had our team's Secret Santa on Wednesday and I picked out the name of one of the loveliest blokes on the planet.  He's a really good sport and every year everyone eagerly awaits his Christmas jumpers, hand appliqued by his wife!  Clearly I needed an item of clothing to make him look daft!  I didn't use a pattern, just crocheted an adult sized hat and added ears.

I couldn't leave it there though.  He had to have a Christmassy hat.  Ta dah!  I really hope you know what this is... everyone in the office did.  He was delighted and put it on straight away, then wore it on and off all afternoon. Sadly our office is about as hot as hell, so he couldn't wear it all the time.

I made the pattern up, alternating between white and brown yarn to make the cream pouring down the sides.  The berry is a pompom and the leaves are crocheted following a free pattern by Lucy at Attic24.  

I think I'm in love.  Is it possible to be in love with a Christmas pudding hat?

Linking up to: 

felt star

This little fella is from Stitched with Love by Mandy Shaw.

I used ordinary craft felt rather than the wool felt called for.  I can't see it makes a difference with something like this.  

The cute little motif is actually from the Christmas tags section, the star is from the tree decorations.  I blanket stitched around and kept to the red and white colour scheme as I think it looks festive.

He's naked on the back.  I used red floss, so does that mean this is redwork?

How to be a hooker

Last year for my birthday I got a latch hook kit.  I think this is called Looker Hooking in the US?  It's of a Union Flag and it's been sitting waiting for me for ages.  I kept putting it off as I knew I'd have to read the instructions.  Well that took all of 2 minutes!  Sometimes I just don't understand how my brain works.

I found it a little tricky at first, but soon got in to a rhythm.  There's about an hour and a half's work in there, so this is going to be a long job!

It's comes with a pre-printed canvas and lots of pre-cut strands of yarn.  You also get the tool.  It took me a while to fathom out how the hook worked as I wasn't following the instructions correctly, it's actually really easy so I thought I'd show you too.

Here's the yarn you get with the kit.  You could of course buy a latch hook, some yarn and a piece of canvas and make up your own design.  There may be freebies on line too.

You hook onto the horizontal bars, not vertical which I'm cunningly showing you in this sideways picture above that makes it seem like I'm lying!

The hook goes all the way under a double "thread" and the hook is open.  The movable part of the hook needs to be on top of the "threads".

Wrap your yarn around the hook...

Then put the two ends of the yarn under the hook.

Then simply pull through.  It will form a little knot like this.  There's a name for this knot but it escapes me.  Pull the yarn ends to tighten and move on.  It gets a bit painful on the hands, not from the action of hooking, but where my hands are rubbing on the canvas.  It's a lot easier when I've got some done and can rest a hand on it.

Hoopla.... again

Yep, I've had Hoop-la! 100 Things to do with Embroidery Hoops by Kirsty Neale out again!  This time I tackled the applique bunny.  I say tackled but it was really easy.  The hardest part was choosing the fabrics.

I went for blue on red as they're my favourite colours.  I realised after I'd finished that I'd made a mistake.  One of the ears is supposed to flop forward, but I'd taken the pattern upstairs to cut out the bunny and fuse him to the background fabric without reading the instructions.  That'll teach me!

I LOVE the way Kirsty adds crochet to her hoops so I followed her pattern.  I made my foundation stitches too small which meant I couldn't get the right size hook through and couldn't get two stitches in each as the pattern required.  As I'd already laced the bunny into the hoop at this point, it was too late to pick out the stitches and start again.  So I persevered.

See how the edge sticks straight up rather than out?

So I blocked it.  I pinned each scallop outwards and soaked it with water (a bit too much water!) and they lay correctly.

It's sitting on my table waiting to be added to my gallery, but each day the scallops lift up a little more!

Counting reindeer

One little reindeer - quite a happy chappy...

Two little reindeer - the second slightly amused...

Three little reindeer - the third ate all the pies...

And who's this?

It's a really strange and slightly freaky looking Santa.  Of course.

Hoopla

After admiring the book Hoop-la! 100 Things to do with Embroidery Hoops by Kirsty Neale each time I saw a blog review, I finally splashed out and bought it.  It is a lovely book, full of ideas.  It also features 2 bunny projects.  This one is called Hipster bunnies and I was disappointed to find out it's not a pattern, but a photo printed onto fabric.  That wasn't going to stop me though, I just traced it!

I painted a hoop in blue to frame it, when I came to do the framing, I discovered I'd painted the wrong hoop!

This is the right hoop!  It's 3" x 3".  The bunnies are appliqued and then outlined in 1 strand of black embroidery floss.  I love them.

I think it must be Colin and Ellis in this picture.  Ellis is a pretty lady and Colin... well Colin is my lovely Colin!

I laced the back but decided I couldn't be bothered to sew on a circle of felt, after all, this is for me and will be on the wall so no-one will ever see the back.

I've got another hoop bunny project in the works, then I just need one more to make my four bunnies...

Beaded Robin

I had a little kit for a cross stitch which came with a 3" plastic hoop for framing.  I didn't much like the project so had a quick look in my books for a different design.  I found one in Picture It in Counted Beadwork.  This little fella is made from size 11 seed beads.  The book said to use Mill Hill beads but I had Mikiyaji and they seemed to work just fine.  I've never done counted beadwork before, but it was simple.  I used 14 count Aida to go with the size 11 beads and it was simply a case of doing a half cross and threading on a bead.

Yes, I know, that hoop is not plastic, it's felt.  I didn't like this design in the hoop, not sure why.  Rooting through my drawers (of the chest-of-variety, I don't keep craft supplies in my (UK) pants) I found this felt frame that must have been free with a magazine.

Mr Penguin looks quite happy to be in it.  I did a running stitch round the circle and then blanket stitched round the edge.  It took forever.  Well, about an hour.

I wasn't watching my stitches on the back, but I think they blend in well enough.

Sick of Christmas decorations yet?  Tough...