Homes for gnomes

Disclaimer: this post does not contain any images of, information about or reference to gnomes.  The gnomes bit of the title was a bare-faced lie.

The Christmas decorations that have been sitting half-finished on my cutting table for weeks are finally finished. 

Last month's issue of Cross Stitcher came with a free cover gift of a little kit to make 3 of these houses.  In theory.  In reality, after cutting the Aida to the correct size and using the template in the magazine to cut the roofs, the felt they'd provided to back them was far too small.  Luckily I have stash.  I also added some of my own Aida in off white, sparkly white and green and stitched up 6 in total.

Yes, I can count.  Unfortunately I apparently can't measure properly as I cut the green one (which had a snowflake design on it that had taken me ages to stitch due to the DMC Light Effects floss I'd used) into a square and it was too small.  It remains on my cutting table waiting to be made into something.

I got a little piece of the Bliss on the above right door in my kit, so added some Bliss of my own and some buttons and ribbon.  The cross stitch designs came from the magazine, except the robin which came from one of my books.  I don't think I can count that as a Craft Book Challenge though, can I?

I didn't sew the twine in properly on the ones which have twine as hangers and they've come undone, I'll have to hand stitch them in place.  These little houses will be part of Christmas presents for a few people, though I'm not sure who as they didn't turn out as well as I was hoping.

It looks like my newspaper debut has been cancelled.  The paper wasn't impressed with the arrival of my new wheelie bin and have decided not to run the story.  I will be ringing them again should it disappear in the future! 

New job starts on Monday.  I'm quite excited and a little nervous, what if I mess it up?  I am looking forward to speaking a lot more French each day though, I do love a good foreign language.  Wonder if I should learn Arabic?

I actually finished something I started!

I started a little bluebird from felt on FSNI and, guess what?  I finished it the very next day!  That has to be some kind of record for me.  Tradition dictates that it should have sat forgotten and neglected in a corner for at least 3 months. 

Yes, his left wing is a little odd looking. Please try not to stare, and don't mention it to him, he's very self conscious about it.

I really enjoyed hand sewing him, I'd forgotten I enjoy hand sewing.  In fact, I enjoyed it so much, it's set me off on a little hand-sewing spate!  Fruits of that labour to come in future posts.

I really hope he doesn't poo on my car.  Oh, and yes, if you were wondering, the Pterydactyl poo IS still on my car.  Yes, I'm very lazy.

In case you missed the first post about him, the pattern was from British magazine Craftseller and he's made with wool felt, very nice, I do like wool felt but I still feel acrylic felt has its place.  He might be a Christmas gift, though I have no idea who for.

fluffy and blue

Last week I showed you the recipe book cover I'd made from my latest copy of Australian Handmade (my latest copy, but not yours in Oz, it's a few months late).  Well, I spotted loads of projects in that issue that I want to make and I just so happened to have the materials for one of them.

As you know, I love to crochet and this project seemed right up my alley.

I crocheted this scarf (called Ice Blue) in the magazine using a couple of balls of Sublime Kid Silk Mohair that I had lying around.  The pattern used 2 different shades, alternating between every few rows, but I chose to do it all in one colour.

Made up of a shell pattern, it was super-easy.  I only went wrong a few times as I was watching TV the entire time I was making it.  The only issue I had was with the yarn.  If you have to undo mohair, it's a nightmare.  The little tufty bits get stuck on each other and the whole thing tangles.  At one point I had a ball of tangle rather than a ball of yarn and I had to get Mr CA involved in untangling it.  It took us over an hour!

Magazine addiction

I believe I started my last post by telling you I'm addicted to crochet, well, I'm starting this one in a similar way.  I'm addicted to craft magazines!

I subscribe to the following:

Making (UK)

Crafts Beautiful (UK)

Simply Homemade (UK)

Mollie Makes (UK)

Homespun (Australia)

Handmade (Australia)

Crafts 'n' Things (USA)

I also buy Homestyle Sewing whenever it's available.   I started with the subscription to Crafts Beautiful.  I'd been buying it for a while so decided to subscribe.  The very next issue they started their "card promise" and now it's essentially a card making magazine with a couple of patterns for other crafts shoved in the back.  I'm going to cancel my subscription as soon as my year is up.  I subscribed to Homespun as everyone seems to talk about it.  I do enjoy reading it and made the wonderful sewing machine cover a couple of times.  There are other projects in there I'd like to make.

By far my favourite is Handmade, what a fab, fab magazine.  All my copies of the magazines seem to arrive over the last week in the month, I flick through each and put them aside to read through later.  I'd been a bit disappointed  with the month's haul at the end of April, nothing really struck me in any of them.  Then Handmade arrived.  Wow, so many projects I want to do.  I flicked through, then set to work straight away on one of the projects, I'm now midway through the second from the same issue!

So, what is it I made?

This recipe book cover.  My friend loves purple and love cooking healthy meals as well as baking cakes, so I thought this was perfect.  I really enjoyed making this and it came together so quickly.

There was just one problem.  It would appear that A5 is a different size in Australia as it is in the UK.  I didn't think to check against the A5 notebook I had when I'd cut the pieces and it was only when it was all finished that I discovered it's about 3 inches too short for the book!

I headed off to Staples with the cover, but nope, they're all pretty much the same size.  Luckily I have a Bind-It-All and so made a notebook to put inside, that took me as long as it took to make the cover!  I want to make more of these but I'll have to amend the size!

 

The recipe book needed something to go with it so I whipped up a quick tea towel.  I pieced some 3inch squares from scraps of the fabric then drew a larger cupcake onto Bondaweb, ironed it to the fabrics, cut them out and attached to the fabric, finishing off with a zig zag stitch round the edges and for the cherry stalk.

I added a hanging loop to the top.

And here they are together (minus the notebook which hadn't been made at that point), I think they make a nice little set.

So, any magazine recommendations for me?