Tag Archives: Craft

Hearts and Flowers and a Nurses Hat for Handmade Monday

It’s been touch and go whether I would actually get this post written today. Wearing TWO nurses hats has been rather time consuming, so this post is going to be light on text, but I hope the pretty, colourful photos of hearts and flowers make up for it.

Thank you all so much for your good wishes sent in Clovis the cat’s direction. It’s been a little dicey over the last couple of days, but I’ll leave an update until I have concrete news to report. Please keep up the positive vibes for our trip to the vet on Monday morning!

I’ve been working on a new pattern and although I said I wasn’t going to post pictures until the pattern was ready to publish, well, what the heck! Just bear with me, and it will be ready in a week or two.

I can think of lots of pretty ways of using this pattern of hearts and flowers. Strung across a dresser, used as curtain tie backs, interwoven with fairy lights (thank you, (Marigold the Goat!) and individually as a key ring, bag or phone charm.

Anyone with any other ideas? I love to know what you think!

I’m leaving you with the usual link to Handmade Harbour and all the creative people who take part in Handmade Monday. My message to them is to send apologies if I don’t have a chance to visit anyone this week, but I hope all my other lovely readers will make up for my absence!

See you soon…x

The Importance of Stuff

These days we all seem to have ‘stuff’, and mostly far too much of it. But the stuff that drives me mad are all the little bits and bobs which accumulate in small piles and clutter up random bowls and baskets because they don’t have an immediate home as we dash about doing everything else. You know, the things we can’t throw away, like till receipts, business cards, the top to the pen that we can’t put our hands on just at that moment (note to self – clear out handbag) and things which will probably ‘come in’, elastic bands from the mail, paper clips, buttons and safety pins.

So the plan is to have a designated place, and a promise to sort it out on a regular basis. (It’s now down in black and white, that promise!) So the cogs have been spinning in the brain…where to put the stuff…

…stuff….snuff….where did they keep Snuff?

In a JAR!

And what have I been collecting over the year because ‘they are just too useful to throw away’?

Coffee Jars!

I’ve got them tucked away in the studio holding craft materials, and on the mantlepiece filled with Mother of Pearl buttons, and sea shells…

But I keep drinking coffee, and I keep collecting jars!

And then there is my basket of gorgeous rainbow yarn…

And so I’ve made a STUFF Jar! Would you like to see?

But you’ll have to excuse me now, I’ll have to go and empty out all those random places full of little bits of Stuff…

And I’ve just thought of something else I want to make!

See you soon x

Love Birds and Hearts for Handmade Monday

Hello, It’s Handmade Monday time again! Doesn’t it come round quickly? It very good for concentrating the mind though, otherwise SO much time could be wasted on Pinterest, purely for research purposes of course!

I would like to say thank you to every one who left such kind comments on last week’s Handmade Monday post about my exciting trip to the hospital. I’m still absolutely fine, but I really appreciated your concern, thanks so much …

I’ve been busy making, but plotting too, so I’m going to run my latest plan by you as it may be something you would like to join in with. A while ago I had two beautiful raised beds put in the vegetable area of the garden. They have lovely chunky railway sleepers which you can sit on, and metal bars over which I can put a polythene cover to make them into mini poly tunnels. (If you’ve been visiting for a while, you’ll know they have featured on several occasions in Higgins type incidences and if you put ”raised beds’ in the search box you will find plenty to have a giggle at, too many for me to add individual links to here!)

Last year I got so tied up with the Open Studio plans that nothing really got started, so I decided that this year, I will get to grips with the whole thing, and see how much I can produce using the two raised beds and some containers. I’m going back to basics, and I will be picking the brains of my friend Gaynor, who lives in the next village. Gaynor is one half of Home Grown Revolution, who specialise in raised beds, and one of her New Year’s resolutions was to get out from the office and to get her hands dirty in the veg garden. As the other one was to start a blog, we are going to be helping each other along, so watch this space, I hope it’s going to be fun!

With Valentine’s Day fast approaching I’ve been turning my thoughts to something new to needlefelt, and so we have the Love Bird…

He’s just 2 to 3 inches tall, but he has some smaller little friends too, who have come to roost in little woolly hearts…

and they’ll be for sale in the Folksy shop very soon.

I’ve been playing around in the button box again…

…and I’ve tried, but not quite managed to produce a crochet square a night with my lovely New Zealand wool…

…if only there were more hours in the day!

With that in mind I will step away from the computer, and leave you to pop over to 1st Unique Gifts where Wendy is hosting the Handmade Monday Linky to find out just what everyone else has been up to over the past week.

See you soon …x

Silent Sunday

More Hearts…More Pompoms…

Hello!!! Is it Thursday already? This week is galloping by. Firstly, because I know you’ll want to know, Henry is still doing nicely. The medication has been finished, and as I write he is snoring contentedly, in his bed. This is a relief, as when he first came back the only place he wanted to be if he couldn’t have a warm lap was a warm keyboard.

The only little cloud on the horizon is the visit to vet next Monday for the removal of the stitches. This will probably require the entire squad of nurses and maybe one or two brave volunteers from the waiting room as he will NOT be a happy bunny!

Oh, and some hair restorer…

His tummy was shaved for the ultrasound, his head was shaved for the spinal tap, patches were shaved on his legs for the drips, and his throat was shaved for the operation. Thank goodness it’s summer, I don’t think he’s be happy in a jumper, however beautifully knitted!

But pompoms, I hear you cry, you said there were pompoms!

There are SO many pompoms! I found this wonderful gadget…

Do you remember the Heart and Pompom bunting…

…which I made in January?

I still love it, but I made the pompoms with a little gadget which my mum had given me because she wasn’t very happy with her results. Well, I tried really hard with it, and made so many pompoms using up my leftovers…

but they were never as firm and fluffy as I wanted them to be.

Now I have found this gadget…

…and it is wonderful! The smallest sized one makes a beautifully firm pompom in just few minutes and it is so compulsive I had to pack the gadgets up and put them away as there was a danger that my entire stash would be used up!

The solution was to make a larger version of the Heart and Pompom Bunting – the tutorial for that is here. I just worked the last row in the pattern in the main colour and added an extra row in the contrast colour to make the hearts bigger and made the joining chain slightly longer between the hearts so I could use slightly bigger pompoms.

Would you like to see?

It was hard to find the best way to show you. When I hung it up inside I realised how much my house needs redecorating, and the light wasn’t right so here it is outside the studio…

There’s actually a bit too much light here, it rather bleaches the colours, but I’m not going to complain about sunshine! (If you can’t find the pompom maker locally I got mine from Clothkits thank you, Kaye!)

Now we have another sunshiny day I’d better get out into the garden. All the strong wind over the last couple of days has blown my little plastic greenhouse and flowerpots all over the garden. (Higgins has done his best to round things up but the toothmarks are a problem…)

Talking of Higgins, he’s rather had the spotlight taken off him with recent events but if you were wondering…he’s fine…

You see…?

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A Little Flock of Happiness

I was SO excited the other day when I switched on my computer and PING! there was an email from Folksy to tell me that my little Bluebird was SOLD! I suppose it’s a symptom of working at home, mostly alone, that it’s easy to get into the wrong mindset , and have very little faith that someone, somewhere will like what you make. So PING! I was very happy, and packed my little Bluebird up…

…and sent him winging his way to his new home, where I hear he is singing cheerfully! And now I have an order for another one, so I am singing cheerfully too!

In the meantime I started on a slightly different Bluebird idea, and ran headlong into design difficulties. This time I wanted to have two birds and a little garland of hearts held in their beaks, which can hang on the wall. I made the birds, I made the hearts…but I was quite sure that I couldn’t use wool to join them together. So I tried this idea…then that idea..then I had to go out. Then it was too late and it was time to go to bed. And then – I joined them all together with a wool cord and it was perfect!!!

So here they are. The left hand bird…

…and the right hand bird…

..and all the little hearts.

It’s in the Folksy shop right now, verging on the almost-too-late for Valentine’s Day but actually I think it would look lovely over the cot in a nursery or little girls room. (Hmmm…or even in my sitting room…! )

Talking about sittingrooms, this is what Higgins likes to to do when offered a bit of carpet to lie on…

He’s not invited often!

(ETA. They sold the very next day!!!)

Planet Penny

Crafts, Needle Felting, Crochet, Patterns & Tutorials