Blanket Update

How do!  It's been a while....and have I been busy.

I have a stack load of stuff to catch you up on and some fab piccies of events, makes and general pretti-ness!

So on to today's NOT ta-dah!

W-a-a-a-a-y back here and here and here I told you about a blanket inspiration, yarn purchase and progress.............

I've been scouring Pinterest deciding on a joining method.....I hadn't realised there were so many.

I thought I was settled on a flat braid.......

.....there's a great tutorial here for it.

But sometimes when you start things just don't hang together as you want, so, sadly, I tried it and it just didn't look right.

I took another look at the initial inspiration for my blanket over at Hopscotch Lane.  Becky had chosen Granny join as you go......

Gorgeous isn't it?

She also made this beautiful Spring Day Blanket......

Same Granny join as you go method.

So...I decided to join with Granny clusters.

Now for the best 'path' to take with a 12 x 10 blanket.

After much more searching I have settled on the Join As You Go - Continuous Method from Heather at Patchwork Heart.....

It is exactly the same pathway for more squares and is easily remembered.  It is also easy to remember the order of your squares as you work row by row.

I am excited to announce that (at L-A-s-T!) all 120 squares for my blanket are finished!

I want to say 'ta-dah' as this has been a mammoth crochet task, but having the squares complete, whilst being a milestone for me, is only half the story.

Now to arrange them in some pleasing way and photograph (so I don't forget!).

Here they all are, every single one different!

So, on with the joining!  In White.

See you soon with more 'stuff', until then...

Cheerio,

Love

Nora

xxxx

Crochet finish up!

Whilst de-cluttering I not only found unfinished knitting projects, but crochet projects too.

Do you remember me making these.....

Well, shortly a after I started making another one but never finished as I ran out of yarn.

With my cushion order I told you about here, I ordered some yarn......

 to finish of this UFO.....but it was the wrong yarn!

I use some to finish this....

And I decided that, despite the colour being out and the wrong brand (!), it is still cotton and a similar colour so I will plod on and finish the crochet cushion it was bought for.

My OCD is shouting at me not too....BUT..... I have ignored it and finished!

Look......ta-Dah!

...gracing my Ercol find on eBay.

I can tell you I haven't really jarred my eye on the colour change and I'm suitably over the moon having this finished and out of my UFO pile.

Have I learnt anything? Yes....don't leave stuff unfinished, don't faff about ordering, just do it (so that you don't miss the boat on colour changes as I did with this!) and don't always listen too closely to the OCD!

Not sure what's coming next as I have 4 party gifts to make for Little Lady, her party to organise, a heap of stuff to copy and send to Ofsted, a house to run, a family to feed, a Teenage Daughter starting her GCSE exams this week...you get the picture!

See you soon,
Love
Nora
xxxx

Finished Quilts....... With Labels!

So once my labels were printed using the method in my last post, I was finally able to photograph and gift!

My Crafty Friend, Carol, had her quilt last year, but when I explained that I had sussed the label conundrum, she returned the quilt so that I could add a label...so here is the quilt....

...and the label.....

I've also FINALLY finished my cousins Arsenal Quilt, I told you about it here and after the pining marathon and then the hours watching TV and quilting it with buttons, I reached the point of binding.

I had previously cut the binding but wished I had waited and cut it wider to cover the variation in the yarn squares (some had been sewn more tightly than others).

No matter, I simply unfolded it and used it like bias tape by sewing a single edge to the edge of my quilt with an almost 1cm seam allowance to cover all the ins and outs.  Once I'd sewn all round I turned it to the back and hand stitched the binding down as usual.  This also took hours!

But I think the result along with the label was well worth investing the time and I hope my cousin likes it!

What do you think?

Huge isn't it!?

This picture shows the button quilting, binding and homemade label!

More makes coming soon, until then, take care
Nora
xxxx

Cushion Finish Up!

Back here during my bedroom declutter, I told you about some unfinished projects ........timeframe? Oh....about 10 years ago!!!

One of them was a shaggy cushion made on HUGE needles whilst watching my daughter's swimming lessons.

I decided to get a cushion pad and finish it off.

The cushion pad arrived together with its twin (for another project!), additional yarn for my Granny Poncho and some yarn to finish a round crochet cushion...only problem....the later is the wrong make of yarn!!

I took a look at my fluff and decided that as it couldn't be sewn I would use my mistaken purchase to crochet it closed.

Good thinking batman!

I made a round of double crochet (single crochet to my US friends) and once I'd gone round once I then began a shell edge.

The basic pattern for this (in UK terms) is to make 5 trebles into one stitch, miss a stitch and slip stitch into the next, miss a stitch and make 5 trebles into the next stitch ,miss a stitch, slipstitch into the next, miss a stitch, 5 trebles.....you see the pattern.  Then you simply continue the miss, slip stitch, miss, 5 trebles pattern along the straight edges.

I managed to somehow get the corners just right, you might have to miss 2 stitches or not miss any in order to get to the corner.  Once there the corners are 9 trebles to get 3/4 of a circle, like this.......

...then miss a stitch, slipstitch into the next, miss a stitch, 5 trebles into the next...yep, that pattern again!

So, once I'd finished the crochet and the 20 questions from teenage daughter about it's history, she remembered that this was the fluff I was knitting whilst chatting to her Grandpa (who has since, sadly, passed away).  So she requested to give the cushion a new home and it now has pride of place on her bed...under Grandpa's watchful eye in the photograph above.

A reminder of happy days.

Want to see the finished article?

Here goes......Ta-daaah!

So glad to have caught up with you on that one....I will be back soon with a quilt update (after Teenage Daughters Sweet 16 Birthday on Thursday!)

Until then,

take care

Nora

xxxx

It arrived!

Sometimes in order to stash-bust or finish off your UFOs you just have to buy SOMEthing else!  So today my order arrived!

It contained.......

...some yarn for my Granny Poncho and a cushion that I hope to finish (but now I'm not so sure!!).......

......plus 2 cushion inserts to finish a fluffy find and for a sparkly re-purpose!

I think I'll be ready for one Ta-Dah moment tomorrow....woohoo!

See you very soon,
Love
Nora
xxxx

A HUGE binding project.......The Arsenal Quilt!

....and it's not even mine!

My Aunt has been busy knitting squares to keep her self occupied whilst she's been recovering.

Her daughter is an Arsenal football club fan, so the squares are red and white!

She has sewn them altogether, I can tell you it weighs a-L-ot.

The measurements are 130 inches by 85 inches.

I need to quilt and bind this so I've decided that as the only other colour in their logo is the golden yellow of the gun, that I will button quilt and bind in yellow.

I bought a bag of mixed yellow buttons from KosiKrafts on Amazon for £2.59 (including P&P!)

and some Canary Yellow fabric from Dolly's Craft Corner, also on Amazon for £3.18 per meter and free delivery!

I used the calculator on Quilters  Paradise which advised me that on the width and length measurements and using a 2.5 inch binding that I would need just under a yard of fabric, much less than I had imagined I would need for the binding.

It took me over 2 hours to lay out the vintage quilt my aunt gave me to back it and the yarn-y top and pin it to together.....

I'm tellin' you...it's H-U-G-E!

So I'm at the stage of sewing a button on to each cross where four knitted squares meet.

I'm simply using red and white Stylecraft Special Double Knit which is currently available at Wool Warehouse for £1.69 per ball with free delivery on orders over £25 and if you have this months Simply Crochet Magazine Issue 28, you'd get a 10% discount on that too!

All I'm doing is sewing through the button and all layers, back up through the button and tying the ends off to secure...not rocket science, but it looks effective.

So far I've done all but 40 buttons by sitting in the evenings watching New Tricks and securing about 20 buttons at a time!  2 more episodes to go and I shall be on to the binding!

I have to say I am looking forward to hand finishing the binding more than machining it on and having to manoeuvre the vast weight of blanket and quilt around my machine!

But that's for another day, today I shall concentrate my efforts on BUTTONS!

I'll be back soon with another update on something...not sure what yet!  So much on the go.....

Until then, see ya
Love
Nora
xxxx

P.S. The buttons are on!  So it's soon to be binding time.

Knitting Purge & 4 Ta-Dah's!!

So as I was undertaking a paper crafting purge I found some knitting bits and bobs.

I purged the free booklets, I have taken them to my Mum for her to pass onto the Craft Club as there are a number of knitters there.

I then put somewhere in view (to irritate me!) some unfinished projects.  I mentioned a couple of them here in May 2012 in the hope that it would kick my butt...but it didn't work!  For some reason this time round it has!

There was this blue-grey jumper.  Started in 2008/9, I stopped when I found I was pregnant with Little Lady ( who is now 5!).

I did come back to it and finish the knitting part, which is the bit I enjoy despite being slow.  I hate sewing up!

There was a little jumper with no neck band and in pieces.  It was a project (of 2, one pink, one blue, knitted when pregnant, I finished the pink one as my Little Lady was born).  I was busy and it was irrelevant, so the blue one never made it over the finish line.

Both came from this Sirdar booklet........

Little Lady had the one on the front cover in plain pale pink, the 'boy' one was the jumper on the right ...... 

made with this......

At some point I also knitted this waistcoat......

It came from Issue 40 of Let's Knit.......

The peplum is knitted sideways and was a lovely project, I seem to remember that I finished this quite quickly (for me!)...

..........but, predictable as ever, it wasn't sewn up despite appearing in this same post.

There is also a scarf mentioned here and only requiring 5 more pattern repeats to finish.

********************

When I started writing this post about 2 weeks ago...it was just going to be a 'look what I've got to finish' type of effort....but something has happened and in the last 2 weeks I have argued with myself and persevered until this happened......TA-DAH!!!!!

The blue-grey cardigan now looks like this....

It is held together temporarily with a freebie from a magazine until I decide exactly what to use.

The baby boy jumper now has a neckline and is also accompanied by a hat...

........it is also destined for a new home with a friend who is expecting a little boy in early March.

My waistcoat...... I am so pleased with it, what do you think?

I'm not sure about the closure on this, but I'm thinking either a fancy hook and eye thing or some simple ribbon ties.  Any thoughts on that one?  Suggestions welcome.

Finally, the scarf. I have to say it was my first attempt at a lace pattern and although fairly successful, has got the odd mistake, which was too hard to rectify and so (unlike me!) I ignored it and carried on regardless because I wondered who would be looking that closely to notice holes in the wrong place!

I have persevered (and decided I shan't knit lace again!!), but it is finally finished...... look.......

The spare yarn from 3 of these projects plus other sundry bits I had hanging around have gone to my aunt for her to knit up some dog coats for a rescue charity, again, I just needed to get rid of it so that it doesn't get stashed for eternity.  I sat and thought..... oh..I could crochet a blanket or hat......NO!!!! GET RID!!!

During my purge I also found a yarny 'hedgehog'!  It turned out to be a fluffy yarn that I bought, pre-crafting journey, about 12 years ago.  I must have felt the pull of crafting but as I was studying for my degree and with a young family, I can imagine the commitment to 'doing' was missing even though my heart clearly felt creative.  I used to sit at swimming and knit garter stitch on HUGE needles and simply made a rectangle to sew into a cushion....this post has pushed me to source a cushion insert for this and another project, so when they arrive, I'll finish them and share with you.

So there we are, almost there and feeling good.

4 Ta-Dah's and more to come soon....will this be the year of Ta-Dah's?!!

I shall return soon with a cushion reveal or two and photographs as I get these projects finished (maybe you shouldn't hold your breath as the waistcoat has been getting finished since May 2012!)

That is the end of this knitting update, next I shall be moving on to a re-purposing project involving sequins!!

Until then, happy purging, stash-busting and ta-dah's in your world.
Love
Nora
xxxx

Birthday and Christmas presents......only the craft ones!

My birthday and Christmas are only 4 weeks apart, so a years worth of wishing comes to fruition in a short time!

My husband very wisely refers to my Amazon Wishlist for present ideas and usually picks a good selection like, a book, something practical for sewing and something unrelated to craft.

This year was no exception.  I'm still getting the subscription to Sewing World which I love.

In addition I also received a new blade for my rotary cutter.....

A French curve to help my journey towards making clothes that fit.....

He also got me a make your own knickers kit by Flo-Jo......

... from the Fluffatorium (couldn't resist showing it to you) when we visited a couple of months ago....

I also got this fabulous book.....

A quilt book which is not my style at all, but is very lovely and has sparked lots of ideas.....

And from Crafty Friend, this book......

I used an excerpt from Prima Makes to make this little rag doll for The Hubs newest cousin for Christmas.....

(Bad quality photo taken on my Hudl, in bad light on a 

hotel bed as we were rushing out to a Christening (as I remembered

 that I had forgotten to photograph of it at home!) Doh!)

It was such a lovely project that Crafty Friend thought I might like the whole book....she's not wrong!

With my birthday money I treated myself to a Zàkka book.............

And also some yarn for a special project (using Mums money)......

I also decided to get back into reading so bought myself these (using Mums money)...........

And to brighten my day (as I had LOTS of flowers for my Birthday and too few vases to put them in, Crafty Friend also bought me this lovely jug........

Look at the colours.........

The peach coloured flower reminded me of my hand embroidered runner picked up on eBay, look...............

.....and on closer inspection, the dark green leaves and red and blue flowers!

I was truly spoilt rotten.....and loved it!

Thank you, thank you, thank you lovely peeps xxx

I shall be getting on with some clear outs, updates and Ta-Dah's very soon but for now I'm off to get on with some more crafting, I'll catch up with you soon.

Love
Nora
xxxx