The Happy Happy Hippy Swap…

Each year I organise the Hippy Swap over on Craftster. It’s become like a tradition; I finish school, I have more time for crafting and sitting for hours staring at a computer screen trawling through crafty sites…you know how it is! The weather has been quite nice here, so I’ve spent alot of time in my garden, digging and planting, and moving stuff around. Look here, this is the first ever water lily to grow in my tiny water garden (big water filled bowl) and it’s soo pretty! It’s a dwarf water lily.

I’ve also done a little bit of crafting for me. This was an old t-shirt that’d been sitting around waiting for me to finish. I’d done a little bit of re-fashioning on it, cutting on the crew neck (which I’m really not find of) and creating a v-neck, trimmed with pink and gold gauzy ribbon. And then I ran out of inspiration….it sat there for quite a while waiting for the right idea. Anyway, after doing a couple of refashioning workshops, I decided that what this t-shirt needed was a bit of appliqué. And so the butterfly t-shirt was born. Or rather, sewn.

 

 

I freehand drew a butterfly outline on some paper, transferred it onto Bondaweb, ironed it to some pretty pink fabric and cut out the butterfly shape. Then I ironed it onto some purple fabric and cut round it so that you could see the purple round the pink. I made a body and some spots out of the purple fabric too and ironed them on.

Then I embroidered round them using a blanket stitch and some pink and gold threads. I also added some gold sequins for a bit of sparkle. Much better!

 

So then I concentrated on my hippy swap package. I can now post photos because my partner’s received the package and I’ve received hers! Because my partner was in the UK, I knitted a nice warm hat for the cold weather which is very practical for this country. This is the Meret by Woolly Wormhead, it’s one of my favourite patterns. I made it a slouchy hat…  

 

with a combination rolled/ribbed edge.

 

I used a lovely warm brown…

I also needle felted and embellished this felt brooch, made from an old fulled jumper. It has green sequins and beads along the edge. I love needle felting, it’s so therapeutic stabbing away!!

 

Since my partner is a beginner belly dancer and wanted a coin belt, I decided to make her one. Her favourite colours were very autumnal, greens and browns and golds. It’s wonderfully jingly!

 

I also used some decorative ribbon and sequin strands for some sparkle.

I made sure that even the ends looked good!

And because you just have to wear flowers in your hair when you’re dancing, I made this lily hair clip. I used a flower from a cheap ‘pound shop’ artificial ‘bouquet’ and coated the edges in glitter glue…

 

Then I glued a spring clip underneath, making sure to hide alot of the clip in the leaves. I like to tuck flowers in my hair by my ear and I find the flowers on clips stay better than on bands.

My partner likes to write notes and lists in a notebook, so I also made her a felt notebook cover which she can take off when the notebook is full and change to another notebook. I covered it using the ‘paper fabric’ technique I learnt at a workshop a couple of months ago, and then embellished it using embroidery threads, flowers and sequins.

 

Hopefully using felt will make it quite durable…

 

I also used Angelina Fibres on it which are such fun to work with!

The notebook is just a cheap and cheerful A5 hardback notebook.

 

I sent along one of the rainbow light bulbs from my shop, because they are just so damned hippy-ish!

And in the spirit of eco-friendly hippy crafts, I upcycled an old Ferrero Rocher plastic box, and decorated it using glass paints.

 

It looks lovely in the sunshine.

I’m kind of an overachiever and I do tend to spoil my swap partners, and well, hippy crafting is such good fun, that I had to make some extras for the package, but I’d agreed with my partner that we’d do extras, so that was fine and dandy. I made a green and brown beaded necklace with a Celtic pendant, since my partner loves all things Celtic, and greens and browns….

 

I had planned to do a bit of hippy-like appliqué, but I just couldn’t find the right image, then I noticed that I had some green fabric left from my belly dance costume that would go really well with this top, and some green organza that complimented it really well, and the top sort of morphed and became a sort of woodland fairy type of top instead.

I made some ruffles by tearing two strips of fabric which were much much longer than the bit that I wanted to embellish. I sewed a running stitch along the middle of each strip and pulled so that it gathered it up. Then I sewed it into place. I did the organza one first, then the satin ruffle, the I sewed a faceted bead every cm or so. The fabrics  should fray and look pretty…. 

 

I also painted an ash catcher green, then decoupaged it with a sunflower and sparkly Modge Podge. I varnished it to make sure it was durable. This didn’t photograph so well, so you’ll have to take my word for it that there’s a sunflower on it!

To see what I received in return, click here. We were both very happy hippies!

Spring has sprung….

Hello my wonderful bloglets, I hope you had a lovely Spring festival, whatever you celebrate. I have two, count ‘em, TWO whole weeks off to catch up with some much needed crafting therapy! And yes, I’ve been very productive! See, I’ve had an epiphany. A big one. And I’ve taken the pledge. Well, not THE pledge, but a pledge. No alcohol involved folks promise, couldn’t involve alcohol anyway since I’m not allowed to drink very much as it interferes with my meds. But I digress. After my Dad died I realised that I really don’t see that much of my family, except at family get-togethers. And the family members that usually host those get-togethers are aging. Y’see most of my family are spread all over the country. My mum and siblings are the only ones here in my town. And I do want to keep contact with my family. I don’t have any kids and are unlikely to have any and I don’t want to be alone in my dotage. So I succumbed to Facebook. Aaaahhh, does the penny start to drop?? Anyway, all my family are now now networked on Facebook, me, mum and my brother and sister, my uncle and aunt, all my cousins…some of the older generation don’t seem to have got the hang of it yet, but all my generations and younger are fully embracing the virtual family network. I like seeing what terrible things my second cousins have got up to at Friday nights parties, I’m amused at my cousins ramblings and I like seeing holiday photos ‘n stuff….you get the picture? So that bit is wonderful, I’m back in touch with friends and family that I’d kinda drifted away from. But then, I discovered the games on Facebook…Fairyland, Farm Town, Vampire Wars, School of Wizardry…so many fun games, so little time. And there-in dear readers, is the crux of the problem. My crafty life was beginning to suffer. My blog was suffering. I’m sure you guys have noticed?! So I have decided to drop the games, well, all except Fairyland which I’ve kept to have a little flutter when I have the time. I am still playing the Wii, and my NDS, but as for FB games, since the weekend I’ve only been on Fairyland and I’ve not gone on any of the other games. And look what I’ve been doing instead!

I’ve painted several new batches of bulbs for my eBay shop…

 

I call this colourway Mardi Gras because it’s so vibrant and fun…

I also completed this…

 

 

Isn’t it pretty? It’s reclaimed fulled sweater felt, space-dyed with Kool-Aid, and cut and serged to fit.

 

But to fit what? Hmmm. See the adorable felt flowers all lovingly hand sewn on.

Any ideas? Well, this is my very old laptop which had been languishing in the loft for years, since I got my fancy all singing, all dancing, widescreen laptop in fact. I needed one for work, to work on, to show students tutorial videos, resource pictures and stuff like that on. So I didn’t want to bring my good laptop, but I figured that this one would do fine. I slapped in a new cmos battery and Hey Presto, I had an up and running laptop again! Yeah so the students laugh and take the piss out of my ancient laptop, but I guess it’s never going to be nicked. It’s running XP on it, but it’s only got a CD drive, so I can’t load Windows 7 on it like I’ve got on my other laptop. Of course because my lil dinosaur gets carted around all over the place, he needed a lil jacket to protect his lil old arse. Admittedly his arse is rubber coated, but well, y’know how it is! I like pretty and functional, I’m Arts and Crafts through n through me!

 

 

What else have I been doing apart from dinosaur cosies? Well, I finally got around to finishing this apron top which I started last summer. It’s made from scraps and I literally used every scrap that I had of this fabric. Please excuse the leaning model, I think she cracked one of her legs in a Series of Unfortunate Events involving M and a Dyson.

There wasn’t even enough for ties at the back, so I did a cross-over popper fastened back, with decorative buttons. 

It actually fits me better than it does Chi’anna (my grey girl model) and was a fit n pin job. No patterns were used in the torturing of this fabric!

 

Saturday M’s mum lent us her car for a car shopping trip, so we had a little tour round the car showrooms and found a car that we liked and that amazingly enough was in our price range! Hurray! It’s a 2lt silver Skoda Octavia estate which is big enough to tow the caravan easily, I can fit Joe in the back and should be great for all our needs. Sadly because of the Bank holiday, the paperwork has taken a little longer to sort out, so we get to pick it up on Saturday!! Hurray hurray! I’ll have wheels again next week. Hmmm, where shall I go?? I can’t wait to get back on the road.

Sunday my Mum had us all around for an Easter Sunday lunch. My Mum loves to cook and boy is she good at it! She makes the most amazing cakes, she doesn’t tend to follow recipes, it’s all instinct! Thanks to Mum and her amazing culinary skills, we all love food and sadly,none of us can carry it easily. You know the old expression, ‘a minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips’? Well, they could have been describing our family *lol* So with my health problems, I’m maybe a little more aware of my weight and try to keep it under control than the others, so I watch what I eat and try to exercise regularly, my brother and sis haven’t quite got it under control yet, so they’re a bit heavier than me, but I tell you, dinner on Sunday was awesome. Vegetarian lasagne for the girls, surf n turf for the boys, garlic bread and salad, with cherry pie and/or chocolate cake for dessert. A heaven that I don’t often allow myself. So yes, I pigged out! Hee hee! 

I made up for it yesterday though, I walked Joe up to the post office and back, to post off all my eBay sales, and then in the afternoon I went to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D. No-one else was free, so I went on my own, which was cool, although the place was packed! I’d have struggled to find a couple of seats together. I just love Tim Burton, and Johnny Depp always puts the cherry on the cake! The weather was so nice yesterday, it was a nice stroll across the fields to the pictures, just me and my mp3 player.

And what have I been doing today? Well I finished on of Mosey. Looky here…

Such a pretty cabling pattern..

 

On Friday the girls and I are going out to celebrate Pippa’s birthday. We’re going to Red Hot, the local all-you-can-eat international cuisine place. We’ll do our usual party bags and it’ll be fun fun fun. Wonder what mayhem we’ll cause this time :) So this is what I’ve made for Pippa. It’s reclaimed fulled sweater, the same one that I used for my laptop bag actually. I’ve needle felted different coloured roving onto it, then embroidered and sewn beads and sequins onto it. I haven’t made anything for the party bags yet, that’ll be tomorrows projects.

 

Wow, look how much you can get done when you don’t allow yourself to be sucked in by online games! Catch you all later!

 

There’s No Business Like Snow Business…..

It back to school time…no, wait, maybe not….it’s snowed….can we open schools with snow on the ground? Yes…no…um, we’re not sure…okay, you teachers come in and see if any students turn up….

My first class on Tuesday morning started with an astounding four students! Wednesday it dropped to three students and we went home early because it started snowing quite hard and we were worried about buses not running and students being stuck. Thursday I had the grand total of one student! The new term has really started off gently!

Still, I really don’t mind as it’s given me the chance to finish Mum’s snowball Boa, a wonderfully cuddly and luxurious looking scarf made from pompoms!

 

And then, because I also had a giant pompom maker, I whipped up this huge pompom using scrap yarn that was too short for anything else. Okay, so I just wondered how big it would be. It’s next to a regular sized cotton reel for comparison! The colours are a bit random, but this is just a tester.

The other projects I’m working on are hopefully all short and sweet ones. My last projects were all looong term and I feel like I need some instant gratification, so I’m working on the Retro Rings Tam ( a crocheted hat) which is actually taking me alot longer than I thought. I didn’t have any worsted weight yarn, so I doubled up some DK (sport?) yarn hoping that it would be okay. Actually I guessed it would make it a bit bigger which I wasn’t too bothered about because I wanted a slightly slouchier hat than the picture showed. I’m pretty near the end of it now and it’s not big enough. It’s not even near big enough to fit on my head and I’m pretty average head wise. Pah! I’m going to have to undo it all and re-crochet it using a bigger hook. This is already my second attempt because the first time I used a hand painted yarn which was lovely, but not enough of it because I ran out when I was almost finished! And because it’s a US pattern, the yarn weights and brands are completely alien, so sometimes it’s guesswork as to substituting. *Sigh*

I’ll get it sorted; the actual hat doesn’t take that long to crochet once I get going, it’s the frogging and redoing which is taking the time!

The next project in my WIP’s bag is Mosey from Knitty, a pair of thick cabled legwarmers which look really warm and cute with their pompom decorated ties. I’m not really obsessed with pompoms at the moment, well sort of a little bit, I guess. Anyway, I’m using the same yarn as I used for my BPT Hoodie since it’s another cable project, I love the colour, and I have probably a couple of huge balls left of this stuff.

For those of you who haven’t checked out the pattern yet, this is hopefully what they will end up looking like! With any luck I’ll finish them in time to wear them this winter *lol*

I’ve just done the first part of the ribbed cuff, made the eyelet holes, and am now carrying on the ribbing, it has to measure 9 inches, so it’ll fold over nicely. This is quite a nice easy knit so far, a no-brainer and quite therapeutic. Whether that will change when I start cabling I don’t know…

However, it’s not all yarn projects in progress at the moment. I bought a nice black long sleeved tunic dress from H&M which will look great with either jeans or tights and boots, but apart from a bit of lace trim, it’s quite plain.

So with the addition of some of these embellishments I plan to pretty it up a bit and add some sparkle!

I did think about using lots of colours on it, but I figured that using silver would still allow it to be teamed with almost anything. Hopefully I’ll finish it in time to wear it for school on Monday, although there’s more snow predicted for Sunday and Monday…fingers crossed eh? Tomorrow I plan to spend the day doing some more well earned personal maintenance. I had the time today to get on the Wii Fit Plus and try out the new additions to the game. I love the Rhythm Kung Fu and the Rhythm Parade, but I couldn’t get the Step routines to work. Hmmm. Will have to do a bit of research and figure out why. Tomorrow I’m going to henna my hair using the Lush henna red that I’ve had sitting there over Christmas and just haven’t got around to. I have to devote the whole day to sitting there with my head wrapped in cling film – delightful but the results are definitely worth it. It smells divine and I love the red in my hair! I once used a chemical semi-permanent colour on my hair and although it looked nice, I hated the way it made my hair feel afterwards, so brittle and harsh feeling. I swore then never again! I’ve always used henna, and I always plan to! Luckily I’m not quite grey enough to need to do this on a regular basis, I just like the colour. Whilst I’m waiting for the colour to deepen I can carry on knitting and ponder on my next projects. I have lots of ideas in mind, lots in my Ravelry queue and lots in my mind; ideas are never a problem, it’s having the time! 

I know many of you hate the snow, but this girl’s hoping for more of the stuff so I can get a paid holiday *lol* So much to do and so little time!

Yuletide Blessings

Well, I hope you all had an amazing Christmas? I’ve had such good fun. It’s officially been a white Christmas here, although the snow has now melted. I went to see Avatar in 3D on Christmas Eve with M. I gather there’ve been lots of arguments about the social implications of the film, but if you take it on face value, it’s a visually beautiful film; just what you’d expect from a James Cameron film. The night-time scenes on Pandora are particularly beautiful! We’ve also seen part one of the new Doctor Who Christmas special, The End of Time; I can’t wait to see part two, the Master and the Time Lords return, and David Tennant steps aside for the next Doctor! I’ll be sad to see him go, he’s been an excellent Doctor, but I’m interested to see the new Doctor, especially as he’s a local lad (from my town). M and I have been playing Super Mario Brothers on the Wii, which is great fun and allows us to play co-operatively. We managed to complete a particularly difficult world last night and we were jumping round the living room in a mad victory dance afterwards!

I was totally totally spoilt this year!! Not only have I had a lovely Christmas day with my family, but I had some fantastic gifts; I’m almost speechless with the awesomeness of my gifts!

M gave me a TomTom Pearl, a girlie SatNav in a pearl colour and pretty swirls all over the casing. This is fabulous because my sense of direction is truly appalling and since my last SatNav lost the will to live, I’ve kind of been avoiding driving into the unknown. She also comes with a handy little satin pouch to carry her in. She has lots of extras which do things like directing me to the nearest garage/police stations/vets and will direct me on foot or by road…she’ll also give first aid directions, what to do in the event of accidents, etc. Fantastic! I envisage Pearl and I will have some amazing adventures together!

I also got Wii Yoga from my Mum, some funky gardening gloves and a lovely embroidered purse,

a GorillaPod (an articulated tripod) for my digi-SLR, from my brother. This has got moveable grip able legs which will wrap round tree branches or railings, anything like that.

My sis gave me an Indian style necklace and a bracelet, also some green glittering liquid liner and a fun sign which states that women and cats do what they want, and men and dogs should just get used to it! I’ve hung it where M can see it every day just to remind him*lol*

And my friend G gave me a lovely copper and glass seahorse wind chime with glass beads, and a cat calendar

M’s Mum gave me a snug-bug blanket; a huge blanket with sleeves so that I don’t get so cold in the evenings, especially when we’re lounging on the sofa with a movie! She also gave us a huge tin of Quality Street chocolates, I’m going to be as fat as a barrel by the time I get back to work!

And then when I got home, M surprised me with gift number two; a Blackberry phone!

I then had to whip up a little sock for it to protect it, so I knit this up in double quick time on Boxing day, whilst M & C watched Laurel and Hardy. 

I just used a 3k 1p rib in the round and used a 3 needle bind off to secure the seam. It fits nice and snug!

In fact I’ve been knitting like a fiend for the last week or so and I’ve finished a couple of major projects which have been WIP’s for quite a while! I finished these basic ribbed socks.

I also finally finished my BPT Hoody!! Woohoo! Celebrations are in order! This has taken me almost a year and a half to knit! Other projects have kind of got in the way. It’s a bit of a sad story that goes with this hoody, I started knitting it the day Dad died, as a way of keeping my sanity whilst coping with all the chaos involved with the death of a parent, and also the long process of repatriating a body from overseas, since Dad died on holiday in France. Sadly it’s a little big for me now since I lost so much weight, so I might shove it through the wash to see if I can resize it a little. Failing that, I may try lining it with fleece or something, or using it as an overcoat. I’ve got to find a long zip for the front too.

The oversize hood is wonderful though and gives it a nice Elvish drape round the face.

My current WIP is a snowball boa for my Mum; a scarf made from white pompoms.

There’s something very appealing about pompoms, isn’t there?

Pom pom, tiddly pom!