Sew tired of waiting.....

So as you might know by now, on a bad night, I'm an insomniac and on a good night, I'm a very light sleeper who wakes at any sound or light. I quite often use a sleep mask to stop myself waking at dawn in the summer, or when I'm camping. This is one I made for myself last year, inspired by Phizzychicks Owl Eye Mask. The BF jokes that he feels likes he's waking up next to a muppet. *lol*

Anyway, the Summer holidays have given me plenty of time to play around and I decided I needed a new eye mask, so just for fun, I made myself a cat mask. I thought the BF might prefer waking up next to cat woman than a muppet!

It's a bit bigger than my other one so hopefully will eliminate those annoying chinks of light that manage to get in. It's also made from a lovely soft black velvet lined with satin, so it feels really nice to wear and is a little cooler than the owl corduroy one.

Here's how it's made.

You will need:

A piece of paper to make your template with, a pencil, a piece of velvet outer material, a piece of smooth lining material that will feel nice next to your sensitive eye skin, a small length of medium width elastic, some pink and gold felt, scissors, pins, a needle and some sewing thread.

I sketched a rough shape onto some paper, then cut it out and adjusted the shape by holding it up to my face and cutting accordingly. When I was happy with the template, I laid it out onto some velvet and satin and cut one piece out of each fabric.

Then I cut the eye shapes I wanted from gold felt, and the ear pieces from pink felt.

Make sure you cut out two of each shape.

I sewed the felt onto the face and added some thread whiskers and a little chain stitch daisy highlight in each pupil.



I attached the elastic where I wanted it to be (making sure that the wrong side of the front is on the inside, then the elastic, then the lining) and using a running stitch, sewed all around the outside of the mask MAKING SURE TO STOP BEFORE THE TOP OF THE LAST EAR! If you don't stop here, you won't be able to turn the mask the right way out again. Turn it right side out again. You should now have the velvet on the front, the lining next to that, and the elastic running round the back. You will still have a gap of unsewn material along the top, which you can now sew up. I used a whip stitch to sew up that last little bit and carried it on all around the edge of the mask to neaten it up.

Your mask is now ready to wear!

The last Harry Potter book is due out tomorrow. I'm much more excited than I probably should be and have set aside the whole weekend to read the book. I received this lovely handmade journal in a personal swap last year but wasn't sure what to use it for. Last night I decided to start a book journal and this journal was the perfect thing for it. It came to me with the word JOURNEY on the front which seemed a perfect description for the literary journey I wanted to record.

So in anticipation for the Harry Potter book I made a start.

In it I plan to record the books that I read with an account of my thoughts on it, drawings and illustrations and stuff like that. A kind of literary art journal if you like! I do love to read.

Easy Rider

We just came back from the Post Office to find this!!! Pippin asleep on the Harley. The bike wears a cover when it's not in use as it lives on the patio (grrr!) and she was on the seat *lol* He was not amused!

Also, my car went through it's MOT first time! Yippee! *happy dance* I've never had a car go through first time before :-) I'm soo relieved, I've been stressing about the MOT and it's potential cost for quite a few weeks now. That's a weight off my mind. I'm totally legal for another year now.

And yet more good news, the BF will get his new van on Saturday for the job he starts on Monday, so he'll be able to get up to Birmingham and back every day whilst he training. I hope he likes this job. He's been out of work for so long.

I finished alot of the OWS swap stuff this week. Here are the snoods I made for Frosty. I used the same patterns that I used for ZaftigMomma's, just in different colours.

I think the red one is my favourite. I really like this pattern.

It makes a nice starry centre pattern.

I posted Riario's stuff today too. Some recycled pot scrubbers from plastic bags, some fruity fabric, and because there wasn't as much of the fabric as I thought, I also made her some camera postcards. She likes cameras and I have this lovely antique camera stamp.

I also posted ZaftigMommas crochet hook roll and stitch markers, but no pictures of those yet till she receives them :-)

I was organising my knitting and crocheting patterns the other day and realised that I'd outgrown the folder they were in, so I made a separate folder for the knitting patterns. I covered a very old naff ring binder with recycled purple tissue paper and sealed it with glittery Modge Podge. Then I stuck a gold foil chocolate wrapper on the front and made a kind of acetate pocket into which I slid a pretty greetings card I had for my Birthday and didn't want to throw away. Making a pocket means I can change the card if I want to.

Love it!

This is what the postman bought me this morning. It's a latch rug kit. I belong to a swap site where people swap their junk for other peoples junk. I swapped this for an old cordless doorbell. I used to do this sort of thing as a kid. I've probably still got the latch hook somewhere *lol* It's a good mindless project you can do in front of a DVD if you want to. The only thing is, I think the people it came from were smokers, so it's airing in front of an open window at the moment.

I'm making good progress on my fan shrug too, I'm now on the decorative stitch that goes round the middle.

Hangovers

I love my mate dearly, really I do, but she can and frequently does, drink me under the table. Literally. I'm a fairly responsible drinker these days and rarely drink more than my limit. Friday night is my usual boozy night and I hardly ever drink during the week. This all seems to go out of the window when I'm with my mate. She seems to feel it's her duty to ply me with alcohol and there comes a point when I loose track of what I've had. Like yesterday. I still don't remember getting home. I remember going round her house, sitting in the garden with a bottle of wine, vaguely remember taking the dogs over the fields late at night, and almost remember being shanghai'd into the pub. That's where I lose it....

*Hangs head in shame*

All I know is that I had the Mother of all hangovers this morning. So I've had a quiet day. I know, I only have myself to blame....

We had a good night though :-)

Going Pott(er)y

Good news for a change, the BF got the job he went for on Thursday! That will help to relieve things a bit! I just hope that he can stick at it. As long as they don't suddenly change the job completely and make him stay away from home, he should be okay. *Crosses fingers* He's on a high at the moment and hasn't stopped talking about it. I like it when he's happy.

We went to see the Order of the Phoenix on Thursday. It is visually stunning, but a much darker film (literally and metaphorically) than the previous ones. Of course a lot of that has to do with the nature of the storyline and if you've read the book, you'll understand what I'm talking about. I'm not about to spoil it for any of you who haven't seen it yet, but I am going to tell all you knitters out there that there are copious amounts of knitwear candy. There are several pieces that I wished I could pause the film and get a better look at, but that's what the DVDs are for *lol* For all you non-knitters out there, there is a lot of eye-candy too. The children are growing up, and we're starting to see muscles forming under those school uniforms...and of course, there's Sirius too.

Here's my wand, it's cherry and golden nargle resin. *lol*

In the Muggle world, it's known as Fimo.

I've been hosting some pottery parties today. It's one of my *ahem* sidelines. Since my school is on holiday till September and as a part-time teacher there, I don't get paid unless I work, I can't afford 4 months unpaid holiday in the summer, so I do bits here and there to try and bring a bit of cash in. It wasn't so important before Christmas as the BF was working full-time too, but when he was made redundant at Christmas, we really felt the pinch. Anyway, after the last party had finished, I had an hour free time at the Studio, waiting to see if there was any passing trade. There wasn't, so I had an hours uninterrupted free time to work on my fan shrug. I've now done the back, each front and am starting the band round the middle. I did have to juggle the rows a little for the front pieces as I'm doing it a little larger than the pattern called for.

I wasn't sure about this stitch when I started, but I like the pattern it's forming.

My scales finally arrived so I was able to make a start on the cold process soap! the only thing is they are faulty and kept turning themselves off whilst I was weighing the ingredients out. It made it a much more stress experience than it should have been. So here it is, my coffee and vanilla soap. It looks really orange and I'm hoping it won't stain my skin, but I suppose it beats fake tan! *lol* It also smells like cow poo. Actually, it smells like henna, which is really weird! I hope that smell goes eventually. I want the lovely vanilla coffee smell I had when I was making it. It's sitting on top of the fridge-freezer in the kitchen, curing.

I got a couple of claims in for the OWS 24 and have made the recycled pot scrubbers for Riario. I like the black and silver one, very classy. The only thing is that I have a shortage of plastic bags that I can use - I'm far too 'green' to not use re-useable bags and I usually have one on me to use instead of the plastic ones. I hope they do the job okay.

I'm off to my mates for the evening. We're going to have as girlie a night as it's possible to have with a truck driving, biker chick. Okay, we're going to get drunk and gossip all night *lol*

To play with clay...

...is one of my favourite games! I had the luxury of dabbling with fimo all day today. I broke it out in order to make the pieces for my travel backgammon game and just carried on with it. You'll all be pleased to know that the game is now finished! Yay! I went with magical star shapes for the pieces with a spiral motif. You can't tell in the photos but the fimo is sparkly :-)

To carry on with the HP theme, I had a Bertie Botts Beans bag which I decided would be just the thing to keep the pieces in *lol* They'll be going in the caravan ready for the first financially viable weekend away!

I found this old hip flask on Freecycle (it was inscribed with some personal message) and decided to pretty it up with some fimo canework. I made a daisy motif which I reduced down and applied to the flask. Luckily hip flasks have a sort of raised rim edge which served as a perfect frame for the fimo. It's been fired on now, I just need to sand it down and buff it and it'll be better than new.

I also covered the handle of this crochet hook with a cats face canework because, let's face it, crochet hooks can be pretty boring, especially these grey metal ones. I plan to recon most of my hooks eventually. I love how it turned out!

I embellished my wand with gold Fimo too, but boring Blogger will only let you upload so many photos in one go, so I'll probably save that one for tomorrow *lol*

The BF has several job interviews in Milton Keynes tomorrow, so I'm going to go with him and look round the shopping centre and market. Hopefully I'll find some bargains. Then we have tickets for the Order of the Pheonix at the pictures! Woohoo! Should be a good day! Keep your fingers crossed for the BF.

Board with this....

I'm still waiting for some digital scales so I can embark on the cold process soap making, so here's a picture of the body butter I made at the weekend. I've used it a couple of times and it's lovely!

I finally finished my backgammon board. All the little triangles have been stitched on, the board outline has been defined with embroidery silk, and I backed the whole thing with another sheet of felt.

I attached it with a decorative running stitch around the outside. I sewed small beads onto the board to remind us how many counters and where they went (I always forget after a glass of wine *lol*) I attached two thin ribbons onto the back so that the board could be rolled up for easy storage. Now I need to make the game pieces.

Here's where I am with my fan stitch shrug. I've now completed the upper back and this is halfway through the front right side. Those aren't holes there, it's just where I poked the hook through to stop it rolling about earlier! Bad habit, I know!

Butters, beads and baths

I was so pleased with myself yesterday, I had done loads on my test fan shrug for jjgirl, but then realised that I had slipped into a different stitch and was doing dc's instead of the stitch I was supposed to be doing! Pah! The stitches are quite similar, but that's no excuse! So, I frogged it back to the first row and had to do it all again. I'm back to where I was yesterday though, thankfully! It's looking nice so far.

Yesterday heralded a small break in the rain, long enough to give Joe a much needed bath. We have to put him on his lead and tie him down in the garden because he wriggles about so much. He hates baths! He's looking lovely and shiney and fluffy at the moment though and is much more pleasant to be around. You wouldn't think a dog could make so much fuss about getting wet, especially when the very same dog happily dives into any state of canal water or puddle.


Whilst walking him today I found a cherry tree branch that was just the right dimensions for a wand, so I bought it home and stripped it down with my craft knife. It needs more work, but it's a fun project!


The British Grand Prix was on today, and so was the UK leg of the Tour de France. The BF is a big fan of motor racing and bike racing (of all kinds!), so inevitably I spent most of the day on my todd! So what do you do when left to your own devices? I dug through my bead stash and found a lovely turquoise coloured lamp-work bead, and some turquoise gemstone beads, so this is what I made.

Actually, it looks nicer in real life, the camera flash has taken the details on the beads out.


I also made my first body butter today. It smells devine and was so easy to make. I melted 3 parts cocoa butter to 4 parts coconut oil in a pyrex bowl in my microwave. I made sure it was a very low setting and added some vanilla essential oil when it had all melted. Then I poured it into a Body Shop tub that I already had. It looks like proper body butter and makes my skin feel lovely! I also made some coffee and vanilla body scrub while I was at it!

Testing, testing, one, two, three....

I'm testing this gorgeous fan detailed crochet shrug pattern for jjgirl on Craftster. The pattern is lovely and now we have communicated a little more, I'm confident of the sizing and yarn differences (UK/US translations) and I have made the foundation chain. I'll update as I'm going along. The original pattern calls for 4 ply, which is baby yarn here in the UK, and a size 6mm hook, I'm a little bigger than jjgirl, so I'm using DK weight yarn from my stash and a 6.5mm hook. I'm also increasing the sizes slightly. I haven't had time to do much more than this yet, but I'm looking forward to it. It seems much more straightforward than the 'Short 'n' Sweet'.


Here are my resin pendants. I love how they turned out! I already have more plans for this stuff. It was so much easier than I was expecting. I could quite get used to this.....



My BF told me the other night that he was looking forward (nervously) to seeing what I come up with to wear for the new Harry Potter film. The last one I wore a long green tie-dyed dress with long bell shaped sleeves and velvet stars sewn on it. How could I turn down that challenge? I found a cheap T-shirt in Tesco(poly) and embellished it with a D.A. (Dumbledore's Army) logo on the front and sleft sleeve. I'm thinking of teaming it up with my camo skirt too.

I free-handed it using Dylon 3D Pearl paint in gold.

I received the most gorgeous fairy wings from Dragonflyducky today, but I don't think I'd get away with wearing them to the cinema *lol*

Happy hummous, hearts and stars.

Well, I tackled the Dyson yesterday. I plugged it very cautiously into the wall, and using a wooden spoon, turned the power on. Nothing. I changed the fuse and tried again. Still nothing. Cursing under my breath, I checked out the Yellow Pages and found a place that would repair them. He quoted me £20 to repair it, if it was what he thought it was. The BF and I drove it over there, dropped it off and wandered round the shops. When we came back it was all done and working well!! Hurray! My lovely purple and pink dyson lives to fight another day! Poor thing's been flooded and dropped down the stairs more times than I care to think about, but it has survived. Not that I'm particularly attached to my cleaning appliances, but we have a large German Shepherd and two cats and before we had the Dyson, we used to blow up a hoover every couple of months. I don't think they like coarse dog hair. We've had the Dyson about 9 years now.

Today I made hummous!! Last Saturday I found a jar of tahini in the next town (couldn't find it here), so I could at last have a go at making my own. I just lurve hummous and eat it regularly. It's so easy to make - cooked chickpeas, a tablespoon of tahini, a couple of garlic cloves ('coz I like garlic and it stops fleas biting me in the summer) and lemon juice. Whizz it all up with the old stick blender and off you go. I think I shall have a go at some flavoured ones too. Please excuse the chilli stained plastic food box *lol* I had some spread over a couple of rye breads for lunch. Yum yum!

I've now sewed all the triangles onto my backgammon board and edged the playing area with some embroidery silks.

To do this, I twisted together a red and yellow silk, and kind of couch stitched them onto the felt with an orange silk. I now have to stitch the backing felt onto it. I'm thinking of attaching some ribbon ties to one side so that I can roll it up and secure it. I will probably make the game pieces from fimo.

I found these fantastic ice-cube trays in Lidl's whilst we were waiting for the Dyson to be repaired! Look, stars and hearts! Flexible trays and very, very cheap. I got two trays in each pack. Brilliant! One for ice and one for crafts! Hee hee! So here is my first foray into the world of resin casting. It was quite easy, I mixed two parts of the resin to one part of the hardener and dropped some sequin hearts and stars, with microbeads and glitter into the bottom of the moulds. Then I poured the resin into each one. I didn't bother in filling them all the way to the top because I thought that would make the pieces too deep. I want them for pendants, so I didn't want them to be too heavy.

I've now got to wait 24 hours for them to harden. Pah! Patience is not my best quality.

I can't wait to see how they turn out. I really want to see how a flower would turn out encapsulated in this stuff. I would expect that it would perfectly preserve it. Hmmm. May have to go flower picking later. I'll wait to see how these turn out. No, really, I will wait. Wonder what's in flower in my garden at the moment.....

Dyson down

Aaargh! I got home this afternoon and the BF told me he plugged in the dyson and it went bang! Nooo! Please don't tell me my funky purple and pink dyson is dead! I shall have a look at it tomorrow, I hope it's just a loose wire....*sigh*

Anyway, whilst the cosmic joke that is my life continues, I continue to find solace in my crafting.

Muria received her stitchmarkers from me in the OWS 23. I posted Twiztidblood's tissue box cover and grocery bag caddy yesterday, and as June is officially over I signed up for the next round. At least this way I can swap a little according to my budget.

Here's my June page for the Craftster Altered-Page-A-Month-Along. I chose a combination of Shakespeare and Roses for this months theme, and combined the two with one of my favourite quotes from Romeo and Juliet:

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose

by any other name would smell as sweet."

Cool sentiment Bill. If only people could apply this ideal to everyday life. People are people, whatever their name, race, religion. We are all sweet smelling humans.

Well, I promised to make myself a tissue box cover and here it is. I liked the one I made for Twiztidblood, so I made one for me the same. Different colours though. This one will co-ordinate with my living room.

And here is my latest project. I wanted to make a travel backgammon set to take away in the caravan with us if or when we can ever afford a weekend away, or if the rain ever stops for long enough *lol* I've got loads of this yellow felt, so that's what I used for the base. I marked around a regular board and cut the triangles out of complimentary felt (orange and red). I glued them into place using a dab of fabric glue and I'm in the process of appliqueing each triangle by hand. Then I will embroider the edge of the board and the dividing line with embroidery silk and sew on a back piece of felt to cover all the stitching. I haven't decided what I'm going to make the game pieces from yet, but I'm leaning towards fimo.

I quite like that it's Gryffindor colours...is that really sad? Is there such a thing as Wizards Backgammon? I admit it, I'm in the grip of Potter fever at the moment. The film is out next week and the BF has already bought our tickets for the first showing here (as a surprise for me, what a sweetie he is!). He jokes that he is a Slytherin - he's never read the books but says that thanks to me, he's seen all the films more times than he can count. And yes, he was sorted into Slytherin when he took the Sorting Hat Quiz. It's only a couple of weeks till the book comes out. My copy has been pre-ordered since it was possible to do it with Amazon. I'm more excited than an adult probably should be *lol*

Whilst the weather is less than magical, there is the briefest of sunny spells which allowed me to come across this magical fairy ring in Rabbit Field, a field in the Country Park near me. That's not its real name, but there are so many rabbits there that the dog likes to chase. Luckily they move too fast for him to actually catch one, although he did find a dead one once!