Windy Saturday & Patreon

Hello and welcome to a rather windy Saturday, it is cloudy, dull and needing to put the light on at 3pm just so I can finally get to do a bit of knitting.  I had yesterday off work as my last annual leave day for this financial year and did not do much other than pop to Romford to have a look around.  Came back with a little bit of food shopping from Asda and Frank got a bargain book out of British Heart Foundation Charity Shop called The Royal Horticultural Society Pruning & Training and was lucky to get it.  It was £7.50 and nearly new and to buy new it would be 4 times that.

I had a little lie in this morning and after feeling a bit low for the past few days I made myself get up and do a few more household chores before I settle down for the day with my crafts.  I hoovered through the house, did a wash load, cleaned the kitchen worktops and then I remembered that I wanted to sort through the freezer.  I have got so much in there of foods that are half used and it takes up so much room but also we keep buying dinners each day that is fresh and the food in the freezer is just going to waste.  So after a good tidy up I ended up with the bottom drawer full of half bags of frozen oven chips, peas, mixed veg, Yorkshire puddings and potato wedges.  So today we are going to have a freezer food day today and I said to Frank I am not going out today.

Talking about the freezer made me remember this.  The photo on the left is home made Ice Cream that I had a go at making yesterday.  I watch a podcast called The Bakery Bears and they bake various traditional foods with a little story about its history.  They spoke about a pudding called Eve's pudding and she also made ice cream.  I just had to have a go at and it is not for the person on a diet unless you have got very good will power.  Kay, the host used 600ml of double cream, half a tin of Condensed Milk and some Vanilla Bean Paste.  So that is what I bought in Asda yesterday and oh my goodness!

I made it yesterday about 3pm and had a taster about 6.30pm but it was not properly frozen but very nice though.  Today however, we will be having it for our dessert and am looking forward to it.

I have been getting rather frustrated of late with my designing, I have ideas but they never come to fruition of late.  I get what I think is a brilliant idea and start making it and then I look at Ravelry and see the design has been thought of and I lose interest.  To be honest I get fed up and frog the project. Does anyone else do that....

However, I have been looking through my projects that I have on the go at the moment and apart from one project which is a free pattern on Ravelry called Elise (here is the photo of my version) which I finished the other day and absolutely love it, I actually have a couple of designs on the go and

forgot about them.

The Elise Scarf is crocheted and such an easy pattern to do.  I used Sublime Lace with 2 strands held together.  I used 4 colours in total and it is soft, colourful and warm.

I want to get a stock of items at home in my 'gift drawer' so that if it is someones birthday or someone just asks for something, I can have something to show them.

I am thinking of making a few hats too but am trying so hard to use my imagination.  I purchased the Knit stitch dictionary (see last post) to get ideas and am also on the look out for a crochet stitch dictionary too.


There are 3 other projects that I am designing at the moment and one is a knitted blanket, one is a Tunisian Pushchair Blanket and the other is a scarf.

This is a little glance of the scarf, I just love colour and this yarn is absolutely beautiful.  I will give away more info when it is finished which may take a while because I am using a small size needle.

I have avoided casting on another pair of socks at the moment and decided to knit this scarf on my bus journey to work and back instead of socks.  I was crocheting the Elise Scarf but that is completed now.

The blanket that I am knitting at the moment I am rather enjoying too and is using scraps of DK yarn held together. That is all I am saying for now about that and I have not seen anyone else come up with the design yet.

So for the rest of the day I am going to walk the dog, get the dinner done, have a lovely soak in the bath and then either see what is on the tv (which is not usually much on a Saturday night).

Oh yeah, I forgot to say that I have finally become a Patreon to The Bakery Bears Podcast and am thoroughly enjoying it.  I am binge watching their Patron Only Podcast at the moment.

I hope you all have a good weekend and till next time, bye for now!

Jewellery Making Addiction

Hello and welcome back to my latest posting about my crafting exploits of late.  The title of this post is a bit of an understatement and at the moment I have been rather disciplined in not letting Jewellery Making become another addictive hobby.  So I am going to show you my first couple of creations that I have dabbled in..


This first photograph was the first creation and in amongst some of the beads were these little heart shapes that were calling out to be necklace for my Grand Daughter Mya.  I had to watch a few Youtube tutorials and there are quite a lot of them that give you basic lessons in starting it all.

It is not what I call professional in any sense of the word but it is safe to use for my Mya and that is what I wanted.  I also had enough left over to make a little bracelet using some elastic type cord.  I have it now stored in a little organza bag to give to Mya as part of her Easter Gift.


I actually sat at my dinner table to make this and when I got up from the table I was so stiff. I forgot to move my legs and flex my feet to keep the circulation going,  so I need to remember that for the next time I make something else.  Of course that wasn't far away and here is the next photo.

The green beads are an absolute favourite of mine and they have a slight gold tinge to them so I decided to make myself a necklace this time and used some small gold beads with a crystal looking bead too.  Just love it and wore the necklace around the house for a while.  Then when I picked it up the next day the jump ring came away from the necklace.  I kind of pooh poohed it then and thought to myself 'never mind, I can fix that' and I did and have been wearing again. 

I would never ever give the jewellery away to anyone or even sell them because they are unique to me and my family plus I would be embarrassed if they didn't last for very long.

Now I am going to show you one that I made a few days ago, I was feeling the addiction creeping up and thought about making another necklace.  I then came up with this and I absolutely love it.  I am still trying to get use to the finishing off technique which is fitting the lobster and jump ring so that it can be fastened around the neck.  

I have also noticed since doing this hobby that my eyes are not as good as they use to be and lucky for me I have a small downlight that I can move about so that it is directly over my shoulder and shining on what I am doing.  

I also realise how much I enjoy episodes of peace and quiet during the day and this is so relaxing.

Now I am going to show you what I have made for my Grandson Martyn.  I could not leave him out of getting a necklace and because he is still quite young I had to think of what I can put together for him that will be safe to wear.

There was some cord in amongst the bits and bobs and so I went and bought from Hobbycraft a set of alphabet beads and made him a cord necklace which his Mum has agreed would be ok for him to wear.  He loves putting things around his neck, he tries to put my glasses on but they end up sitting under his chin.  So that is part of his Easter gift done for him too.

Finally the last item I have had a go at doing is repairing a bracelet of mine that Frank bought me a few years ago from Gems TV.  It is a Sarah Bennett design bracelet and after wearing it for a while the clasp just snapped.  I have had it stored in my jewellery box for a heck of a long time because I just love the beads and so I thought, I would have a go at fixing it.  Guess what, I did and it looks great.

The beads are fairly weighty and they consist of morganite and opals.  I just love this bracelet, I kept the original clasps and all the individual silver beads that were with it.  The original wire it was on was doubled but thin and had a knot after 3 beads but I didn't do that, I just used a stronger wire and re-placed the jump rings.

I did purchase another set of pliers that are super useful and were £6 out of Hobbycraft.  I also got a small divided storage box for all of the FINDINGS that you need to make jewellery (like jump rings etc).  I just need to get a bigger storage tower with lots of little drawers to sort all the beads out.

Finally, I wanted to say that I have not won the lottery and purchased a whole load of jewellery making items.  I was lucky to be the 'First come, first serve' friend on Instagram who was getting rid of all her daughter's jewellery making stuff.  I ended up getting 2 packages in the post and oh my goodness, it was like Christmas all over again.  I was thinking for ages about starting up another hobby but the fact that it takes me away from my knitting and crochet kinda put me off but as the old saying goes 'never look a gift horse in the mouth' and when I saw the posting on instagram I just had to see if I was lucky enough to get it.

So now I am kind of hooked on jewellery making, I am watching videos on Youtube of how to make stacked rings and maybe, just maybe will have a go at that next...or even some earrings.  Watch this space...

Finally I did go to Hobbycraft to have a look at some yarn that I had my eye on from my last visit and thought while I have to get the alphabet beads for Martyn's necklace anyway, I may as well get that yarn I was after.

As you can see I got a little bit more than I expected.  In fact that little pile of treats cost £27 but was well worth it and the book of 400 knitting stitches did bump the price of.  The yarn was buy 2, get one free, the glitter glue was 90p instead of £1.80 and the little scrap A5 books were £2 for 3 books.  

The yarn is a Hobbycraft brand and is a light grey and so soft and squishy.  I am thinking about a design for a crochet 'something' but not quite settled in my idea at the moment but at least I have the yarn.  I can't quite remember the price of the yarn, I think it was £4.

Blimey this was a long post and I hope it has not bored my readers too much, I do enjoy writing about my crafting life and am trying to keep on top of blogging.  I had over 300 page views last month which was fantastic and makes me want to write more.  

I have had a lovely 5 days using up my annual leave before end of March, I have got to go back to work tomorrow :( but only for a few days and then am off Friday for my final day of annual leave for this tax year.

Take care and be back soon.  xx

 

Crocheting with lace yarn

I have a rather old stash of yarn that was purchased for me as a surprise about 5 years ago and it is called Sublime Lace which is a 25g ball of extra fine merino wool. It is 100% wool and each ball has 350 meters so you can imagine it does go a long way.  I have 2 colours of lime green, pink, purple, blue and black and have tried a couple of lace patterns but to be honest, I am not a lace knitter.  I love seeing lace shawls on podcasts especially the Evenstar shawl which is certainly an heirloom piece but  I would not have the patience for something with so much lace.

I finally found a pattern on Ravelry.com called Elise by Bernadette Ambergen which is an easy crochet pattern that gives you a wonderful summer time scarf.  It is a free pattern on Ravelry and I decided to hold 2 strands of the Sublime Lace together and a 3.5mm hook.  It is a worked so that you use each colour to the end and then join in the next which I like the sound of.  The actual designer has used pale colours which are beautiful but I just had to use this yarn to get it out of my stash and it is bright.                                                                

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  You can see it is bright but a joy to crochet and so far I love the colour transition which keeps the interest going.  I am not sure whether I will use all of the colours that I have, it is dependent on how big it gets.  It may be a scarf that goes in my gift box too, indecisive is what my day is like today.

I have done other projects since my last post, I have made another necklace and am trying so hard to not get addicted to jewellery making.  I have put it all upstairs out of sight purely because I keep looking at it and wanting to pick it up.  However, I want to finish what I have got on the hook and needles first, especially when I know I have a few more socks to knit yet.  Ideally I would like to have a stash of socks ready as gifts but when that will happen, I do not know.

In other news I have spent 4 days without any heating, gas cooker or hot water due to a faulty part on the boiler.  The engineer did say it needs replacing because it is 12 years old but then I am told by my landlord that they want to try and replace the part first and see how it goes.  So I guess as long as I do not smell gas when it ignites, that will be ok!!

It has been rather chilly and windy here the past few days and having the Grandchildren the weekend just gone, I was worried that the house was too cold for them but we coped and it was a lovely time spent with them.  Even though my ears are still sore from all the sibling rivalry going on.  That is what happens when they are so close in age.

I am now spending Monday waiting in for the gas engineer to do his magic and then hopefully will be able to warm up a bit.

See you next time...