Advent

So.... I've just finished the 9th stocking I'm making for my baby's advent calendar. Crazy I know but it seems wrong knitting stockings in the summer. Wonder if I'll have 24 by next Christmas. 

Bah! 

And......... relax!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

I hope that your Christmas celebrations were everything you hoped they would be.

We spent they day at my mum's with my brother and sister. My hubby and I cooked most of the dinner, it was the first time we'd done it as we dont have the space to host here, and was quite a surprising success.

Needless to say we've spent today and yesterday vegging out on the sofa, feeling sorry for ourselves after massively over indulging. Will we ever learn???

I've just spent a happy hour or so on Amazon, surfing around looking at knitting books. One of the children in my class gave me a £15 Amazon voucher for Christmas (how super generous?!?!?) so I thought I'd treat myself.

I found this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1579653340/ref=ox_ya_os_product





and then this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1861086709/ref=ox_ya_os_product



and also this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1844009459/ref=ox_ya_os_product





As much as I love the ease of internet shopping and hate all the battles getting into the carparks and then the shops, as soon as I've chosen the stuff I want to buy, I want it instantly and can't bear the wait til the items arrive through the post.

I can't wait to get started on knitting some snuggly lovely baby items.

What are your knitting plans for the new year?

xxx

Snowflake scrumminess

I think I've finally learnt something about my crochet and knitting habits. I need small projects (preferably with a lot of repetition) or I get bored/lose concentration/get distracted. My attention span is shamefully short for a fully grown adult.

So my Christmas projects have been perfect.

I planned to make an advent stocking garland using a pattern from the Jean Greenhow Christmas Special booklet which of course means making 24 of them. I'm getting there. 6 down 18 to go.

But as I mentioned before, I got distracted by this snowflake tutorial and then distracted from making them by this tutorial. Seriously, shamefully short! But I highly recommend both patterns. I dont have a lot of crochet experience and have to youtube each stitch at the beginning of each project because I can never remember the difference between a HDC, a DC or US and UK terminology. So for me to be able to follow a pattern, it needs to be pretty simple and have clear photos. Both these tutorials fulfill these criteria! :)

So I set about making enough of each so that I could make a snowflake garland for our living room window.  We have a fab window, it's 4.5, wide and looks out across the valley. Sounds fab eh? but half of it is overlooked by the neighbours so half the curtains are shut permanently. Anyway, I wanted a snowflake garland to span the whole window.

I ended up with 10 of Matt's snowflakes and 10 of Lucy's small snowflakes, topped off with 5 of Lucy's full sized snowflakes and worked out that I needed about 18 cm or a chain of 30 between each flake and set about collating them.

 

 

I cant get a photo of the whole window, silly Christmas tree is in the way, but you get the idea.

Have a fantastic Christmas everyone. We're off to my mum's for the day then with the inlaws on the 29th.

Christmas Crazy

As a primary school teacher this time of year is great fun but SO exhausting. There are parties and films, music coming from classrooms at all times of the day, glitter in places from where it will never return and smiles on the childrens faces that make it all worthwhile.

But the children are overly tired, the staff are overly tired, the children are overly excited, the staff are overly stressed.

I feel like I have carol concerts and parties coming out of my ears. Sweets, outfits, cards, glitter, Christmas films the list is endless. I feel like I bumble from one day to the next with no time to think about tomorrow.

I havent finished my secret Santa present yet. I dont know what I'm going to wear to the staff 'do' on Thursday because hardly anything fits anymore. I havent bought presents for my Teaching Assistants or job share partner yet. I havent bought presents for the children or written their Christmas cards yet.
I feel like I'm drowning. :( And I'm exhausted.

I'm sure this isn't what Christmas is meant to be about.

Handmade Monday

Oh I am LOVING my Christmas projects.

As much as I'm really excited to get them made and finished off, I'm glad they are taking a while so I can enjoy the whole process of making them.

Is that kind of crazy???

If you've visited before you may have seen that I had the amazing idea of making a garland of 24 little stockings to make into an advent calendar. Needless to say it wasn't ready before Advent started. It probably wont be finished before Christmas but hey, I'm having fun.

The stocking count is currently at 5.5.

In my last post on Wednesday I said that I'd been distracted by making the gorgeous little crocheted snowflakes from the tutorial on According to Matt. They only take about 5 minutes to make up and mine still need to be blocked and starched but they are so much fun and SO gorgeous. I have 10 of them so far.

But that was before I found this pattern for cocheted snowflakes on Attic 24. So my garland is now going to consist of a mixture of 3 different snowflakes. But I like that. I think it will look great.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's a slow process for me. I dont get a lot of crafting time during a normal week and this week I've had a streaming cold. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday in bed (which did mean that I got all my Christmas presents ordered online so it wasn't all bad) but it really takes me a while to get anything finished off.

Oh, and in other news, him indoors, otherwise known as Scrooge, has finally shown an interest in the Christmas tree (it's only been there a week!!!). He asked if there was any chocolate on it.
There wasn't and therefore the interest soon ended. But there hasn't been chocolate on the Christmas tree in any of the 6 years we've lived together so who knows what he was thinking of.

I'm hooking up with Handmade Monday again, and Make Something Monday when the link is up.
I hope the last week of school productions, carol services and shopping go swimmingly for everyone. xxx

Handmade Monday

I am definitely gearing up for Christmas over here.

I couldnt find any more of the red I'd made those lovely little stockings out of so I had to grab a new ball of bright red DK. I just couldnt face getting halfway through my little project and running out.

So I had to finish Mrs Frosty's body to get her off my needles so that I could start on the stockings.
However, this means that she looks quite pathetic at the moment. :(

We've spent the weekend doing DIY. Who'd have thought that painting was SOOO boring.


So I've only got this far with the stocking advent calendar. :(
I think this little project isnt going to make it to FO status til next Christmas.

The first stocking is off the needles but it needs to be sewn up. 1 and a bit down, 22 and a lot to go. :(

 

Is anyone else makine Christmas decorations? Last year I made a garland of red stars using this tutorial. I can not recommend it highly enough and will definitely be making some more in the future.

I'm linking up up with Handmade Monday and I'll link up with Make Something Monday tomorrow when the link is up.

FO Friday.

I have ANOTHER FO!!!

I know, it's amazing.

But this was a really quick little project I whipped up.

I've made a Christmas bauble wreath.

I was inspired by some pictures I found on the web last year and decided I wanted to make one too late to get any cheap baubles so I shelved the idea.

I'd share the blog I found last year if only I could find it again now. But a quick google search brings up hundreds of pictures of both handmade and comercial wreaths. Homebase are selling them for £15!

My cousin's super creative girlfriend posted a photo on Facebook of the rag wreath she'd made earlier this week and it reminded me of my shelved idea.

Anyway, I popped to Tesco on the way home from work and their Christmas decorations were out already. They had big boxes of mixed size baubles for £2.50!!!!!!! I couldnt resist all the sparkly goodness so I grabbed one box of red and one box of silver and rang mum whilst still at the checkout to get her to hook me out a wire coathanger.

I bent the coat hanger into a circle but wasnt sure whether I was going to have enough to fill it so I just chucked the baubles on. The wire needs to feed thro the little plastic loops on the baubles so I cut all the strings off. The first time, I realised I was left with too many of the large baubles at the end so I had to unwind all the baubles off the coat hanger over the spirally bit at the top and re-thread them. But this time I'm much happier.

And this is the result!

 

 

 

 

It needs the yucky hook covered up somehow.

 

 

And perhaps a little re-shaping......


But I'm pretty pleased with it.

Now I just need to store it somewhere til Christmas. Perhaps I should have thought of that. Hmmmmm......

I'm linking up with Tami again this week. Pop over.

Festive FOs.

As I said in my WIP post on Wednesday I managed to get my stars garland finished.

I then made a heart one in the hope that him indoors will let me keep the hearts one up all year :)

And here they are in their new home.

(These are all the books I havent read and will endeavour to work my way through when I've finished my course. )

I think they look fab and should therefore stay all year. I might even have to make another set for the other set of shelves. :)

If you like them you can find the stars tutorial here and the hearts tutorial here.

I cant accept any creative responsibility for them. but the tutorials are FAB and very easy to follow, even for a novice crocheter like me.

Dont forget to pop over to Tamis for some more FOs and to WonderWhyGals Fiber Arts Friday

I hope you all have a fab new year.

Thanks for reading my rather amateurish blog.

If you've got this far can I ask that you humour me a little more and read the post below about my work with Girl Guiding.

Thanks

xxxxx

WIP Wednesday #13

Wahoo, I have another WIP!

Well several really but one new one which is the exciting bit.

In all the Christmas madness I managed to finish off my crocheted stars and turn them into a garland and start a new crochet project. But I'll post about the FO on Friday.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas, I spent Christmas day with the inlaws. His nephew is only 11 so still fun to be around. Then Christmas day was with my mum and yesterday with my dad. So today we're having a sofa day watching rubbish on telly and chilling out.

I'm quite enjoying this little foray into crocheting. I've played with Granny Squares but not actually made any complete projects so I'm super happy with my stars garland.

But these caught my eye: a Crocheted Heart Garland  and thought that a heart garland could be up all year, the stars are particularly Christmassy so will come down in a while. The tutorial is REALLY easy to follow and now I've got these:

Aren't they amazing? I love them.

And the pattern was so easy to follow I'm going to try a crocheted flower garland too.

But last night I also followed this ripple tutorial from the lovely Lucy at Attic 24. I've got some lovely yarn to make a blanket for my gorgeous God daughter and am hoping to follow this pattern. I think the ripples go together really well in this. I made up the sample piece last night out of the red I'm using for the hearts but pulled it apart before taking some photos. Silly me.

So I figured I'd make the ripple blanket first then if there is any left over yarn making the flowers to go with it.

Wouldnt that look fab in a little girl's bedroom?

So I'm successfully avoiding all the real work I have to do and making good progress on my knitting and crocheting. And our lovely friends are just about to pop over to watch a film so I might get a little of the baby blanket (that happens to be for them, I think I can say that now that the news is out) while the film is on.

I just cant sit still and do nothing!!

Anyway, Hope you've all recovered from the Christmas madness and are making progress with your projects. Pop over to tamis for some other WIP updates.

A FO, whether I like it or not!!!

ok, So I havent done as many of these as I'd hoped but here they are:

And this is why I havent done any more :(

ooops.

Luckily it was just a free one from a magazine. I wonder if I'll be able to pick a new one up tomorrow, it was the only one I had in that size. :(

Pop over to Tamis for some more FO s. Hopefully a bit more productive than me :(

Or have a look at Wonder Why Gal's fiber arts friday links.

WIP Wednesday #12

There's not been a lot of knitting in my life over the last week.

I have SO much work to do that I just feel guilty every time I even look at my knitting needles :(

I've got planning to do, a 4000 word essay to write, the Guide unit accounts to sort and terms worth of Guide meetings to organise. The Christmas 'holidays' aren't really a holiday are they? They're just time off work to get stressed about, well, everything really. I'm not even hosting anyone or anything until New Years Eve. I'm at the In-laws on Christmas Day and then my mum's on Boxing day. How do people manage with kids?!?!?!

I spent pretty much all day cleaning the house yesterday. It was an avoidance tactic. Today hasn't been much better but at least I have all my presents now.

I read other people's blogs and just wonder how they fit it all in. :(

Maybe I need a career change.

Anyway, here is the extent of this weeks work.

These are my crocheted stars that are eventually going to form a garland. Clearly 2 isnt enough for a garland. Maybe I'll have enough by next Christmas!

It's from this tutorial on the Jelly Wares blog. Super easy to follow, even for a novice like me!

And this is the cowl I mentioned last week. All this wool comes from one ball. Crazy stuff.



I'm not sure it's going to make a very good cowl, there isnt enough wool to make it any wider and it will be so short it will have to be buttoned up. :( I'll see how it goes. Maybe it can be a birthday present for my mum. She'll appreciate it even if it's a bit rubbish coz thats what mums do. :)

I'm also still working on a top secret Christmas present for my friend Dr Lucy. I wont get it to her til the end of January so a FO post on them will have to wait til then :(

On the plus side, my photos are getting better. Must remember to keep my camera charged.

Pop over to Tamis for some more WIPs.

I hope everyone else is making lots of Christmassy progress.

Knitted Christmas fun!

I love the idea of this. I would love to go and see it. I have a few knitted and felt decorations on my tree but this is something else:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2075034/At-wont-drop-needles-The-giant-Christmas-tree-entirely-wool.html



Am off to a our Carol Service now. Am expecting to come back feeling all Christmassy (and a little bit stressed about the lack of presents I have for my amazing husband who, in fairness has everything and an amazing knack of buying me fantastic presents while he's left with a few measly DVDs and other pointless bits and bobs.  :(  )

Kirstie's homemade christmas

Evening all.
Have just got in from my Guide unit end of term party. Playing musical statues and other silly party games with a load of screaming 10 - 14 year old girls isnt as easy as it sounds. I'm exhausted.
I think they had fun.

Anyway, I heard about this on the news this morning:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2072551/Sally-Bercow-fires-Twitter-salvo-Kirstie-Allsopps-TV-tips-arts-crafts.html





I thought it was sad. Home made presents are lovely to receive and, although perhaps you can only give home made gifts to certain friends and relations, it's great making something for someone.

I didn't see Kirstie's Home made Christmas but why criticise people who are using their spare time productively.

Do you know what, I'm too exhausted to put my response into fully comprehensible sentences but suffice it to say that I thought it was more than a little ridiculous when I heard it this morning. Sad.

Will try to post a WIP on Wednesday but the last week before Christmas in a C of E school is more than a little busy.