yum cottage pie

we had delicious cottage pie last night! with a potato and turnip mash, with a hint of garlic and egg yolk, and beaten egg whites. we made two dishes, so we won't have to cook today! and the best thing is, by the time these came out of the oven the kitchen was already cleaned up, i love oven dishes for that.

ta-daa!

my ripple scarve is finished!

well... it's not blocked yet, and actually, it is a bit short and i am quite tempted to unravel and start again... but still, my first finished crochet project in the last 8 years or so! (the last one was a coin purse made from parcel string, lined with a scrap of checked cotton, i was a student on work experience in ireland at the time and had a sunday with no plans and a little bit of homesickness)

here a link to the the ripple along blog

i still have two balls of the cashmerinosilk and one merino, in a sage green, plus half a ball of the fuchsia merino. maybe i'll start another one and make it longer this time.? I only got 8 rows out of the grey at this length, so the next scarve would have to be narrower again... maybe somebody out there can tell me, the chain that you begin a crochet piece with, is there an equivalent (i.e. same width) for finishing? the two edges on the scarve aren't quite the same width because of the base chain.

and this is my first granny square (not counting the two that i unravelled)

i think i might keep going with this one for a little while longer, P's sister made a whole blanket out of one granny square! there are a few babies on the way amongst my friends and one might be a boy? maybe i should join the grannyalong?

apart from these, i made a veil, im not sure if i'll actually use it for my wedding but i needed to try it as the shops were charging at least 90€ for one! it was quite easy, i didnt finish the edge though, i don't know if i will and if i will i have no idea which type of edge will look best, i have to go home first (easter!) and see the dress again, cant wait!

i feel quite jetlagged, that one hour forward for daylight saving time threw me a little! my colleagues say their children are the same, i must be very immature for my 31 years! or maybe i just really dont like getting up early...

busted

This morning, as i sat in my pyjamas on the settee, happily going through boxes of fabrics and ignoring the mess in the kitchen, P's brother and sister in law with their children turned up at the door! they had texted me 10 minutes before, but my phone was upstairs in the bedroom where i couldn't hear it and P didn't wake up.

I had had some ambitions of appearing to be a tidy sort of person that keeps a lovely and clean house, especially concerning my future family in law, and so far the pretence has worked, as all P's relatives live 2 hours away! But I'm so busted... They had stayed in a hotel yesterday, for a weekend break, and I was vaguely aware of them maybe coming over in the afternoon, but I had expected a call and a half hour or so to tidy up and do the dishes...

Anyhow, after I got over the initial shock, got everybody a coffee and P stumbled out of bed as well, we had a nice day, booked their flights and car for our wedding, played the wii and later went to the seaside, for a walk on the beach, the playground and some nice grub.

This evening i got to take out those fabrics again and one of the things i made was a quick hooks and needles roll (the needles clattering onto the floor as i was trying to discreetly tidy away things, made me feel the need for one)

it's most of the back of a felted jumper and some cotton from ebay, the thing folds into thirds and then ties with the attached pink rick rack.

I'm not sure if i love or hate working with felt, i worry a lot about my sewing machine and it gets uneven so easily, and it can be very frustrating, but it's such a lovely material!

The other things i made are the little camera case below inspired by this all-buttoned-up post , also made from a felted jumper, and a little matching cotton bag for the cable and tripod. the case is really soft and thick, it should protect the camera quite well. how well the felt will survive in my messy handbag is a different story.


I think for the rest of the evening i will just work on my crochet scarve a little more, I might even finish it! The house is returned to an acceptable state, we're going to get some pizza and there are still a few beers in the fridge... isn't life lovely sometimes?

do you ever go into the garden just to have a look around

and end up with hands like this?

i find it very hard to stop once i'm out there pulling at this weed, deciding to move that little plant to a better spot... i ended up raking over all the bald patches in the lawn and spreading compost and organic fertiliser and grass seeds. then p raked it all in and watered the whole thing. it's lucky we have such a small garden!



cup of tea and some sunflower seed bread with mirabell jam, and the last bit of comte cheese



and this evening, while p was next door to play our neighbour's nephew's playstation 3 i made a glasses case for my workmate Ger, from a piece of her donated wooly jumper, that i felted a few weeks ago. the wool, a deep purpley navy, has orange specks, so i used orange stranded cotton to assemble the outer pieces and the lining (recycled T-shirt, nice and soft, won't scratch the glasses) with blanket stitch, then i added the orange
design on the front. i really should learn some basic embroidery stitches, this is just the normal sewing stitch.

crochet scarve

v

my wavey crochet scarve is coming along nicely. it's nearly twice as wide now and i'm running out of grey, it's going to be a narrow scarve i think, so that the fuchsia edges come out nicely when it's worn. when it's finished i will have used a little under two 50g balls grey, plus the pink edges.

i haven't done much else craftwise, although i bought some cotton onesies, size newborn, and I am going to attempt to appliquee (or freezer paper stencil) on them, my friend B just announced she's going to have a baby in autumn! so i have a bit of time for experimenting.

ripples

i caught the ripple fever... looking at all those great ripple blankets out there made me really really want to try it myself!

i'm using this really lovely yarn called sublime, it has cashmere, merino and silk! i don't really do any knitting/crochet, but started to learn again, with cheap acrylics. ( I wanted to knit a small afghan for the sofa but got a wine stain on it halfway through and am stuck now wondering whether i should unravel back to the stain or not) Now the need to ripple has taken over but when i saw the sublime in the wool shop (where i was going to get a hook and some yarn to keep me occupied on a 3 hour train journey) i couldn't resist and thought quality before quantity, bought just two balls and i will make a scarve rather than a blanket! probably a better idea seeing as i am just starting. i can see now why people get hooked on knitting and crochet, it's such a pleasure working with 'good' materials!

i started with looking closely at yarnstorm and posie gets cosy ' blogs and started off with decreasing by skipping a stitch, very unsatisfactory results! then had a bit of a nightmare looking up the web tutorials for decreasing double crochet. mostly because there is a significant difference between british and american dc that i was unaware of! i found a tutorial, started all over doing the british thing (thinking i was wrong doing what i was doing) but noticed soon i wouldn't get anywhere fast because it was such a thick and tight stitch - then realising that i hadn't been wrong at all, just working american instead of UK, so i unravelled again and now i have about 1.5 row of dc, with the proper decreases and increases! i will add some photos to this later! i had some help from keri at http://knittygrittythoughts.typepad.com/ and now i'm pretty sure i'm doing it 'right'!

fabrics

felted jumpers, waiting for bag inspiration


this apron is from the charity shop, it looks like it was a school project, the seams are quite uneven. unfortunately it has a little stain. Will I cut it up? or try to get out the stain? although it doesn't really fit me, it's a bit small.


these are cotton shirts that i cut up for fabrics, the pink one's my favourite. they are partly from the charity shop and partly donated by P. I might make some more bibs from them,


this is another charity shop find, a big polycotton (that's what 50/50 polyester and cotton is called, right?) duvet, washed many many times, a lovely soft feel to it. i think it might make pretty lining for a tote bag. although all the wool fabrics i have wouldn't really go with pale brown and dusky pink on cream background. i think dark brown soft corduroy would work well though!


i can't claim credit for these, my mum made them for me ages ago, she wen't on a course. they are not pieced but attached to this foundation fabric that has pre printed squares, so it's easier to get the squares at the right angles. she made a good few of these at a course, and also some small star shaped tablecloths, for christmas, they are done on a different foundation fabric, with 30 degree angles on it.

the photos are taken with the new camera that p. got me as a surprise. it's a small compact camera, i haven't quite figured it out yet, it doesn't always seem to be focusing, it's supposed to from 50cm or further. but the menu is well layed out and it has a lot of handy functions. it's also much quieter than my old one (which was a bad value very basic olympus i bought out of the pure frustration of my lovely canon powershot breaking after the warranty was up and i didn't have a lot of money to spend, a bad buy. i should know better, it's probably like spontaneously going to the hairdresser!)

Lunar Eclipse

We had a lunar eclipse tonight, i tried to photograph it but my current camera isn't great...



No other news, no new crafty things, although I did cut out two more sets of smock bibs, from the same cotton shirt. I hope the appliquee will work better this time, not quite as short a stitch length maybe!

smock bib for a little boy

I made that smock bib I was talking about the other day!



I used cotton fabric from a thrifted shirt, I made the bias tape for the neck and arm openings from the same fabric and handstitched it in at our stitch and bitch night.



At the moment there are just the ties at the back but I might add some snap fastenings, I'll have to see what my friend says after she tried it on the wriggly little boy!



I machine appliqueed the little mushrooms, the tight satin stitch really puckered the fabric, I still have to figure out how to do this properly (it's only the second time I've tried it).

At home with a cold

I think P. gave me this weird flu, he had it over the weekend, it comes with a cough and a temperature and a feeling like breathing superheated air and a headache! But I forgive him... I spent the day at home with the duvet, doing a good deal of sleeping and a bit of browsing all the great blogs out there! I only recently discovered bloglines and it's really handy!

I came across a good few new blogs in the last week, one being applehead with these cute frogs that I want to make (I'm adding to my long list of must-sew-projects...) .

I also discovered Rebecca's irish craft and eco blog, which is great, I can't think of any other irish blogs on these topics, but then, I don't get as much time as I'd like to, to explore blog land!

Another great discovery was a post on alicia's blog, with a link for a downloadable pattern for exactely the kind of smock i'd love to make for P.'s niece, (I already made her an apron, which she adores, so I'm told) I was going to try and figure out a pattern but I'm really glad I don't have to. Thanks Alicia! Hope there will be an adult version of this crossover smock apron, I'm sure some talented person out there will make one!

Which brings me to a question I'd like to ask the apron lovers out there; P.'s granny, who's going on ninety, and still bakes soda bread and cooks her own dinners (with a bit of help) has this crossover apron (a bit like a wrap dress) she wears all the time. She'd like a new one but can't find them anywhere any more, so i offered to make her one if I can find a pattern, but I'm also looking for some improvements. I think if I could make it with velcro instead of ties it would be much easier for her to handle, as she has arthritis in her hands. I also had the idea of the pippi long stocking type smock, but it might be hard for her to put on as well if it's a slip over the head type, (I'm not sure if she can move her arms over her head easily) or if there's fiddly buttons on the shoulders. Or maybe one of those smocks that tie on both sides, done with velcro, although they also slip over the head...
What do you think?

My friend Hel with her little boy (who's just about the wriggliest baby I've ever met) and her hubby were over yesterday for coffee, omelet and a game of settlers of catan! She was mentioning she's starting to look for bigger bibs that are harder for him to take off, for when he starts to learn to feed himself so I think I will make some kind of smock for him, it would have to be more manly looking though. I'm thinking thrifted checked shirt fabric, no crossover back but more like a shirt on backwards, velcro instead of ties, and it would have to be short so it can't be confused with a dress , which might damage him psychologically if his future classmates sees photos of him in it...

You see, A LOT of projects in mind, none started.
So I have nothing to show off tomorrow at the ' stitch and bitch' evening. I met Kasey, who does quilting and embroidery at a quilt show, and we discovered we live in the same village and we were the only ones under the age of sixty at the quilt thing, so we decided to see if there might be more crafty people around our age, and put up a notice. At the first meeting there were 4 of us, there might be 9 of us tomorrow, see how it goes! In our village there is no coffee shop, no restaurant, no evening entertainment apart from the pub, and the majority of houses are built within the last 5 years, so a lot of people live here and don't know anybody in the place. We think that's why the flyer we put up got so many responses, it's a way to meet people, we had a great time the first night, chatting mostly about roads and houses and schools and so on, while eating chocolate cake and drinking coffee.

Hm, P has put on a lamb stew, with some of the veg we got on friday plus a leek from the garden, I think it's ready, it's smelling delicious!

february photographs...

two very grumpy guys


on my way to the office


I love crocuses... The park near my office has loads of them! The other day I met a friend for lunch and we got cheese sandwhiches from the cheesemongers (I had camember with pear, rocket and honey on dark bread, absolutely delicious!) and sat on a bench, catching a few rays and catching up and looking at the fountains. Should it really be warm enough for that in february? I really hope it's not because of global warming...


our share of the organic box scheme for this week!

Shoulder Bag / Hand Bag

I finished the felt bag today, and i'm quite proud of myself, i've made shopping bags and coin purses and some drawstring bags before, but not a proper little handbag! here it is!


I went very much with the shape of the jumper, 'work with what you have', the back of the neck opening was higher than the front and therefore ended up as the flap. To make room for the straps I made the pleats at the front, this also shaped the bag a little, as did the boxing out seams at the bottom (not really visible in the photos). I used the blanket stitch to flatten the seams, which were very bulky due to the thickness of the felt.


I finally decided on these yokes called yo-yos that i've seen on several other craft blogs, i covered the centres with appliqued black felt circles, and added some leaves around the 'blossoms'.


For fastenings i went for velcro strips. I placed them the way I did not by accident but on purpose, it's so that the velcro will catch whether the bag is empty or stuffed to the gills.



And another two pictures of the inside of the bag, i made this little zippered pocket, which i boxed out at the bottom. I went for a satin stitch to attach it, to do with being too lazy to find out which of the mysterious attachments is the zipper foot and therefore getting a wonky seam, covering this up with satin stitch and then discovering that it'll be much easier to continue on with that to attach the whole pocket like that which saves folding the edges under, it makes for a much flatter edge as well (...OK it was very late at night and I had to go to work early the next day...) There's a little strap with a hook for a set of keys, the very thing i tend to lose at the bottom of my bags...

Anyhow, I am very pleased with it overall, and hope that my workmate, who gave me the jumper, will like it too! I told her I'd make something of the jumper and if she'd like it it's hers. Maybe I'm secretly hoping she won't want it...

Charity shop finds

a gorgeous coffee pot, i'm not sure, is it fifties style? It goes wonderfully with the wall



blue jumpers (i took them apart and washed them hot so i have lovely soft felt like material now) i think these will become bags, or maybe flowers?



and these funky napkins? placemats? what will i make out of them, the green ones are gorgeous, the others are OK, the material is quite rough cotton or synthetic.

more recycling - felted jumper bag

i finally got round to starting a bag made from a felted (fulled) woolly jumper (sweater), it's lined with cotton (leftovers from making summer trousers (my 'baker' trousers) about 10 or 15 years ago... i had cut up the remainder of the fabric for a patchwork project i envisaged but never started, back then, before i knew anything about patchwork, like it's really important to cut strait lines, and that yoy should decide on the size of your finished blocks and what size of project I had to painstakingly piece the lining together from 4 inch and a bit approximate squares)

I don't know what i'll do for a closing mechanism, maybe ties, or a button? or something like a leather strap that you wind around a button? i have no idea yet.
i'd also like to embellish it a little more, if that wouldn't be too much in addition to the checked fabric and the blanket stitch... i like thr flowers on this, does anybody know how to make them?

...more drawstring bags, they truly are addictive

some more of my creations... i'm on a database course this week and it's a great to be doing something at night that doesn't involve a computer screen...



this is made from a weird lace like very seventies looking fabric, with matching pink satin lining (and strings) I use it for my dancing shoes


an apron for P's niece, M, made from a fruity fat quarter, with green ric rac trim. i thought the slice of melon at the bib would have made a great pocket, but i couldn't remember how to make these invisible pockets and didn't want to ruin it... she's 4 and likes to help baking.




i made another backpack, using happything's tutorial and I think an idea from martha stewart, but I can't find the link right now. I also saw a 'puma' drawstring backpack in the street the other day. I used two flea market fancy fabrics, a plain chocolate brown cotton and bright red satin lining. I'm not so keen on the white rope but it was the only thing they had in the fabric shop. you'd think the biggest fabric shop in a capital city would have a bit more choice... i also sillily bought a pattern for cute corduroy trousers for my nephew (1 year old in next may), but when i looked for fabric a few days later they didn't have any children's fabrics. maybe their second branch in the north of the city does... i'm still waiting for a craft and sewing revival over here, i think there's still more shops closing down than opening up.

this backpack is going to be my commuter-bag, holding my book, my handbag and if i'm in a pretty shoes mood, a pair of shoes (can't walk a mile along the muddy road in pretty shoes, they wouldn't be so pretty after...). i added a fabric strap with a swivel hook for my keys on the inside, so i won't have to search for my keys in my bag any more!