Going Vintage

Chaos has reigned once more on this little house of mine.  After labouring to clean all of the linen in our hotpress, or airing cupboard to everybody else, after the builders left the house caked in cement dust, my heart sank this weekend to discover that the pipes in the house next door had burst and the water had seeped into our hotpress and destroyed all of the contents once more!  Much screaming and pulling of already thinning hair ensued!
So to cheer myself up a little, I headed off to the local antique fair.  And with my beady little eye I found a beautiful set of dessert plates just begging me to bring them home.  They may not be perfect with their little chips and cracked glaze but I love them more for their little imperfections.  I shows that they were well loved and used plenty.  And they are certainly going to be well used here too.

This is the cake plate.  It may be a little cracked and warn but just look at the beautiful detailing on it.  Who couldn't just fall in love with it!












There are five cake plates in total and the design on each is completely different.








I was also going through some of my material stash because I've started my chrimbo present sewing and I found an old tablecloth that my mother used to use in her house a lot when we were growing up.  Because some naughty little mouse had a nibble one or two corners of it, it was put aside to be made into a bag of some description.  But when I saw it, it brought back a lot of memories and I no longer have the heart to take the scissors to it.  I love it just the way it is.  Perfect!

Well obviously it could do with a bit of an ironing!  But I never did say that I was the queen of the rubber glove and feather duster brigade and I am severely allergic to the iron.  Well that is what I tell the Hubbie anyway!

I also finally managed to finish my purple waistcoat from the pattern by Kyoko Nakayosho.  I really struggled to find a button that I really liked for it.  The only problem that I had with the pattern was that the number of stitches for the arm ribbing was very small and I had to rip them back and pick up extra ones.  Other than that it was a great challenge and now I am quite happy with the final result.

The light wasn't great today so sorry that the pic isn't that good.

Oh and one more thing I forgot to show you the finished mittens.  I really love them.  I knitted them in fine merino and they are so snug and warm.  I'm wearing them all the time.  I decided to cast off the top and thumb a little snug on them so that they don't get all baggy and loose because that is one thing that really drives me batty.  So far it has worked!

Well that was my weekend.  Eventful as ever.  Hope that you had a good weekend too.
Rosie xx

So Much To Do......

If I'm honest I don't really know what I'm at these days.  Christmas is coming and there is a lot of crafting to be done.  I'm full of ideas for presents and decorations for the house and I still haven't got my mincemeat made for my mince pies.  My problem is that I just don't know where to start!  And another of my big problems is that I've got a habit of starting a tonne of projects all at the same time and never seem to get anything finished.  I get too bored doing one project at a time and it's only been a few times that I've managed it.  And there are so many beautiful patterns out there to inspire me and tempt me to cast on a fresh set of stitches.
I do love that great feeling of achievement I get when I see a project finished.  It's something that I don't get from anything else.  I like to sit down to a nice meal that I've cooked or a scrumptious cake but I never feel like jumping around and shouting out the window, "look what I've made".  I can clean the house and do all my chores until the house gleams but I don't ever want to walk proudly into my knitting group wearing a nice Mr. Muscle shiny bathtub now do I?
Tomorrow I'm going to be brave and sit down with my dear little notepad and make my Christmas list (not for Santa...that one will come later on St. Nicholas' Day.  Hopefully he'll listen this year.)
The most important jobs first.  Sewing during the day because I can knit at night and when the kids are doing their homework.  I'm heading to Germany at the end of this month with my mother to visit the big bro.  We are going for a week so that is going to take more time off me.  And then when we get back, advent will have started.  And advent is such a big thing here in this house for us.  The stairs have to be decorated and small sweet bags hung out for Santa's elves to fill for the kids if they have been good that day.
Ahhhh I think I'm going to go mad.  But if I'm really honest with myself, I'm looking forward to Chrimbo this year for the first time in a long long time.  I'm more relaxed in myself.  More secure and I've finally accepted my condition.  As somebody once told me "it is possible to find happiness in acceptance".

Another promise I'm making to myself is that I want to take care of my blog properly and update it more often.  Every time I sit down on the sofa and take my laptop out, my dog Molly, jumps up beside me and lies right across the keyboard, nudging me and giving me those endearing eyes that say "please tickle my belly".  And if that wasn't bad enough, one of my cats, Nina, has a habit of sitting on the back of the couch behind me rubbing my head with her paw!
I often sign on to blogger land intending to write a post but I get so distracted by everybody elses beautiful pages that I spend all my time reading them and before I know it, it's already bed time.
So I'm hoping that with all the crafting I'll be doing over the next two months, I'll definitely be posting more news.  And hopefully there'll be some fab pictures from Munich and Salzburg.

Thanks for listening to my mindless rambling,
Rosie xx

PS  Can anybody out there help me please?  Whenever I have found new blogs that I would like to follow, I would click on the Google Follow This Blog button and that blog would automatically pop up on my reading list.  But the last few times that I did that, I had to copy and paste the address into my reading list.  Does anybody know what I'm doing wrong here?

Short Row Craziness

First of all I'd like to thank everyone who left such lovely messages and words on my last post about the sad passing away of poor Nutmeg.  It was very kind of you all.

Now down to something a bit more cheerful, knitting.  I've been working on this waistcoat for some time now.  It is a beautiful design by Kyoko Nakayoshi.  And oh boy was it a learning curve.  It was a first for a lot of stitches and techniques.  It was the first time that I attempted doing a reverse cable stitch but slowly got the hang of it and by the end I didn't even need to look at the pattern.  Here I also learned to perfect my wrap and turns.  They always drove me crazy because I hated the way that they looked when I had to pick up all the wraps at the end.  And I think that I must have ripped back this knitting about five this because I was so unhappy with my short row shaping.  But I eventually got a link on the internet and it said to always lift the wraps up from the knit side and place them behind the stitch to be knitted.  On the knit side the two stitches should be knitted together from the back of the loop and on the purl side they are just purled together normally.  It leaves the wraps totally invisible.   

I'm still not sure about the colour of this though.  That's always the danger of buying yarn over the internet, you risk not getting the colour that you expect.  What do you think?

Now just being so close to finishing this, I have to put it aside.  I have a wedding coming up on the 20th October and I need a wrap to go over my shoulders and keep me warm.  So I'm knitting against the clock.  I love knitting to a deadline if I'm honest.  It makes me work a lot harder on it.

I chose the Illyia Shrug from ravelry and Garn Studio Merino Extra Fine.  I love the colour.  And it matches perfectly with the trim on my dress.  Now that was a lucky internet buy!!

Anyway I better go now.  I've got the Hubby's jeans to mend too.  

Rosie

xx

Ready At Last

I'm finally finished my mothers Christmas present at last.  Last years present!!!  I didn't have time to finish a scarf that I was knitting for her so I decided to parcel up what I had finished together with the wool, needles, pattern and a drawing of the finished piece. But unfortunately it somehow got left behind in my Mums house and I didn't find it again until last week.

I designed this because my mother dislikes long scarves that you have to wind around your neck about a million times to prevent you from tripping on it.  The buttons I added so that she can make it as close or as loose on her neck as she likes.

I really like this water ripple pattern.  It was really easy to work as it was only a four row repeat and it made the end result soft and warm.

Little Birdie Hook Pouch

It has been driving me mad lately that every time that I need a crochet hook, I'm never able to find the one that I want.  I've had to pull apart bags, boxes and drawers.  So this week I finally decided to do something about it.  I went through my fabric stash and picked out some of the pieces that looked nice and summery (to cheer me up in this awful weather).



How to make:
Firstly you need to decide the length of the pouch that you need.  I have quite a lot of hooks and because some of them are large wooden ones, I found that the best spacing was 4cm for each hook pocket.  I have 11 pockets and so my pouch is 44cm long.
Next cut out the outer fabric and the lining. They should be 30x44cm in size
The pocket material is 15x44cm in size.

Using a tight zigzag stitch, make the pockets by sewing the pocket fabric to the lining at 4cm intervals.  Do not sew this with the outer material pinned on because you do not want the stitching to show at the front of the pouch.
Handstitch a trim along the top of the pockets, ensuring that you don't accidentally close them up.

Cut out some applique shape that you like the most.  For me it's birdies.  Love em! And with a piece of bondaweb iron it onto the outer piece of material.  For decoration I finished this with a blanket stitch around its edge.
Using bias binding sew the front and the lining pieces together.
Put your hooks into the pouch and roll it up.  Mark where the side meets the back and sew on a snap button for closure.
Fold down the top of the pouch until it meets the top of the pockets and iron well.  This will keep your precious hooks safe from falling out.

Little Gypsy Skirt

Before heading off last week I made a little skirt for Lucy.  She was sitting looking through my fabric pile and decided that she loved this material and wanted a skirt made from it.  She also picked out the yellow bee material for the pockets because she said that the bees would love to be on a field of flowers and so that's where they should be.

I didn't have a pattern, so I just made it up as I went along.  It's simple but I'm happy with it and I think that it worked out alright.  And the main thing is that Lucy totally loves it and has worn it nearly every day since it was finished.

My next big project is a skirt for myself with some beautiful Amy Butler fabric.  I'll let you know how I get on.

Plus I'm also working on some new recipes and will soon have them ready too.  If my energy lasts that is!

Baby Mobile

Last week a good friend of mine had a little baby boy.  Ahhhh I hear you say.
And so I set about trying to decide what on earth I could give her as a present considering that she is a master crafter herself and has been knitting cardis and blankets for months and also my kids wanted to help me make something.  So I decided that a baby mobile would be a nice idea.
(Apologies in advance for the pictures but the finished mobile was so long that the only place I could hang it to photograph it was in the kitchen).

Firstly I got a bag handle and covered it on ribbon and hid the seam with a green spotted bow.
Then the kids picked out buttons and helped me to sew them on little felt flowers and stars.  Great practice for them.

We cut out shapes in fabric that the kids thought they would like on a mobile for their room. A moon, , butterfly, fish and two different hearts.  We sat on a rainy afternoon and quite happily stitched to our hearts content.  They may not have been pure perfection but there was a lot of effort put into it.
I then laid out the pieces in rows as they would appear on the mobile and with a darning needle and a long piece of embroidery floss, I began to sew them together starting with the fabric shapes and knotting the thread under each new felt shape added.

I had some thick felt rope hanging around for ages and I knew that I would eventually find a use for it and this was just ideal.
I cut up five pieces, one for the loop and four to tie to the hoop of the mobile.
I must admit I got my hubbie to do one of his fancy fisherman knots to tie it all together and then I secured it by stitching on this fabric and felt butterfly.
I hung the embroidery floss and shapes to the hoop by stitching the end of the floss to where the felt rope is attached to the hoop, securing it very tightly.

 Oh geees, I hope that this has not been too confusing!

Er, there is no crochet? What's goin on?

This is what a friend mailed to me after she read my blog. I love to crochet but as of yet I've not put any patterns or pics up here. But unfortunately most of the pieces that I've already finished have been sold or given away.
So Pam this is all that I have to show you, half a cardi and four squares for a blanket. But don't worry there will be lots more to come.