Gifted Gorgeousness January 2020

Welcome to my January 20220 Gifted Gorgeousness Post. If you don't already know, Gifted Gorgeousness is a SAL devised by Jo, which allows us to show off pretty much anything that we can describe in a sentence using the words gift and craft. For full details see Jo's blog here.

Kicking off the Gifted Gorgeousness Year is always the easy post because of  Christmas. I already posted about all the wonderful craft related gifts I received in my Happy New Year post, so this post will be about various things that I made for other people.

Lets see... I knitted the girls a hat each. Pattern is "Head Sock" from The Purl Bug. Here is Eloise wearing hers on Christmas Day at the beach. 

I forgot to get a picture of Naomi's hat, but here she is wearing a little devore velvet slip dress I made her. 

The pattern is New Look 6347. Double GG points on this project as I was gifted the fabric by Minerva

I also made them a silver necklace each, (it's just the lighting that makes them look gold)

I made some of these star shaped fabric mats in a variety of colours and patterns for a few of my friends. 

And finally, a little Year of the Rat ornament I made Naomi for her Chinese Zodiac collection

Gifted Gorgeousness June - AKA I blinked and Missed a Month

Well, I know it's my busy time of year, but honestly, where did that month go?
I'm afraid I've got so hopelessly behind with reading blogs that I've just had to skip ahead to now and it is time once again for Gifted Gorgeousness - Jo's blog hop where we show off anything we can vaguely shoehorn the word gift onto.
You might remember that last month I showed you the sundress I'd made for Naomi, well I've managed to finish one for Eloise as well.
Here are the two dresses together.

More tenuously, I've recently been accepted onto the Minerva Makers team at Minerva Crafts, and my first blog post for them went live a few days ago. Here is the dress I made myself from the fabric Minerva very kindly sent to me.

The pattern is Simplicity 8137

Signs of Spring

After last weeks snow we are starting to see some small signs of spring:-

Crocuses in the garden

Playing with my new toy at the beach

Some "green" days on the Temperature SAL

Snow and Stitching

Yes, we had snow. Not too exciting for some people, but it's quite unusual around here.

You can see the small patch of blue stitching showing the colder few days in my Temperature SAL

and if you look carefully you'll see that I indicated the snow by filling in the background of the relevant squares with white.

I've also stitched a Valentine's Exchange piece, which I can't show yet as it's a secret, and this little Year of the Pig ornament to add to Naomi's Chinese Zodiac collection.

He's stitched in GAST Schoolhouse Red on Crafty Kitten Just Peachy. I couldn't find a chart I liked so I charted him myself. I drew the Chinese character by looking at various New Year greetings online, I hope it does indeed say "Pig", and not one of the more colourful Chinese expressions from Firefly.

Online Advent Calendar - 22nd

Welcome to day 22 of the on-line advent calendar, as organised by Jo of Serendipitous Stitching
For your advent picture I'm sharing this lino-printed poinsettia card I made

Also a picture of my "Geek-mas" tree. Extra brownie points for anyone who can identify all the fandoms. 

Jo also asked us to share our favourite Christmas song. Lots of my favourite songs have already been chosen, but I thougfht you might enjoy this - the Sans Day Carol, a traditional Cornish Christmas Carol.

Happy Christmas to you all

Snow Day - Sew Day

We had actual snow in Cornwall last week.

It doesn't happen often.
Being stuck inside the house I decided to do some sewing.
I made Naomi this Game of Thrones inspired dress, using a textured dragon scale fabric (pattern New Look 6391, re-drafted to a sweetheart neckline)

And for myself I made the Tilly and the Buttons Orla top using a bargain piece of cotton lawn which cost me the princely sum of £2 at the Craft 4 Crafters show last month.

I absolutely love this pattern. The only change I made was to alter the construction of the back opening in order to attach the lace effect zip on the outside.

Advent Calendar Blog Hop Day 13

Welcome to Day 13 of the Advent Calendar Blog Hop. To see the other days in the Advent Calendar please visit Jo at Serendipitous Stitching.
Jo asked us to share a picture of something festive that we had made. I haven't actually managed to stitch any new ornaments for this year, so in true Blue Peter fashion, here's one I made earlier:-

I did make this though - a kitschy mid-mod style wreath for the front door:-

Jo also asked us to share how we spend Boxing Day. Apart from eating left-over turkey (and doesn't everyone do that?), we mostly spend Boxing Day playing board games and watching TV, although if the weather is good and the tides are right we sometimes go for a walk on the beach.

David took this picture around Christmastime a couple of years ago. The tide is only this low once or twice a month so you can't always get this far along.

Knitted Pasty Anyone?

I've been knitting merry festive pasties

As you do

Autumn

There is definitely a spot of autumn in the air so I decided to revamp the wreath on the front door.

The leaves are silk ones because I didn't think real ones would last very long, but the cones, twigs, chestnut seeds and sycamore keys are all real ones I picked up when we went for a walk this afternoon.

Gifted Gorgeousness - August

Yes it's a day late. Whoops.
For those of you new to the concept, Gifted Gorgeousness is a SAL hosted by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching, where once a month we show our gift related stitching and crafting.
This month I've got three things to share. The first is a little upcycled trinket tin I made as a Birthday gift for Julie. This started life as a tiny tin of mints. I ate the mints (sorry Julie), and then gave the tin a new lease of life with some vintage fabrics.

And here is the inside:-

The next is the gift I sent in the VSCyberstitchers Christmas in July exchange. My gift was for Nick (no blog as far as I'm aware), and I stitched him this set of a a Celtic bookmark and coaster (design by Textile Heritage) and sent it along with some local Cornish tea. Yes they do grow tea in Cornwall.

And here is the gift I received, by pure chance also from Nick, a fabulous stitched and framed monogram in beautiful teal green tones, and a set of stitching accessories in a fleur de lys design to represent his home in New Orleans.

Summer is icumen in

loude sing cuckou

I'm linking this up to the Tenuous Shoehorn Link Party organised by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching, the idea being to post some Summer holiday related stitching.
Summer, of course, is the busy season as far as weddings are concerned, so summer holidays are pretty much anything but holidays around here, and stitching time is severely curtailed.
You could stretch a point however and say that I spend my summer holidays in Cornwall every year ...
because that is where I live.
So here is a tenuously shoehorned picture of an older make, an upcycled (summer holiday)  souvenir of Cornwall tea towel bag.

And here is a picture of a bit of Cornwall that is just down the road from us

Our New Toy

We have treated ourselves to an early anniversary present and we took our new baby out for a spin today. Here she is enjoying the sunshine at Polzeath.

If You Go Down in the Woods Today...

...you'll find bluebells and celandines

It must be spring, so I've been busy making springlike stuff.
Here is a little beaded bracelet made using AB beads. They really catch the light when it moves...

and here is a very springlike skirt.

Oh dear, should have pressed it before I took the picture.
Here's the back story. A little while ago I acquired, via a friend, a bag of fabrics and other assorted sundries from an ex-seamstress who was destashing. There was a lot of lining fabric and enough skirt zips to open my own haberdashery, and also two glorious 2yd lengths of floral fabrics that feel like glazed cotton. I have no idea of the provenance of these fabrics (no clues helpfully printed in the selvedges either), but from the patterns and colours, and the fact that they were cut in yards not metres, I'm hazarding a guess at 1960s. I could be completely wrong of course. It has been known to happen.
Anyway this skirt was made from one of them.
When I showed my husband my lovely sunny new skirt he said "Hmm, it's a bit flowery isn't it".

Wait till you get a load of the other one mate.

Bwa ha ha. Mine is an evil laugh

Finally, a couple of little zipped pouches I made following this tutorial from SewCanShe.

Yes, one is made from offcuts from the skirt. No, the other isn't from the 2nd length.
These are not as easy to make as you might think (didn't help that I had to adapt for shorter zips than those suggested) and these two are decidedly dodgy in the corners. The third one came out just fine, but I gave that to a friend for her birthday and forgot to get a picture so you'll have to take my word for it.

Enjoying The Spring Sunshine

We've had some lovely sunshine recently. On Sunday we had a day out to a very nice craft show (no pictures but some beautiful work on display) and afterwards we went for a walk at Bedruthan Steps

In other news I've been making some more of my little coin purses, and these are now listed in my Folksy Shop.

Naomi has listed some of her pyrography in her shop too.

Beach-combing Jewellery

Naomi and I went to a workshop yesterday on making jewellery from sea-found objects. It was great fun. Here are a few of the pretties I made. At last a use for the sea-glass mountain in the conservatory!

Also, just for fun, a cuddly skull I made today. I think we should probably call him Sir Skull, because he looks rather aristocratic

A Rose in Winter

Not, admittedly, the most spectacular rose I've ever seen, but flowering. In my garden. In January.

The frogs are spawning too, spring must be coming.

Flowers and a Finish

But first for those of you who were left wondering, the superhero in the previous post was Iron Man.

Spring has sprung in my little corner of Cornwall and I took these snaps in the garden last week
The earlier flowering of my camellias is covered in blossom this year (I don't know the variety, it was in the garden when we moved in)

There are bluebells and primroses (we are all going to pretend we can't see the stinging nettle to the left of the picture OK?)

Some beautiful forsythia

And this mystery blossoming tree which has appeared where we thinned out a much bigger shrub that must have been hiding it.

The finish is a small sampler with a quote from "Shaun of the Dead".
If you are offended by four letter words then:-
a) you've probably never seen Shaun of the Dead, and
b) you really shouldn't scroll down.
Here in the best Mr X Stitch tradition is a cute picture to stop you scrolling too far and accidentally seeing the sweary stuff

(I love vintage greetings cards)

If you are still with me.

Shaun of the Dead Sampler, chart from Capes and Crafts, stitched on Kiwi Illusions  28ct Snowflakes and Ashes. Stitched more or less as charted, except that I moved some of the blood splats around to make it slightly smaller so that it would fit on the fabric, and I capitalised the w at the beginning because it would have bugged me otherwise

Nothing To See Here

I've got two stitchy finishes and I can't show either of them because one is for a Birthday present and the other is my Monthly Challenge ornament. I hate it when that happens.
We did manage to get a few cool photos of the eclipse yesterday though (despite the Cornish mist), so I thought I'd share one with you. I just love the symmetrical mathematical look to this one