A Bit of Sewing, A Bit of Knitting

As you may know David and I are photographers, so when I found this wonderful indigo-dyed, block-printed Indian cotton on-line I knew I had to make us a shirt each (yes, I know his and hers matching outfits are cheesy, but I kind of like cheese)

The pattern is New Look 6197, which I've already used to make the Sloth Shirt in this post, so as you can see it's an extremely versatile and very good value pattern.
I've also been doing a spot of knitting, and here are my new fingerless mitts

Knitted in Cascade  Heritage Print (colour - Tut), pattern "Bristlecone Mitts" - yarn and pattern available from LoveKnitting
A step or two outside the old comfort zone for me, as they are :-
a) 4 ply
b) Knitted in the round on double pointed needles.
I'm really pleased with how they came out though, and there was enough of the wool left that I'm knitting a pair of matching boot cuffs too.

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

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

At least around the front door.
I've decorated my wreath and hung it - white hydrangeas and silvered cones this year

And we've put out the pallet tree David made a couple of years ago, together with a new addition - a 3' willow Angel.

The tree is up in the house, but not decorated as the girls like to do that when they come home

August's Gifted Gorgeousness - Warning: Picture Heavy

It's time for Gifted Gorgeousness again - when we show our gift related crafting - for a full explanation see Jo's blog here.
This month I'm showing the gifts  sent and received in the VSCyberstitchers July exchange.
Here is the gorgeous sheep design pincushion I received from Margaret.

Isn't it beautiful? I just love everything about it - the design, the ruffly ribbon edging, that sweet little button...
And here is the little pillow I made for Linda.

I didn't have a pattern for this one, I saw a photograph of a similar design on Pinterest and sort of made my own version up.
Also in gift related stitching, a little something I made for Eloise's new kitchen.

And not gift-related at all, it was the Village Show yesterday, so here are a few pictures for you to enjoy.

Some of the flowers

 and pot plants.

Look at these stunning fuchsias.

Cookery Section: "Picnic for Two" and cakes,

jams, bread and children's cookery section

and some of the floral art,

and children's floral displays.

We did quite well, with quite a few individual class wins.

I got a 2nd prize with the little basket of peppers and aubergines front left in the picture, and a first with my cherry tomatoes, which you can see in the background.

Naomi got a first place with this flower arrangement. The theme was "Good Enough to Eat",  and lots of prizes for her baking, and art.

 Naomi's decorated cupcakes

One of her drawings

The overall prizes were a close run thing this year; Naomi was one point off winning the Most Points in Cookery Trophy, whilst luck swung the other way for me and I took the Most Points in Handicraft Trophy by a single point. I also won the trophy for Best in Show Art with this pastel picture

.
Bonus blog points if you can tell who it is.

Spring Has Sprung

I picked this posy of flowers in the garden this morning.

And made this little skirt for Naomi from a fun Japanese print cotton

I just hope it doesn't say anything vulgar!

Not Much to See for Gifted Gorgeousness in March

Gifted Gorgeousness is the blog hop organised by Jo of Serendipitous Stitching where we sho off our gift related crafting. Due to the fall of Birthdays and Easter there isn't a lot I can show here this month, but there is this plant, which was given to me by a neighbour a few years back, and is definitely gorgeous.

Also this little Liberty cord skirt I made myself, because the pattern (New Look 6843) was free with Sew magazine

That's about it for this month I'm afraid.

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.

Accidentally Alice

I was doing the food shopping earlier this week in a well known budget supermarket, and outside of the door they had a stand full of potted miniature rose bushes. Red ones, pink ones, white ones, and nestled right in the middle of them - this one!

All together now -

"Doodle de do de do de do, bum bum bum bum bum, 

Painting the roses red, We're painting the roses red"

In other news, here are two Van Gogh TARDIS cushions I made for Naomi to take back to her student house.

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.

Fail!

I learned a lesson this week, and that lesson was:-
Check the colour fastness of your threads before you squeeze a cold tea bag over your finished piece to age it.
Feel my pain!

This is what Dexter Morgan's Father Christmas must look like
Oh well, back to the drawing board
This month's challenge reveal will be slightly delayed
On a brighter note, I found these teeny tiny daffodils in a hidden corner of the garden. To give you an idea of scale, my funky little mid-century jug is about 6 inches tall.

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.

What's This? What's This?

I made a little wreath

There are children throwing snowballs

Instead of throwing heads

Jack Skellington bauble made by drawing with sharpie on a plain white bauble and adding a felt collar, otherwise normal decorations and florists supplies.

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

Dandelions Again

Given the one-woman campaign of genocide I wage on them in the garden I seem to have quite a soft spot for dandelions as a decorative motif. I saw this tutorial for "pomdelions" at Flamingo Toes, and decided I needed some in my life.
Plus I'd just bought a rinky-dinky gadget called a Multipom, which allows you to make multiple pom poms at the same time.

I repeat. Make multiple pom poms. At. The. Same. Time.

So, I knocked out a bunch of pom poms in less time than it takes to say "are you finished with that cereal box yet I want to cut it into circles?".
I left them a bit shaggy instead of tidying them up as per the multipom directions because I thought that was more dandelion-y, and pretty much followed the tutorial, except that I made my calyces from felt not crepe paper, and I hooked the florists wires through and secured with green tape rather than hot gluing them.
Here they are on my hall table. (Next to a less than awesome watercolour of Naomi)

Too much fun for words. Anything in this house that stands still for long enough will soon find itself decorated with pom poms...

I Need To Work On My Timing

Here is the scarf I just finished knitting. It's a simple ripple lace pattern in knitted up in Sirdar Montana.

Why yes, I have finished it just in time for the weather to warm up. Thank you for noticing ;D
I have now started knitting a nice little lacy cotton bolero. I shall probably finish it round about the end of October!
This year my camellias have gone berserk, so I thought I'd share a snap of a few that I picked and brought indoors. They were already in the garden when we bought the house so I don't know what varieties they are but I have two kinds, a very big, blousey, frilly ballerina pink one, and a slightly smaller more elegant cerise one.

Oink, Moo...

Strange title?
Oink. Sometimes I get the urge to make strange little smooshie animals. Does that make me weird? No, I didn't think so either.

Today I made this odd looking punky pig out of an old hoodie that used to belong to one of the girls years ago. He could do with being a little bit fatter but I ran out of fibrefill.
Moo  is the name of the company we just got our lovely new dinky little business cards from. I made the little holder from a scrap of felt so that I don't lose them in the bottom of my bag.

And I'll leave you with a few spring flowers from the garden. The vase is just a jam jar with a wrap stitched up from scraps of fabric and braid. I got the idea from Sew magazine. I'm thinking I'll make a few of them in different colours. Could be another use for the mountain of old jeans...