Socks and Sheep

Strange combination?

There was a Valentines sock exchange on the Needlecraft Haven board. Good plan. Socks are not only lower in calories than chocolate, but they come in a wide range of attractive colours. I recieved my exchange package from Sheila, and not only did I get this most gorgeous pair of hand-knitted socks but also my very own knitted neuron!

Squee! Look at him! Look at his little dendrites! I shall love him and hug him and call him George Neville. (I'm a sucker for alliteration)

And the sheep?  Well sheep are to Barb as penguins are to me, so as it was Barb's birthday earlier this week I stitched this sheep design from Casey Buonaugurio, and made it into a pincushion for her.

I finished the Monthly Challenge too, but I can't show a picture of that until next weekend

Fuzzy Felt, Even More Felt, and a Surprise

Do you remember Fuzzy Felt? I used to love playing with that when I was young.

Having seen some amazing felt creations while browsing around on-line I was prompted to ask my friend if her Cuttlebug machine could cut through felt, and, on finding that it did, without further ado I hurried round there with my gargantuan stack of felt. An enjoyable afternoon later I found myself with a whole new pile of fuzzy felt pieces, and this is what I did with them.

Its official. I now NEED a Cuttlebug!

If you want to see where I got my inspiration, and swoon over some much much nicer examples, check out Beedeebabee's blog.

Even more felty goodness with the arrival from Amazon, hot off the presses, of this wonderful book. Felt Friends from Japan: 86 Super-cute Toys and Accessories to Make Yourself

The little felt animals in here (and they are little, most would sit neatly in the palm of your hand) are so completely retro, and so utterly adorable I could almost squeal with delight. No, thats not quite true. I actually DID squeal with delight. The family think I've gone mad!

Isn't that Babycham style deer the most kitschy fabulous felty thing you've ever seen? I am definitely going to make me one of those.

Last, but not least, a fabulous surprise in the post today when Karan sent me a present of a gorgeous chart, Dandy Dreams by Silver Creek Samplers, and this gorgeous stitched card.

Thank you Karan,  I'm touched by your kindness.

An ornament and a reveal...

...making finishes 3 and 4 for 2011.

The ornament is for the Monthly Ornament SAL and is a portion of the Fancy Work ornament from last years JCS Ornament Edition. It is stitched over 1 on a scrap of linen using left over threads and the shiny beads at the bottom are off a Christmas cracker making it a very economical ornament.

The reveal is for the January Monthly Challenge This months design was by Tra La La and proved very popular, there are lots of wonderful finishes in the album here, there are two pages so don't miss the 2nd one!
The overdyed floss is Chocolates from Carrie's Creations.
My finish is designed to answer the perrenial question in our house "Has anyone fed the cat?" The main part is finished like an ornament, with the hook part of a dressmakers hook and eye stitched in at the bottom edge. The second part is basically a very small ornament with AM on one side and PM on the other, which I finished with a beaded edge to give it a bit of weight,  and which hangs onto the hook.
The whole thing is hanging above the fridge, and the basic idea is whoever feeds Spike turns it to face the appropriate way so the next person into the kitchen can see if he has had his breakfast/tea.
Its kind of working, 75% of us remember to turn it around. Guess who doesn't! (Clue: Its a he)

A flurry of finishes

I must be on a roll this month! You might remember me asking for suggestions as to what to put on my Couer de Chat sampler in place of the charted "bienvenue", well lots of you suggested hearts, and Julie suggested a row of numbers. In the end, as you can see, I went for Julies's numbers idea, with a little heart at each end to fill the gap. I'm really please with how it has come out. Just have to wait for DH to make me a frame for it now.

Design - Coeur de Chat

Designer- Isabelle Vautier

Carrie's Creations - Old World Red on Raw linen

I've also been busy making these :-

A Bouquet of Zip Corsages

I had to stop because I ran out of pretty coloured zips. Time to hit up the chartity shops again!

On-line Inspiration!

Regular readers of this blog will know that Naomi is obsessed with  fond of all things Japanese, so I was thrilled to find this design last Tuesday, to go with the tiger from last year and the ox from the year before from the same designer, and I stitched it up right away.
It is backed with the adorable Japanese rabbit fabric shown.

Then later on Tuesday I came across a post on Lynn's blog showing some delightful felt strawberries she had made, and I just had to have a go at those at once too.

I gave them twisted cord stems and trimmed each strawberry with a tiny lace daisy, then I added a bow and finished them off as a little brooch.
To give an idea of scale, the strawberries are about an inch long

The Whole Clan

A few days ago Katherine published a plea on her blog for fellow bloggers to let each other see what they look like instead of using anonymous avatars, and I realised that while this blog has loads of pictures of the girls, its a bit short of pictures of himself or yours truly.
There are two pretty good reasons for that :-

One: the girls are beautiful, and pictures of them are unlikely to scare people of a nervous disposition (unless you count the undead halloween pictures)

Two: I actually take most of the pictures on here, so I don't tend to be in them, and David, being a professional photographer, spends most of his time at the wrong end of the camera too.

However in the interests of "putting a face to the name" here is a picture of the four of us that was taken towards the end of last year.

Be afraid.

Be very afraid.

What? You're still scrolling down? OK then.

Challenge Review

So, 2011 is well underway, and I've got nothing interesting to blog about. Rien. Nada. Zip.

Weather anyone?

Anyway I noticed some of you have posted "Review of 2010" type posts and, never one to miss the opportunity to steal recognise a good idea, I've created this slideshow of my finishes for the 2010 Monthly Challenge. For those of you unfamiliar with the Monthly Challenge this  is a SAL which runs on the Stitch and Stash board, and now on the new Needlecraft Haven board as well.  Every month a link is posted to a complimentary design available online. Everyone stitches their own version of the design and finishes it into something, then on the last Sunday of the month an album of everyone's finishes is revealed. Its a lot of fun.

Here are my finishes for 2010. Eagle eyed readers may spot that there are only 11 finishes. This is because we only set one challenge for November and December last year