There's a Narwhal in the Whirlpool...

...No seriously there is.  Look:

More narwhal themed Christmas goodies for MrCrafty.  The t shirt is actually the maroon colour in the first picture, my camera wants to make it a brighter red for some reason.  I used the freezer paper tutorial from MAKE.  I am quite happy with this as my first attempt, and now want to start stencilling more things, especially as I have a whole roll of freezer paper to play with!

The dancing bird...

A simple strip of weaving can come alive!  

A needle woven tapestry strip on a piece of wood.  Embroidery thread detail added for a wing and eye, with green wire added for legs.  Shake the bird to start the dancing!

Season's Greetings!

You are never too old to play on the beach!  Have a good festive season everyone!

Christmas Cassettes, Trees and a Narwhal.

For some very special people I have made some very special Christmas cards.  Firstly inspired by cheesy Christmas songs, cassette tape cards.  Taking a piece of white felt, this fantastic template, and my sewing machine, I created an outline.

I then hand stitched song titles in embroidery thread and stuck on card blanks.

Whilst I had my sewing machine out I remembered that it has some pretty fancy stitches.  So, on green fabric I outlined some triangles with straight stitch, and then added some stitched tinsel garland.

I really like the star stitch, with two colours overlapping.  I didn't bother to hem the triangles, as they were then spray mounted on to cards.  And finally, for MrCrafty, a Christmas narwhal card.  After all, narwhals are pretty amazing animals, a cross between a unicorn and a whale.  Using a (very blunt!) craft knife I cut out a narwhal outline in a piece of festive holly paper.

Used some blue shiny paper to fill the space, and printed a header and footer. 

Can you see me?

Now, everybody sing...

Getting colder...

At the end of last week the temperature started to plummet.  Even the new handwarmers that I'd made for MrCrafty had to be put aside for some gloves (pattern available here).

 

Beautiful, yet bitterly cold at the weekend in Balmaha.

From the top of Conic hill you could clearly see snow in the distance.  And when we woke up on Monday it was here!

I have a couple of secret craft projects on the go, hopefully I can share them soon!

Owls, seals and a Milo.

Off my knitting needles, for a friend's new arrival, an owly Milo.

I like how the Milo pattern gives you different cable options to personalise the vest.  I made the three month size and fit in two owl repeats.  My only issue was that I used dpns rather than circulars, and my tension must have been a bit dodgy, as you can see a line where the needles met.  Hopefully a few washes will get rid of these marks!  I think the owls look great, maybe one day I'll get round to making myself an owls jumper.  I've also been to visit some other new arrivals, this time at the Donna Nook grey seal colony.

These seal pups are adorable!

Winter is finally allowed to happen...

Seven years ago I lived in a very cold flat.  Seven years ago my mum taught me how to crochet granny squares.  I put these two together and had a brainwave, "I know, I'll crochet a granny square blanket for the bed".  What a great idea.  Have you ever started something, without quite realising what you are getting yourself into?  This was definitely one of those projects.  I previously blogged about this blanket here, here and here.  And last night I finally finished the blanket - hurrah!

Here are four things I have learnt about making a granny square blanket:

1. Pick a yarn that isn't about to be discontinued.  I really liked the tweedy look of Sirdar Donegal, what I didn't realise was that after I had brought half the quantity for the blanket, it was discontinued.  Cue some panic buying on ebay.
2. Make BIG squares.  I made this blanket from some rather cute and compact 10cm squares.  In hindsight I would have made my squares much bigger.  This blanket is made from 256 of those cute and compact 10cm squares.  They stop feeling quite so cute after the first 100 or so.
3. Crochet them together.  Crochet is way quicker than sewing.  Yet for some reason I started to hand sew them together, and then continued this way.
4. Leave a long tail on each square to aid joining them together.  For the majority of the squares, I left a short tail, sewed it in, and then had to use a separate piece of yarn to join the squares together, creating extra work for myself! 

So finally 256 granny squares, with 12 rows of granny stripe border, over and done with.  I have ignored washing and blocking, in favour of putting straight on the bed.  I can confirm the blanket works, and it is certainly very cosy!

All is full of love...

Some crochet cotton and PVA come together, based on this tutorial from Craft.

Be warned sticky crochet cotton is well, quite sticky.  I used a cocktail stick to move the thread around without getting into a big mess.

Tiny couching stitches hold it on to the card.  Perfect for a wedding acceptance rsvp card.  Maybe this will encourage me to make my Christmas cards this year?

Woolly stripes

When are stripes not stripes?

When they are a square.

My first taste of illusion knitting using the tutorial from Woolly Thoughts.  Illusion (or shadow) knitting uses combinations of knit and purl stitches to create hidden images, the possibilities are endless.

Loops and Lace

The other weekend I attended a Lace Workshop with the very talented Elizabeth Lovick. The class was as part of Glasgow School of Yarn, organised by the Yarn Cake.  Prior to this workshop lace charts were a bit of a mystery to me.

And now, I think I have now solved that mystery!  PS, do you like my blocking mat?

It was the free foam packaging in my new rucksack.  I just knew that it would come in handy one day!