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!