More to show

The school holidays started here at the end of last week, so in the week up to them, my evenings were spent frantically stitching little gifts for various teachers. I ended up with these, and already have instructions from Alexander to make him an identical yellow one as that’s his favourite!



I think my next felty foray will have to be a candle mat – have you seen the gorgeous one that Theresa made?

Then on Monday, I arrived home to find that a large parcel had arrived for me from Gabriela in Chile for the amigurumi swap! Gabriela very kindly included a number of traditional Chilean goodies which were so exciting to open and examine and plan what to do with them.



This week, I’ve been stitching on (and loving) my first bargello project – I’ve done all the bargello bits, just the finishing left now!

Finally, something to share!

Despite the evidence of my blog, I have been making things over the last few weeks. Until this week, there was a lot of mad crocheting for two swaps. Now that the swap parcels arrived at their destinations, I can show you what I've been making.

First up is the Hippy Chick Monkey I sent to Amber in the June amigurumi swap on Flickr.

It's a hybrid of various amigurumi monkey patterns with longer limbs and my (not entirely successful) attempt at a pot belly! Not entirely successful as you wouldn't know it's supposed to have a pot belly, but it's cute anyway, so I don't mind!

After the monkey, it was on to this cushion I make for Alex in Mel's Cozy Crochet swap!

Both swaps were sent with a lot of other goodies which I managed not to take a photo of! You can see everything I sent to Alex on her blog, and Amber has posted a photo of her swap parcel here on Flickr.

And here's the wonderful array of goodies I received from Alex yesterday.

A gorgeous bag, hat, covered notebook, mug, coaster and hot choc, a pouch full of buttons, a bookmark, a pin cushion with a wonderful thistle on the side and a heart badge! All I can say is WOW! And the colours are all wonderful and really me and the yarns are beautiful and I'm completely gobsmacked! THANK YOU ALEX - what a wonderful swap!

On the plinth

I discovered One & Other this morning, via Flickr.


I love the idea!

To quote the One & Other website,

"This summer, sculptor Antony Gormley invites you to help create an astonishing living monument. He is asking the people of the UK to occupy the empty Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square in London, a space normally reserved for statues of Kings and Generals. They will become an image of themselves, and a representation of the whole of humanity.

Every hour, 24 hours a day, for 100 days without a break, a different person will make the Plinth their own. If you're selected, you can use your time on the plinth as you like. One & Other is open to anyone and everyone from any corner of the UK. As long as you're 16 or over and are living or staying in the UK, you can apply to be part of this unforgettable artistic experiment.

You can play your part in making this idea a reality - either by volunteering yourself, by telling others about it, or by experiencing it online or in the square itself."

In fact, I love the idea so much, I've applied to do it! Although I would prefer not to have a slot in the middle of the night!


So, what crafty thing could I do if I get my hour?

The way we were ……

One of the things that’s been left for me to sort out since we sorted out the loft is my stereo. Despite the fact that it still works perfectly, I replaced it at the end of last year as I just don’t have the space for it any more.

The record player had been relegated to the loft several years ago, and the rest was initially put up in the loft as I didn’t know what else to do with it, but now the time has come to put it on ebay. There is also the added point that I found all the manuals when we cleared the loft!

So I brought it all out yesterday and set it up in the bedroom – record player and all, and, with Alexander’s help, tested that each component still works.

We has great fun with the records! Alexander had been listening to Michael Jackson at school, so I was able to dig out my copy of ‘Beat it’ – the 7” single. And after Michael Jackson, I took a trip down memory lane, through my singles collection with ‘Drive’ from the Cars, ‘If I Was’ (Midge Ure), ‘Stairway to Heaven’ (Far Corporation), ‘Solsbury Hill’ and ‘Sledgehammer’ (Peter Gabriel), 'Golden Brown' (the Stranglers), ‘Paperlate’ (Genesis).

It was a very atmospheric adventure! Somehow, the playing of a record feels so much more tactile than playing a sterile CD. The background interference of needle on vinyl just adds to it. And then of course, I remember the teenage excitement and anticipation of going up to Woolies on a Saturday morning, buying my single, and then walking home again, to sit on the floor in front of my parents’ stereo and play the precious vinyl. I remember being puzzled, until I got home, as to why it said ‘Clear Vinyl’ on the sleeve of Midge Ure’s ‘If I Was’. You can’t exactly get clear vinyl CDs!

And now my precious, 20 year old stereo is up for sale on ebay.

It’s the end of an era - I feel quite sad about the whole thing. In the mean time, I’m quite enjoying having it all set up in the bedroom – I just have to make sure I don’t kick it when I open the wardrobe!

The post without an interesting title

I’m thinking of starting a new SAL! Anyone like to join me? It even has a name – THE RESISTANCE! It’s a SAL for everyone out there who is managing to resist Mary Wigham on the Needleprint blog. I feel like I’m not getting very far with anything at the moment, so there’s no way I’m starting that one!

So, I thought I’d start my own SAL – the only rules are that you stitch on a large project (BAP) one day a week! That can’t be too hard now, can it?



Thanks for all your kind comments on A Patchwork of Stars - I’m glad everybody likes it! I hope some of you give it a go – I’d love to see what somebody else does with it.

I was rather surprised at the end of last week when my blog suddenly began to get a lot of traffic coming from Craftgossip. Following up on that, I was amazed to see A Patchwork of Stars featured in a blog entry there – WOW!

I’ve also been a bit puzzled by the amount of traffic I’ve been getting on Flickr, I think at least partly coming from the Cyber Stitchers EGA group on Yahoo – did somebody link to my photos from there? I’m just curious, but as I’m not a member of EGA,I probably won’t find out unless somebody reading this would like to share?

And it’s that time of the month again – so here’s my pic for the Totally Useless SAL! I was rather busy at the weekend (the imminent arrival of my parents requiring all the downstairs rooms of the house to be spring cleaned in 3 hours), so I didn’t get round to transferring things into my fancy crystal jug - you’ll just have to make to with my jam jar instead.


There’s nothing wrong with the scissors – I’ve just got into the habit of popping them in there when I’m not using them!

I’ve also been doing a fair bit of crochet since I finished A Patchwork of Stars, but as it’s for exchanges, I can’t share yet. So here’s a couple of things I put together in Flickr, just for a bit of fun!

A Patchwork of Stars

I didn’t manage to stitch a biscornu for the SAL in May, but I’m back on track again in June!



A Patchwork of Stars 15 sided biscornu
The design is entirely my own, inspired by the way I saw the backstitched squares being distorted as I stitched together my 15 sided Snowflakes biscornu in January. I wanted to make one where the outline squares were important, with something simple to decorate the centre of each square.

I also thought it would be fun and interesting to use different colours of fabric for the different squares, so I kept the floss colours very simple.


Here are the details of the design. All stitches are over two fabric threads unless specifically stated otherwise. Three squares of each design should be stitched.

My biscornu uses Polstitches fabric as I had the different colours in my stash already - all are documented below. I'd love to see the fabric/colour combinations others come up with.


1. Cross stitch


Floss: #12 white perle cotton, Kreinik #8 fine braid shade 032.
Fabric: 32 ct jobelan ‘Rumbles of Thunder’ from Polstitches
Embellishment: 1 silver star sequin and 1 Mill Hill seed bead.

Stitch 3 concentric backstitch squares then one squares of cross stitches as marked by the black squares in the diagram.

The red square marks the centre of the design. At this point, I attach a silver star sequin using a bead to hold it in place, the needle going up through the fabric and the sequin, through the bead and then back down through the hole in the sequin and the fabric.



2. Smyrna cross


Floss: #12 white perle cotton, Kreinik #8 fine braid shade 032.
Fabric: 32 ct jobelan ‘Neptune’ from Polstitches
Embellishment: 1 silver star sequin and 1 Mill Hill seed bead.

Stitch 3 concentric backstitch squares then one squares of Smyrna cross stitches as marked by the starred squares in the diagram.

The red square marks the centre of the design. At this point, attach a silver star sequin using a bead to hold it in place, the needle going up through the fabric and the sequin, through the bead and then back down through the hole in the sequin and the fabric.



3. Interlace

I was very pleased and surprised at how this square worked out – the interlaced running stitch is perfect for what I wanted and it’s so simple to stitch.


Floss: #12 white perle cotton, Kreinik #8 fine braid shade 032.
Fabric: 32 ct jobelan ‘Imagination’ from Polstitches
Embellishment: 1 silver star sequin and 1 Mill Hill seed bead.

Stitch 3 concentric backstitch squares as in the diagram.

Next stitch a square of running stitch mid way between the two inner backstitch squares using white #12 perle cotton. Note that the length of each running stitch is 1½ times the length of each backstitch, ie. each running stitch goes over 3 fabric threads.

The interlacing is done using Kreinik braid by weaving in and out of each running stitch. Work around the running stitch square twice, once following the red curves, once following the green curves.

More information on interlaced running stitch, with diagrams, can be found here.

Attach a sequin in the centre, as for the other squares.



4. Eyelets

I really like these elongated eyelets in the middle of each side!


Floss: #12 white perle cotton, Kreinik #8 fine braid shade 032.
Fabric: 32 ct jobelan from Polstitches (can’t remember the colour at the moment – need to check when I go home!)
Embellishment: 1 silver star sequin and 1 Mill Hill seed bead.

Stitch 3 concentric backstitch squares as in the diagram.

Using the Kreinik braid, stitch the square and elongated eyelets according to the diagram, the needle coming up through the fabric at the outer edge, and back down in the centre.

Attach a sequin in the centre, as for the other squares.



5. Double herringbone


Floss: #12 white perle cotton, Kreinik #8 fine braid shade 032.
Fabric: 32 ct jobelan ‘Mummies Curse’ from Polstitches
Embellishment: 1 silver star sequin and 1 Mill Hill seed bead.

Stitch the 3 concentric backstitch squares as in the diagram.

Between the two inner squares, stitch a square of double herringbone stitch following the diagram below. Stitch following the black line first using #12 perle cotton. Second, stitch the second, red line on top using the Kreinik braid.

Attach a sequin in the centre, as for the other squares.




Instructions for making up a 15 sided biscornu can be found here.

Alternatively, all 15 squares could be stitched using the same design, if you particularly like one of those above, or if you don't feel adventurous enough to try the different stitches. And of course, each of the small square designs could be used on their own to make a scissor-fob or mini-biscornu!


I hope all this makes sense! If any of it is unclear - please let me know!


And if you stitch any of these little designs, or the whole biscornu, then let me know and send me a photo! (Email address in my profile!)


Now, what sort of biscornu will I stitch for July? Hmmmm.......

Woohoo – passing on the good news!

I just read today on Claire’s blog that this is coming out on 31st August!


That, of course, sent me off and running to Isabelle Vautier’s blog - I’ve been looking forward to this ever since I first read there that it would be coming! And now we know when!

The details – volume 1 (presumably that means there are more coming? And her blog post mentions volume 2!) of Isabelle’s collection of calligraphic hearts containing a whopping 70 of her fantastic heart designs!

And I mustn't forget that I also promised I'd buy myself this at the same time .....

Never again!

For the latest exchange on the Tiny Treasures Exchange, I had to make a floss ring tag for my partner.

It was my first floss ring tag and, at this point in time, it feels like my last! Yes, I enjoyed stitching the little design I used, but the finishing of the tag itself was rather a nightmare!

Perhaps as it was my first I should perhaps have made a square one that I could have whip-stitched together, but I chose instead to make an oval one and had no end of problems trying to get the outlines of the two sides to match up, even though the were identical to begin with! All I can say is, thank goodness my glue didn’t dry too quickly as at one point I had to resort to taking it apart completely and starting again.

Even the simple job of making the hole and putting in the eyelets seemed fraught and the end result isn’t quite as neat as I would have liked.

But at least the final result doesn’t look too bad!


My partner in the exchange was Theresa who emailed at the start of the week to say she’d received the parcel.


The design I used for the tag is one I designed myself. It’s part of a range of designs I’ve been working on since the early this year. My biggest problem has been finding the time to stitch my designs. Here is the chart - click on the image and you should get a larger version.


I stitched my floss tag on 32 count jobelan from Polstitches, the colour’s called Neptune. I’d originally envisaged the design stitched on white or ecru but as Theresa likes the colour green, I decided to stitch it on green fabric – I rather like the end result.

The final item in my parcel for Theresa was this.


As she says on her blog, she likes giraffes, so I made her one. And he/she’s so gorgeous I’ll have to make more. I have to confess it’s that first time something I’ve made seems to have appealed to Iona so much – she would pick it up by the head and wander around with it, not letting go! It was a wrench to send it to Theresa!



Ooh - and while I remember, there have been a few changes here at work and at the moment I have very little time left online. I think I'm more or less keeping up with blog reading, but I'm struggling with commenting! I need to find a new sort of balance between everything.

Monkey business

I recently took part in Claire's Secret Monket Swap and these goodies arrived yesterday from Ruth.


You can see that Munk the rainbow monkey didn't take long to settle in and was soon making friends with the local monkeys (human and knitted) and was even persuaded to share his sweeties with Zero-X1.

For my part in the swap, I persuaded Daisy to go and live with Sam. I can see from Sam's blog that she is settling in well too, although I think the chocolate helps!



You can see on Sam's blog. a pic of all the goodies I sent - as usual, I completely forgot to take a photo of everything I sent myself!

I've been keeping the post busy this week as I've also sent off my floss tag for the Tiny Treasures Exchange - that parcel has slightly further to travel but also includes this little mystery.


I don't know whether this pic gives away it's identity or not!

A Use for the Totally Useless SAL

I had an idea!

I read a discussion somewhere, can't remember where, about how some people use the odd cut off ends of yarn for stuffing toys. And as I was chucking some odd threads into my jar for the Totally Useless SAL, I had the sudden thought to make something at the end of the year and stuff it with all the odds and ends from my jar.

What do you think? I have absolutely no idea what it will be yet, but it will me made specially for that purpose and to celebrate the 2009 TUSAL! Anyone like to join me?

Having just checked the TUSAL info, I think if you've got any old needles in among your SAL contribution, you might want to remove them before stuffing them into something! The same goes for floss labels and other harder or oddly shaped stuff. Although it might make for an interestingly shaped and textured object - LOL!

Here's my (better late than never) May contribution to the SAL.


And here's one with a better shot of the jug I use for the photographs.


I have to confess that this jug is a good glass one that I got from my Mum or Granny when somebody was having a clear out and it's far too nice to be used as an ort container. It lives in my display cupboard and only comes out on special occasions (like TUSAL photos).

My normal, unseen, ort jar is an empty Bonne Maman jam jar - I love empty Bonne Maman jam jars - I use them all over the place!

Return of the Jedi Stash

Remember this, back at the end of March?


Well, look at it now!!


We have our bedroom back AND I can get at my stash!

The loft has been insulated, and we've sorted through most of the boxes and bags that came down, put a lot of stuff back and got rid of a lot too. Now that everything has gone back, I can hardly believe how empty the loft is! But I'm so pleased to have reduced the 15 years worth of junk! There's even space to put more stuff up there - LOL!

While sorting through all the boxes, I was really pleased to rediscover some of my stash from the 1990s when I first started stitching. Things like these magazines -


I remember falling in love with the cover project but not knowing enought to know what to do about it or how to stitch it. That may be different now.


And this one - see that dragon in the corner? I knew enough to be able to do something about that one.



And whatever happened to Needlework magazine?

Of course, I also found cross stitch patterns and a lot of books which I no longer want. Once I sort them out and photograph them, I'll be putting a lot of it up for sale.

There were also one or two odd things in the loft that I was really pleased to find.


I remember occasionally being allowed to play with this tea set when I was a child. I think the pictures are mostly fairy tales, but I've no idea where the donkey comes from, or what it's doing!

And then there were these.


Memories of summer holidays spent collecting cowries on the beach at North Berwick.

Mummys love

There's an apostrophe missing somewhere!

Mummy's love - love of a mother?
Mummy's love - Mummy is love?
Mummys' love - love of all mothers?

Mummys (plural) love (verb)?

Take your pick.

I made the above over the weekend - aren't they cute? I suppose they're a kind of substitute for this which I love, but somehow, I don't want to buy for myself (but anyone's welcome to give me it as a present). Somehow, it just doesn't seem like the sort of thing I should be spending money on.

Anyway, the dolls above were crocheted using 4 ply yarn following the Mummy's Love pattern by Simple Arts Planet.

Then, I was reading Kitty's blog post this morning and thinking about being a mother and also the things it seems to be easier to share online than with 'real' people. (Not that people online aren't 'real' too, of course, but how to distinguish between poeple you know online and those you know in person?)

It got me thinking, yet again, about something I've been sort of meaning to blog about for a long time. Even now, as I think I'm ready to write about this, something still makes me pause and I'm not sure what.

It is something I want to share, I think I just don't want to sound too self pitying, self centred or sorry for myself. That's not why I want to write this.

I want to write this to tell other people out there that there is hope, that post natal depression doen not have to take over your life.

There - I've said it - post natal depression. I suffered from post natal depression following the births of both my children. With Alexander, it was untreated and is the one reason why I only have 2 children and why there is a 7 and a half year gap between them. With Iona, I knew that I didn't want to go through it all again, so I admitted to it and was treated.

Looking back to last year after Iona's birth, for the first couple of weeks I felt like the stuffing had been completely knocked out of me due to the hormonal changes. I could very easily have spent the entire 2 weeks in tears. After that, I began to love being at home and being able to spend all my time with my little baby.

But by the time Iona got to about 6 weeks, I was starting to have the same feelings I'd had when Alexander was a baby. I would spend my day in a constant state of panic. If she was asleep - what would I do if she woke up? If she was awake what would I do if she cried? How on earth could I cope? Goodness only knows why I felt like this, but it was exactly the same with Alexander. And at the same time, I knew that I had no need to feel like that. Both my babies were (and still are) good natured, they wouldn't cry for no reason and if you dealt with that reason, they would stop crying and be smiley little babies again. But the endless worry and panic took all the pleasure out of being with them and with being a mother.

So last year, early on while the hormones were still mucking me about and I was feeling pretty awful anyway, I spoke to my health visitor. And she listened and was very good and kept a lookout for me over the next few weeks. And when the anxiety and depression returned, she sent me straight to the doctor who put me straight on medication.

I was completely and utterly astounded at the difference it made. I went from a vague hope that the medication would make me feel at least a little better, to having the anxiety and depression removed completely. Suddenly, I loved every second I spent with Iona. I went from thinking maybe I wasn't cut out to be a mother to absolutely loving it. I loved the time I had at home being a full time mum and joining in the school run with Alexander.

I would dearly love to have another child, but it won't happen for a variety of reasons. But at least, this time, post natal depression isn't one of them.

So if anyone reading this suspects that they or someone they know is struggling with post natal depression, please act on it - it could make an enormous difference.

Well, I think the blahs are on their way, at least I hope they are, but I don't know that I'm quite back to my normal self yet. I feel like I'm struggling a bit - I've just sat down here at work and written down a list of all the things I'm supposed to be doing. Usually I manage to keep track of things in my head, but I feel like I'm struggling a bit with it at the moment. I'm also struggling a bit to keep up with my blog reading - there always seem to be far too many posts waiting for me in Google Reader and it keeps putting me off catching up with them.

However, I am feeling a bit more positive about the crochet I've been doing recently and enjoying it a bit more. But, I do seem to be desparately procastinating over the floss ring tag I'm supposed to be making for the Tiny Treasures Exchange. If only I could get it finished, I've promised myself that I'll let myself crochet a certain amigurumi animal for my exchange partner.

Last week, I crocheted a monkey for Claire's Secret Monkey Swap, so that's ready to go out nearer the end of the month.

And as I was walking home last night, I suddenly realised that I haven't shown this to you.


I crocheted it from this pattern which I found via Ravelry. It was great fun to crochet! It's a stellated dodecahedron, that is, a twelve sided 3D shape but instead of having flat sides, it has pointy cone type things sticking out making it a kind of 3D twelve pointed star. As I said, it was great fun to crochet - the twelve cone shapes are all joined as you go along, and it's easier to make than you might think.

I thought Iona might like it as a ball or toy (well that's my excuse) but I rather think I like it bettwe than either Iona or Alexander. I put some bells in the middle, but, as I suspected, they're too squashed by the stuffing to jingle very much. I should take it apart a bit, and put the bells into something (like a plastic practise golf ball?) and stuff round that.

When I was planning this post yesterday, I thought I had no interesting photos to share at all, so I made this mosaic.


Some of the gorgeous flower photos I've seen on Flickr recently. Inspirational or what? My Flickr obsession continues!