Friday 28 February 2020

Fibre 4 Fibres giveaway preview 13


It's Friday so it's time to tell you all about this week's prize that you could win if you buy a virtual raffle ticket or two in this week's Fibre 4 Fibres giveaway in aid of Myositis UK.

This week's prize feels quite spring-like to me. Let's hope it brings some warmer, dry weather very soon. The prize includes a complete set of all colours in the Stylecraft Classique cotton 4ply yarn - that's twelve balls in total. This yarn would be perfect for mandala making and amirigumi too, as well as lots of other knitting and crochet projects. There's also a Stylecraft tote bag to keep them in, along with a Stylecraft key ring and 5 gift tags for all your yarny gifts. Stylecraft have also donated a special 40th anniversary crochet magazine with some of their favourite patterns. There's also a copy of the Mason Dixon Coloring Book for Knitters which is guaranteed to give you hours of relaxation and pleasure. Thank you so much Stylecraft for your donations. 









Those cotton yarns are so fresh and pretty aren't they? You have the chance to win all this for a minimum donation of £2! Less than the price of a cup of coffee. Are you tempted to enter? Here's what you need to know. This giveaway will run this coming Sunday 1st March, closing at 23:55. To enter, go to my Just Giving page here and buy your virtual raffle tickets by donating £2 or more. £2 gets you 2 tickets, £3 gets you 3 tickets, £5 gets you 5 tickets and so on. You will need to leave your Instagram or Ravelry name, or tick the box that shares your details with me so that I can contact you if you're the winner and also put 'cotton' in the comments so I know which raffle you've entered. Your donations have helped me to raise £2178 for Myositis UK so far so huge thanks for your support! The next milestone is £2500 which is one quarter of the way to my target. xxx 


Sunday 23 February 2020

Little pleasures


I’m trying to enjoy the little things in life, focusing on the positive aspects of each day and it’s amazing what you notice that might otherwise go unnoticed. Here are a few of my little pleasures over the past couple of weeks. 

πŸ’— A clump of snowdrops in the garden πŸ’—



πŸ’— Discovering a new yarn dyer πŸ’—



πŸ’— Finishing a pair of stripy socks πŸ’— 



πŸ’— Enjoying Flo's company πŸ’—



πŸ’— A vase of sunshine in my kitchenπŸ’—



πŸ’— Finding my missing socks πŸ’—



πŸ’— Planning a new sewing project for the summer πŸ’—



πŸ’— Sewing another card wallet for my friend's 30th birthday πŸ’—



πŸ’— Catching up with Snoopydog and coming home with a pile of gifts πŸ’—



πŸ’— Winding some gorgeous yarn ready for casting on at the knitting retreat next week πŸ’—



Yes, I'm going on a knitting retreat tomorrow until Thursday. It's been organised by Julie at Suffolk Socks and it sounds like it's going to be a wonderful, woolly few days. I've been looking forward to it since I managed to get cancellation last month and hope that it will be the perfect tonic to spend a few days with like-minded people. I will of course try to take lots of photos and tell you all about it when I get home! Hope you have had some little pleasures to enjoy recently too. xxx











Friday 21 February 2020

Fibre 4 Fibres Giveaway preview 12


It's Friday so it's time to tell you all about this week's prize that you could win if you buy a virtual raffle ticket or two in this week's Fibre 4 Fibres giveaway in aid of Myositis UK.

There are some wonderful prizes up for grabs this Sunday, especially if you're a lover of purple.  The prize includes a gorgeous purple and gold floral sweater bag beautifully sewn and generously donated by my friend Michele at Three Bags Full. I love how she coordinates the fabrics and the lampwork bead on the zipper pull. There are 16 balls (a sweater's worth)  of Debbie Bliss Rialto DK 100% merino yarn in a deep purple/aubergine colour, a skein of Wild Fire Fibres Titus 4 ply yarn in the colourway Damson. This yarn is a luxurious blend of 70% merino and 30% silk - mmmmm! If you think you've heard of Titus yarn before, then you're right! Eden Cottage Yarns used to be called Wild Fire Fibres!  To finish, there's a pot of 12 beaded purple stitch markers. 









I told you it was a bumper prize - it's worth around £150! You have the chance to win all this for a minimum donation of £2! Less than the price of a cup of coffee. Are you tempted to enter? Here's what you need to know. This giveaway will run this coming Sunday 23rd February, closing at 23:55. To enter, go to my Just Giving page here and buy your virtual raffle tickets by donating £2 or more. £2 gets you 2 tickets, £3 gets you 3 tickets, £5 gets you 5 tickets and so on. You will need to leave your Instagram or Ravelry name, or tick the box that shares your details with me so that I can contact you if you're the winner and also put 'purple' in the comments so I know which raffle you've entered. Your donations have helped me to raise over £1900 for Myositis UK so far so huge thanks for your support! Hopefully this weekend will see the total get over £2000. xxx 

Wednesday 19 February 2020

Learn to Sew in 30 Minutes: Machine Sewing - a review





I have a lovely book to share with you today. It's called Learn to Sew in 30 Minutes: Machne Sewing and is by Debbie von Grabler-Crozier. Debbie regularly designs projects for magazines and websites and has a great blog Pretty Things. If you are wanting to improve your sewing skills, then I can definitely recommend your taking a look at this book. As well as containing 25 projects which build on skills learnt, there is also a useful guide to fabrics, what you need for a basic sewing kit and a wish list for extras and a guide to what's what on a sewing machine. Although I'm not a beginner, my sewing skills are quite limited, and most of what I can do has been taught to me by taking classes. So I was interested to look at the different projects and follow the progression of sewing skills. The projects are set out in 5 chapters: Knowing your Fabrics, Using Interfacing, Applique and Surface Stitching, Quilting and Patchwork and Haberdashery in Focus, finishing with one final project that pulls together many of the techniques covered. Also included at the back of the book is a pocket with a double sided actual size pattern sheet that you can use to trace some of the patterns.




I really liked the clear layout of the book, especially the Sewing 101 summary at the start of each project which explained exactly what skills you'd be learning, a list of the supplies needed to complete each project and also any new sewing terminology. I picked out four different projects to have a go at from the first three chapters of the book. I must admit that I was a little sceptical that I would be able to complete each one within 30 minutes, but I did! Each project has step by step instructions, is well illustrated with photographs and extra little tips from Debbie. It's almost as if she is sat next to you, talking you through each stage and holding your hand! 

Here are the projects I made...



First was a neck pillow. I made mine using fleece and instead of making one long tube, I divided it up into 4 roughly equal parts and once I'd filled one section with rice, I machined across so the rice would stay put. I did this because the one I already had was in one long tube and I find that the filling tends to accumulate at one end. I didn't add any letters to mine.




Next was a rope bowl. I have seen these over on Instagram and have wanted to make one for ages, so was very happy to see this project. I bought some cotton rope from Amazon and used some narrow strips of Liberty lawn fabric that I had to add some colour. It was a bit fiddly at the start (as Debbie says) but once it got a bit bigger, I was whizzing away on my machine. I wonder if it's possible to make a sunhat using this technique?





After that I made a card wallet. This was incredibly quick and easy to do. I haven't ever used snap fasteners before, so I found a cheap set (again on Amazon) and was surprised at how easy they were to use and how professional it makes your finished product. I can definitely see me making lots of these as gifts. They use hardly any fabric so are perfect for using up those precious scraps.






Lastly, I sewed a sleep mask. Having been reading quite recently about how important it is to exclude all light from your sleeping environment, I thought this would be a very useful thing to make. I have done free motion embroidery before, but even if you haven't, Debbie guides you through it.





Learn to Sew in 30 Minutes: Machine Sewing is a great book - perfect for learning many basic sewing skills. It would be a good gift for anyone wanting to learn to sew and make some really nice projects in the process. It's clearly written and each project is well explained, so I think that even a child or teenager would be able to work their way through it with some adult support and feel very pleased with what they've made. I know that I am!

Learn to Sew in 30 Minutes: Machine Sewing by Debbie von Grabler-Crozier is published by Search Press and is available now. 

ISBN: 978-1-78221-693-3

RRP: £12.99

Tuesday 18 February 2020

Is there anything more adorable ...


... than a baby in a bonnet?

WARNING: seriously cute baby photos alert!

When a friend asks if you will knit a bonnet for her baby, what do you do? Naturally I said yes and went searching on Ravelry straight away, looking for the vintage style of bonnet that I knew would appeal to mum. I eventually picked Morrie's Bonnet designed by Kelly van Niekerk. (She also designed the Puerperium cardigan which I've knit a few times now.) Yarn choice was easy. I chose Stylecraft Bambino yarn which comes in a gorgeous range of muted shades which were perfect for the vintage look I was aiming for. This DK yarn is 100% acrylic and is so soft that it almost feels a bit velvety. It's machine washable too which is important for baby clothes. It is actually exactly the same yarn as Stylecraft Bellissima, so you can interchange the two very happily. It's the yarn that I used to knit my Good Striations blanket in last year. Lots of beautiful colours to play with, including 4 new additions to the Bambino range - Bambino Prints. They work well on their own, or you could team them up with one or more of the solid colours in the range.





The pattern was very clearly written, and so quick to knit. Before I knew it, I'd finished one bonnet in Mellow Yellow and loved it so much that I cast on a second one straight away, this time in Denim Dungarees. I knit the 1-3 years size.





And here is little Dottie, completely adorable in her bonnets. I'm on the look out for a vintage cardigan pattern next. Any suggestions? xxx




Saturday 15 February 2020

Weather Watch update


This week I've needed some mindless crochet so it seemed the perfect time to join together the first few weeks of my 2020 temperature blanket. I'm going to start at both ends - the highs at one end and the lows at the other and then meet in the middle! I'm joining them in a silvery grey colour and like how it's looking already. 




Last week's low square might just be my favourite one so far! One more week and then the first and last rows of the blanket will be complete - I'll come back then and show you how it's looking. xxx




Friday 14 February 2020

Fibre 4 Fibres Giveaway preview 11


Thank goodness I have a planner these days to help me keep track of the days. Since I've been off work, I've found it very hard to know what day it is, but my planner says it's Friday so it's time to tell you all about this week's prize that you could win if you buy a virtual raffle ticket or two in this week's Fibre 4 Fibres giveaway in aid of Myositis UK.

There are some wonderful prizes up for grabs this Sunday. The prize includes a gorgeous OOAK skein of BFL 4 ply yarn dyed by Norah George Yarns. I discovered Tracy's yarn late last year and it is really, really lovely! So I was very happy when she agreed to donate a prize to help with my fundraising. She did more than donate just one skein though; she also gave two mini 20g skeins in the colourway 'Cuckoo Pint', some soothing hand balm with lavender, peppermint and frankincense essential oils, a Norah George Yarns pin badge and some Love Heart sweeties. Thank you so, so much Tracy for being so generous. Please take a look at Tracy's website and I'm sure you will love her yarn just as much as I do. I've added a coordinating project bag made by Three Bags Full, a skein of the much missed Natural Dye Studio's Godiva merino yarn and a loop of 20 rainbow stitch markers. 










You have the chance to win all this for a minimum donation of £2! Less than the price of a cup of coffee. Are you tempted to enter? Here's what you need to know. This giveaway will run this coming Sunday 16th February, closing at 23:55. To enter, go to my Just Giving page here and buy your virtual raffle tickets by donating £2 or more. £2 gets you 2 tickets, £3 gets you 3 tickets, £5 gets you 5 tickets and so on. You will need to leave your Instagram or Ravelry name, or tick the box that shares your details with me so that I can contact you if you're the winner and also put 'Norah' in the comments so I know which raffle you've entered. Your donations have helped me to raise over £1700 for Myositis UK so far so huge thanks for your support! xxx