Christmas Craft Bags

I realise it is the 24th of November but I needed to get a start on my Christmas crafts. I am knitting or crafting a lot of presents this year (as requested) so I need to get ahead on my wrapping too! This whole idea came to me while doing the mundane shopping trip to Tesco. Then I spied these plain red bags for 30 cent each  (also on a 3 for 2 offer!!) and my craft-sense started tingling.

Materials:

• Plain bags from Tesco or craft store
• Some xmas decorations (I got my snowflakes 8 for 2 euro in the euro shop)
• Some glue
• Xmas stamps (I got mine in the Art & Hobby shop for 2 euro)
• Ink pad
• Glitter

The first thing I did was to fix my snowflake on to the center of the bag using some glue like so.


Then I stamped on the  xmas stamps and decorated with some glitter. Its easy simple fast and I have lots of tissue paper to make the bags even prettier :)  I also think its a great idea to keep kids entertained for an afternoon. Here is my snowflake bag and I'm off to make some more.

It started with a bunny....

For my 28th birthday, my boyfriend asked me what I wanted. I thought about it and I said "A bunny". This, this I have come to realise was my first mistake. 

My second mistake was visiting a pet shop in town for fish food and I saw this little madam. The pet shop lady asked if I wanted to hold her, I almost gave in but didn't and I went home . A week later myself and himself where again in the pet shop. The little bunny was still there, all alone in her cage. The pet shop lady remembered me and again asked if I wanted to hold her, I again said no.......himself on the other hand said YES. This my friends was the the second mistake. The lady placed the little bunny into J's arms. She snuggled down and with big brown eyes looked up at him as if to say "Please don't leave me here". The little bun was named Berry and taken home that day. Our lives have never been the same since. This was the third and final mistake and that is all you get......3 strikes.......

The moment I described, that is the only time that Berry has EVER been cuddled, she is not a cuddle bunny. I am jealous of any bunny owners who get bunny snuggles. For me to have snuggles, I have to get down on the ground, to her level where she will flop out beside me and 'allow' me to pet her. 

Our houses have never been the same, cables are chewed like she has an addiction to electric shock treatment. Our books have been chewed as if she has a say in what we read, fantasy is ok but she is not a fan of cookbooks. Berry has tantrums like a 3 yr old, where she pulls DVD's out of the holder one by one,  LOTR has never been the same.This has occurred so much now that we have constructed our very own bunny warning, as seen below:

Berry is a sweet little bun when you do not get in her way or take away whatever she has decided is HER chew toy (it doesn't matter if its your favourite pair of shoes). She has bonded with our new second bun, Ninja ( thats a whole other bog post), so well that we are not allowed to pet him without her permission, lack of permission gets you bitten in the rear!

This all said, we spend so much time laughing at both of their antics and as angry as a bunny gets, its incredibly hard not to laugh in their face while their huge floppy ears are flailing about as they throw things. It is impossible to shout at them, when your knitting is 'fixed' as they now lie on your feet flopped out, back bunny paws facing upward. We love our buns both and with the last picture how could you not. 

Make and Do Saturday

I do realise that this is suppose to be a 'knit' blog but I had to share my crafty Saturday. Halloween is my favourite holiday, I love the spirit, the costumes, the crafts and well, best of all the treats! So for the month of October, I am going to be 'crafting' some items, doing some pumpkin carving and of course lots of knitting. All of which I will be sharing on my blog.

All of this started with some browsing on pinterest.com , while thinking of a theme and a colour scheme I liked. Then it all happened at once, I went into a Euro shop and found a child's witches broom for a euro, a bunch of black roses for a euro, some doilies for a euro and a black frame for guess what....a euro. I ran home with my purchases and started on my destruction with glee. I ripped the broom apart, I wrenched the roses into pieces and got out some overpriced spray paint from the Art & Hobby shop. Tearing through my hoards under the stairs I found some glass jars I saved too. Now I had all my ingredients, I started making and doing.

My two glass jars were covered in the lacy part of the doilies and spray painted black. While these were drying I made my flower arrangement and printed out some subway art. When the paint was dry I added all of this together on chest of drawers along with our friendly house Troll!

The next thing I am really proud of is our photo display, though I still havn't figured out how to hang these properly but I really do love them. Lets face it, who doesn't like some cereal box art????? I just cut some cereal boxes in half, covered them in fabric / paper. Then I added some mounts and pictures. The ribbon I got for about 3 euro from The Woolen Mills and the buttons I already had. I just played with the ribbon etc till I found a display I liked.  The photos were taken by my other half and I just picked ones that went with the autumn vibe I had going.


Well, I hope I inspired you to get crafting for the month of October. I am going to leave you with my favourite picture of this little project and that is the pattern my glass jar makes when lit. Have (an albeit early) Happy Halloween.

*runs off to think up some bunny costumes*

Baby Blanket Bunday

For those of you who have seen me knit this in public, you will know how much I hated making this blanket. I hated the yarn, how it was knitting up and I was just generally bored. Well what can I say, its amazing how blocking changes a project. This blanket went from a gift I was ashamed to give away, to something I am really proud of.

The blanket by itself I thought was a bit bland as you can see here so I decided to add a monogram to the bottom corner. I shaped after about an hour of working out a chart for the letter L, I got down to working on it and it turned out really well and I know a certain lady who is going to be over the moon with this for her new daughter. 


Today I also made myself a new menu board for my fridge. Its basically a frame with fancy wrapping paper inside it. Then using a dry wipe marker you can write whatever you like on the glass. I imagine it is going to end up as my craft to do list but I like it :)

Oh and because you asked yet another picture of my bun and yes she dissapproves.....Happy Bunday Everyone.

Stash Busting Saturday

 Today was a rainy, horrible Saturday and I decided today would be stash busting day. For a long time now I have wanted to frame the last knitted garment I made my mum but I was unsure how to go about it. I'm not sure where this whole idea came from but the three above pictures are my new addition to my craft area. 

This item is  the flower scarf by Robyn Dilberto, its a fantastic knit and I made mine from half a ball of drops alpaca in raspberry. The brioche stitch allows this to be warm while giving this alot more texture then you would expect from a 5-ply yarn. I really do love this and I knew I would never wear it so I am glad this has now found a home.

The knitted section of T.Bunny Knits came from a number of different ideas but I will try and explain how it is constructed. The knitting needles at the bottom are cocktail sticks with one point cut off. I then added a bead that I use for stitch markers, by placing a small amount of glue on the stick and holding the bead in place for a minute. The small balls of yarn are bits of leftovers with the purple ball a small section of the DKC's homespun yarn. The letters were made by printing out a the words in a large font, using this as a template I cut these out in cardboard from an old ceral box. I then covered them in glue and wrapped them in james c brett twinkle yarn.  The backing is knitted from some 80's stash yarn that I inherited from my friends mother. The photo does it no justice here but its cream with multi-coloured embroidery yarn spun into it.

The final drawing above is my bunny logo that a wonderful artist named Liz Seaver drew for me. If you guys have the time you should have a quick listen to her music, there are no words to describe her amazing voice, even if I am a teeny weeny bit biased.  I need to fix these in the frames properly and the letters need setting, but I thought you guys would like a quick view into my idea for stash busting. I now have to cast on for the Contemporary Irish Knits KAL that is happening over here. I am aiming for Straboy but lets see how it goes :/

And for no reason at all here is a gratuitous picture of my inspiration:

September Knitting

September has always been a month when I get this internal burst of energy to be creative and start to knuckle down. I have no idea why it has become this way, maybe I am just conditioned from my years in education but I am more than happy to take advantage of it. 

With this new found energy in tow, I sat down and actually started using my Ravelry queue for its intended purpose. The projects are slowly ticking to the top and I actually come away with the feeling of being productive. As I am not working at the moment, I get to fully enjoy all there is about having a hobby, a craft of my own. I get to be productive while job hunting. I get to watch something beautiful grow and evolve before my eyes depending on my mood of the day and most of all the objects of my creativity brings other people happiness too, for example my recently completed baby knits pictured here.

 I now have my very first large stash of yarn, most of which have projects in mind but there are one or two that are still floaters. These are the ones that interest me most as they are yet to be pinned down. These are the ones from which my inspiration stems every time I go near my stash box. I have noticed, that even if I don't want to or feel like it, I find myself smiling just at the potential projects, gifts or even ugh's. 

With this new energy and stash combined, I plan my queue with people  that I care about in mind.Very few projects are for myself, so those that are will be cast on at the same time as gifts, for when that green eyed monster comes around. Or in the case of this week, my wrist gives in and I need to swap from heavy projects to lightweight. Doing this and having this craft does give me a sense of fulfillment that I have never had from anything else, even when the projects are ughs! Which I find to be amazing, in a time when people are unemployed, cutting back on spending etc.

One thing I have to say before I go, is that I would not have met the people I have nor have these feelings of fulfillment, joy or productiveness without having been raised the way I have by two very strong willed women. So to both my mum and my nana, a massive THANK YOU from the once uninterested child, the one who would never sit quiet enough to finish that teddy bear or hot water bottle cover. Thank you for passing on your knowledge, for having the patience to teach me. I only hope that one day, I can give something similar to a little girl of my own, though if she is anything like me, I will be long gone grey before I can get her to sit quiet enough. :)

~ Back To Knitting (Sort of) ~

I don't really know where to start here, I have not posted anything in a long while mostly due to my mum becoming terminally ill and then passing away earlier this year. After that I had no interest in knitting, blogging or anything other then work and home. So first of all apologies for the lack of anything exciting happening around here. Most of my projects are still as they were in February but some progress has been made recently, mostly because of a really amazing knitter whirl123.  So instead of a very long summary of the last few months, I decided to start with a short post on the crafts of this week. 

This week has taught me a lot of new craft related things, the picture above of some beautiful stitch-markers was by far the most rewarding. The picture does not do them justice, the blue stitch-markers are especially beautiful. Mostly this came about because I kept getting angry at my stitch markers stopping at 8mm needles. I knit quite a lot on 8mm+ needles so I just decided to learn how to make my own. I am very please at these results. 

 

Next on my needles at the moment is Snug by Hinke. This pattern is great and I can see from the construction techniques why it is so popular. There are a few things with this though the size is an issue as it is only written in one size but the many good people of Ravelry have many fantastic notes on adaptations for bigger sizes. This one below on my needles is my first Snug in the original size soon to be adapted for a 6 - 9 months size. All I have left to do is finish the hood and sew on the buttons. I will later post the technique I have in my notes on the detachable cables for provisional cast on. This saved me so much work when it came to the hood. 

Finally this week on my needles is the garter stitch baby kimono by Joji Locatelli. This pattern I adapted heavily for a gauge of 6 sts/inch on 3.25mm needles with DK yarn. Also I am putting a hood on the kimono and edging it in black. This pattern is great and easy to follow and  is quite fast for the size of the needles but it is tedious which is why Snug was cast on. This is turning out to be more of a coat then its original intention but I will decide if I like it when its finished.

That is pretty much my week apart from some craft related trial baking for handMaid craft day tomorrow. There will be some mini sponge buns on the baking stall from myself and please those of you who can come along, even if your not a knitter there is cake and coffee and oodles of fun to be had.