Yarndale inspired Mandala

I expect those yarn addicted blog followers amongst you can not have failed to notice that Yarndale took place last weekend, up in Skipton, North Yorkshire.

The first ever Yarndale was held in 2013 and from what I have read, was a tremendous success.  It is described as a "creative festival celebrating all things woolly and wonderful" and from pictures I've seen, it certainly lives up to it's claim.  One of the people involved is Lucy over at Attic 24 a wonderfully colourful, yarny blog which I always enjoy visiting.  Recently she posted about the Starflower Mandala made from a free pattern

found over at Zooty Owl's Blog.  It was perfect for a visual display she was organising for this year's Yarndale and a few other friendly bloggers offered to help her out by making one or two themselves.

I came across this event too late this year to be able to get myself up to North Yorkshire, as it is quite a trek from down here in South Devon! But, I have already put it in my diary for next year when I hope to rectify the situation. Anyway, I am telling you all this so you understand where the inspiration for my mandala came from!  I instantly fell in love with the colours and the size so decided I would make myself a bit of Yarndale!!

I have some gorgeous Planet Penny Cotton which is so easy to work with and comes in a range of cheerful, bright colours (Planet Penny - another wonderfully colourful, yarny blog!). There are about 18 rounds to the pattern so I chose just 9 colours, deciding to start with red through to blue and back to red again.

I made a start .... the first 4 rounds

Now up to round 9!

and I'm afraid that is as far as I have got!  So far it is about 10" wide from point to point.  I am aiming to work on this over the next few days but if I had taken time to finish it before I wrote this post I wouldn't have had time to write the post. To finish or to post? Catch 22 I think!!  I should be able to show you the finished article next week. Watch this space.

I would just like to share one more little snippet with you.  I have been thinking of doing a bit of dressmaking for a while now, but it's not easy making things to fit when you have a few lumps and bumps in the wrong places!  Anyway, I thought I would start with something simple and have chosen to make a sleeveless top.  First hurdle - to find a pattern.  I came across this one Sorbetto by Colette Patterns which is free to download.

It prints out onto about 20 sheets of A4 and comes with really easy instructions on how to print it out to the right size and easily matches up using those little black diamonds you can see in the picture below.  Here it is all pieced up and ready to go.

It was easy to work out which size to follow, once I had measured my lumps and bumps, and there were also finished measurements so you could chose the perfect fit.  I'm going to try making it first using calico so I have the opportunity to make final tweaks if necessary before tackling the real thing!
I'll keep you posted on how it turns out.

Off to finish my Mandala now, thanks for reading :)

Taffy, a birdie decoration and a pot!

Don't you think this is a stunning title for my post this week? :p  I couldn't think of anything witty to combine all three so just said it as it was!!!  No prizes for this one me thinks :D

Before I start I must thank all of you for your lovely comments on my Spin A Yarn blog last week, I have an Introduction to Crochet workshop this weekend, if it goes half as well as the Jumbo Crochet Basket one I shall be very pleased.  I shall be popping over to Handmade Monday later to have a nose at all your lovely makes.

Taffy hasn't been out for a while so we thought we would take him on a walk.  As usual he is into mischief, so took a bit of a tumble this time! (If you are new to my blog and are wondering who Taffy is, just click on the link to find out how he came about - if you enter his name in the search box on the left hand side of my blog you will be able to see what other adventures he has had.)

He didn't seem any 'worse for wear' though and all that messing about made him thirsty :)

In the pictures below you can see Taffy waiting for the steam train to come along.

If you are very astute you will see in the last picture we also saw the train heading back home!

Taffy was a lucky teddy!

I thought these snowdrops were beautiful, but Taffy decided to play a game of hide and seek!

Can you spot him in amongst the snowdrops?

You'll be glad to know, we did find him and he is now safely tucked up at home :)

We decorated our bedroom recently and whilst we were doing this we moved into the guest room.  This room is blue and white (mainly white) so it got me thinking that it needed a few bits of decoration to catch the eye.  So I popped over to Attic 24's website and found this birdie decoration.  

I hope you like my version of it. I adapted the wing and the flowers slightly.

It now hangs on one of the walls in the room.

I also made a pot for the window sill.  I placed a jam jar inside so I can pop a posy of pretty, fresh flowers in it for when any guests arrive

I used front and back post stitch and finished it off with a sort of rope edging.

I'm crocheting a little pair of baby sandals at the moment so hopefully I shall have those to show you next week, meanwhile, take care everyone and have a good week :)

x