Chester the crochet cat and Taffy the crochet bear help with Hedge Trimming!

Hello

It's that time of the week again! I shall be visiting Handmade Harbour for the fantastic Handmade Monday Link Party later but first I must start by thanking you for your comments from last week, I read them all but didn't get the opportunity to reply to them this week.  I love receiving them though, so please don't stop!!

Unfortunately no makes this week so I thought you may like to see what Chester and Taffy have been up to.  I'll just give you a quick update on the WIP first.

Hobbycraft
This project is still progressing slowly!  I have a lot of measuring to do in a moment which probably will involve maths too.  Ugh! not my favourite bit of the project, but very necessary.  I am hoping to go and collect the yarn tomorrow, providing the supplier has the correct colour in stock (no I can't tell you what colour it is yet!!!).

Kidsilk Haze Stripe Cardigan
Also progressing slowly!  I'm half way up both fronts now but I think it may have to be put on hold if I get the yarn for the Hobbycraft project tomorrow!!

Chester and Taffy
And now to see what these two characters have been up to.  For those of you not yet familiar with Chester and Taffy click on their individual links below and all will be revealed!

We had some major hedge trimming to do this weekend so enlisted the help of Chester and Taffy!  Or should that read hindrance!  Chester was quite useful as he is rather tall and could reach the high bits but as usual Taffy was up to mischief and no Uncle Martin in sight!

Onto the BIG machine now - just need to fill it up with petrol!

Uh Oh!  Look who's on the scene now!

What have you got in your hand Taffy?

No Taffy!  This is not helpful at all!

(There is no real petrol anywhere near this picture.  

NEVER put matches anywhere near petrol)

OMG what was Taffy thinking of!

That's far more helpful Taffy!  

Thank you for clearing up the mess!

Now what are you up to? You'll get stuck!!!

What did I tell you Taffy?  How do you think you're going to get down now then?

Perhaps best to leave him up there, he can't get into any more mischief up there can he?

Well somehow he got down!!!!  I tell you it's worse than having children!

You need eyes in the back of your head!!

I hope you have enjoyed Chester and Taffy's antics.

It made us chuckle and we knew what was coming next!

Hopefully this little picture gallery has helped brighten up your week or maybe

it will put a smile on your face for the week to come!

Have a good one, whatever you are doing!

Bye for now, see you next week :)

A Kidsilk Haze Fix!

Hi Everyone

Hope you have all had a good week, our weather has been a bit disappointing again lately rather a shame after that spell of sunshine we were all beginning to enjoy.  What about the Olympics?  Haven't we had some fantastic results?

I've had a very bitty week really, not getting much done at all.  I did manage to put out a few posters to advertise my workshops and I have just been preparing one for the Hobbycraft Store as I am doing a Crochet Flower Workshop in their Kingsteignton store on 14th September and I have agreed to do another workshop for Social Fabric over in Totnes, a new venture for a lady called Caroline so I hope it goes well for her.  When you look back at it, maybe I have achieved a something.

I wanted to share a couple of things with you.  I had a 25% off voucher to use in Hobbycraft which had to be used by today - so as it was raining extremely hard all day it was an ideal opportunity to pop down for a bit of retail therapy.  Look what I bought!!  It is so scrummy!

Three balls of Kidsilk Haze Stripe!!!!  I have no idea what I shall do with it but using it recently to make those fingerless gloves I absolutely love it.  I had to buy 3 balls just in case I found a lacey cardigan or jumper pattern, but a pretty drapey scarf would also be wonderful.  I wondered whether I should design my own jumper, although Kidsilk Haze may not be a particularly suitable yarn for a beginner designer to start on!!!  I'll let you know.

You may remember a short while ago I made 'Maisy' a little elephant.  Well I promised a dear lady I would make one for her to keep for when her great-grandaughter came over.  Unfortunately I didn't have enough of the cotton thread I used for Maisy so had to use something a little thinner.  As you can imagine she came out just a little smaller!

I crocheted her dress in Kidsilk Haze that I had left over from the gloves.  I think she needs a bow or flower in her 'hair'.  What do you think?

Here she is next to Maisy.  Maisy is about 3" tall and she is about 2" tall.  Both created from the same pattern written by Sharon Ojala.  If you click on her name it will take you to her blog where you will find the pattern.  Talking about names, any preferences for this little cutie?

Ooh one last thing!  A lovely lady over at Christmas Pie Crafts is looking for Friday Guest Bloggers she says
"If you are ready, willing and able to give it a go, please email me on christmaspiecrafts@virginmedia.com with Friday Guest Blog in the subject area.  Your article should be approximately 500 - 600 words, but please don't panic if that seems too long,  Let me know the date you would like to take part and also your blog and website address will be added at the end of your article.  Many thanks for your help and I am looking forward to reading lots of fantastic articles and sharing them with the rest of the crafting world."

So if you would like to direct a little more traffic towards your blog just get in touch!  It really isn't as daunting as it sounds!

Ok now I'm off over to Handmade Monday to see what everyone else has been up to and I may even have a little look to see if I can find any Kidsilk Haze Stripe patterns.  Have a great week everyone, bye x

A Kidsilk Haze Experience!

Hello

I'll try and make this a quick post as I'm off to stay overnight with my youngest daughter so we can  get an early start shopping tomorrow!  It is my eldest daughter's graduation next week and I need something to wear!

Thank you to all of you for your comments on last week's post So Much Going On.  Kendal is doing fine, sat here happily watching the tennis with Maisy.  Taffy and Chester are not quite so interested in it!  I'm going to try and make an origami tea light holder with my silk paper (when I get around to it) so watch this space!

Pottery workshop

This week I have been to a Pottery workshop.  I was really pleased to be able to have a go on a wheel, which was not quite as scary as I had thought it would be!  We also made some terracotta items using coils.  It may be a few weeks before I can show you the results of these.  Here is a picture of my attempt on the wheel though, but unfortunately as we had only one session we couldn't keep these :(

Not bad for a first attempt I thought!

Lacy gloves

Over these last few weeks I have been busy making some fancy gloves using Rowan Kidsilk Haze.  I am going to be demonstrating crochet at the opening of the new Hobbycraft Store in Kingsteignton!  I'm really looking forward to it.  I have used a pattern from the book love...Crochet by Carol Meldrum.  A pair of lacy fingerless gloves using Rowan's Kidsilk Haze.  It's been very interesting using the Kidsilk Haze, it's so light and floaty.  It takes a bit of getting used to as it feels so delicate you start by treating it very gently.  It is only after a while when you get the feel for it that you realise it is actually quite strong and you can work it a little harder.  You can take it out if you make a mistake, but I found you had to do it very gently, stitch by stitch.  I have to admit, I couldn't see what all the fuss was about before I used it but now I would definitely like to crochet something else with it.  I think I'm sold!

Here are the gloves without the lacy bits (can't turn photo round I'm afraid)

This is the first row of the lacy bit (it's turned the photo round again!!)

Although the gloves look very lacy and fine they are comfortably warm on your hands.

And the finished article!

Has anyone else used Kidsilk haze? What patterns have you used? What did you think of it? What is it like to wear?  Does it bobble?

I think the next item I have been asked to do is a slouchy hat, but this will have to wait until next week as I haven't got the yarn yet!

Well, I'm off up the motorway to Gloucester now, so I'll see you all over on Handmade Monday tomorrow evening.  I have a felting workshop and a clay sculpture workshop coming up next week, the last of the freebies.  It really is great having all these opportunities to 'play'.  It doesn't happen very often!  

See you all soon x

PS - Just out of interest, does anyone know why occasionally pictures turn around of their own accord when you add them to a blog post!  Is there any way of preventing this?