Still No Knitting...

Yup, sadly no knitting, part of this is due to a certain game on a certain game console that keeps me and Hubby learning spells and traipsing around a magical castle till stupid o'clock! Its fun but I'm shattered and I cant knit and play at the same time :-(

Anywho I did manage to do some up cycling! I really wanted to put up lots of photos but the type of frames I wanted were very expensive so I had a root around in the loft and this is what I came up with..

I started with some old frames. Hubby got these from an office he was refurbishing, they were throwing them away but he really liked them. They graced our walls for a few years before we had the kidlets and photos replaced art.

I rubbed them down and primed and painted them.

I cut some card to fit the frame and mounted my favourite photos. I wanted to use the pretty corner holders that you get in posh photo albums but I couldn't find any! I used acid free double sided craft tape in the end.

A quick clean of the glass, and I was done!

I am so happy with this, I have more frames knocking about so I think I will be doing this again!

See you soon

Last Minute

Its the Birthday of a dear friend today and I had bought her some gifts that I thought she would like but decided at the last minute that I wanted to make her something too. I happened to have some jars and had just stocked up on sugar so I made a sugar scrub. From decision to gift wrap it took 30 minutes tops!

3 cups sugar
1 cup oil
few drops scent (I chose lemon)

Mix together

Jar up. Done! If I had had more time I would have printed a smarter label but I pretty much spooned it in the jar, wiped it down, stuck on the sticker, wrapped it and went to see my friend!

Oh and just a little peek at Monkey Girl

My little knitter...so cute!
See you soon

Pillowcase Dresses

Hello and happy Monday!

I have made my first dresses this weekend and I am oh so very proud! They are just pillowcase dresses and not massively difficult but I made them myself and it has raised my confidence so much. I am going to bite the bullet and get out the patterns that have been gathering dust with the reams of material I bought weeks ago! I don't like getting things wrong but its getting to the point where I wont do anything for fear of it not being right, so I am turning over a new leaf and getting stuck in! If it goes wrong who cares? No one needs to know and how do you learn if you don't try new things?

So any way... pillow case dresses...a million and one tutorials and patterns online so here are just the photos....

As Monkey Girl is so tiny hers was made with just half a pillowcase. I cut it in half ripped the seams and rejigged them so the tube of material was the right way round and carried on as with Freckles dress.

I have plans to make them two more each after a choice EBay buy of "vintage" pillowcases! I will also have enough to make some summer bags...exciting times!!

See you soon

Why are pirates called pirates???

Cos they ARHHHH!!!
Yeah I know you've heard it, but it still made you smile right?

Monkey girls preschool had a pirate party today, why? I'm not sure but they all had fun so it was worth it! I was lucky that we already had a costume that we got for Freckles when she was a tiddler, luckier still that Monkey girl is so tiny and it still fits her! (its 12-18 months and shes 3!) Look how cute she looked...

Ok, maybe its a touch on the small side but it looked good!

The only thing that we were missing was an eye patch and she really wanted one, so what Monkey wants Monkey gets!

So out came the needles..4.5mm as they were nearest to hand and palm sized ball of black DK

I cast on 16 st

Knit row

Purl row

K2tog, knit to last two st, K2tog

Purl

Repeat last 2 rows till 2 st left

K2tog

cast off and weave in ends

measure enough yarn to wrap round head and attach to top two corners. I used two pieces so it could be tied. Elastic would work too but I was tired by this point!

That's it, done! Here it is gorgeously modelled by hubby

See you soon!

I even amaze myself sometimes....

Yes, it's true, I have managed to finish a knitting project! One with cables no less! Uber proud of myself today!

I had a hissy fit yesterday when I didn't have the buttons I wanted to finish them off, so I had a strop around, spray painted a picture frame, took monkey girl to nursery and then realised...duh..knit some! So I did and very pleased I am too :-)

The pattern is this one by the way!

See you soon with more fancy dress making and the above mentioned picture frame!

Upcycling- Holes to Hats

Whenever a tshirt gets a hole in (a regular occurrence in this house for some reason) I put it in my to do pile ready to reuse the material. The pile was over flowing so I finally started to do something about it today!

Really simple to do too...just how I like it!
Lay out a tshirt and draw around a hat. I used the bottom edge of the T as the bottom of the hat so I wouldn't have to seam it!

Sew right sides together, turn inside out and DONE!! Told you..easy peasy!

Knittingwise there is some progress...

One gauntlet...one on the needles still!

and a hat! There is a neck warmer to go with the set too that I am considering but am a bit bored with the cabling at the mo so might do a different project in between!

Lastly, I finally took a photo of my sewing corner!

Just enough room for what I need it for! (do you like my side table/sewing stool??)

See you soon!

Man Down...

We are having an accident prone month, by we I mainly mean #2-my monkey girl.

Cute huh?

Anyways... last Saturday she was climbing on a climbing frame and decided to jump off...from about 6 feet up...onto a concrete floor...and shes 3...
luckily (for her) I was next to where she was climbing (as I know what she is like) and managed to catch her arm and lower her gently to the ground...well so was the plan, unfortunately there was a metal bar between me, her and the floor. So Monkey Girl had a slightly rougher landing than I planned but got up and ran to climb again and mama spent the afternoon getting x-rays and a week of doing no knitting! No breaks but muscle and nerve damage, ouch.

Then when dancing at Grandmas she spun herself dizzy, fell over and got a nice hearth shaped bruise across the top of her butt cheeks.

Then she fell out the bath...nice bruised leg.

Then yesterday..the worst sound in the world...BUMP, BUMP, BUMP and SCREAM. Thank God for the scream though. Yep down the stairs she had gone, from the very top to the very bottom

Egg head

and this was after doing the same at Christmas with slightly messier results

Oh, look same place!! (sorry for pic quality its a mobile)

And lastly today, Monkey Girl was on the other end of the pain, she gave poor quiet #1, my Freckles, a split lip by throwing a book at her!

All in all not a lot of knitting or crafting getting done...

See you soon with better luck I hope!

Looming Marvelous!

Look what my lovely darling hubby made me!! My very own loom! Its very basic and knitting productivity will be limited but we have ideas on how to make changes/improvements. He will hopefully make a loom with the pegs in a circle/rectangle with a hole in the middle for knitting in the round too, its all in the drawing board of his mind!

The loom itself was easy to make, just an off cut of wood (rescued from a skip at work!) and some wooden dowels. In this case 15mm dowels were used, it makes for a loose knit when DK weight is used so will be using bulky or perhaps fabric strips in the future.

This is the wood marked out for drilling, there are 12 pins along the top edge, 8 along the bottom and then 2 at one edge. This gives three options of knitting...cool hey?

The pegs have a hole drilled through the bottom and a loop of wool is passed through. Wind your wool in and out of each peg, back and forth across the board to till the pegs are full then simply lift each peg and slide the loops off the peg on to the yarn. (make sure the yarn is knotted at the bottom so the loops don't fall off the end!)

In progress

Finished sample, it looks loose but is actually a fairly firm fabric with little movement. I thought it might make a cute potholder!

I am off to experiment with different yarns and tensions. Will update with any progress!

See you soon x