Saturday 29 March 2014

Im going to Live AND I found the bag of new buys lol

Am feeling well enough today to have shifted the ironing pile out my way ( no, not to actually iron anything )
AND blow me,
there was my bag of new buys hiding beneath!
Who on earth put them there?!
YEAHHH anyway, here's some photos from the show and of my buys

Okay now this is what I'd like to make for my back door as a fly deterrent, but with strings closer together?
 I could always use old craft magazines for a more colourful look maybe!



I cant read who made it sorry, maybe it will show up better once its posted, but I really liked that shed used printed pages like that.
Reminded me of lace curtains for some reason.
 
 
 
I've included this picky above because almost everybody had dressed their stalls this way, displaying fat quarter packs in star shapes and I thought they looked so good. No, I didn't buy those!



These above are an alternative way of making a rag rug if you think about it, although these displayed were circular cushions. They were really striking and could be a lot of fun made with scrap fabrics and a less uniform colour pattern I reckon. They are simply triangles of fabric, stitched in position of course, a clever idea from the third world.



There were some interesting samples of stumpwork, example above, loved the hair (s) !
 
There was quite a large display of knitted 6' tall 'books' there, but I only took a few pics of some of the items shown, but this below was really lovely to see.
                    A bedtime story !
                        historical and mythical figures in stitch
you got to like that 'mummy' on the wall!  : )


The Centaur much different to the one I made and of course lady above, quite a bit different to my Medusa!!



            A fiery dragon, 'scaled' in 4" knitted squares.
And although very dark, this was an interesting white stitches on white embroidery - well I think it was white on white, come to think of it,
maybe it was cream on cream!
( It would work well, white on white though Mary Anne and Deanna!)
 
Okay so now to what I bought!

The beautiful batiks that jean ( made) me buy much better colours than shown here, yummmmmy stuff
The blue hoop is the circular knitting needle and heres the crochet hook too. sadly you cant pick out the lovely white on white fabrics, all differently patterned.

 
Oh yes, I got some Inktense blocks at the bottom there,
going to have to learn what to do with them, will have to read back through Shelagh Folgates blog!

 
And here's that natty Spider Tool above , hope you watched the You Tube clip in the last post, its a natty gadget that I reckon.
The circular 'skirt' below was made with the Spider Tool but it was ever so heavy, so wearing it might not be ideal - although it could certainly double as a chastity belt!
But the substance of the fabric would work really well for a bag or a rug I think.

I finally bought some weaving sticks too, they only sold them in a pack darn it, like I need any more wool to practise with! But I want to make a batch of head huggers using them to use up some of my yarn stash in a different way.

 
I also bought a book ( its upstairs and I forget its title, already!)  off this lady whose felted wool work was so pretty.
Mind you she was really frosty, perhaps because this was day 3 of a busy show and she still had one more day to go?
Or perhaps because Jeans greeting to her as we approached the stall was
"Oh its the blanket lady!" LOL
Mind you, she was right, the lady had started off by dyeing old wool blankets!
She was very po faced though!


~ and just because she's delightful and was practising her 
tambourine skills!


Right, my energy's run out folks, this recovery is going to be slow -
maybe a hot toddy will help -

crushed paracetomol
lemon juice
honey
whisky
and hot water
taken at bedtime : )

goodnight!

Friday 28 March 2014

Confession - I bought more fabric at the NEC Stitching for Pleasure show :)

Home sick with a barking cough, my head and body aches and I have fevers with shivers, but Dr assures me it is viral so no antibiotics.
Think he's wrong but it's only my body and brain so what do I know ha!

I wrote the post below on Monday evening and intended to take pics of what I'd bought at the show, but for the life of me, I cant find the bag of purchases, having tidied it away on sunday morning! So if I ever find it, the pictures will be posted later - unless Ive been burgled for my show purchases - or imagined buying them!
Is this how Alzheimers starts????

~
Naturally, it wasn't all my fault, the buying of more fabric, Jean was partly to blame since she pointed out the batik fat quarters reduced to £20 a roll of 10, within 20 minutes of us being in the NEC show hall ! Calls herself my friend too!
....and I couldn't decide which colour batch to buy,
so I then HAD to buy two rolls.......cough - cough, right?
My soupcon hexi star shapes are going to be all batiks after all.

The idea that this year I would make a big reduction in my fabric stash by actually USING it, well yes that is happening ( too slowly mind you).
But have you noticed, you never have the colour or pattern NECESSARY, to complete a project your making, to use up your stash?
You are always short of at least that one extra fabric to successfully complete what your making - right?
Right.
So that's why I HAD to buy the white on white fabrics, to applique the hexi BOM 2014 blocks and the hexi stars on to, so they were justified purchases, right?
Right.

Of course the fact that I bought a circular knitting needle, size 25 to knit a poufe with and an enormous similarly sized crochet hook too, to crochet fabrics with - well I can't think of anyone else to blame for that,
so I must own up to that!
Oh hang on, I could blame the lady selling them, Ingrid Wagner, yes its her fault I bought those then.
http://uk.images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=A7x9UnH0mjVTN1MAuut3Bwx.;_ylu=X3oDMTBsZ3ZhODNnBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2lyZAR2dGlkAw--?_adv_prop=image&fr=yhs-ironsource-fullyhosted_003&va=ingrid+wagner+big+knitting&hspart=ironsource&hsimp=yhs-fullyhosted_003

I also bought a natty tool called a Spider Tool ......... the link below shows how you use it. I can see circular bowls, wristlets and outlining for rug making when I get round to using it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdm_Uc2MXow

Okay back to looking for my bag of purchases!

Friday 21 March 2014

Solar powered garden 'pal'......?


I simply had to take a picture of this, which is currently for sale in the B&M stores priced at £4.99.
At that price I'm sure this is not going to necessarily be of er,
 superior quality lol

Now at first glance its quite, shall we say, arresting ............
but can you imagine what the hell it will look like,
sat at the far end of your garden at night, when the solar lights light up and those huge glass eyes stare in your direction?!
lol

Sunday 16 March 2014

Soupcons quilt along ~ a start but just as the final part is published lol

 
 

I couldn't resist any longer and have had to stitch some alternative hexis : )
Nip across to Karen H's blog to get a flavour for why : )

http://faeriesandfibres.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/soupcon-quilt-along-part-6.html

http://faeriesandfibres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/how-do-i-love-hexagonslet-me-count-ways.html

I blame having to wait till march end, for my next Hexi Blog BOM pattern  lol
but Karen's generous and remarkably informative tutorials and her willingness to share ideas has pulled out my creative gene and scrap bag!

Saturday 8 March 2014

GYB Wins and some links worth a look at : )

I've been lucky enough to win a couple of items on the recent GYB 2014 Blog tour and they both arrived yesterday in the same post,
different envelopes of course though lol
 

Beth kindly sent me 4 yummy fat quarters in the most smashing colours : )

 http://bethstrand.wordpress.com/ 

 
Lovely Shirlee of
http://shirleestuff.blogspot.co.uk/   sent me this really delightful, beautifully made little nostalgic hanging too, how lucky am I!
 

 
 
For those of you stitching hexis now or who are planning to,
or likely to lol please take a look at the stitching advice here, its something I hadn't considered but then there's so much else on there you will enjoy too!
 
http://faeriesandfibres.blogspot.com

And then do yourself a favour and read this touching post too please,
There is not only the most beautifully stitched little babies dresses but just read why they have been made and for whom ........

http://mosaicmagpie.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/above-all-other-voices-she-listened-to.html


More hearing aide danglies ~ March Hexi BOM

 
More hearing aide dangly decorations  ........... now I wait to see whether they encourage the child to wear her hearing aides and if so, I suspect I will be making more for some of the other little girls too.

I also made a fairly simple but pretty fabric covered box for the lass to keep them in, but the Peri teacher picked it up before I could take a picture and she was so eager to take them to the child she chased off with them all lol

Its as cheap to pick up necklaces at charity shops as buying new beads for this kind of thing, they frequently provide beads and links too and broken jewellery is even cheaper of course - recycling at it's best lol




I'm ahead of myself with the March Hexi BOM above, a shamrock but infact an even luckier, four leafed clover! Mind you I'm still stitching the January snowflake on a backing fabric so I'm only ahead in my minds eye!

Sadly the greens haven't shown up so well here, so I will take another pic in the daylight, perhaps in the sunshine that's forecast for over the weekend!
Fingers crossed - bring on the sun!

Wednesday 5 March 2014

Hearing aid decorations

 
These are a couple of prototype hearing aid decorations I put together at work today, for a child who won't wear her hearing aids,
the idea being to encourage her to wear them by jazzing them up abit!
So I'm to make several pairs now for her to wear.
The blue and burgundy bow is her school uniform colours and she will have one on each hearing aid.
Much like earings, she can swap them after school and wear the glitzy beads.
You can get all manner of clip on figures like mini lego men and cartoon characters too, neat eh!
Oh and I had a faff with the dysfunctional heart lol but think it does need enlarging into a better shape or taking it apart!

 
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