Friday 30 March 2007

No thrifting fun today

:( Things conspired against me today and I didn't get to go to the local charity shop. I wonder what I missed out on. Ah well I'll just have to hope that whatever treasures there are will still be there on Monday.
So what can I share today instead....
Well here's a scarf that I knitted for a dear friend who I met off 43Things. She admired the scarves that I did as Christmas presents so how could I not make her one of her very own?

I sent her some beaded magnets of her name and a banana (don't ask) some Scottish sweeties and a Scotland babushka (sp) but totally forgot to take pictures of them - slapping self on forehead. Have to admit when she emailed me to thank me for the stuff I didn't know what a babushka was but worked out that she meant what we call a headsquare or headscarf. Culture differences again I suppose :D

Thursday 29 March 2007

Blobbing blobs

or as the case actually is bleeding stencil lines :(
Today I had a major lie in as I didn't even crawl into my bed until 6am. My own fault, was pulling an all nighter to get my Uni essay finished. Was so cold I didn't even realise I was cold until I got into bed next to a lovely toasty warm him indoors. You have to love a man who wakes up that early in the morning (probably by my radiating coldness - honest I didn't touch him!) and pulls you to him to try and warm you up enough so you can go to sleep.
Anyway once I'd had a few hours sleep the craft bug in me that has had to be horribly suppressed this week due to said essay sprang forth and I went on a bit of a craftfest. I love stencilling shirts and wee one and I had come up with the plan with doing a shirt for her friend who's birthday it was today. (Yes I know leave it till last minute) As you will see from my post title I've been having a few issues with stencil bleeding. I can't work out what's going on though as one shirt will be absolutely fine then the next one will bleed. Very frustrating. So this is the shirt we did today for wee one's friend


But wait the crafting did not stop there. I owe a lovely lady from craftster a shirt so that was painted today too, no pics as yet and again there was a bleed :( I could cry honestly I really could. Him indoors and the small people think I'm too much of a perfectionist - maybe I am but when you're giving it to someone else you like it to be the best you can do no?
This is the cutest wee bear that she sent me as a swap for the stencilled shirt. Here she is overseeing my stencil cutting skills


So after all that cutting and painting I finally sat down and devoted the time to sew together the polar bear that I knitted for wee one before Xmas - yes I know bad mummy :( And here he is...




He's my first attempt at a knitted soft toy and I think I should have popped a bit more stuffing into his belly as his legs look out of proportion now but she loves him and he's already been named Poley and has been taken off to bed with her tonight. :D

So tomorrow is thrifting day. Our local charity shop only opens two days a week, Monday and Thursdays and as I missed Monday due to writing THE essay I'm off to shop tomorrow so here's hoping I have some good finds to share tomorrow.

Tuesday 27 March 2007

Examples of my craftwork

Work makes it sound like a chore when in fact I enjoy making things...hey there's a notion maybe some people enjoy their jobs!
Anyway this last Christmas (ok obviously before Christmas) I decided that the majority of my gifting was going to be home made items. Seemed like a good idea at the time and from subsequent comments it would appear that the majority of my work was not done in vain.
So here's a couple of piccys of the things I did.


A deluge of scarves - well I'd only just started knitting again and they are one of the easiest things to make.


A stencilled t shirt for my eldest nephew.


A stencilled shirt each for my big bruv and sil.



Yet another t shirt, this one for the youngest nephew

And some cute handwarmers.

There were other things but numpty that I am I didn't take pictures of it all.

Here we go

Well I'm new to this blogging malarky as you will no doubt discover with my slap dash attempts of blogging but bear with me as I hope to use this blog to share all the crafty and thrifty goodness that comes my way. I was brought up in a house where most of our clothes were home made/knitted and if something broke then you tried your best to fix it because there was no money to just pop out to the shops and buy a new one. So despite my teenage rebellion when "I just want to wear something from the shops!" I have since returned to the "I could make that myself" frame of mind (especially since having my own small people) and love nothing better than rumaging around in our local charity (thrift) shops to find myself something wonderful.
Recently I have discovered fascinating sites online such as craftster.org and from various searches in the vain attempt of re-teaching myself crochet I have stumbled across some wonder blogspots. Wow I thought they're just like me so here I am. With my own shiny new blog :D