Le Challenge - Maritime

Oh dear. So today is the day to enter our 'Maritime' projects.

Only one problem - this morning, I still had nothing to enter.

NOTHING!

Unless you count a pile of maritime fabrics. Which I bought weeks ago, full of ideas about what I could make, worried that I didn't have enough fabric for all my ideas!

But then life got in the way. Work got busy. Home got busy.

There's not been much crafting at all in the past few weeks. Nor much blogging!

 

But never fear!

I managed to rustle up a last minute entry!

This is a novelty gift for Father's Day (so I'm really hoping my dad doesn't read my blog before I see him tomorrow!!) I used one of my maritime fabrics to make it qualify as my entry - two birds with one stone and all that!!

 

 

Not too bad considering I had NOTHING 2 hours ago!!!

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

For my sister x

Last weekend it was my sister's birthday.

I had bought presents, lovely crafty presents :)

But I hadn't made her anything.

I felt a little uneasy about this. I like to make things. And she's my sister.

I mentioned this to her, that I wasn't sure what to make her, because everything I thought of she could make herself. She said that yes she could make these things for herself, but would she?!?!

 

Then the perfect idea came to me :)

My sister has a sewing room (of which I am massively jealous!) and she has been talking about making pretty things to decorate the room for ages.

So I made 3 pretty hoops for her to hang on the wall :)

And  of course, a handmade card!

 

I'm pretty sure she liked them too!!

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Kindle covers

Good morning!

It feels like I've been making these kindle covers FOR EVER!!

Although, I only started at Christmas with these two covers as presents for my mum and dad. I also made this one for my sister, and several others that I gave as gifts but was in too much of a hurry to take photos of!

So I decided, as I was getting so speedy at whizzing them up on the sewing machine, that they should make an appearance in my Folksy shop.

So here they are, my first batch of kindle covers for the shop :)

 

I have a rather lovely pile of fabrics waiting to be stitched up into more covers, but with school starting again tomorrow I don't think they'll be ready for a little while!

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

May

Oh my! Another month over!

And yet, it is still not summer?!?!

 

So here is a little picture of some of the things I was busy making in May :)

Butterfly embroidery - my entry for Le Challenge

My first test-knit shawl

Getting ready to quilt the hexagons!

My first shawl

Saturday Sampler block

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Saturday Sampler - May blocks

Finished before the end of May - hooray!!

Just the one block this month, oh, and some plain white triangles that were not nearly exciting enough to have their photos taken!!

So here it is, a little bit of pretty :)

 

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Testing

Morning!

We have some sunshine at last!!

As promised, there are swishy-swashy washing line photos today :)

 

 

My first test knit is finished! I actually finished it a while ago, but the rain made taking photos difficult, and it is not quite as it should be so I've been a bit slow to share.

The beginnings of this project are all in this post.

 

 

It was lovely to knit, just enough twiddly stuff to keep it interesting, but not so much that I had to concentrate too hard!

It was all going beautifully until the edge.

Urgh, the edge.

I had to google a few things, although I consider myself to be a fairly experienced knitter there were a couple of things in the pattern that I hadn't done before.

But that was fine, online tutorials and videos are amazing!!

But it still didn't seem right.

 

 

I plodded on, hoping (as I often do) for a blocking miracle!

Sadly I didn't get one this time :(

There was a mistake in the pattern, which is fine - I'm test knitting, I expect mistakes. But combined with my lack of knowledge of the stitches used in this section, I didn't see that it was a mistake.

By the time one of the other testers noticed the mistake I had already finished and blocked it, so I decided I wouldn't rip it back and fix the problem. I find the thought of all that backwards knitting very traumatic!

 

So I will live with it as it is, beacuse it is still very beautiful!

A beautiful, squishy, alpaca snuggle - which clearly I won't need if the sun keeps shining!

It will be perfect in the autumn, and by then I may have even knit another one, with a proper scalloped edge :)

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A 'no-reply' blogger

Oh Blogger.

You have confused me so!!

A few people have mentioned to me that I am a 'no-reply' blogger.

I'll be honest, I ignored them. Didn't know what they meant. Didn't want to ask and look stupid.

I mentioned this to my lovely other-half. "Have you asked google?" he replied - this is quite a standard reply and, really, I should know to ask google myself by now!

I asked google, and google led me to this super helpful blog

Amazing!

I am no longer a 'no-reply' blogger!! :)

 

But still, what does it matter? Why do I need to not be a no-reply blogger? How can people reply to me? What's all this about emails? Surely replies just have to go into blogposts where the comments were left? (not that I do this very often because I'm not sure people actually check back to see if I commented on their comment?!)

Urrrgggghhhhh!!!!!

 

So I did something quite unusual for me.

I asked for help.

AND - nobody called me stupid for doing it!!

I asked the lovely Sasha about all this nonsense, and she very kindly told me all about the email notifications I get about new comments (I don't ever look at THAT email account!) and how to reply to them.

 

So now, not only am I no longer a no-reply blogger, I am also able to reply to your comments in a way that you should see (unless you're stupid daft like me!)

I'm sorry that, up to this point, I have not replied to your lovely comments. It's not that I don't appreciate them, I really do! I get very excited when I see that I have new comments waiting for me :) I will try to be better, now that I know how to reply properly to you all!

 

Hmmm, can't possibly have a whole blogpost without photos though - what can I show you today? Maybe a sneaky peak at my latest finished project?!!

 

 

 

Swishy-swooshy washing line photos next time!

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx