Making Stuff, Liking Stuff

Happy Easter!

Little crocheted circles have been wandering randomly all over the house as I progress through my 144 motif challenge.  I'm now onto the hexagons so I decided to make use of the circles.  I had four canvases on which, ages ago, I had attached some of my fabric weaving.  The circles colour-matched perfectly so I sewed them on, adding a few buttons as well.

 I also completed a woolly hat from my "Weekend Knitting" book

which is supposed to look like this in adult size...

copyright Melanie Falick

... however it actually looks like this!

  

I'm currently knitting a smaller size!!!

***

I would just like to share with you, two companies I have just found and love.  I'm not promoting for money or anything but I really like the stuff they produce:

1. Pipii  

2. Foreveramano

I hope you have as much fun as I've had looking at these two lovely websites.

Have a great week xxx

Tarting Up The Workroom

I saw a glimmer of sunshine the other day and felt spurred on to do the paint job I had been promising myself for ages.  My workroom shelves have been plain old wood since they were built and I had loaded up lots of junk on them.  The poor things are bowed and bent with the strain!

 So off came everything...

... and into the spare bedroom it went.  Yes, there is a bed in there somewhere!

It was amazing how much rubbish I had accumulated and I had a thoroughly good "getting rid" session.

I had hoped to paint the shelves in Ivory Tusk from Wilkos, but there was none to be found, so chose Calm White.  

Et voila!

A place for everything and everything in its place...for now...

Happy crafting, lovelies! xxx

Mauve Makings and a Bit of Home

Mauve - the colour men don't understand.

I seem to have been making mauve stuff recently, including three bags.  A friend gave me a lovely piece of velvet which I made into the two bags below.  They're lined with some retro spotty-flowery fabric I bought at a vintage fair recently.

 The stash bag below was an old jumper, reloved into a receptacle for my lovely balls of Rico Essentials cotton.  I am 28 motifs into my 144 Motif Challenge, whew!

I've been thinking about how to incorporate my knitting and sewing loves together. (Have I already told you this?  Sorry if so, aged brain failing to retain things these days!) I've started with this little cushion taking two of my lovely fat quarters and two patches from my Debbie Abrahams book.

The other week I was up early and at the railway station.  Too early as the train was running later and I had half an hour to kill.  As the station is by the beach I thought I would do a little collage of Cleethorpes sea front.  It's not the Riviera but it's home.

Hope you like it xxx

A Good Day Chez Moi

Other than the sad part, as yesterday's post, I had a lovely Mother's Day.  Lots of flowers, Thornton's chocs, a reed diffuser, a Radley cotton carrier bag and a Radley mug.  I have to admit on the blog that my surname is Radley so all family females have the bags and/or other accessories.  Even The Girl Genius and Miss Peach Pudding received a Radley bag for their first birthdays.  These are being put carefully away by their mums so that they will have pristine vintage bags when they are young women.

 The Carrad minors either visited or sent loving phone messages. Everyone was super-kind, remembering it was my first without my mum.  It was, however, not quite as sad as I thought it might be.  I had many lovely memories of mum to think through and I know that had she still been alive she would have been suffering.

... and this was how I spent most of the day!  I curled up on the chair in my comfy corner and started working through the 144 crochet motifs in my book with my ten new balls of Rico essential cottons.  They are such wonderful colours!

I've only done eight so far and am disproportionately excited to get on with the rest!

Thank you to those lovely ladies who sent such nice comments to my post yesterday.  Your words mean a lot. xxx 

Happy Picture

Just a quickie today.  I don't usually show my face on my blog but, as it's Mothering Sunday, I wanted to share my favourite photo of me and my late mum.  This is my first Mum's Day alone and I miss her so much.

May I wish all you blogging mums and grandmas out there a very special day xxx

Fair, Fabric and Faffing About on Trains

Yesterday I went to the Sheffield Vintage Fair

It was a beautiful, mild spring day and just to prove it there in the square was a wonderfully typical English folk dance festival in full swing.

Hey Nonny Nonny...!

The fair took place in the City Hall and was busy as usual.  I wasn't staying quite as long as usual so didn't manage the tea and cupcake, sadly.

I didn't buy too much either, but couldn't resist the fabric stall!

 The larger piece is true vintage tea-dyed and the smaller a fifties-style fabric by Next.  Now what to do with them?  Very exciting!

These lovely co-ordinating little fabric pieces are calling out to be fashioned into pretties.  Again, I don't quite know what, but very much looking forward to using them.

The "faffing about" bit was the reason I spent less time in Sheffield.  I don't know if you've picked it up on the news but a whole stretch of railway has collapsed at Hatfield colliery.  As you will see below there's no hope of a train running over those rails!  

This means a bus service has been laid on between Scunthorpe and Doncaster and makes the journey so much longer.  Coming home the train should have arrived at Doncaster at 15.05, with the bus leaving at 15.15.  The train arrived at 15.14 meaning an incredible sprint, worthy of Jess Ennis, for these little legs to get from the rail station to the far end of the bus station for the coach, but I managed it.  That's my exercise for this year!

The weather's not so nice today so I'm having a stay in and stitch day in my workroom.  Couldn't be better!