A Frothy Flower - Crochet Pattern

You can now find this pattern on my new blog at Very Berry Handmade.

A quick post before I go to bed...

This is only going to be a short entry because Mr Seasonal Matters & I have just had a chat about our garden plans for this year & now I need to REST in preparation for it!

I am also dead keen to push off to bed and finish off Our Mutual Friend - which has proved to be a riveting read. I used to think that Dickens was ludicrous but I have recently developed a taste for the stuff... That should keep me occupied for a few years!

Back to the craft!!! I've been crocheting away and I've completed a couple of new brooches, using a different pattern to my usual. I think they are gorgeous & it's really nice to have a change of style. The purpley one is made using Colinette Prism in Fruit Coulis (great yarn) and the second using something by Noro that I've forgotten the name of (woops). Sadly, these weren't on my "50 Things" list so I need to do some updating... I've also got 3 other brooches all ready to be listed in the shop which I made sometime last year but somehow never got round to putting up for sale.

Other progress to be reported: I've made a start on one of the slouch bags, decided on what I'm going to make for the new baby present, and I made a great find of some gorgeous woolly tweedy material & great buttons at our local Oxfam. Oh yes, and my Ravelry invitation just came through so when I get a chance I am going to be having great fun on there. All in all I've had an excellent few days.

I've also just found out who my partner is for Meridien Ariel's Owl Swap - it's Yvette. I've just popped round to have a look at her blog & I think we have a fair bit in common, and it will clearly be a really good experience. Hurrah for swaps, and for Apryl for organising it.

I pricked and pounced!

I've been personalising Christmas stockings full time for the last few days it seems. Because the stockings are made with quite rough textured felt it is a real problem getting the lettering on to the fabric so that I can embroider the names. I have been using a charcoal pencil, but that is rather unsatisfactory because drawing on the felt is difficult, smudgy, and the pencil gets very clogged up with wool. Yuck.

So, today, I had a bit of an inspiration when I remembered reading about the 'prick and pounce' method of transferring pattern to fabric in Diana Springall's book Embroidery. So I tried my own version of it.

First I drew my design on thick tracing paper.










Then I pricked along the lines of the tracing with a chunky needle (sorry, rubbish at knowing about needle sizes) - you might be able to see in the photo below that I missed the dot on the letter 'i'!













Then I laid the tracing on the felt stocking I'm working on at the moment. Holding it firmly in place I then scraped a bit of tailors' chalk dust on to the tracing paper & rubbed it in a bit with my finger. If you were doing prick and pounce properly then you would use pouncing powder - ground up cuttlefish - & a brush so I don't think you would need to rub it in.

















Then I lifted up the tracing paper and - tada! - it worked perfectly! I then pressed the chalk in a bit with my finger so it didn't just brush off.














People have been using this method of transferring pattern to fabric for centuries. I think the next step is to join up the dots with paint, otherwise the pattern would soon be rubbed off. Fortunately, the chalk I used lasted for long enough for me to finish the embroidery.













I've just read that it's also traditional to use ground cinnamon for pouncing. That sounds infintely preferable to using ground cuttlefish... And wouldn't it make Christmas stockings smell nice and Christmassy?

I feel the need to record how hard I've been working these last few days. So - we've got the embroidery above...

This very sweet little blue elephant:


















Some crochet brooches (er, not quite finished):














Finished a scarf using the stunning beautiful Colinette prism in Autumn Leaves:














No wonder I'm cream-crackered...

Crochet Brooches...

I am so busy keeping up with custom orders & mailing orders out - it's absolutely fantastic! But what it does mean is that the Craft Matters Etsy shop is now looking rather empty. I wanted to make a few more of these crochet brooches because they've suddenly become rather popular & I really need to make a dent in my stash of 'just in case' yarn... The yarns I've used here are Rowan Wool Cotton in Bilberry Fool (gorgeous name, it sounds delicious - although how you would pick enough bilberries to make a fool I don't know), Sirdar Peru in Blanket Blue and Noro Kureyon in ....woops I lost the label. Will try and find the name. One of the things I like most about them is that you get such a different feel depending on the yarn & the embellishments used.

I am delighted to have discovered (by a complete accident when I was searching for some fabric for the Apron swap) the name of my fave Liberty tana lawn print - seen here on the cover of my needle book. It's Bourton. Phew, what a relief.

Wow - so busy!!

A lovely fellow forumite (I Want My Mum - the progressive parenting site) liked the brooches I had on sale in my Etsy shop and wanted a variety in different colours, so I have been working hard to get them finished. Choosing the yarn was great fun - it was lovely to familiarise myself more with various collections - I have used Rowan & Debbie Bliss. I love the Rowan tweed yarns - the colours & the texture. I also encountered the Debbie Bliss Rialto range for the 1st time I am extremely impressed with the beautiful range of colours available - it's also very nice to crochet with. I am very lucky to have the real life shop outlet of the online shop Cucumberpatch on my doorstep so I have been familiarising myself with their stock, lol. Gorgeous shop - good job it is only open once a week at the moment.

Swaps Progress
I've now finished and posted the goodies for the Mee Crafty Kiddy Swap. I've taken pictures of the things I made for Nature Girl and I am keen to post them, but wont until I know when they have been received - I don't want to spoil any surprises.

I've also started on my next swap - A Fairy Tale Swap - being organised by Apryl over at Meridan Ariel. I am sorry to say that I have absolutely no inspiration for it at the moment, and my swap partner Lottie is putting on the pressure on by telling me that she has already started my gift. Eek!!

My Shop
I am most excited that I have had my second ever order from someone I don't know. This is not to say that I am not EXTREMELY pleased that friends & acquaintances buy from my shop - it is just quite nice to get an order from someone who doesn't know I really *need* the beer money. So to celebrate, here's a picture of the parcel all gift wrapped & ready to go. I really really need to get some more stuff in the blooming shop - things have been going a bit too well recently. What am I complaining about?

Some more broches & stuff to get organised..

Some crocheted brooches

I've been crocheting away & have loads of brooches ready for when we get round to opening our Etsy shop. We were planning to open around now, but the death of my dad plus our plans to move up north mean that all that has had to be postponed. I guess the upside of the delay is that I will have a fair bit of stock to make the shop look nice & busy.

Some pics:

I call this the tweedy one... It's done with Rowan Felted Tweed in Bilberry. I was really lucky & got a whole load of Rowan yarns for £1 a go just before Christmas when our local John Lewis store moved premises. This kind of being in the right place at the right time rarely happens to me so I bought as much as I could manage to carry.... The beads in the centre are faceted glass beads in amethyst which I got from Beads Unlimited. I haven't got vast experience of buying beads but they have some lovely things, seem to have some ethical standards & very fast delivery, so I have been really impressed by them.

This second brooch I call the fluffy one. Again made with some bargain yarn (this time it's Rowan's Kidsilk Night in Fountain). I love the fluffiness & the little bit of silver running through the yarn. The beads are amethyst again, but this time just plain round glass.

There seems to be a bit of a purple theme going on - I have to confess that it is one of my favourite colours. I must try & expand my repetoire a bit but could also do with John Lewis having another crazy sale...

Being a bit more organised..

I tend towards the disorganised although I hate the feeling of out of control-ness that comes with that so am also addicted to lists & frequent attempts to rearrange and reorganise stuff... One thing that I know drives my partner nuts is my terrible tendency to leave needles lying around in places that are meant to be secure but aren't. Needles then end up on the floor to be picked up by kids, knelt on, stood on... So in an attempt to stop that kind of thing and get a bit more organised I decided to make myself a needle book. It needed to be small enough to fit in the pocket of my jeans & cute enough for me to want to use it. This is what I came up with. And I must confess I am feeling pretty pleased with it. The insides are pure wool felt which makes it all very straightforward to sew, and the outside is my favourite fabric of all time (until next week anyway) - some Liberty paisley lawn. I bought this on ebay eons ago - it's too small to do much with so this seems a really good use for it. Since I took these photos I have also added a little purple ribbon loop & a button so that I can keep the thing closed if (when) I leave it lying around.

Here's a green one I made with the loop attached - you can just see it on the left there. This green fabric is gorgeous & is another one that I have had lying around for ages - so long in fact that I have no idea where or when I bought it. I think it came from a remnant bin though. The intention was to use it for cushions I believe, but I never got round to making them. These are pretty quick to make & I am thinking people might find them pretty AND useful, so I am hoping they will be in our shop too.

I've spent some time today making a fresh Indian pickle using seasonal veg which has turned out very well indeed. I will try & blog about it on our Seasonal blog when I get the opportunity. We will be having some of it tonight with lamb shanks braised in yogurt. Delicious...

Tea cosy disaster..& some recent makes..

I knitted the tea cosy for the ILs last night using some gorgeous yarn (Baby Alpaca/Merino Chunky) from the Natural Dye Studio. But when I finished it looked really small... so I think my habit of knitting quite tightly has caught up with me again. I am going to try again tonight with some bigger needles. Fortunately it doesn't take long to knit up so I am not too irritated to have to do it again & it is a pleasure to work with the wool.

In fact it was not a particularly successful evening because I was also working on a prototype of a purse I want to make for Christmas gifts. The final result didn't really please me so it's back to the drawing board with with that one... I think I need to go for something a bit more cutsey (they are definitely your Princess girls) for the recipients to be really pleased with them. And I have to decide whether to include handles or not!

Something I am really enjoying making at the moment is brooches. This is the 1st I made -
using some gorgeous Liberty paisley fabric & 100% wool felt.

I'm not totally satisfied with it - it looks a bit apologetic I think but it isn't bad for a 1st go.

Here are some others I've done:

I like these better - especially the heart one - I love that fluffy wool! I've gone a bit crochet mad recently because I did a refresher course & discovered that I have been crocheting totally incorrectly forever - the perils of teaching yourself I guess.

I'd like to use some felt flowers to embellish the bags I want to make - just not sure how it's going to work out yet. I will try & have another go this evening.

One great thing about this blog is it helps me remember what I need to get on with. Just off to Ebay to see if I can find any cheap round tins for the Panforte.