A couple of finishes

Here are two things I have finished over the last few weeks. For one reason and another they both hit disasters in their very last stages, but luckily in both cases they were salvageable and hopefully no one would guess.

First up is a cosy chunkey over cardigan which was my first foray into cables and I found them far easies than I expected. In fact the biggest problem I had was in the sewing up as it was not easy wool to use for this as it snagged and wasn't easy to undo if needed. Luckily the problem was round the back of the neck and my lovely mum helped sort it out and I am really pleased with it:



Next up is Lizzie Kate's 6 Fat Men which I really enjoyed stitching as the colours are so vibrant:

The main problem came when my iron unfortunately made a bit of the thread wet and the colour leeched out into the fabric. I managed to sort that but had a bit of a panic that maybe it would have changed the colours so for some insane reason I rinsed the whole lot and obviously it got worse. But eventually I managed to sort it and on the whole I don't think it shows.

My main goal this year is to reduce the number of projects I have on the go but unfortunately I am not finding it easy not starting anything new. I have decided that I will try not to start anything until finishing at least two big projects but how long I will stick to that remains to be seen.

Crochet

Last July me and mum started crochet classes and although it is fair to say neither of us found it came naturally to us we have got the hang of it now. As it is a good craft to use for making toys I thought I would have a look to see what I could make for my youngest nephew's birthday and as he is an Angry Birds fan I made him this:

It's not perfect but it is his birthday today and I have heard he really likes it and I enjoyed making it for him which is are the most important things.

Some finishes

I put in my final assignment for my degree about four weeks ago and can't quite believe I have finally finished this after seven long years. Even though I was studying I still managed to finish a few things:





I have already completed the companion piece to this Woof flip it by Lizzie Kate and am thinking of making the two into a mini biscornu eventually.





I love these Spring Fern socks and am really happy with they way they turned out as the instructions were really good.

Finally I finished this little Humphrey's Corner a couple of weeks ago and think it is really cute:





I seem to have specific ideas of where I am wanting my stithing to go at the moment as I am really attracted to all things that can be made into something and have already ordered the Silver Needle's Just Nan exclusive and have been pulling stuff from my stash that will end up as something useful.

Angel of the New Dawn

I have finally finished this Mirabilia after too many years to count. I got totally bogged down in the border and eventually added it into my rotation and gradually worked at it and here she is:




There were loads of beads but not as many as some Mirabilia's but were condensed into two distinct areas:

Birthday card

I made this for my brother's partners birthday at the beginning of next month. It is a decoupage from Joanna Sheen's House Mouse range which I really love and I have used some co-ordinating papers from my stash.

I am entering this card in:

Joanna Sheen challenge

Molly Blooms Watering can

It is that time of the month again where we get out the Molly Blooms and have a go at The Paperlane Challenge. This month I wasn't at all sure whether I would enter as it really was a challenge as we have to create anything but a card and as that is the only papercraft I do I was stumped. But then I thought back to the lovely day I had in April at a local craft shop who had a demonstration by Claire taking place and because I was fascinated with her stamps I went along to have a look. At this point I wasn't particularly stamping as I had not managed to get a good result but by talking to the ladies in who run the shop and Claire I picked up loads of tips and am now enjoying stamping and have quite a few now and getting relatively good results. Anyway on that day Claire had alot of samples with her and one of these was for her model of a watering can using her stamps and I fell in love. Although it was a bit extravagant for someone who wasn't doing much stamping I bought the pack so I could perhaps one day do something similar. I tucked the template away but have used the stamps themselves many times since and realised that with this challenge now was the perfect time to have a go at making the watering can. I ackowledge it isn't perfect but I am pretty pleased at the result considering it is a first attempt and would certainly make another in the future as it was not nearly as difficult as I anticipated:





I am entering this in:

The Paperlane Challenge

Molly Blooms

I absolutely love this range of stamps and so I am pleased that The Paperlane are again asking us to use them for their challenge this month. The theme is shades of summer and I started off by choosing my backing paper and colouring the image to match. I am not sure how well it shows up in the picture but the paper has a glittered effect on some of the flowers. I matted the image with co-ordinanting card and then used a matching piece of pink lace ribbon to finish it all off. I hope this has created a simple but effective card that can be used for many occasions as I have not included a sentiment this time:




I am entering this card in:

The Paperlane Challenge

Competition win

When

Paula

announced she was doing the race for life in June I was more than happy to sponsor her as it supports the great charity Cancer Research UK. I know several people that have battled various types of cancer and sadly not all of them have won the battle, so the more research that can be done to help more people survive in the future can only be a good thing. Anyway Paula was approached by the owner of

Old Maiden Aunt yarns

to offer a couple of prizes in a raffle to those who sponsored her and I was lucky enough to win a skein of yarn. My first choice of colour had been discontinued so I picked another and went with the colourway of Jasper and the package arrived today:




The yarn is just gorgeous and so soft as well as being a really unusual colour and unlike anything I currently have in my stash. I also thought the little packet of sweets and badge were a lovely touch too especially as this was a competition prize. In fact I was very impressed from start to finish as I didn't expect to be able to choose the colour of yarn and to receive the little extras was a great bonus.