A Handmade Christmas

This year I actually managed to make all my Christmas presents. I of course (as is the true style of crafters!) left it all to the last minute even though I had said to myself I would be more organised about it this time! So after several late nights and early mornings crafting away I produced these presents for my family and friends.

This is a decoration for my friends daughter. I have made her a decoration every year for Christmas and will also make one for her son now as it was his first Christmas (I rushed and ruined my first attempt at his decoration so he hasn't got one yet)

These were some marzipan sweets. I made the marzipan (which is surprisingly easy) and just piped some melted chocolate over the top of them. I made these for my Dad, Grandma and Godmother. I also made Turkish Delight.

I was actually quite organised with the present for my mum and finished it on the 1st December! She decorated her bedroom and it is now plum and Paris themed so when I saw a Paris postcard chart in CrossStitcher I knew I had to stitch it up for her. I changed the colours of the threads to match in with the rooms colour scheme.

This was a top for my cousin. I find males very hard to craft for so decided to just decorate tops for them as it was easy and quick to do! He loves Starbucks and has a collection of mugs from when he goes on his travels around the world.

And this is the one I did for my brother. He is a Philosophy teacher and his favourite 3person is Richard Dawkins, a well know atheist, so when I saw this phrase when searching for sayings to do with him it was perfect!

I stitched this for my Auntie. My Grandma found the material in her house a while ago and it is something that my Great-Grandma has crochet around the edge of but had never got round to putting a design in the middle. I did one for my Grandma a few years ago and have enough to do one for me, Mum and my cousin when I get time so we can all have one. I just need to decide on what to put in the middle for everyone else. My Auntie was easy as she loves poppies!

Staying with the theme for boys of decorating a top. I did one for my friends 5 year old who is obsessed with Doctor Who. I knitted him a tardis for his birthday which I shall show you soon so continued with the theme for Christmas. He recognised what it was when he opened it which was a relief!!

 

And finally a present to the whole family really- a Christmas Cake!! I have never made one before so I used a recipe from Delia and it turned out alright! I don't really like fruit cake anyway but even I could eat this one! I also made a Christmas pudding for my Dad using another Delia recipe- this is yet to be tasted though!

 



 

I just went for simple icing as I have never iced a cake in royal icing before so didn't really know what I was doing but I think it turned out alright! We had a fancy candle to put on it before we cut into it!

I had a good Christmas and hope you all did too? I'm really pleased I managed to make all of my presents this year and am going to say again (as I do every year) that I will start earlier next year with making them!

Mum's finished birthday present

This should have been Mum's Christmas present but it was no where near finished then so I made sure it was finished in time for her birthday on the 13th February.

I've decided I'm much more productive if I have a couple of projects on the go at the same time but just work on one in the mornings in bed and one in the evenings on the sofa! This was my morning project. As I do a later shift at work every day I don't have to get up and ready until 9am so I wake up at 7am so I can get in a few hours stitching done in the mornings.

My mum plays bowls in the summer and is the ladies captain of the local bowls club so when I found this chart in an old CrossStitcher from a charity shop I thought it would be perfect. It is from issue 32 (July 1995) and is a bowler from the 1900s. I can't imagine it was very easy to bowl in this skirt!!

I didn't use the exact colours in the chart as it would have been too expensive to have to buy them all so just used ones I already had in my box that were close to the picture. I think she will go into the study so I mounted her into a black frame to match the other pictures in there.

I haven't mounted with a border before but I'm pretty impressed with the result. Thought I would even sign it!! I won't be giving her the picture until Sunday, this is possibly the most I have ever been prepared with a handmade present- but there is still time to misplace it before the day!!

I won I won I won!!!

As I was working I had to wait until I got home at 8pm to see if I had won anything in the local Flower and Veg show and I did!!!

As I said in my previous post I entered 6 items and I am pleased to announce that they all came either 1st, 2nd or 3rd- yay!

Here are my entries in no particular order! (I couldn't wait until it was light to take the pictures- I was too excited!)

The little beach hut doorstop I made for my auntie came 3rd in '1 Article of counted cross stitch' BUT that was not my only cross stitch entry!

This won 1st prize!!!!! The pattern (like the beach hut) was from CrossStitcher magazine and this particlular one was in the first magazine I ever purchased and was the reason I wanted the magazine. The pattern said it took 30 hours to stitch but I imagine I'm probably slower than that speed! I got fed up with it at times and moved onto other things but I eventually finished it and am ridiculously proud of it! (I put it on my craft stall but was really glad that it didn't sell as now I can keep it!!)

The tapestry I made for a friend's birthday also won first prize in the '1 Article of tapestry' category! I haven't seen it for a while and forgot how much I love it! It has made me want to do tapestry again after swearing off it forever when I completed this! It was the first thing I ever stitched on a canvas and I didn't know that I needed a frame so it wouldn't go wonky hence the slant of the flag! I also made up the pattern as I stitched it so some of the diagonals are a little suspect! But I still love it and so does my friend!

This is the blanket made from old jumpers from a pattern in a Mollie Makes last October. It was entered in the 'Something new from something old' class.

I entered this one just because I had him made up already I didn't think it would win anything but it actually came second in the 'Handmade toy' class. I personally think the other entries were better than mine but I'm not the judge!

And finally my '1 Article of hand knitting for a child' where I was up against my grandma!!

Yep I won second!!! But who got first?!!?!?! Did I beat my grandma?!?!?

YES I DID!!!! She didn't get any place. She knew that she hadn't knitted this jumper well enough (even though it looks perfect to me!) So I am taking this victory to mean that I am officially better than my grandma at knitting! (her excuse is that the pupil should be better than the teacher!) The pattern is a Debbie Bliss one and it is knitted in blue as that is what I had in my stash and I didn't want to go out a buy new wool!

All my lovely certificates!! And because I got the most points in the Handicrafts category I won a cup!!!!!

 

 

It is so shiny!! My name will be engraved on it too! I feel I need to defend my title now so will have to get thinking for next year!! But for now I will have to display this in pride of place in the house for all to see!!

Save Water and Drink Champagne

Good morning!

I'm feeling very positive this morning about my crafty life! I have signed up to 2 more swaps over the weekend. Another Popular crafts swap (the theme is polka dots and I just couldn't resist!) and one on a blog which can be found here (for which the theme is hearts). I have also had thoughts on what I could fill my Etsy shop with (which is still just in my mind) and am excited to start practising making things for that.

The item I have finished this week was a thank you present for my Auntie. She ran a craft stall near where she lives in Somerset over the May day bank holiday and managed to sell some items for me. I had originally planned to make her this for Christmas but I had too much to make and didn't get time to finish it before the present exchange somewhere on the M25!

My Auntie loves champagne. She will quite happily spend over £30 on a bottle as long as it is going to taste good and knows about some special code they put on the back of champagne which tells her if it is a good champagne or not (don't even ask!!!)

I saw this phrase on a bag last year and thought it was perfect for her. But of course I never have any money so I couldn't afford the £10 or so to buy if for her. So I decided I would make her a version of it and sew it onto a bag for her.

I got the lettering from charts in CrossStitcher which had similar sayings on and I think only had to design one letter in the end myself. I should have stitched it on coloured Aida but as I didn't have any money to buy some I had to stitch on white and then fill in the background in the colour I wanted which took FOREVER!!!!! But I finally got it finished the morning that mum and dad were driving down there for her and my Uncle's 25th wedding anniversary celebrations (i like to leave stuff to the last minute!)

I just have one more present to make in May now and I can have a rest before my grandma's birthday at the end of June!

Have a good week!

Xxx

Finished 'Love' Cushion

This post isn't technically something I finished this week. It is the finished cross-stitch of the 'Love' cushion front I was stitching earlier this year but I realised I hadn't yet shared with you the finished stitching (at least I don't remember posting about it)

The chart for it was in the very first issue of CrossStitcher I ever brought and was the one that drew me to it in the shop so I had to make it!

It isn't exactly as the chart says as I just used threads from my stash instead of the actual colours from the chart but they were pretty close.

There were a few details in the letters that I didn't notice until I was stitching it like the grapes inside the letter 'L'

I had a lot of issues with the 'O' for some reason. I kept making mistakes and I'm pretty sure even the finished version isn't correct to the chart but I couldn't be bothered to take it back anymore. This is probably why it took me so long to finish it.

I just need to find the perfect fabric for the back of the cushion cover now so I can sew it up. I haven't decided whether to keep it for myself or give it away as a present yet!

Xxx

Royal Wedding Sampler Update

Hi all

Sorry for my lateness in posting again. My nan had a fall the other day and has been in hospital. She was going to theatre to have a replacement hip put in but she had a scan this morning and it is not actually broken which is good.

Anyway this weeks work in progress is an update of an earlier post I did on my royal wedding sampler. I go through stages of working on it every night to not doing and for a week or two and recently I've been working on it quite a bit.

Below is what it is currently looking like with a nice ring where my frame has been!

Kate has one colour still to be done but for some reason I don't have it in my stash so will have to go out and buy it soon. I think I'm going to move onto Will before I get it though- at least he doesn't have as much hair as Kate to stitch!

But I have had to put it down for now and work on some stock for a craft fair at the beginning of May that my auntie has offered to run for me if I have the stock ready for her in a couple of weeks so it is all systems go at the moment trying to get new stock ready for her.

I really want to finish it soon though so I can't start a jubilee one!

Finished Fridays

I thought it best to wait until after Mothering Sunday to post up my finished project of the week. Firstly because I hadn't finished stitching the card until saturday and secondly I decided to make my mum a present so could put the two on here together.

First up is the card. I wrote about it on a previous Work in Progress post as a card I started last year but didn't get finished in time so was determined for it to be finished in time for me to give it to her this year. I almost didn't have it finished as I managed to loose my box with all my embroidery threads somewhere in the house so had no black to put the outlines in. And without the black it just looked like blobs of colour rather than actual objects!

Below is a close up of the stitched design. It is from a chart in CrossStitcher magazine from a year or so ago. I chose this one as it wasn't too soppy or too girly (both of which are things my mum doesn't like!) and I'm also a bit obsessed with bunting so I liked that it had that in.

And here it is mounted onto the finished card. I was going to stamp a border round and put some wording on the front but changed my mind as less is more!

Mum really like it and even suggested that she was going to cut it out with a yellow border and put it in a frame in her office (when she gets round to decorating it!) which is great and gives me another idea for a present for her!

I decided about lunchtime on saturday (nice and organised) after I had checked my bank balance, that I would make mum a present as I couldn't afford to buy her anything. I racked my brain to try and think of something that she wanted/needed that I could make for her. I though of a bag or a cushion cover but then had a brainwave...

A few years ago we had the kitchen redesigned to put in a disabled bathroom downstairs for my dad who has MS and with the redesign there were some shelves put in. Mum wasn't here when the shelves were put up and regrets it as neither of the shelves are big enough to hold A4 cookbooks standing up and they aren't even both the same height (it is a sore point that you NEVER mention!) So anyway as they are a random height no storage boxes will fit in so I thought I would just make her a box that was exactly the right size for the shelves and if she like it I could make her a whole set.

I read a couple of tutorials online about how to make them and then just chose my fabric and made it up as I went along. Below is the (almost) finished item:

The colour scheme of the kitchen is red and luckily I had this red fabric in my stash already from previous projects so didn't have to spend a penny. I used cardborad to make the box stiff enough to stand but haven't stitched the lining in yet incase I think of another way I can make the box sturdy instead of cardboard as I'm worried it will bend.

I really like the mix of gingham and stripes- definitely a combination I will do again.

The box fits perfectly on the shelf and mum is now busy deciding what to store in it, I may be making several more of these in the coming months!

I hope you all have a good week!

Xxx

Work in Progress Wednesday

Good morning!

Todays Work in Progress Wednesday goes to something which has nearly been a year in the making (it is not even a big project so there is no excuse for its incompleteness!)

It is a mother's day card that I started stitching for my mum last year (I started stitching it on mothers day last year!) but ran out of time. So this year I am definitely going to finish it for her.

It is just a simple chart from CrossStitcher magazine last year and one I know mum will like.

This is how far I got last year!

So as you can see most of it still left to do! Mothering Sunday isn't for another week and a bit so I should be able to finish it off for her this year for the 18th March. You will know next week if it makes it onto my Finished Friadays post whether I was successful or not!

Enjoy the rest of your week- my weekend starts tomorrow for 4 days- yay!!