New yarn!

Tom bought me this lovely pack of new yarn for Christmas, and this is what I've started to make with it. 

I've been wanting to make a baby blanket and now I have lots of colours to make it with :) 

I absolutely love that red colour.. might have to buy more of it!

Christmas make: Candles!

 I've wanted to make candles for a while now, and this Christmas I finally decided to buy myself a kit, from ebay.
It included 3 different colours/scents of wax, the wicks, wick holders and some sticky tabs to stick the wicks to the containers.
I then bought these little espresso cups in a charity shop, I think it was about £2 for the 4 and 2 saucers (which didn't match).

Christmas make: Brian Griffin!

Another Christmas make! It's good to be able to finally post these, but a shame I didn't take enough pictures.
I got this from a pattern I came across whilst using stumble upon and immediately thought he would be great for my brother. The pattern can be found here. I actually made a few tweaks as I went along, for example, for some parts of the pattern I worked in spiral stitch, instead of joining at the end of the row, however the way the shaping of the arms and feet was written I had to join as I went. I also missed off Brian's tag as I didn't have a yarn colour that would work at the time, and I didn't want to buy a whole new ball just for a little tag! The final picture is one my Mum took of Brian in his new home!

Christmas make: Cushion!

Various stages of me making a cushion for my Nan for Christmas. First I made 9 granny squares, then one large square for the back. I joined the front and back (the pattern was a little vague for this but I joined them by using double crochet) before finally adding the edging which I posted a while ago :)

Christmas make: Slippers!

I made these slippers for my Mum this year. After seeing them on ravelry months ago I knew I had to try them. So I trekked out to WH Smith on one of my lunch breaks to pick up the magazine and I got to work. They took surprisingly little time, considering the time due to the chunky wool and fairly simple pattern. Once I'd got my head round the first slipper, the second took no time at all!
I'm really glad Mum likes them :)

Snowflakes!

Today I spent the day with my Mum and we finally got a chance to do some crafting together!
I helped her make a snowflake!

We used this pattern from Attic24 I helped mum through hers whilst making this one

 

Then since getting home this afternoon I've made a teeny tiny snowflake using my 2mm hook and some embroidery cotton.

 

 Then I made a second one and they became earrings :)

What do you think?

Sneak peek!

As I'm not posting any pictures of the Christmas presents I'm making (and I haven't had time to make anything else) here's a sneak peek of some edging I've been doing this morning :)

Neon pink tips

After last weekend I realised that I haven't been using the nail art paints that Tom got me last Christmas as often as I should have been. So.. this week I picked on out of the big box he gave them to me in. I decided to use a nude base and paint my nail tips :)

I even used a topcoat!

Christmas presents

I feel like I'm getting somewhere with making Christmas presents. Some of the people I'm making for read this blog though, so I will blog about them all, with lots of pretty pictures, after Christmas.. so long to wait!

Christmas

I stressed out a little bit yesterday in the middle of a project for a Christmas gift and realising I didn't have enough yarn. I then ordered more online before realising that I'd actually used too much already by mistake.
I'll start fixing it later but I also have a birthday present to make which is slightly more urgent as the birthday is Wednesday!

DPNs

I bought my first set of DPN needles on ebay this week, and after some frustration and youtube videos, I finally worked out how to use them!

The top picture is how my knitting looked as I'd just got the hang of it, and then the bottom picture, is my first complete project using the needles!

Now I just have to start, design and complete the Christmas project that I wanted the DPNs for.

Something different

This week I did something simple but different with my nails. This is the only red nail, all the nails on my other hand are pink. Part of the reason I did this was because.. I couldn't decide which colour to wear, and I thought 10 red nails might be a bit full on in my office, barely anyone seems to paint their nails!
I have cut my nails since painting them (bad.. I know but, I'm just really lazy at taking the polish off) and only one of the nails (on the other hand) is looking worse for wear. I will (hopefully) be switching it up again tonight, going back to my barry m gelly polish, I think.

Monday Monochrome

 

Okay, so it's not completely monochrome, and the internet seems to have messed around with that last picture because it was fine before I uploaded it. BUT, I treated myself to a new dress at the weekend. This was only £7 in primark (it was in a sale) and I was surprised that there were so many smaller sizes left (6,8 and 10). Maybe it's not short enough for some slim people? I don't know, but I liked it and wore it to work today, but I think it would be nice enough to wear for an evening out with a nicer cardigan (this one is from primark from a couple of years ago) and a glitzy clutch. Having said that, what do you think of my new bag? It was a steal at everything5pounds.com which kind of gives itself away with its name (although a lot of people on their facebook page don't seem to get it). They sell all sorts of women's clothes, shoes, accessories and lingerie/nightwear, as well as children's clothes. Most of their stocks seems to me to be from stores that have gone into liquidation, or couldn't shift their stock for other reasons, but as long as I like it, I don't care who couldn't sell it before!

All in all, this was a pretty cheap outfit, coming in at about £23 for everything in the picture, and then I wore it today with primark pumps as well, so only another £4-6.

These prices don't include jewellery as I'm wearing what I wear all the time anyway.

Slouch hat

I finished my hat! (And I'm wearing a customised tee but you can't really see it here). Yes, those buttons are the leftovers from my incomparable buttons tutorial. They're so pretty! :)
Anyway, if you've forgotten where this pattern came from, or just didn't read the original post about this hat, the pattern is over on ravelry at http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/urban-revival

I think my band is a little thicker than the pattern, even though I actually checked the gauge with this project! I guess I didn't check it very well, but I think this works and it let me put the buttons on that way :)

What I did today

Sorted out my craft corner. It was previously a massive mess, but now it's all organised :)
Made a hanging decoration from my crafty creatives boxes:

• ribbon, from box 2 - nautical
• pegs, from box 1 - floral
• art cards, fish from box 3 - oriental, lighthouse from box 2 - nautical

Wrapped my mum's birthday present, it came wrapped with this leopard print tissue paper and it looked gorgeous, but I couldn't leave it wrapped up and just hope it looked okay (even though I was pretty sure it would!). So I opened it and had to re-wrap it, but I think I did a pretty good job! Just hope she likes what's inside.

Ravelry

I've discovered Ravelry and joined this week.
I've already started my first project from there, I don't know if you can see it if you log on (I haven't tried looking at people's profiles or anything yet). My username on there, if you want to have a look, is xkakesx, but as I say, I don't know if that's even any use to anyone.

Moving on, this is the pattern I've started..


© 2011 by Vickie Howell 

The pattern (and more pictures) can be found at http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/urban-revival

So far, I have completed the band:

I've also started the main part of the hat, which looks quite pretty (but quite different from the finished project). With any luck, my giant ball of yarn will last till the end of the project.

You can see my lovely new crochet hooks here too that my mum got me for my birthday :)

Button mad!

The cupcake earrings! :D