Sunday 30 October 2011

Wooo hoooo oooo!

Here are some pics of our Halloween celebration yesterday (it was very minimal!). 'Little S' got into the spirit of things though . . .

He decided to carve his own pumpkin this year (under supervision of course!) - he's the jolliest 'unscariest' one I've seen! He looked a little 'gummy' before being lit up . . .

He made a couple of chocolate covered apples from a packet-mix (bad mummy!) . . .

And there was some cake too . . .

OK, OK - I bought it at the supermarket, hehe!

These were all very haphazard and spontaneous goings-on in the afternoon as we were going to go and see a screening of Nosferatu in our local Arts Centre in the evening. This was a really fab event (part of the Hebridean Book Festival) - we happened to know the musician who played (and wrote) the accompanying music - he lives in the same village as us, so we really HAD to go!! We weren't disappointed - a wonderful atmospheric silent movie (1922) and a fantastic musical accompaniment.

Many congrats to Peter Urpeth for his beautiful piano playing - we were completely mesmerised - thanks for a great evening Peter :D

Wednesday 26 October 2011

my creative space . . . looks familiar!

Ah, sorry! My creative space looks very much like last week's, only I've progressed quite a bit with my project and decided to continue with my crochet cushion cover. I was a little undecided last week what I would do with it. You can no longer see the cushion pad behind it - hurray! Just the other side to complete now, hehe :( To give myself a little break from this slightly more time consuming project, I'm amusing myself by doing other little projects like the crochet daisy in the middle (it's not attached yet). It's not perfect, but I was pretty pleased with it all the same . . .

This crochet malarkey is great fun especially when you're short on crafting time, as I am at the moment - it's so easy to pick it up whenever, no setting up required - perfect for me right now :)

More crafty peeps over here - byeee :)

Thursday 20 October 2011

my creative space . . . works in progress

Sorry, I've been a bit out of touch this week, but I decided to take a complete break from the laptop and concentrate on chilling out and enjoying my October break - the weather has been pretty appalling so far - excellent crafting weather, hehe! Here's a little something I started on last night . . .

I started out with the intention of covering this round cushion pad - but now I'm not so sure, and might just make it into a plant-pot coaster or something, add some crochet lace round the edge maybe?

It's a lovely texture though and another enjoyable crochet experiment - the finished item will probably be a Christmas gift for my mother-in-law, whatever it turns out to be!

The soap sachets are all finshed. Here's a sneaky peek - I can't show them too graphically as they will be gifts for family members - look away now if you're a close family relative - ooops! :) . . .

Here's the last of the scones I made yesterday - we had a roaring open fire on as we had snow yesterday - and my Big Sis was hoping to visit, but didn't quite make it - sorry Sis, there's only one left!!! (I'll make some more today hopefully!)

It's the 'whisky olympics' - oooops, sorry I mean the National Mod , hehe!, in the Hebrides this week - I haven't seen any of it yet as my boys aren't involved, but I might grab a bit of the atmosphere at the end of the week if I manage to drag myself away from my cosy fire and warm scones. The weather is certainly on the up - look at the lovely pink skies we had this morning - really gorgeous . .

I will TRY and grab an image of the mod this week but won't make any promises! 'See' you soon - more creative peeps over here - I'm popping over there myself :)

P.S. 'Tweedie' activities will resume as soon as possible, hehe! :D

Saturday 15 October 2011

Crochet, moonlight and cake . . .

Well, another week has gone by and no time for a blog post in between - never mind, I'm here now! The few grabbed hours of crafting have been spent on my crochet projects and I'm happy to say that I'm finally dipping into the lovely bundle of cotton yarn. I've been using a pattern for a crochet soap sachet and aiming to make a few in all the differnt colours of yarn, as Christmas gifts - I think I'll enjoy going out and choosing some yummy complementary soap to go ino each one :) Three made so far and two more to go - they're so nice to make and very satisfying to see each one in a different colour . . . here's a snippet of the turquoise one . . .

I'm completely amazed at what you can make with crochet once you learn the basic stitches - the heart motif in the pattern is teaching me some basics of increasing and decreasing stitches which is something that baffled me initially, so it's a good learning ground. Ooops, I'm in serious danger of becoming a crochet bore, hehe - but you know it really is good fun and I really urge you to try it - I'll shut up now!!

We've had some lovely still nights this week with a fabulous full moon, the picture doesn't really do it justice . . .

Hopefully, this week we will get some nice weather because I am now on my October holidays with the boys off school for a whole week - hooray!!! I plan to have a lovely relaxing break, some more crochet, a few nice walks and maybe the bike will make the journey from out of the garage.

I bought this book at a discounted book sale this week with the idea of being a bit of a domestic goddess too, haha!

Actually the photographs of the cakes looked so gorgeous I couldn't resist it - well' that's my holiday wrapped up - I'll pop in if I have any yummy treats to declare!

Bye for now :)

Saturday 8 October 2011

What I'd really like to be doing . . .

I was having a little go at making some 'you know what' (that word which must remain unspoken!) decs last weekend - that silver crochet thread is proving to be very useful for some other crafty projects! Plan is to make a few for craft-fairs and maybe a few as gifts. Just simple stuffed tweedie squares with hessian twine attached to the corner - voila, now they're a cute diamond shaped hanging, decoration thingy. A few embroidered silver stars and 'Bob's your Uncle' as they say :)

Thing is, what I'd really like to be doing is playing around with the gorgeous sorbet coloured crochet yarn in the background - aren't the colours lovely - I can almost pretend it's Summer time when I look at them, maybe that's the attraction, hehe!

With all the extra hours at the 'office job' I'm spending a lot of time on this little bus, when I'd really like to be doing something else, like crafting!! At least the scenery is nice :D

I took this pic last weekend as I was trying to capture how flat-calm the sea was looking - there wasn't a breath of wind. Very pretty, but I just wish I didn't have to spend so much time on that darned little bus these days - never mind, I guess it's better than the London Underground at rush hour! Back to some crafting in the very precious hours I have left this weekend :) Byeee, till later . . .

Saturday 1 October 2011

I've been busy - honest!

Sorry for the long gap between posts but I have of course been camera-less while Other Half was off on his jaunt, followed by 'Little S' catching the usual school-bugs which are on the round at the moment. Both things combined of course gave me a little extra crafting time this week, so I was playing around with a new idea for some funny little 'croft-house' brooches. I was thinking of making some kind of corsage-type brooches with my crochet flowers but before I knew it I was making little stuffed houses - hmmmmmmm, funny how your creative brain takes over, hehe!

I thought they would be quite fun for some upcoming craft fairs which I've just received word about (the Summer fair has been and gone unfortunately but I still have stock, so ready to rock-and-roll!). You can see they're quite rustic which is how I wanted them to look - they're cuter in real life, honest! I'm working on a few in different colours but as they're hand-embroidered I won't be churning them out, just a few!

Next up came a little idea for some Christmassy lavender bags for the fairs - there's a little crochet project in the background too which I was really chuffed about making but they might turn out to be gifts so I'll keep them low profile for now :

Finally I managed to stuff a couple of beach-balls which have been WIPs for rather longer than I intended but I did eventually finish them - they might make their way to my online shop, I'll keep you posted.

This afternoon's dilemma will be 'to crochet or more 'tweedie' work' - perhaps I'll do a little bit of both! Have a lovely weekend :)