another fixing project and a brace of birthday greetings

today is my sister Catherine's birthday so a big happy birthday to you Kate! it was also our mum's birthday so a big happy birthday to you too mum, in whatever dimension you now find yourself ...

the fixing project I have here is long overdue for a start and it is appropriate that I come to it today, on mum's birthday...as she has been on my mind all day and it is one of her projects I need to fix... (sorry about the photos, I took them all this evening in bad lighting as I wanted to get this post up on October 30- will swap them out for better ones if I ever get around to taking them)

anyway - everyone, meet AnnieMcC, Annie - say hi to the internet folk...

isn't she is a bad way?
smiling through it all though, that's what I like to see...

Mum made Annie for me way back when - the dress I seem to recall was made by the previously mentioned craftastic Marion but tsk tsk was never completed. Probably because she was too busy making party frocks for Catherine and I from the exact same fabric at the time - they were maxi length with a frill and featured shoe string straps and some attractive smocking at the chest. I recall wearing mine over a white vest to someone called Kerry's party once, I must have been about seven and had plaits like my friend raggedy here, though I didn't go as far as the seamed stockings - risque m'dear!

so mum, am finally getting round to fixing up the poor old girl - next time you get a chance to look hopefully she'll be looking far less jaded and a tad more glamorous, with better shoes too

a finished scarf, a torn afghan and some canine bedding...

it's been a week, and what a week. I've been in Glasgow for part of it doing some work. Was lucky enough to get along to private views at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Glasgow Museum of Modern Art. Kelvingrove had some fabulous bits and pieces of Charles Rennie Mackintosh (and co) design work but I especially loved the small gallery featuring 18thC costumes
At GoMA I was inspired and enthralled by the Cutting Edge exhibition of contemporary Scottish crafts, there were some interesting and innovative pieces of jewellery and textiles, shame there are no pictures on their website...
Anyway, back at the ranch I managed to finish the scarf yesterday. I put a slit in it as I found myself running out of yarn sooner than I thought so the slit was designed to enable it to wrap without having to really wrap, iykwim. Unfortunately it was a bit TOO close to the end so I had to frog it (ribbit, ribbit - geddit?) and then add a bit more on after the slit. Think I am happy with it now. It is gloriously warm and once I have it around my neck I feel like I can never part with it. Haven't worn it to bed though, yet...
(this is my new hairdo, supposed to work with my natural curls once I wash it - I withold judgement until tomorrow)

Spent today at home with two sick children. Awwwh. They are very poorly. The littlest one is clinging like a limpet while the eldest one is mostly prone before the telly. I did manage to engage them in some crafting though and I have photographic evidence to prove it...

I made this afghan (my first ever crochet "on the buses" project) for Elijah who was born last February. Unfortunately, it being my first ever crochet project, I had no idea how to bind in the ends and so it has suffered a bit of toe damage (he is a strong boy that Eli!) which I have undertaken to mend. No idea how and have a horrible feeling it will involve some crazy backwards crocheting technique not yet invented but I will give it a whirl.


Esther initially decided to help (the lure of some shiny, pointy needles obviously strong enough to combat her ailment) but shortly after returned to limpet mode...


Meanwhile Eva has been nagging me to make a quilt for her favourite soft doggie for some time now. Today I got her to do a design for it and choose the fabric and we cut it out (she turns out to be a whizz on the rotary cutter and a demon with a measuring tape) and pieced it (she lifted and lowered the running foot, and guided the fabric) together. The real excitement came when she got her foot to the motor pedal thing and the machine went off at 120mph, or so it felt to this old dear (I normally sew well below the official speed limit!). Here is the finished article...with the batik fabric looking very fetching on the marbled table (ahem! ...wouldn't have been my choice of fabric but the girlie and her doggie appear to love it)

the flowers Eva made while she was feeling a bit bored as I tried to remember how to change a needle are at the top of this entry...

and here is a "bag" she made when we were testing out her fabric guiding skills...







I think Eva enjoyed her afternoon even though she was feeling a bit miserable

Now, back to that reverse engineering crochet job...

a minor miracle involving the little red pencil case (and some other stuff)

I had some great news during the week from my craftastic sister Marion who came all the way from Ireland last weekend to make sure I wasn't lonely in Ally Pally and shared reminiscences about knitting, childhood and our mum with me over a lovely weekend. She texted me during the week to say she had been in her attic looking in our mum's old knitting bag for needles to start her latest project when she found, tucked away in the threadbare old bag, the very knitted red pencil case I mention in my profile. I can't believe my mum kept it all those years and must admit it brought (more than) a tear to my eye. I have to wait til I visit Marion to reclaim it as it has such enormous sentimental value that I don't dare entrust it to Royal Mail. Most of the sentimental value now is by virtue of the fact that my dear old mum (who sadly left this world and her knitting behind 15 years ago) kept it safe all those years while I had long forgotten about it. All together now...AAAWWHHH!



In the meantime, I started and am now half way through the scarf planned at Ally Pally. It's in Super Chunky hand painted yarn from the people at the www.hipknits.co.uk stand on 15mm needles. I had a bit of trouble getting started as I wasn't quite sure how to tackle the skeins of yarn and get them into some sort of knittable state . Indeed, after that experience I maintain the things should come with a health warning...quite nice to knit with once you get past all that though...




What a busy week it was. On Thursday I went with my littlest daughter to East Dulwich ostensibly looking for some sensible brown boots. In fact we ended up in the charity shop (there are still one or two proper ones in ED in which I indulge all too infrequently a passion that began in those cash beleaguered student years) where we found some old curtains and a vintage tablecloth in a very sweet green and cream floral pattern. They'll do very well for a retro style creation or two...

in the same shop we found lots of 100% wool DK in pretty colours for about half what they cost in a regular shop. I bought 30 balls or so and will be using it for my "on the buses" project - crocheting afghan granny squares as I commute...

Am feeling quite inspired by all this...long may it last...

(Today's blog challenge was to get the images in line with the text, let's see how that looks)

a first attempt at blogging...

I'm starting this blog in order to try to keep my "creative" side alive
my hope is that by posting project plans and progress as I go I'll manage to keep things ticking over, well more so than I normally do at least, I guess we'll see...

so, I went to the Knittin'n'Stitchin show at Alexandra Palace last weekend and bought some yarn (or "wool" as my mother would have said)

the plan was to make a teacosy and a scarf and then see what else unfurled itself from my imagination

have managed the teacosy so far and am quite proud of that as having not knit anything in about two years I managed it in two evenings in front of the TV, and had great fun with a Loopy stitch at the top

it's a little small for my big green teapot and a little big for my small spotty teapot - think I feel a spot of middle sized teapot shopping coming on...

let's see if I can get a picture or two up