I'm a Crocheter of Christmas Balls too

Well the Christmas Craziness has hit!
The air con is making clunkin noises so it wont be on today despite the sun broiling down on my very hot house and all the fans trying their hardest - I sit sweltering beneath yarn.
In preparation for Christmas tree decorating day and egged on by all the bloggers crocheting baubles, I bought a pack of 12 pretty cheap sparkly, shiny balls and I crocheted them. They rock! Crochet christmas baubles! YAY!
The first parts really easy but the pulling it over the ball is tricky on the glittery ones that the yarn likes to stick to, and on the shiny ones the top part gets slippery when you try to pull it tight. Today I often had balls launching, or squirming free of my hands, catapulting my hook to the floor!

It's a really quick little Christmassy task to do though. I completed 9 working on them on and off through the day. The other 3 from the 12 pack were not normal balls, they were spirally decorative cut-out and open inside, I wasn't going to use them, but in the end I thought they should have something handmade done to them so I worked 2 strings of CH30 wrapped around the bauble and joined at the top with slip stitches around the silver hanging loop thing.

Thanks ever so much to Pip from Meet Me at Mikes for creating the fab crochet bauble tutorial and to all the other bloggers I've been reading about lately that have been crocheting their own shiny balls this month too.

A Busy Busy Busy Busy Week

OMG! I meant to post something every night for the past week..where oh where did all those days go you may ask!
Well I worked everyday this past week and by the time I got home all I wanted to do was sleep! And sleep I did, from about 8:30 right through til the alarm next morning. I was exhausted! Where did my youthful energy go, where did that girl who went out late every night, all those crazy late night bars clubs and all night parties, how often did she see the dawn, shoes in hand...she's 33 now and...asleep by 8:30, just awake long enough to watch Masterchef on the telly...Even on Friday night I did'nt even make the end of Masterchef Masterclass! Asleep on the lounge, crochet in hand! ...boy oh boy how we change through life.
So...here is what I finished this week...I can't remember what day it was...but it was a day ending in y.
For the 12 in 12 challenge, Mays item was something with an enclosed zip.
Taadaa! the KF Everything Wallet completed!

I changed it a bit in order to line the inside of the zipper pocket.

If I were to make it again, I would make it with the correct sized zip, instead of just the smaller one I had in the draw...

I know it's not made for an iPhone, but if I made it again... I'd make it wider and adjust the velcro bit so it would close properly once full of all my cards and my iPhone, and money...

And I'm an idiot, I spent hours choosing the positions of each pocket on the fabric to cut out cool bits of patterns on the fabric to show on the edge of each card pocket...and then promptly realised once finished, that you see none of them beneath the cards..hehehehe.

Still, I love it and it's cute...and the lovely Coles checkout operator made lovely comments about it - Usecase user testing successful:)

Also at some point I think last week even, I finished off my husbands scarf, but I'm not sure If I told anyone or showed it once it was actually finished! So, here it is...modelled by a reluctant, don't-talk-about-me-on-your-blog-husband. ;)

I had to finish this one hat I started about 15 times, unpulled, changed a bit, unpulled, made a mistake, threw it in a bag, found a much better pattern...unpulled and re-used the unpulled yarn, but finally I got it right and finished it! And it was really really simple as it turns out!  I used the Art of crochet, Teresas pattern Little Darling Toddler-Youth Crochet Shell cap. I could only get one ball of this yarn, I really loved it, I wanted it for me, but I can't really make anything much for me out of one ball, I really liked it and couldn't leave it in the shop, my niece loved it because it has pink in it ;) So now she has a crochet shell cap.

Last night I started crocheting a beanie during a run of 24 episodes we were trying to catch up on, I didn't really know what I was doing with it when I started it, and really I should have been finishing off all the other projects I have on the go...but I finished it so quickly I made another one too...no patterns just a crochet hook (4mm) and pink and white and pale pink and pink left over bits of wool. I experimented with them a lot, I made them ear-flappy hats, like I had as a kid. they should fit the twins nicely, if my sister isn't too embarrassed to put them on them! I think they are cute, but I understand that not everyone likes what I like and I'm ok with that. I just say to her each time, if she can't use it give it to someone who can.

On the first one I made the pom-pom old style using two disks of cardboard, seriously painful and annoying when it fell apart while tying it up, second one I made this morning using a Spotlight pom-pom maker, a much easier process not involving cutting out cardboard:) Pom Pom makers:

I also got to use my new Birch split ring stitch markers, I know, not gorgeous beaded glittery jewelled lovelies that I've seen around the net, but they do the job and they don't get heavy or snag the wool:)

And now, to talk about the new crochet project I am starting...
These lovelies came from Bendigo Wool :

And I'm trying hard to make lil hexies...I love love love the little hexies from Attic24's lovely hexagon-howto.

Here are some of the practice ones I did, full of mistakes and perhaps I shouldn't put the two browns next to each other, but none-the-less, once I get the technique down, they will look great and I hope will make a lovely warm blankie for our brown, brown lounge.
I havent yet started anything for my May ornament for the FOSAL...oops.

A Long weekend of Project finishes!

I've spent the weekend nursing a migraine - BOO! and finishing projects YAY!
Thanks to the lovely Hilary over at Quilary. She pointed me to another lovely blog called Made By K.

At Made by K, Karin has created a wonderful printout to list your unfinished projects on to encourage finishing! Her plan is simple. You print out her project plan and list each project so you know what projects you have there waiting to be finished and what the hold up was. The key to this is that you can't start a new project until you have completed 2 of your unfinished ones from your list. And ...there's no more hiding!
The first step was to print out the Project plan document, I ended up printing it out a whole lot because I have a whole whole lot of unfinished projects.
Then I retrieved each piece of an unfinished project from it's washing basket hiding place. Then I sorted all the individual pieces that make up one project into a ziplock bag. So now each of my projects is in it's own bag with a label. (You don't have to do this, its just something I needed to get organised). Then I wrote each project down on the document and wrote the reason for it's hold up to being finished.

In the shame of having sooooo many pages of unfinished projects, this weekend I decided on a catchup weekend. No new projects until I finished/made progress on a whole stack of them this weekend.

First there was the other Maisey.

There were 3 Maiseys cut out and in the basket, one for each of my sisters girls. 2 Maiseys are now done, just One Maisey to go. The third Maisey is all stitched up, she just needs stuffing and will be finished off tomorrow. :)

Then onto a much harder project. Actually it is two projects and they are not technically mine, they are actually unfinished projects of my mums. They were begun in 1970 when my aunt was getting married. With the leftover fabrics from my aunts wedding and bridesmaids dresses some Barbie dresses were cut out. Some were stitched up by hand, and some were just cut out. They were never finished and lived in a bag in my mums sewing cupboard. I loved to take them out and look at them when I was small, and I always wished she would finish them so my Barbies could get married. Then, last year she gave them to me and asked me if I wanted to re-sew them and finished them off. Now comes the hard part, I left them and left them, because I was a little scared of them falling to pieces and not being able to be fixed. At some stage a child has had a go at stitching them together, I believe it may have been my sister, possibly my cousin. The thread and some of the lining fabrics had disintegrated and frayed and the hand stitching was bulky and uneven, not like the nice little stitches my mum always did.
Here are the before pictures for one of the Bridesmaid outfit:

And here is the before pictures of the brides dress. See the gorgeous fabric, so scared it would get ruined!

Bulky stitching on waist and seams.

and Disintegrating and fraying. :(

I unpicked everything very carefully and zigzagged all the edges before stitching back together.
The finished Bridesmaid dress:

The finished Brides dress:

Together:

There is still one Bridesmaid dress to go. It was never stitched up, but is fully cut out, it will be a project for another day. :)

I also finished stitching my cross stitch which was supposed to be finished for March FOSAL. However, I noticed the other day that I had forgotten to stitch the stem of the leaf pattern in silver. So now it is finished in terms of the cross-stitch. It still requires sewing on some backing fabric to make into an ornament, and so it will be completed tomorrow on the machine, but here is a progress photo before I pop off to bed.

I also finished weaving in all the ends of the crochet granny square blanket for the twins, but I am still working on the other one for the older girl:) So, to be continued...

Tomorrow under the rules, I must finish 2 before starting another. And so, I will!...my new project is an apron swap, so I REALLY want to do it, I REALLY HAVE TO DO IT and so I MUST finish 2 tomorrow to start my apron project.

Taa Daa...February sewing with Knit Challenge Completed! - and other progress.

I found some time to finish my top for My Favourite's 12 month's 12 sewing Challenges, February Sewing with Knit Fabric Challenge. I'm still not happy with it entirely, especially the missed stitching of the double needle that is continuing, but it is finished! I still love the colour of it, although it looks like Pyjamas (Thanks for saying that Husband...hehehe).

I loved the cuff in the pattern picture, but now I'm not so sure..it seems awfully large. If I were to make it again  I would certainly make these smaller.

I stitched on some buttons just above the split in the cuff. I found them in a button jar that came from my mum's house. They are clear plastic, but swirly, and they seem to pick up and dance with the colours of the top underneath...hard to see in photos though.

Progress on the March FOSAL Ornament - Pattern chosen :)
I've decided to stitch up a bauble using this free pattern from Better Homes and Gardens.
I have also decided to stitch it up in purples rather than the blue they are using in theirs. I am not starting it until March, but it is kitted up waiting until then. Forgive the photo, I took it with my phone camera, because the proper cameras battery is charging.

Progress on the Shelves and Sewing Room :)

Sewing room looks like a bomb hit it. (meh!) Lot's of sorting and shifting and moving going on.

The whiter than White brighter than Bright shelves are all painted blindingly reflective white and were at any minute going to be constructed. I came in for some air-con and water...not blogging hehehe...and as I was typing, Husband (out in the hot hot outdoors) let out some cursing...and now he is off to go buy or do something...I'm not sure I should ask what went wrong. I snuck out there to take a photo of the progress, only to have the warning, Battery Exhausted (that makes two, three of us!) come up. It is certainly a very large project. Progress Halted...albeit Temporarily.

OK It's now 9pm on a Sunday night and the construction phase got moved into our lounge room. I'm not too hopeful this project will have a conclusion tonight but I do not believe that we will be putting up with  construction in the lounge room for too long. 

Here are some phone camera pics of the construction phase.

Yes, we know theres a Christmas garland and Christmas Lights still up..they somehow got missed when we packed up everything else, and are now jokingly are being referred to as the Easter lights...(they'll be gone soon I promise.

It's so very very Large!

So that's as far as we got tonight. It's a giant white skeleton. Weekend is over and Husband is back to work tomorrow... At least it is at a stage where I can cut out the material for the back and attach it, if I don't get called into work tomorrow, and Husband can attach the backing sheets of MDF tomorrow evening. God knows how we are going to angle it into the tiny hallway and then into the Spare room! - I'm expecting tears...husband says it will be fine, but it's so very big!

FOSAL - January and February Ornaments

My Blue Star Ornament - Submission for February for the FOSAL
I'm all finished it now! I did most of the cross-stitching while watching the winter olympics on Sunday. By Monday night  I was really glad just to be finished cross-stitching and it was quick to stitch up the backing and attach the loop on the sewing machine while watching Good News Week. Mostly it got sewn up in the ads for Good News Week, because it's hard to stitch straight while laughing. I backed it using some blue poplin and used a piece of silver cording as it's loop. I was planning to stuff it with some poly fill, but I liked it flatter so pulled all the stuffing out instead. I used 4 threads of Gutermann metallic silver thread (for sewing machine embroidery) and threaded them together to stitch all the silver cross-stitches as the metallics in the twisted strand embroidery threads were dull and looked grey rather than silver. The 4 silver threads were extremely difficult to manage and tangled easily, sometimes the back looked like an explosion of silver loops but luckily none of the loopiness knotted completely and eventually unlooped and slid through the hole! I especially like how the silver glints and reflects in the light. So here it is...
FEBRUARY Ornament ALL FINISHED:

While I was finishing off the cross stitch on the blue star, I noticed I had lot's of room in the top corner of my embroidery hoop so, to not waste the Aida cloth I stitched up a little snowman ornament to sneak in for late entry for January, (since I wasn't a part of the FOSAL in January) I found the free pattern at craftdesigns4you.com. I reinforced it with some white cotton and a green poplin backing. It was really difficult to turn right-side out and really difficult to hand-stitch up the bottom after turning. The Aida cloth really frays alot (as you can see in the photo below) and induced a decent amount of cursing.

There must be a better way to do this stuff! - Yes I'm all about the easy. Eventually I turned a blind eye to it's faults and I hand stitched it and poked it's wonky backside into submission. I used some multiples of green thread to use as a loop, because I could not work out a way to attach the silver cording nicely. So here it is... JANUARY a little wonky (don't look too closely), but ALL FINISHED:

Now, for thinking about the March ornament...I think I'll go looking for a free bauble pattern and make it up in either green and silver or purple and silver.

My progress for the 12 months 12 sewing challenges & the FOSAL.

A progress update on my items for the 2010 12 months 12 sewing challenges and the 2010 Festive Ornament SAL.
Between teaching days this week I've cut out my top and started cross stitching my first Festive Ornament.
This is the stretch fabric I chose for the top, it's plain as in it is 1 colour, but the colour is really pretty. I don't have anything else in my wardrobe of this colour (time for a change), but I do have a necklace that matches it perfectly. I hope it looks good once it's finished as I really want to wear it soon!

Once I had it all cut out I'd had enough of it for the one day and decided to start on my Festive Ornament instead while watching Big Bang theory repeats and ER.
I was only after a quick small ornament  to kick off, so, first I found a free pattern online at freepatternsonline.com then I got cross stitching. Somewhere along the way I made some mistakes in the count but I don't seem to mind and it looks ok so far :)
It should be finished rather quickly I hope.

I did choose non traditional colours for this ornament because each Christmas we rotate between Silver and blue or Silver and purple or Silver and green ornaments on the tree. We rarely but once in a few Christmases do traditional red, gold ornaments too..just for a change. ;)
And now, Back to the stitchering.