Yesterday I made...

Where has the week gone? this working malarkey doesn't half take up your time... anyway...
Yesterday I made a sparkling Barbie evening dress, just because I wanted to knit.

I cast on last night.

Did little bits here and there: before breakfast, when I got in from work, watching the girls playing in the garden while dinner cooked, in the bedtime chair while they went to sleep and then a bit more while I enjoyed a cuppa in the evening.

The pattern is free from here. There is a lot of choice and they are easy to make. One of my most favourite things to do is leave my handmade things at the end of my girls beds so that they can see them when they wake up.

Did I really need to make this? probably not but it was quick and easy and satisfying. It was much sought after this morning, suppose I will have to make another one now!

Ah! Happy Knitting Jo x

Carefully Crafting

I am still carefully crafting by making sure I choose to make things that we need or that compliment other things we already have. This new crafting groove of mine is really working for me at the moment, what with working four days a week. My crafting takes me to a place where I really think about what I want to make.

With this in mind, I have made a scarf to go with my coat.

I can dig out my military style corduroy coat that I had put away for a few years because when I used to stand outside nursery to collect the children, us parents got soaked if it rained so I have been wearing a hooded waterproof for about four years. 

Now I am working and driving between learners for their tutoring I can get back to being a bit more fashionable and a bit less waterproof.

The yarn is Noro Chunky shade 325 and is left over from this pullover which I wear all the time. I had a skein and a half leftover because I decided to make it with short sleeves.

 

I used up every last strand to the point where I needed to use some Red Heart Fina DK in Moss 2010 to do the edges and two layers of my flower. When you pay for Noro you feel you have to use every last scrap.

Not quite a scarf, not quite a shawl, it is exactly what I wanted. I used my Minerva pattern, Sirdar 7046, where I made the blue daisy summer wrap earlier this year.

The colours of Autumn would you say?

Thanks for stopping by Jo xx

Harvest and time

The allotment needed some serious attention this weekend but I can only manage about an hour of digging before I know I am going to get a bad back. It is getting better as the little ones were being super helpful. You realise in September you can't just keep reaping the benefits of fresh food, you have to eventually give some time back.

I don't mind really because other than belly dancing every other week for a couple of hours, I don't do any exercise and I consider this to be free gym work rather than a chore.

I got a good chunk done today. The children helped until they got sidetracked with 'treasure' they found as they were digging.

China pieces, old clay pipes, the odd potato and pretty beans from the french bean pods that we pulled up. They have simple play tastes do my girls. My treasure however is another basket of fresh food.

Those courgettes just keep coming!

We also picked blackberries last weekend.

Can you spy my special harvest? A carrier bag of black grapes. They were in the garden of the house we stayed in at Tenby but our friends, who own the house, have gone to Spain for five weeks so we picked them so they would not be wasted. Bloke has a gallon of grape wine and I have a gallon of blackberry wine brewing in the kitchen. 

Happy harvesting! I am yet to start getting carrier bags of apples from friends but I know it will come soon enough, that brewing bucket should be empty by then.

For now though, time to relax and enjoy the weather.

Jo xx

Crafting the kit

POW!

Source: Photos by Ian Woodward at the Hooded Lens

Today's story starts on August Bank Holiday weekend. On the Sunday the Severn Sisters Tribal Belly Dance group, of which I belong, took part in the Big Busk in Shrewsbury as part of the Shrewsbury Folk Festival. It was a mammoth day of dancing every hour from 11am to 5pm. OOOh my arms!

People love our dancing, tenacity and of course the outfits. See more outfits here. I made my own but I am not alone, many others in the group craft their way to an amazing outfit adding trinkets, bits and bobs, swingy things and coins. My skirt is two charity shop finds, one cut in half and inserted into the other one to get a really swishy gypsy skirt.

However, a full day of jiggling about shook some of my kit to pieces.

My headdress band broke, my crochet scarf at the back got snagged too many times on the coins and the crochet halter neck top pulled at my neck by the end of the day. 

  Time to rehash I think....

It started with salvaging bits and pieces from my old kit and collecting stuff from round the house. A headband, yarn, an unbelievably uncomfortable pair of ankle bracelets, a table runner and a beady belt from a skirt.

I got out my weaving sticks - never used them but I know they make belts. I started with some Stylecraft yarn.

too thin, so I ripped some strips of sari fabric I was given about five years ago. Nice long pieces.

While I showed Big Sis how to do this (clever girl) I started on crocheting a new bum shawl hip scarf. I bought the five balls of Patons zig zag wool at the folk festival from a craft stall for £2.00 the lot. 

With my triangle made, I added it to the belt. It fitted my hips so I then thought about how to 'tribal' it up a bit. I used the tie belt off an old skirt, some ribbon and some curtain tassels. Perfect.

Next the head dress. I deconstructed the old one, collected the pieces and saved the nice bits. I wrapped matching yarn around the headband.

Look away now if you are of a nervous disposition because then it got a bit wild and carefree... I started really 'getting into it'

I spritzed these white roses with watered down acrylic paint and dryed them with a hairdryer, messed up the bathroom sink, got spotty hands, got paint all over my desk, up the wall and on my work paperwork.... I am loving this...

Time to get out the glue gun and start building. This is so much fun, I can't tell you....

I bent the anklet out and made a coin fringe which sits nicely on my own heavy fringe. It needed feathers, Big Sis has some some purple ones somewhere...rummage, root, frenzy....ah ah!

I don't really have the face for modelling right now.

So onto the top. I liked it but the strain of tying it tightly to contain the jiggling in that area had stretched it somewhat and it hurt the back of my neck. Two straps were needed. I rooted out my oldest bra and sewed it inside the crochet top with the zig zag stretch stitch on my machine, taking the straps over both shoulders.

The pom pom ribbon had split around the neck and the little velvety beads were coming off so I replaced it with a double crochet edge in the chosen yarn. I kept the belly chain which was a necklace I broke down and added only the morning of the busk.

I want wrist cuffs, I don't have them yet but it is always good to have a 'watch' cover up.

Size 2mm hook a tin of old beads and some crochet cotton later...

I added loops and buttons to the table runner and hung it from the belt. Hooray! new outfit.

I will get a photo of me in it next time we are dancing out.

Thanks for sticking with my long, but ultimately fun 

creative story which I loved doing every spare second of this whole week. 

Happy Weekend Jo xxx

Hooray! more grey.

I am having a great time using some of the fabric I found in the big summer clear up. I am being careful only to make clothes that I really want and that go with other clothes I already have otherwise I fall into the trap of making a million summer flowery dresses to wear in only three months of the year!

So today my offering is a classic checked wool skirt, lined with an invisible zip. The fabric is from my friend who does house clearance and the satin lining is left over from the wedding waistcoat from White tree fabrics. 

The pattern is a Simplicity jiffy vintage one that I have used many times in the past but still holds true today.

I purchased (gulp!) a gorgeous jumper in the Summer Boden sale for £20.00 the week I was left unattended to go with it. I had to make the skirt in order to allow myself to own a mustard coloured jumper.

My Autumn/winter wardrobe is building up nicely which is good because I did ditch quite a lot of old clothes in that big clear out. Jo x

Hooray! woollie hats

We have been away for a few days to Tenby in South Wales which is a brilliant place. It was not very sunny but we didn't care. We went on the beaches in layers rounded off with a fleece and then just stripped off according to cloud movements.

I took two balls of wool with me for the few days with two specific projects in mind. The Little Woodland Warrior Hat from Sublime 630. I have made it before but Big Sis needs a bigger one and Little M has taken a shine to it too.

The bigger one is made from Sirdar Supersoft Aran which is left over from my next Minerva make waiting to be revealed in September. I admit it is a bit strange to show you the leftover project before you see the real deal but that is the way it is!

The purple one is from a ball of chunky given to me by one of my crochet ladies. She worked on a local yarn stall on the market and often gave me the odd ball of yarn - very kind indeed. I think it is called Marble by James C Brett.

The flower is from my pattern on the left and I added tassels because they are just a bit cute. I love using up every last bit of a ball of wool, there is something really satisfying in getting it spot on. This is what was left of the purple.

In my latest attempt to only make things that we need or that go with other things I have to say that the grey hat goes brilliantly with Big Sis' hand-me-down spotty scarf and crochet mitts. The purple hat was made specifically to go with this hand- me-down coat I received last week. I have good friends haven't I?

So it's August, I'm knitting winter hats and because it was so windy, the children ran around on the beach in them. 

Do you think summer is fading? or have we a few more weeks, pretty please... Jo xxx