Birthday presents

Hi everyone, 

Bit of a gap between posts again. My internship has been crazy busy with me preparing crafts for our annual church holiday club. We had 170 5-11 year olds doing a different pirate themed craft each day. We made hats, eyepatches, wooden spoon pirates, treasure maps on fabric and other pirates crafts.

 

There have been a few birthdays recently that I've crafted for. I stitched this toadstool from an old issue of cross stitcher for Lori. 

I was so pleased with how it turned out.  I backed it with red spotty fabric (I think!) 

It was also my friend Amanda's birthday and I made the biscornu that I had showed you in a previous post. I was really pleased with the finished item. It was stitched on a piece of linen that Steph dyed for me. 

Here is one of the bottom too. 

My last make was a crocheted brooch  for my pen pal Lauren. 

I hope you're all doing well and for the UK mums that are reading, I hope you're having a great summer holiday so far. 

Thanks for reading

Very late Gifted Gorgeousness

Each month Jo from Serendipitous Stitching hosts a SAL where we stitch using something that is gifted to us - fabric, threads, finishing bits, kit or chart or that is to be gifted to someone else.

It's one of those months where I've stitched 4 things and all but one are secrets at the moment! I'm stitching is for a birthday present next week. I've given myself until Monday to finish that and then I can make it up Tuesday. It's a fab design from an old cross stitcher mag, bigger than I thought though! Here it is kitted up and ready to start...

I've been stitching things for my Pay It Forward's. I'll share the completed one in a minute.  I'm using mouseloft kits for my PIF's and they're coming on well. The mouselofts are my travel projects and you can often find me in the pub stitching with a pot of tea whilst I wait for it to be time to collect my small people from school. 

So here is my first completed PIF for my pen pal Janet. Can you see a bit of a theme! The ribbon and backing fabric were both gifted to me and I have a feeling this was one of a few mouselofts that hubby brought me a while back. 

It was sent with some stationary too from paperchase (love that shop!) 

Hopefully I'll have a bit more to share in my next post as I've been making a granny square or two! r

A little bit of Easter

Hello friends,

Just a couple of little makes and postal goodness to share with you 

The travelling box ladies did a spring feltie  swap. I made Rachel a little trio of birds...

 Steph O sent me this gorgeous lamb and a little bunny brooch. 

The office downstairs from my work has closed and the lovely PA who worked there was made redundant. She is a passionate crafter and we've had many a conversation about buttons over coffee. 

I filled 4 little plastic boxes from Paperchase with buttons, ribbon, fabric and in the bottom one put a couple of hand made bits. These are the boxes, they're super sweet.

I used the frame from a recent CS Crazy to hang this little blackwork design from here stitched on hand dyed aida from the fabulous Steph S from her folksy shop. I brought 2 pieces of evenweave too and used a bit for the other design for Caroline from here. 

I had a lovely Easter parcel from Laura too. 

Last of all is my spring piece for the four seasons SAL on Needlecraft Haven. The design is from Kincavel Krosses.

Steph and I have also had a little Easter swap too so I'll be back later in the week to show you that.

Happy Easter to you all. 

Kerry

Travelling box and a PIF parcel

Hello friends

I've been very spoilt this month with a visit from the travelling box and also receiving a Pay It Forward parcel from Laura 

Here are my picks from the travelling box 

Rachel made the beautiful bookmark, Laura made the mouse and pencil ami's.The  super cute hedgehog brooch was made by Teresa and Steph O made the grey glittery head warmer. The biscornu was in a bag of bits made by Steph S along with the keyring and covered buttons. I'm going to make the buttons into badges for my bag. 

My last minute pick was this hair tie made by Cucki. I think it will make a fab brooch so I'm planning to pop a brooch back on it at some point. 

Did anyone else end up at the sewing machine at 11.30pm the night before world book day? My lovely 4 year old decided she should go as Mr Tod the fox from the Beatrix Potter stories.  Fortunately we already had the mask as lovely boy went as fantastic Mr Fox a couple of years ago. So cue me scouring charity shops for a jacket and waistcoat to alter and making a cravat and tail...any hoo here's DS as Mr Tod. 

Finally ages ago Laura did a pay it forward post on Facebook to send out 5 surprises to the first 5 commenter's on her post. Long story short, I did and this is what she sent me...

A lovely shawl, my favourite Turkish delight a cute felt card and a new brooch to add to my collection. Here's a close up of the button brooch and the cupcake card. 

So the postie has brought me lots of loveliness lately so I need to get on with finishing the winter swap with Steph and making a leaving present for my friend Caroline who works in the office downstairs from mine. She's craft mad too so I've found a lovely stitchy freebie and have a couple of other things planned too.

Hope you had a great weekend, I did, the  Formula 1 is back! 

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL

Morning! 

Well this one completely crept up me! I didn't do last month's Gifted Gorgeousness run by Jo as I was making for the travelling box. Click here to see the gifts I made from freebie charts and with gifted fabric!! You could say threads were gifted too as hubby brought me most of my DMC threads too. ) Boom! I'll share my favourite make again though. The pattern is here

This month, once again I'm making for friends. I can show you a little bit of two I'm stitching for gifts and 2 I have kitted up ready for gifts too. 

Below is a Gazette 94 pattern. 

This one is actually one I found that is a Hama bead design but works well as a cross stitch design. I've had a few visits from the frog on this one including one where he stopped a very long time. 🐸

Next are the 2 I have kitted up and they'll be started over the next week. Both are freebies again. One I managed to print the wrong design as there was a spelling error so I shall do that at work tomorrow. I've shown it here with the design with a mistake as it won't change much at all. I've changed the colour too as I didn't like the really muted colours. My friend Caroline who the piece is for, is a vibrant person so it needed more colour. The pattern is here, just keep scrolling!

And this one is with the backing fabric too, I've chosen a red that's a little more pink to match the fabric. 

I hope all the UK mums have a lovely Mothering Sunday. We're off to church soon and then to my mums for lunch. I've already watched the F1 so a great start to the day for me. 

Happy crafting

Travelling craft box

Hello friends,

It's been a lovely day here, glorious sunshine has made it feel very spring like. As I was sat watching the children play in the garden I realised that I hadn't shared my makes and what I kept from when the travelling box visited last month. 

I made 8 items and took out 7 this time. I had a little assistance in choosing as usual! 

So my makes were...

I stitched a lot of things this time... My favourite was the friend cushion from a freebie I found on Pinterest. 

I changed the thread colours to match the beautiful fabric my friend gave me from the Downton Abbey fabric range and added the cotton lace trim and wooden wooden buttons. 

I stitched this little cameo and beaded the edge. It reminds me of a ring I have that was my Nan's. 

I stitched a chicken scratch butterfly. 

I also had a bit of an experiment with some felt and beads and made this necklace and matching earrings

I also made a crocheted flower brooch, a felt and stitched button brooch and embellished a bag with buttons and machine embroidery.

I'll share my travelling box picks in my next post. 

Happy crafting 

Kerry

Ps this was written a few days ago when the weather was actually nice. Today has been cold and grey. Brrrrr! 

Malvern craft show

Hubby and I spent the day at the Malvern craft show today. It's a really small show compared to the NEC or the like but they do have good workshops and it is only a few miles away from us. 

Hubs doesn't usually do craft shows with me as its not really his thing, but as this one was offering a workshop he was interested in, it didn't take much persuasion! 

We both did the stained glass sun catcher workshop. The people running were lovely and really helpful. I didn't take any step by step pics but this is the sun catcher I made. 

We were given a choice of kits, it didn't take much for me to pick these colours. There were 5 different designs including a triangle, 2 different squares and 2 hearts. 

The kit had the copper fouling tape, cleaning wipe and the ready cut glass. We were shown how to clean and foil them and then how to solder it all together. 

This is the one hubs made. The glass is textured and called rough rolled (I think).

So we ended up buying 5 kits and equipment too. When I do the next sun catcher I'll take step by step pics too. 

I did end up buying some other bits and pieces too. Some of the bits I needed like the findings and the loose buttons are for a project as are the fabric panels. The  FQ's were £2 each and I loved the designs. I topped up on friendly plastic too and some cutters so I can experiment a bit more too. 

And I always need buttons! 

The travelling box is due to leave my possession on Monday so I'll have a couple of posts next week once the next recipient has it. 

Have a craft filled weekend xx