Travelling box

Hello,

The travelling box has been again and as always it was full of beautifully made things. Here are the things we chose from the

Joan made the wrist warmers and bag of juggling balls. Rae stitched the lovely coaster. Debby made the hair slides. The butterfly bag charm was made by Steph O and Laura made the Hama bead butterfly, notebook, blackwork biscornu and ami piggy. 

The travelling box really is a family affair and the first two makes were made by my hubby (dragonfly) and the heart by the children.

I made two biscornu, both designs came from recent issues of WOXS

The left one is a friendship one, I changed the colours a bit to be a bit brighter and stitched on sparkly aida. The second is blackwork stitched on a dmc pre printed fabric. The fact they have the same buttons is a happy coincidence.

I made some jewellery too. Over the summer hols we've been up to the countryside centre where they've had various workshops. We did the bead one and I made a necklace and earrings for the box. I also crocheted a flower bracelet with teal beads and copper foiled some sea glass. 

I stitched the cover for this little album and made a lavender sachet filled with dried lavender from my garden. 

Now that I've had a good catch up we're back to all the half started stuff for presents. Hopefully I'll have a progress report soon. I'm off to the theatre this afternoon to see The Bodyguard. I'm looking forward to it. 

August Gifted Gorgeousness

Hello, 

It's a lovely sunny afternoon here and we're having a lazy day. I have to do some planning work to do in a bit for church but hopefully it should just be typing up so won't take me long and I can enjoy a bit of crafting this afternoon. 

So on to gifted gorgeousness, Jo at Serendipitous Stitching runs a monthly SAL that I'm hopeless at keeping up with to share things that are made for gifts or using stuff gifted to us. I've three things to show you this time as I shall save my travelling box makes for my next  couple of posts. First are two you have seen and we're both birthday presents

A spot of tea by dragon dreams, stitched for Laura at Strawberry Mouse Crafts

So this ticks a lot of boxes as it was a kit that was gifted, I swapped out the plain white aida for some hand dyed linen from Steph at Show and Tell and given as a gift to my friend Amanda. 

The next one is new! I'm stitching this for my friend Caroline's birthday. The design is from an old cross stitcher. I call Caroline 'queen of hearts' as she is always sewing hearts, so I searched on Pinterest and found this design called queen of hearts. I had the issue deep in my magazine pile so here is my progress so far. I'm loving the design and I'm stitching it in a dinky dyes thread called Aussie Jewels. I'm hoping I have enough thread as I can't find a supplier in the UK of dinky dyes. 

And a bit of a close up

So that's the news, travelling box posts to come! 

Happy Sunday! 

Glorious grannies!

Hello, 

This post is a bit of a crochet fest so bear with if you're not a yarn-a-holic! 

First is the blanket I made for my friends new baby Alice. I knew they were having a girl but I couldn't find a girly wool that I really loved as I wanted a variegated one. Style craft yarns were recommended to me and I found this amazing one called merry-go-round. I did it all in the join as you go method for the squares and scalloped the outer edge. I added a little white flower for detail in the centre. 

Next are some of the lovely granny squares I've been sent as part of the granny square swap I'm doing with some of the travelling box ladies. Joan had the good idea of making the same square as the one you send each month to make the blanket bigger. I'm a little behind with making mine as the internship has been frantic and the travelling box is here too!! (Bet you can't guess what my next two posts will be about!) 

This pic has all the squares I've received so far as we still have 2 rounds to go. I've also had some lovely buttons, threads, ribbon, chocolates and sweets. (A whole pot of jelly beans. Yum!!!)

Rachel also sent me a cute sheep and Steph sent a little ray of sunshine too. 

These are the 4 squares I've sent so far. They all went with a bag of bits and some sweets or chocolate too. 

I've just brought the wool for my August square so I'll be starting that over the next couple of days. I've got a half done blanket that I'm determined to crack on with too, I think that'll be a September project as the evenings draw in. 

Thanks for reading, next up is the travelling box! 

More birthday makes

Thanks for all the lovely comments about the toadstool in my last post. I'm really touched by all your kind words

So on to Laura's birthday makes. As usual a parcel of crafty goodies went her way including a custom made crochet hook from for the love of yarn and a pair of Cath Kidston button earrings.  

 

Here's a close up of the hook

I'd totally recommend FTLOY. It was a great service. 

I stitched Laura a dragon dreams picture that did suit her perfectly! 

I've got a fair bit of crochet to show you in my next blog, but before I go a couple of pics of my Weekend at Wimbledon and Windsor. 

Our view from court 1

Watching the ladies final on the hill 

And finally a couple of purchases from the Cath Kidston in Windsor. Even I can find craft goodies during a weekend of tennis!! 

Thanks for reading. Next post is a bit of a crochet fest! 

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