El elefante

My Christmas pressie to myself was a little screenprinting kit. I took it out yesterday to create a little baby shower gift for a friend who loves all types of animals! I really love giving special people gifts that are handmade and personalised. In my new crafty inspired state, this has been lots of fun.



The elephant stencil on these little suits was inspired by some vintage baby blocks on Hillary's site a few months ago (I can't find the original post - poo). I filed the photo away because I loved the simplicity of the design. I'll try my hand at designing my own stencils at some stage - maybe even with more than one colour - but don't have a lot of confidence in my creative abilities! I'm seeing inspiration in all kinds of places though - wrapping paper, childrens books, symbols on kitchen appliances - "I could stencil that!"

All over for another year

Handmade presents go down a treat! These coasters were much exclaimed over - which strengthens my resolve to make more handmade pressies next year. One-of-a-kind Falcon GT wall hanging was also well received, though we don't have a wall big enough to hang it on. Which is not entirely a bad thing.

Only 3 sleeps to go....

... and I have to finish MIL's special "brownie-points earning, some thought went into this" stitched coasters and Nick's mystery Christmas gift. And no, this is nothing along the lines of the sweater curse - I am pretty sure it will go down well. Ho ho ho.

French market bag Part Deux

I expected that tossing the bag into the washing machine would be quite harrowing, but in the end I was so sick of the sight of it that I went ahead with reckless abandon. It was quite exciting once I had figured out how to make the washing machine use hot water, as we always wash in cold. I chucked in the bag with some laundry powder and let it go through one wash cycle (about 10 minutes). It wasn't doing much so I rewound the dial and added a pair of old cord pants. Lo and behold it came out fuzzy and shrunken after about another 7 minutes!



The bucket was thanks to Nick who has a vast array to choose from. I was planning to shape it on an normal old laundry bucket but the base did not shrink as much as the sides, so it is a bit more of a squat shape (no swatches for me - fly by the seat of my pants type of girl! Or some would say lacking patience). I knitted the bag taller than the pattern said. I also stretched the sides down a bit which helped. Voila!



I do love it. It's a bit floppier than I envisaged but once it's full of my next knitting project it will be just perfect. I am not tempted to do another one but did think briefly about knitting smaller bags for Christmas pressies - ha ha! Maybe I'll try the Sophie bag for a few special birthdays next year.

My next project... as a "She's Gotta Have It" knitter I am now hankering after something even more complicated and am determined to make it by hook or by crook! So I will shortly be teaching myself cables... to have a go at the Samus. Will probably be zipping over to Mum's house quite frequently so she can unravel my mistakes :)

felt like doing some felting

I feel like using a cheesy title like that thanks to the marvellous Stitch n Bitch book which re-taught me how to knit in the last few months. I was inspired to take up the needles again after spotting Di's excellent French Market Bag on her site.

Only problem was, last time I knitted was under the careful guidance of Mum when I lived at home and I never had to worry about casting on or binding off, let alone picking up dropped stitches and knitting in the round! Very slowly and with much huffing at the double pointed needles I managed to create this: (!!)



(bag pre felting - about to be chucked in the washing machine with some soap and hot water)

Next installment soon... this juggling photos and things is tricky... rest assured there is a happy ending!