Some Wedding Gifts

We're just back from the beautiful wedding of two good friends in Cirencester. Absolutely exhausted but lots of happy memories, and their wedding day was sunny and bright - heavy rain the day before and day after so they were super lucky! I was honoured to be bridesmaid and wanted to make them some handmade gifts to go with their main present. Being last minute I finished some of them off in the car on the way there, so the only photos I have are in the hotel in bad light the day before the wedding. Oh well.

First up are a set of facecloths, my first excursion with Rico Creative Cotton. I liked the texture, which was thick and durable but it could have been a bit softer!

2. Then I thought this heart doily was very well suited to a wedding present. I tried to match it to their colour scheme. I really like this pattern, it's simple and works up quickly and I think it's really effective. It's free and can be found here.

3. Finally a cross-stitch wedding sample in some terribly blurry photos. I'm really pleased with how this came out :)

Now to finish off some long-standing WIPs. Have you ever made wedding gifts? I have some more weddings coming up and thought I might keep up the habit :)

Back to Reality.... Feet on the Ground with Head in the Clouds

Wow.

After an amazing couple of weeks I now have my feet firmly replanted on the ground (as of yesterday, so maybe still a little shaky!) My head however hasn't quite returned yet, it's full of happy memories and daydreams.

On 24th May C and I tied the knot.... It all seems such a dream now but it truly was wonderful. So relaxed and happy, and our guests seemed to enjoy it too (always a good thing!). Everyone commented on how personal it was (I'd done quite a lot of crafting, and we made elderflower champagne and homebrewed beer for the reception drinks). It was just magical, I'm still processing it all to be honest, but hope to write more about it in another post in the future. We are waiting for the photos to come back but have seen previews, our photographer is amazing and has captured some lovely natural pictures, we didn't have a lot of group photos as we wanted people to eat, drink and be merry. And enjoy the garden games we'd hired :)

2 days later we flew off to the Austrian Alps for our honeymoon. Sadly the weather wasn't great, but we walked a lot (my legs still hurt) and climbed a few mountains... I pretended I was in the Sound of Music most of the time, but I think C wasn't entirely surprised at that! It truly was beautiful, we were by a lake in the midst of lots of mountains, in a town called Maurach. Lots of beer, bratkartoffeln (fried potatoes, my favourite food in the entire world) and just getting used to being hitched. Bliss.

The sheer vastness of the mountains is really rather humbling. Nature truly is magnificent.

We went to Innsbruck, the nearest city, one day. It was lovely, surrounded by mountains (which we didn't realise until the clouds had lifted!)

Ahem. yes, as the last two pictures suggest I managed to find a wool shop in Innsbruck, much to C's annoyance! He was very reasonable and accepted that I needed to buy some wool to make a honeymoon memento or two (after some persuasion). The shop was full of woolly goodness but I finally opted for what I think is an Italian brand. A mixture of wool, acrylic, alpaca and something else it's really light and soft, with a light silvery tinge running through it. I'm thinking a shawl, or cowl perhaps. I bought three of each colour, it's 50g a ball but 150m in length. Hmmm decisions decisions...

But a truly beautiful thing is that now the wedding is over I can crochet whatever I want! As much as I enjoyed making our lovely decorations, my fingers were starting to itch for other projects. I should probably return to my PhD first though.... reality is calling....

But before I do I am off to delve into Blogland to catch up on what everyone has been up to in my absence :) sorry supervisors....

Handmade Decorations and How to Make Tissue Paper Pom-Poms

So this weekend has also been a crafty one, making me very happy (I'll have to get married more often ;)) My lovely bridesmaid came to stay and we got going with some assembling of decorations, very productive! We had a lot of fun together as well of course :)

Using Lace, Ribbons, Hessian, and crochet flowers assorted, we made some jam jar candle holder...

And that's another one of my heart wreaths in the middle :)

We also began assembling the table place cards...

... and made lots of tissue paper pom poms! The barn where the reception is is really big, so I wanted to have lots of bursts of colour all over the place. Tissue paper pom poms are easy and quite cheap to make so we thought that this would be one good way of using the space. 

To make them, you just need 8 sheets of tissue paper, roughly the same size. We used a mixture of colours so that each one is different. You then fold them as if you were folding a fan, over by about an inch and then back, repeatedly until the end

Then tie some string around the middle. We used a lot of string, so that you can use the ends to hang the pom poms once you're done...

... to get the fuzzy effect on the ends you then need to cut a semi-circle at each end...

Then gently pull back the layers from the middle to make the pom poms...

Ta Dah! And now we have a few pom poms around the house... we didn't unfold all of them, but wanted to just check it worked a few times. C is delighted (!)

Hope you are all having a lovely relaxing weekend :)

Gaining Control?

I love this picture of Bella. She just lay down on the sofa one day, as lazy fat cats do, and happened to be on top of the remote control. Being too lazy to move (oh the indignity!) she shuffled over and appeared to gain control... She lost it to C when he decided he wanted to watch television of course...

As I mentioned in my last post, I have finally gained some control over all of the little bitty things I've been crocheting for our wedding in May (one month today, eeek!)

I finally stuck a load of hearts on a piece of cardboard (inspired by this pattern here.)

I'm so pleased with the results, I think it's really effective. One down, eight to go! I'm going to use the wreaths as table decoration, with glass jars containing tea lights and flowers dotted around them (and one in the middle I expect). I now have a mound of hearts waiting to be made up so that's this weekend's task. 

And once the wedding is over, I'll gift them as part of thank you presents, adding a ribbon so they can be hung on the wall.

This weekend my wonderful friend and Bridesmaid is coming to stay and we are  making up the place cards for tables, adding the little flowers. We'll also be attacking a load of jam jars with ribbon, lace and twine. A crafty weekend indeed :) To be accompanied with tea, cake and lots of chatting. 

My other little project over Easter was finishing the swatch of half double crochet I began using cheap Wilkos yarn. I made a rectangle, folded it upwards and then crocheted the sides together, making a very functional make-up purse...

I ruined the creativity by sewing the button on wonky, so will have to fix that at some point. Nevertheless I can tell it will get much use!

Flowers, flowers, flowers

Once again I've hit a bit of a busy patch... not as much time for crafting as I'd like sadly. I've been crocheting lots of little flowers for the table place cards at the wedding, only another 40 or so to go (!) I know they'll look lovely when they're done, but I'd much rather be crocheting blanket squares, or cowls, or Easter goodies! The sight of all the ends that need sewing in does not fill me with joy I have to confess.

I will be attaching them to some thick brown card and then my lovely bridesmaid who has neat hand writing will write the names! I'm toying with the idea of adding buttons to the centre, but it might depend on time by the time I'm done. We're trying to make the wedding as personal as possible, so an element of my new found crochet obsession only seemed right!! 

I also realised that I hadn't used the half treble stitch, so I'm trying a swatch in some cheap wool from Wilkos. When crocheting in rows I still seem to be inconsistent with crocheting through front, back or both loops, so I'm just going to practice until it comes right. No idea what will become of this, it's an odd width! I was thinking maybe a simple little purse (I need a new make-up wallet) or maybe something else... watch this space!

Helen xx

Hooked!

After a peaceful (and surprisingly sunny) weekend at home I've finally taken the teeny tiny steps away from my crochet hearts and flowers to making something practically useful ;) Inspired initially by this pattern at Lion Brand Yarns and then the lovely version on the Bunny Mummy blog I finally decided to just get on with it and practice my double crochet. It grew so much quicker than my previous attempt at knitting!

And I was so pleased with the final results:

I used a Sirdar click yarn and it was lovely to work with, and very forgiving in terms of covering up any mistakes ;) Now to think about adding a little flower or something to decorate :) I am oh so definitely hooked...

My mother-in-law to be came to visit us for the weekend and between us we crocheted a mountain of hearts and flowers for wedding decorations which I have just started to sew in to finish off (definitely not my favourite job!)

Next task is to think about assembling them! We had a lovely day shopping as well, and I have a fantastic jug from a thrifty market stall (only £4.99) and some bright and cheerful daffodils to remember the weekend...

Taking the plunge....

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Welcome to my first blog :) I've been meaning to start one for a while and have finally taken the plunge! Baby steps for now, as technology is not my forte...

2014 looks set to be an amazing year, and I want to use my blog to focus on all the things that make me happy in life. I'm taking up knitting and crochet, having cross stitched since I was a little girl, and want to use my blog to chart my progress, share any inspirations and hopefully gain hints and tips from the wider community :) I'm getting married in May and started doing little bits of crochet for that so that's been the motivation to get going with crafty delights a bit more often, nothing too complicated but some cute hearts and flowers to incorporate into the decorations

The hearts are from the wonderful Fiber Flux blog, which is giving me so much aspiration

Crochet Heart Tutorial

And I got the simple flower patter from The Making Spot before it shut down (:(). All very simple but I am hoping to build my confidence and attack some bigger projects soon!

Alongside crafts the other project in my life is our campervan, Bonnie. She's a lovely T2 Bay Window bus, and has just had a massive facelift. She's a blank canvas now and we're working on the interior, I managed to make the curtains last summer on a second hand sewing maching (having never used one before) They're not perfect but look the part! 

My ultimate aim is to crochet a nice warm blanket to leave in her, so I will be building up to that I hope (once I master the art of granny squares!)

Well that's enough for now, Happy Weekend!

Helen  x