My Busy Craft Life

Hi everyone! It's been about a week without postings, I've even missed the Tourist Tuesdays! Hopefully soon I will be able to spend lots of time on my lovely blog, but for now I wanted to show you what I've been doing. Do you remember the Haunted House Cross Stitch? I've been working on this on and off and mostly at sewing group. However, as my wonderful friend has moved to Australia for a year and she kindly hinted that it really should be done by the time she gets back, means I only have another 7 months or so. Time to get cracking! So I now bring it to work and work on it during lunch time as well and sometimes a tiny bit in the evening before leaving for whatever sports class I have that day. Progress-to-date:  It's getting there!  There is still a whole bit to the bottom left I have to do, but I'm on the last page of the pattern (yay!) and once all the cross stitching is done, there will be the back stitching. But I'm really seeing progress n...

Hi everyone! It's been two weeks since my last crafty post, oh my... But I've been busy, lots of projects that I'm working on and for the past two weekends I've been really focusing on my cross stitch project. Something I really wanted to continue tonight but I discovered a mistake that might be very annoying. Nothing major, but damage control needs to be done at the moment.  So far, I've come this far:    See, most of the moon has been done and I've started the house! Now that there are so many colours I just kind of pick a colour and go with it so it's not all over the place. I'm out of brown for the tree so need to buy more there. That is also the damage control though, so let's see what happens with that... But other than that I'm quite impressed with my progress :) Fingers crossed it won't be as bad as I'm currently thinking it is, but I'll keep you posted! Busy wave from London :)

Hi everyone, Yes I am blogging and crafting again, and enjoying every minute of it! Well, maybe not the last 10 mins when I painstakingly had to undo two rows of knitting because I dropped a stitch, but otherwise yes :) Good thing it was only 12 stitches long!  I am so close to finishing my shiny new (purple of course) scarf, but as I seem to be dropping stitches, I figured it's better to give it a rest and finish tomorrow. I was going to have it done by the time I meet some of the sewing girls for a fabric shopping trip (I'm now on a budget so will only have a look and maybe buy some polycotton to line some projects) and show it off, but I'm not sure that is going to happen. On the other hand, it's 12 degrees here at the moment during the day so not really much need for a lovely warm scarf. 12 degrees (that's Celsius), that's the same as we had in August! It's crazy...  Anyway, I took some piccies just to show you my progress. This will be the first ev...

Hi everyone! Oh boy the first day back at work was tricky. I really needed a snooze about halfway through so it was good that I had packed a piece of yummy apple pie to have with my afternoon tea :) After work we had the very first craft meet of 2013 where we all started a new project. Perfect time for me to finally use up the pompom wool I bought back in March. It wasn't easy and after many youtube videos I still didnt understand the casting on bit, but luckily one lovely lady from the group came to the rescue and after three hours I was well on the way to having a shiny new purple scarf.  Isn't it just wonderful? The colour is actually much more purple than it shows on the photo. Must be one of those colours that is really hard to photograph. But I couldn't stop touching this gorgeous wool :) OK, gorgeous microfiber polyester but you know what I mean. ;) It is straight at the bottom, it was just hanging off the table as I took this picture. I have to finish it ...

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful evening and a great start of the new year. I actually managed to sleep until about 1pm and the most constructive thing I have done today is to take down the Christmas tree. Let's hope that's not the standard of the new year hihi! For a change I actually have a ton of resolutions for this year and even more projects planned. Some of my rather long-term projects are to be finished this year. In the mean time I am also hoping to finish some instant-gratification creations as spending months on a project is fun but the result takes forever... It is a little demotivating sometimes really.  Except for the quilt (latest pictures will follow this weekend I hope), I have two projects that I MUST finish this year. One of them is of course my Halloween cross stitch. I'm getting quite far with it actually, have nearly managed one part of the never-ending tree...  I still have a lot to do of course, but it's getting t...

Heyhey all! Another WIP is my Spooky House cross stitch that I've taking with my absolutely everywhere... On the train (much to the amusement of some other passengers), to all the sewing and crafting group meetings, and sometimes I even work on it during my lunch break. But the result is getting there :) I started this in April this year after having finished the Witch Hat one,and I'm still trying to finish the moon. It is so much work! Much more than the hat project, but it's slowly getting there. If I leave the moon until the end, I'll never finish it LOL. This is how far I got in June... One of the bats is slowly showing...  In August I finished a lot more already. I had to do some of the tree so that I could finish the 'floating' pieces on the right. This is my progress at the end of September. You can see the outline of the house now! I have officially finished two of the moon sections. Out of 6 so still a way to go... but I'll be ...

Hi again everyone! I've started sewing the first bits together! Oh my how nerve wrecking that is... As it turns out, it is actually really difficult to sew in a straight line for 4.25 inches. The last bit is always a bit curved for some reason... I had to take out several seams and start over, but I think it's ok now...  Here is a loose idea of what the sewn parts look like This will be the busiest quilt known to man! LOL. But it will sure be fun once I'm done... I haven't had the energy to do any more at the moment, but I'm sorting the squares with the borders so once that is done I can start those too. I doubt I will finish this before Halloween, but it's still a great project. Plus, by now you should know it's always Halloween at our place! :)

Hi everyone! Oh my, how time flies! I've been so busy doing stuff/organising stuff/making stuff that I didn't actually have time to blog about stuff. Not very convenient... Have 2 weeks really gone by already? Well, let's not keep you waiting any longer and show you what I've been doing as of late.  The main thing I've been trying to do is to continue the Halloween quilt. I must have spent a week or more cutting. It is the part I hate the most, so I wanted everything to be cut first before I start any of the sewing. My previous post about the cutting was only part of it. I am officially done cutting :) Well, at least for the top part of the quilt...  The large squares at bottom centre (7.5"x6"), the small squares at top centre (4.25"x3.50"), and the borders on each side (6"x3" and 13"x3").  Trust me, it was a LOT of cutting...  It's going to be a double sized quilt with hangover, so let's hope it all ...

Good morning everyone! I've done it, I've finally started!!! You may or may not remember this and those of you who have been following my (admittedly recently very quiet) blog, but years ago I decided to start a Halloween quilt. I went everywhere to buy fabric and possible went a little overboard. Over the years I've managed to buy fabric at several markets and shows in London, Britex in San Francisco, Joanne's in Providence, and even a cute little quilting shop in Salem. Oh yes, I went everywhere... But I never actually got my mind set on a specific design or anything so it never got started.  Last week I went to my weekly sewing/knitting group and a friend of mine was there and we got talking about the Halloween quilt. When I got home I really wanted to get started so on the weekend I got out all my fabrics (sadly I don't have a piccie of the pile at the moment) and started cutting, having finally made up my mind about the design.  Of course me being me, thin...

Good morning everyone! Just a quick note to let you all know I'm still here... I've just started a massive project that's been in the planning for about 4 years so hopefully I will be able to share it soon :) At least the start of it that is. Other than that some projects are done but still need to be photographed, and others are done and waiting to be posted. So watch this space for more posts soon :) In the meantime, have a great Monday everyone!

Heyhey everyone! How was the first day of the week back at work? Monday's are always interesting, mostly as I always find something I had to finish on Friday but just didn't have the chance... oh well... but let me share my newest project with you. I told you I haven't been sitting still! Just the blogging part of things was on hold... ;) After all my squares, I got a bit bored and when I went to meet with the craft group for the sock knitting meet (where no one HAS to knit a sock but it's just to give a theme), I decided to actually knit a sock. My first one ever! I had bought some needles a while ago, and armed with my trusty acrylic leftover wool, I started on my sock. With a lot of help of one of the girls there as of course it didn't all go smoothly at once, hihi...  Once I was all installed with hot chocolate, I got started on my sock. Look, this is my first row!  One of the other girls was just finishing this very cute knitted bird. Isn...

Hi everyone! OMG it has been forever since I last blogged... I am a little bit behind on my posts and sadly also on some creations... have become a tv-addict the last few weeks now that I'm back to working full-time. I now spend a good 40 mins in transit every day getting to work and as that is not on foot I needed a carry-on craft thingy to do on the tube. So I started knitting. This was weeks ago and somehow because I knit on the tube, I feel that I've done something and the pressure of doing something in the evening is off. That sadly includes blogging or even sewing! I haven't continued my cross stitch past the first block of 90 stitches either so yes, I am really behind. On the positive side though, my knitting is getting better! Am not quite sure if I've told you this, but when I went back to NL in January, I found my old knitting basket and in it lots of wool remnants from stuff my mother used to knit. In wonderful 80s colours... bright pinks and blues and...

Hi everyone! I have had such a busy weekend! It was filled with pretty much everything: socialising, wargaming, creativity, shopping, and bargains. I even managed to start a new project and learn a few things about knitting. So I may not have posted many completed projects yet, but I'm working on a lot :)  The weekend started with Salute, a wargaming convention in Excel. This is an exhibition on miniature strategy games like Warhammer and the likes, and the bf really wanted to go. This was clearly a guy thing as the first stop was the pub!  But once inside there were some cool things, like this Burton-style scenery. No idea about the game, but it looked nice :)  Yes, I managed to find the only pirate in the building, and he even wore a handstitched coat!  The Black Library stand got a lot of attention...   And of course a peek at the Forge World stall could not go amiss. (aren't you impressed how knowledgeable I sound? hihi)...

Hi again all! I hope you're outside and enjoying this fine weather also :) Not me as I tried going outside and the wind is just horrible! BUT the light is just perfect for some projects so I'm busy being very crafty yay! Don't forget, you have about 7 more hours to enter the giveaway, so please click here to enter if you want to win one of my fabulous teacup pincushions :) On Monday the store will go live so you will have a chance to be the owner of the first ever MBCL creation! If you enter, you get to choose one of these gorgeous teacup pincushions :) I'm really trying to get this cross stitch done so I can start other projects... This was my progress status last weekend... And this was it last Friday. Not bad if I do say so myself :) The light is perfect for crafting today so I'll continue now, I just wanted to remind you of the giveaway :) Good luck everyone and have a wonderful Sunday!

Hello again everyone!! It's raining outside so I thought I'd write a quick morning blog post before heading off again. I have to say, this egg hunt is really addictive!! On a positive side, they found the two stolen eggs and they're currently getting some TLC before being put back in their original locations. On a negative side, some moron decided it was cool to smash one of the eggs in St James' Park to pieces. I heard this by the lady from the egg department in Selfridges yesterday, and it was on a blog here . I havent been to St James' Park yet so I havent confirmed it, but just the thought makes me so angry! This is something for charity and it is organised by lots of good people, and then someone just destroys the eggs? Grmph, not cool! Ok that's it for the bad news today ;) A few days back I was headed to some interviews and I had to pass Green Park which as it happens was zone 4. It was also right next to zone 2 from last time but I was too tired to skip ...

Hi everyone! Between cooking and visiting, I haven't had a lot of time to sew. Actually, I have done zero sewing for about a month now! Incredible... Every time I look at my sewing machine, it just seems to tell me 'nah, today is not your day, try again later' and huffily cocks its head in a very Miss Piggy-like manner. At least it would if it could... LOL. But not sewing doesnt mean that I'm not doing anything else! Not at all. I had a very fun day on Friday, but I'll post about that later. Yesterday, the bf had to go to an event 'Military in Miniatures' where he was registered to raise interest for Warhammer. Those of you unfamiliar with Warhammer (and I'm totally explaining this in a very girly and possibly blonde way), it is a strategic game not unlike Risk but with miniatures and a ton of rules. Yes, I don't quite get it either, but the bf loves it so I happily tagged along and enjoyed the day. I took a lot of pics as well but they mainly show o...

Hi again everyone! It has been more than a week and even then I only posted a photo of my new teapot here... Not to fret, I have lots of things in the works but none of them are blog-ready yet. As you may have heard, London has gone mad with riots and looters and the last few days have been very tense of a lot of people in the UK. Buildings were destroyed and burnt and yesterday they even broke into people's houses! This is one time I am a huge fan of social media networks as there is so much information on there, it is really helpful. So far tonight is fairly quiet, at least in my area. Now that the Prime Minister has deemed the situation worthy of cancelling his 2-month holiday, things seem to be a little bit more organised. However, it has only just gotten dark so who knows what will happen next? Let's not jinx it... I will not post pics or links of the riots as I refuse to promote these people who ruin other people's lives en masse for a few expensive (stolen!) item...

OMG, it's here it's here! Well, it actually arrived yesterday but I was playing WoW (bad me!) and was really sleepy from work so any picture I took was a complete disaster. Let me start at the beginning as you might be confused by my momentarily very Gilmore Girls-like train of thought. A few months back, I found a blogpost (and I'm sorry to say that I cant remember which one exactly) about someone making PJs for her daughters and using an extremely cute fleece cupcake applique as a finishing touch. She was kind enough to tell me where to find said fabric and the hunt started... Well, obviously the hunt was for international shipping because did you know that Joanne's is a US only company? How annoying! Luckily, wonderful Sunny from Life in Rehab came to rescue and offered to go shopping for me. She must have gone to 5 different Joanne's but as this fabric was on sale at the time, she could only find one or two yards at the time. I needed 4 for my project that I ju...