Monday monday

Is it really Monday again already ?

The last week has whizzed by. I flew over to Northern Ireland on Wednesday last week, until Sunday, as my Dad's not 100%, and I've just heard today that my Mum's taken him into hospital and they're keeping him overnight. Keeping my fingers crossed that he's ok.

I must admit it was quite nice to have some child-free time, on the way over this was what I did at the airport at lunchtime ....

Yes! Lunchtime! Bit early for wine o'clock but jolly nice :)

I took my green blankety crochet with me, and my pile of green squares is growing, albeit veeeeery slooooowly ....

To be fair they are quite big squares but I do need to get a move on if I'm going to get this one finished, as the customer has ordered a second one as well. That will keep me busy for a while.

So of course now is an excellent time to be starting yet another blanket project. Not. But this is one I couldn't resist. On the blog The Crochet Crowd (http://thecrochetcrowd.com) I found the idea of a temperature blanket (http://thecrochetcrowd.com/crochet-temperature-afghans/).

The idea is you crochet a row, or square, or whatever, each day to reflect the temperature that day. I've divided the typical temperature range in my part of the world into 8 mini-ranges, and assigned each mini-range a colour .... our temperatures don't fall much below zero and rarely go over 30 deg C, so my mini-ranges (in deg C) are as follows ....

        < 0     .... deep blue

  0.0 -  5.9  .... turquoise blue

  6.0 -  9.9  .... aqua greeny blue

10.0 - 14.9 .... apple green

15.0 - 19.9 .... meadow green

20.0 - 24.9 .... golden yellow

25.0 - 29.9 .... pomegranate

       > 30.0 .... deep pink

.... and are from left to right in the photo below ....

You can see in the middle of my next photo that I've done a couple of rows, I could start from today but being the OCD control freak that I am, I am backdating to the 1st of January so that at the end of December I will have a lovely blanket reflecting the temperatures for the whole year.

Other yarny news is that I acquired (ie offered to rehome at a small cost to myself) this little lot of baby wool. With the exception of the glittery one, which is so scratchy I wouldn't want it next to my skin never mind a little baby's, they are all beautifully soft. I'm fairly sure I'm going to do a baby blanket with it.

And finally for today I had a lovely surprise earlier today. While I was picking the Little Peeps from school the lady who does fundraising for our pre-school approached me. She told me that their Easter Fayre is coming up and that every year they "give" a table to a charity, ie the charity can sell stuff for their own fundraising and doesn't have to pay a fee for the table. Anyway at the meeting they were voting for which charity to give the stall to, and they voted for me, for my National Autistic Society fundraising pot! So I'll be doing a stall at the pre-school Easter Fayre :) Better get cracking on stuff to sell then I guess!!!

Happy New Year 2015-2016

Hello and Happy New Year everybody! I've been a lazy blogger again and not been here for - argh - over a month! Promise to try harder. No, really this time I will try :)

So, a bit of chat about Christmas ..... did you have a happy and calm one ? We did. We barely left the house, stayed in pyjamas all day long and had extremely flexible meal-times :) I am like a big kid at Christmas, I really love it, and I love getting presents. Does that make me a bad person ? I hope not! I do enjoy giving presents as well, and quite a few this year were handmade by Yours Truly, including the chunky cowl shown above, I made it for a friend though here is a picture of me modelling it, as it's hard to see really what it's like until it's on (if you see what I mean) ....

My friend had to get me to message her a picture because once the buttons were undone she couldn't work out how it was meant to sit!

I was very lucky this year, my husband bought me the Attic24 Harmony pack .... 17 balls of scrummy squishy yarniness ..... I loved Lucy's foray into pastels, and very early on in her Harmony Journey (http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/harmony-blanket.html)  I felt pulled by the colour palette she'd chosen. Ooooh just look ......

.... see what I mean! Squishy! Yarny! Scrummy!

My husband also earned MAJOR brownie points this year - unbeknownst to me he took the Little Peeps to Hobbycraft one afternoon and they went a bit mad choosing things for me. As well as a paint by numbers kit, a knitting kit and a set of paints and an easel I didn't even know I wanted, they bought me a pile of colouring books ..... (I also got one from a friend plus the family gave me another 4(!) which are all scattered round the house by now) .....

.... this latch-hook kit that I've nearly finished and which I will turn into a cushion for Little Miss at some point ....

.... a nice little pile of crochet books .... 

.... ok I confess I may have bought two of those for a project I'm currently working on -  see next post for details!

... and they (mostly Little Tomboy this time) also picked out this excellent pile of crafty randomness ....

.... each item was individually wrapped - aren't kids the best ?? They know me so well. A pile of beads and buttons and wool chosen and lovingly wrapped by my Little Peeps makes me a very happy Mummy :)

Another great present I got was this lovely wall hanging that a friend gave me .... isn't it perfect for me :)

This year I also participated in a Secret Santa Christmas Swap run by a lady "down under" called Chooky of the blog Chookyblue. The rules were : it's secret (duh) - you know who to buy for, but not who's buying for you, and the swap is two presents - one decorative item to be opened before Christmas, and one "main" parcel to be opened on Christmas Day. My parcel went off by airmail to its recipient Suz, of the blog "Bears Mum", in Australia. Most of the swappers are stitchy folk but there was no specific rule for the type of gift other than homemade, so I included quite a few crochet items, some machine-sewn bits, plus a couple of little British novelty things, seeing as my parcel was to be delivered half way round the world. And unbelievably annoyingly I don't think I took a photo before I sent it! Argh! As far as I can remember the novelty things included a new cross-stitch kit of a London bus and a little tin in the shape of Big Ben :)

Suz has since emailed to say she loved it all, and when time allows she'll blog about it. 

Near to Christmas a parcel arrived for me from a lovely lady called Diane of http://www.thesloanpatch.blogspot.com.au

I was so excited to open Diane's present to me that I forgot to take a pic of it in its wrapping. But inside were two beautiful gifts - the first is a gorgeous tablemat in lovely Christmas colours 

.... it's far too pretty to use only at Christmas though, so at the moment it's on my coffee table with  flowers on it :)

Diane's second gift to me totally blew me away and made me think my gifts for Suz were a bit rubbish! Sorry Suz! Diane made me this absolutely exquisite needlework book, it's beautiful inside with lots of pockets ....

... Diane thoughtfully included some embroidery threads, embroidery needles (fab as I always seem to be losing these), a seam ripper (always handy!) and some little stork scissors (which I've always wanted but never bought!). And as if that wasn't enough for me to rave about .... look at the front ....

.... isn't it so gorgeous ? I really really love how Diane has embroidered on my name , it's utterly beautiful. Diane, thankyou so much, I shall treasure it for a very long time :)

I'll be posting again soon with some waffle about my current projects, as usual I have far too many on the go with no chance of getting anything actually finished any time soon !!! Here's a wee sneak peek though ....

.... blanket for a customer for her son ....

.... some stitching to add to a cushion for another customer ....

.... very start of a year-long SAL (stitch-along) .... Exciting! It's going to be so lovely!!

That's it for now folks! Byeeeeee!

Love Jill

xxxxxxx

Christmas Fayre

Hello dear friends and readers!

Argh another long absence, sorry sorry sorry. Hope everyone is doing ok and staying nice and calm during the silly season. I've not been calm at all (nothing new there then ....), I've been madly making things for our school's Christmas Fayre, and also had some custom orders which took all of last week Not to mention having an 11 year old's birthday and, of course, party, but also dealing with our naughty "Elf on the Shelf", seen here photo-bombing a photo while Little Miss opens her birthday pressies.

The school Fayre went very well, I am donating my proceeds to my London Marathon fundraising pot for the National Autistic Society, so I was really pleased :)

Here are a few photos of the things I made to sell at the Fayre - not all crocheted, in fact most aren't, mainly cos I can't crochet fast enough!

Christmas wreaths - these ones are the size to hang on your front door ...

.... and these mini crocheted ones are to hang on your tree ...

.... loads of owl keyrings - these were very popular ....

.... festive pencil cases ....

.... and tissue holders ....

.... and the best-selling item - felt pencil toppers ...

The custom orders have included a couple of felt Christmas trees for littlies to decorate, with felt decoration included ....

I personalized the little felt presents for one customer ....

.... and decorated some baubles with musical notes for another customer who wanted to use hers in her toddler music classes ....

.... I also made a retro style half-apron/pinny for another lady, loved making this, it was so different both in colours and style to other things I've done. It's for her Mum hence the embroidery on the pocket ....

These 3 orders were all from complete strangers who contacted me via Facebook, wow that is a whole load of different pressure, to make for actual customers and not just friends! I'm really pleased with how they all turned out, especially the apron, I reckon my ruffles are pretty damn good, what do you think ....

I still have a few orders to complete this week, so it's still busy busy busy!!

On another exciting note I ordered some business cards - oooo fancy - what do you think ....

I love them :) Happy happy happy!

And my final piece of news, which I've saved until last cos if you'd seen these photos first you'd have got no further ..... we've just got our very first pet ... meet Snowflake the hamster ....

Isn't he the cutest thing ever ?? He's an albino, though we didn't realise that til we got him home and saw he has red eyes, plus, he's massive, a right big fluff ball. Gorgeous though. And I can't believe how besotted I am with him! He's already had one adventure, he escaped one night but luckily the children spotted him in the morning! Well, I say "escape", really it was more of "walk through the cage door that some idiot left open". The idiot being me! Oops! If it had been one one of the kids I'd have gone bonkers!!

Think that's it for today folks, off to do some long over-due bloggy catchup :)

Jillxxxxxxx

Running

Hello dear friends, and a big happy welcome to my new readers - I've been meaning to thank you for dropping by for ages!

Just a quick update from me this evening, I've been crafting madly but don't seem to have too much to show for it. I'm making stuff to sell at a couple of craft fairs in a few weeks - lots of these owl keyrings ...

.... a load more Christmas stockings from upcycled sweaters ....

.... with my own label lovingly sewn in ...

.... and a really sweet doorstop for my friend's birthday ...

.... this was made from upcycled jeans, I do love a bit of re-using :) I'm planning to make a few more of these to sell. I'm filling them with Asda smart price rice - 40p for 500g - great value! I can't decide whether to make a load of different designs or just the cupcake in different colours. That might be a bit quicker so maybe that then.

My other big news ...... is ....... I got a charity place in the London Marathon!! OMG!!!! I mentioned aaaaaages ago that I'd applied for a place, and only found out last week that I was one of the lucky (I think ?!) ones. I'm running it to raise money for the National Autistic Society, in recognition of my amazing son's challenging year at school last year, and of course his ongoing battles with everyday life, bless him.

All the money from my craft bits being sold is going to the NAS (over £100 so far) and I have a few other fundraising ideas going round in my brain too. Oh and I must set up one of those just-giving page thingies.

So anyway when I'm not crafting I'm training. Or recovering from training lol. And then I have to sort out other fundraising. And of course cook, clean, be a Mum's taxi, and so on and so on. And tomorrow I'm helping at school (argh why did I offer to do that, I have to fit in a long run tomorrow - luckily a long run is currently only an hour for me). But its all good fun and its great to have something very specific to focus on.

Right then off I go, got about 30 heart keyrings to assemble!!

Jillxxx

Facebook

Oh my goodness it's been 4 weeks since my last post!! Where has that gone?! It's properly autumn now here, all beautiful colourful falling leaves and crisp first thing in the morning. Only this week to go then it's half-term, the year's flying by .....

My big news since my last post is that I've launched my Facebook page .... www.facebook.com/jillemeraldcottage :D Launching it makes it sound like it was a massive event, well it wasn't. Although I did have to make sure I had a few things lined up to share on there. I'm hoping to use it as a platform for selling a few bits, my aim really is just to fund my yarn habit. I've made a couple of sales already .... 

I hope I can keep the momentum up, and that it wasn't just beginners luck. 

If you fancied visiting my page and giving it a Like or a Share that would be lovely thanks, so far it's my real-life friends who have Like'd and bought things, and obviously that's quite a limited market place. Some Likes further afield would be really great :)

The upside of a blogging break is that I do now have lots of things to show you here.

Last time I posted I was making Sewing Kit Jars. I sold two of these ....

... and having had a little production line ....

.... I have another few ready to sell ....

I've made another memory cushion, for the same friend as the last memory cushion (http://emeraldcottage.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/everyday-cowls-and-more.html). My friend has a Dalmatian, and her late Mother had done a beautiful Dalmatian cross-stitch. The cross-stitch was very grubby and had rust marks and black pen marks, plus one side was stitched with about 4mm between the stitching and the edge of the fabric, making it really hard to secure. But I managed to sponge out the marks, and turn the skinny edge under just enough to make it usable.

I've had the dark blue fabric in my stash for about 14 years. I bought it as a tablecloth years ago but it never fitted my table. I used part of it 12 years ago to make a drawstring bag for my son when he was at nursery, and the remainder has gone through a couple of house moves with me, like a faithful friend.

The airplane fabric was bought for another project but there was just enough left to make this cushion cover.

I braved the button-hole foot thingy on my sewing machine for the second time in 20 years :) And I did 5 buttons in the end.

Here's the final result ... quite a good job if I may say so :)

On the crochet front I've made a couple of little children's granny square bags, which my friend in Scotland ordered. I love making these, they are a really good one-evening project and simple enough to do in front of the telly :) The remit was - one girl likes pink, the other likes purple, and they both like turquoise as that is their Mum's favourite colour. I think I've met the brief ....?

They're both lined and have a button fastening, just like the ones I blogged about here http://emeraldcottage.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/children-granny-square-bags.html

I've also been making key rings. Owls and hearts. Lots of pieces made but not quite assembled.

I'm doing a stall at our school craft fair at the end of November so I need a lot of small ticket items. I'm thinking mug cosies, Christmas stockings and decorations, fabric-covered note pads, pencil cases, doorstops, etc. Today I made my first Christmas stocking. I found this jumper in the charity shop ....

It's so soft, and the stripes just screamed Christmas stocking at me :)

It took a while to get the pattern exactly as I wanted it, as each stocking is made from 13 pieces, but now that I've made one (and it looks quite good if I do say so myself :) it should be easier to run up a few more.

The stripey bit is a knit fabric, the red bits are plain old cotton. I've always been scared of sewing with knit or jersey fabrics but it worked like a dream.

Now my dilemma is how much to charge ? I asked a couple of school Mums and floated the idea of £10 and they looked at me as though I'd said a thousand. I don't want to under-value the amount of effort I put in, but equally there's no point in even making the effort if noone wants to buy the thing. Little Tomboy helpfully suggested that a price of £2 might be better. Aaaah bless her. But no.

I have so many ideas, I find it really hard to focus on one thing at a time, but I'm hoping that the deadline of the fair will focus me. My friend makes cards and we are sharing a stall, I think our things will complement each other nicely. 

Oh one other thing I wanted to show you .... I was doing a bit of clearing out old stuff and look what I found - the ceramic nameplate from my bedroom door from when I was little. Can't believe I still have that, isn't it fab :)