Merry Craftmas

Seasons Greetings!

Its been a while since my last post, so thought I'd update you (imagined audience) on what I've been making recently. I ran out of sculpy about a week ago and have been pretty busy with work, so I've been crocheting more than usual (taking advantage of the bus journey).

I also thought I'd run out of aida, which made me sad because I've been aching to cross-stitch recently. Fortunately however I found a couple of offcutts which were big enough to use. Being December I figured I should make something festive, so I made my 2 closest friends some lovely Christmas cards. 

Made almost entirely from scratch. I painstakingly cut out the card with a window for the cross-stitch, lined it with paper (to cover the card holding the aida in place) and made a cute little tassel. 

 

Closer pic of the stitching and tassel (the second one came out better). I didnt really think about adding writing until I had finised the border and tree. When I came to do some text I realised there was no way that "Merry Christmas" was going to fit. Oops. I think Merry Treemas is a bit cuter and quirkier anyway.

I even made my first envelope!

 On to the crochet! After making the little grey bear amigurumi (from the last post) I decided I really liked the contrast between grey and orange. With this in mind I took a ball of grey wool with me to work and arrived home with a longish grey rectangle. I then cut a smaller rectangle out of an old orange t-shirt and sewed it to the middle of the crochet.

 I folded and stitched the bottom third into a pouch, first with grey thread (for strength) and then added some chunky orange stitches and a big orange button to achieve that contrast. I added a press-stud for fastening.

 This is the perfect size for any small bag (especially compared to the huge purse I use at the moment).

 

 Crochet phone case with button fastening. Big enough for my HTC Hero.

Three little duckies. 

 I spent about 2 hours re-organising my thread box. It makes me smile to see it so organised.

 And finally! Our Christmas tree :) 

Hope everyone has a wonderful festive season! See you in the new year!

Thread-craft.

Konichiwa!

I learned to cross stitch when I was about 8 or 9 (I think) in the usual way I picked up a craft. I was bored. My poor mother has spent so much money on me being bored over the years - sets of acrylic and watercolour paints, a violin, those awful scratchy copper pictures, bags of beads and big bundles of fabric scraps to name a few purchases. We bought a beginners cross stitch kit, I cant remember the pattern, but It was one of those with everything included. So, I had a go, enjoyed it for a few days and then got fed up (curse you short attention span!). I remember my younger brother (by 2 years) picked it up and actually got quite into it, which I, the mean big sister I was, laughed at him for (sorry Ben).

2 years ago Steven's mum (who knows what a craft fiend I am) gave me a box full of multicoloured thread, which up until a couple of weeks ago I had used mainly for friendship bracelets and a couple of bits of jewellery. I decided to buy some aida and have another go at cross stitch. I LOVE 8-bit / pixelated things and thought it'd be fairly easy to work out the pattern from a picture, one pixel equalling one cross.

Boo (tried to edge it, but I don't like how it looks).

Bob-Omb.

 Goomba.

 

Scott Pilgrim <3 (Getting more adventurous by this point. Scott and Kim form part of a set but I ran out of aida before I could finish Stephen Stills).

We are Sex Bob-Omb (ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR!)

 

 My coffee table, covered in supplies!

   

Some freehand embroidery practice and button flowers.

Dayglobots (freehand stitching on black fabric).

I spent about 3 hours yesterday trying to hand appliqué a Cylon onto a black background, but I think I need to practice a bit more before taking on something tricky, especially when I'm only just learning.

Today's plan involves more robots. Yay robots!

Alex