Friday 26 November 2010

Handmade & Gorgeous Fair


List of exhibitors is now on their site, looks like lots of sellers, so should be good.  Must remember my camera!

Sunday 21 November 2010

An early purse warning & a WIP round-up

An early notification for this week folks, this upcoming weekend is officially 'Spending Weekend'!

Not only is the very fabulous original 'Vintage & Handmade Christmas Fair' on Sunday in Chipping Sodbury, but also on Saturday at the Oxford Town Hall is the 'Handmade & Gorgeous Fair'.  This is a newly run fair this year as sadly the original 'Handm@de Oxford Fair' could not take place, so it's a bit of an unknown as to what sellers will be there (there doesn't seem to be a listing on the web), but I shall pop along and show support and report back!

The good news of the week is that I finally found my camera, for reasons unclear to me now it was in the tea & coffee cupboard in the kitchen!  Goodness knows what I was thinking, though I did try and put the corn flakes box into the fridge yesterday too!

So I can show you where I am on my WIP's...

First wristlet finished, hurrah as it was VERY boring to knit!  Now I've just got to get the motivation to do another one!!
But I've got a different knitting project on the go first, yes it's the start of the Christmas crafting!  After the success of the knitted mice last year, I am attempting yet more woolly gifts for the girls.
First on the list is the Patons monkey as seen at Ally Pally,



It's going quite well, very easy pattern but each piece is individual so there will be lots of seaming later!  My mum is going to do the rabbit pattern for the second daughter so I don't have to do two!

The yarn is Paton's Colour Works Aran, I've gone for the purple and blue shade (00083) and it's actually very soft, it's 65% acrylic, 25% new wool and 10% polyamide.  I'm using 4mm needles as suggested but I
did try a small swatch on smaller needles as on Periwinkle's lovely blog she made the rabbit pattern and found the tension too holey, so that may be something to be aware of.
I shall try and get a quick pic of my progress tomorrow as although I'm knitting in front of the girls they haven't asked what it is yet and I don't want to arouse their  curiosity!

The other lingering WIP is a very simple seat pad cushion for my daughter's dining table chair, I got this old wool blanket from the charity warehouse ages ago waiting for a project to do with it.
I've made a paper template of the seat and just cut round it adding an approx. seam allowance.  As it's bound to get filthy and need washing I've just made the bottom layer in two pieces for a basic envelope opening and then I'm going to add some ties at the back.  I would have finished it today but I'm umming & ahhing over the ties, think I'll pop into the local sewing shop tomorrow to see if I can find something I like better than the bias binding in the picture...

Monday 15 November 2010

Counting down....


Counting down the days till THE Fair....Sunday 28th November - Chipping Sodbury...start saving!!!


(I was hoping to post photos of WIP's, but I seem to have lost my camera!  It's around here somewhere....keep your eyes peeled for me!!)