Quilt Plan

I've made quilts for both Chloë & Emma's birthdays, which they love- they go with the girls whenever they stay away from home. It is Thomas' 2nd birthday this year, so it is his turn to have an Aunty Quilt. Both of the girls quilts were late, and I don't want TJ's to be. His birthday is in August, so I'm buying the fabric today, and making it when I go on holiday in a couple of months time.



This is my plan for Thomas' quilt. I'm very lucky that the wonderful Cotton Patch is just down the road from me, so I get to go to the shop and choose my fabrics. I may not use the ones I picked for the mockup, as I'm sure there'll be lots of exciting possibilities once I get to the shop. I found picking fabrics for this quilt harder than for the girls - so many quilt fabrics are either pink/girly colours, or floral. I don't really want a kiddy print one so my choices are a bit more limited. I'm sure I'll be fine when I get there and am surrounded by lovely fabrics

I like making these mockups - I do them in paint using the pictures of the fabrics from the Cotton Patch website, and it helps me see whether my borders are balanced, etc. I know this is a simple Railfence block, but it's new to me, so I wanted to practice.

Spring Dawn

This was the view from my bedroom window moments after waking up today - for the first time in such a long time it is light when I wake up. This makes it so much easier to get out of bed.

Glass Jar Frames

I love Photojojo. They send me great photo tips, things to do with my images, great places on the Web to talk to photographers and they have the Time Capsule.

Last night, I (slightly guiltily) added two more clean jam jars to one of the many stashes I have round my house, thinking that I really should do something with them. I also have a lot of photos, sat in a box rather than round my house being displayed.

Cue photojojo!



Today's newsletter included this fab simple tip for using clean jam jars to frame your photos. I'm going to give this a go!

Knitting in Ends

Image by chickeninthewoods via Flickr

Progress on my 'Something' is going well (about 15cm so far in the past 24 hours), but I didn't fancy knitting in ends for all my stripes. Sock Pr0n posted this method for weaving in both your previous colour and the tail from your new colour and it is fab :) I've been using it for the past couple of stripes, and hooray, no weaving.


I'm using some lovely, soft Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Astrakhan (Though not in this colour!), which is very forgiving, but it looks as if this method works well on the WS of smooth knits too!

Beautiful Necklaces

LP jewellery on Etsy does these beautiful necklaces:
"Life is a Journey"
"Live, Love, Laugh"
"A Teacher Affects Eternity" (Helen & Helen, this one made me think of you :) )

I've been knitting and sewing busily and have lots of finished projects to share with you, as well as a few on the needles. I've just cast on a 'Something' in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Astrakhan in chocolate, cream, lime, purple & jade. I don't quite know what yet - it is about 30cm wide and all knit, because the yarn doesn't have any stitch definition to speak of. I'm going to change colours for each knitting session, hopefully randomising the stripe pattern, and it might be a scarf, a shawl, or I might do several strips and make a blanket. No plan, just playing with yarn

Folksy Five: Snow Days!

Today I made it out through the snow, to work and back. I woke up, and put a spicy beef stew in the slow cooker, which was a wonderful idea - when I arrived home, the house was full of lovely cooking smells.

I travelled by bus today, wrapped up warm wearing a panta, hat, gloves, 3 scarves, knee high socks, welly socks, and legwarmers. I went outside and made a rather scary looking snowman before Mr Wonderfuls got home.