A cushion and my first ever button holes.

Tonight I got home and felt the need to get out my sewing machine.

I had a tired old cushion that I thought would be better suited for our spare room with a new cover.  Sadly I forgot to photograph the cushion before I binned the old cover.

Recently I was given a lot more left over fabrics from a friend so just had to raid the new collection.  Our spare bedroom is very colourful, it needs a lick of paint but I try to liven it up with colourful bedding and decorations.  I tend to use either a multi coloured bed set or a purple one.

Seeing as all my fabrics were too small to make a whole cover from I decided to go for patchwork.  I chose 4 vibrant colours for the front and 4 more purply coloured fabrics for the back.  One side for each set of bed linen.

I got straight to it and actually measured things this time, a habit I must get into with sewing!  I decided to use some lovely buttons I had recently been given so knew I had to tackle my first button holes.  I looked up what to do and whilst they are not perfect I'm pretty pleased for a first attempt.

Then I just had to sew it all together.  I'm so pleased with it, it's a very happy looking cushion.

Fantasm shawl.

Recently I picked up some beautiful Truly Hooked yarn from a selling page on Facebook.  The colour way is called Gothic and I just fell in love with the rich purple and black combination.  A bit like a Cadburys dairy milk wrapper.

As soon as it arrived it just had to be hooked so I consulted my favourites on Ravelry.  There is was, the Fantasm shawl, it jet had to be done.  The Fantasm is doing the rounds at the moment and as Eleanor from Knit Nottingham says, it seems to be the new Elise.

I don't care that I have hopped on the band wagon because look how beautiful this shawl is.  I absolutely adore it!

Have you made a Fantasm shawl or do you have you're own favourite pattern?

Polymer clay hook handles

As you're probably aware I do love a good hook from Fleabubs and Lala.  Here is my collection.

I have wanted to have a go at this myself but didn't want to invest in all the kit to find I didn't enjoy it or wasn't very good.  

Last night I went to a baby shower at Avago Crafts in Ilkeston and they have Fimo.  I asked if they had any plain crochet hooks and after being given a box to choose from I got all excited.  Some of the fimo was off and just crumbled but I found three lovely colours.

I didn't photograph the process because I was having too much fun but here are my unbanked hooks ready to take home.  There was a lot of rolling, cutting and mixing of colours involved.  My arms hurt today!

I couldn't resist a bit of bling, I'm not really a blingy person but it was there and the colours matched.

Here are my cooked hooks.

Just look at these colours, reminds me of a peacock.

I'm so happy with them but I have realised I couldn't do it often as they take a lot of time.  Hats of to all  the lovely ladies who make them for us, you must have guns of steel!!

Getting back in the blogging mojo with a little charity.

I was doing quite well keeping my blog up to date with my happenings but having recently started a new job I have let things slip.  Not just my blog but my life as well, starting a new job is hard.  I think I have over filled my brain with wool and crafting for the last few years and now it needs to remember complicated things it just doesn't know what to do!

Anyway, I thought I would set myself the easier challenge of blogging on a Sunday, I was previously trying to blog on a Sunday and a Wednesday but often had nothing to say.

I'm going to kick off my reacquaintance by telling you about the third pair of slippers I knitted recently.  I recently joined a page on Facebook called the Haphazard Dippers charity spin off.  A page where items are raffled to raise money for charity.  I offered up a pair of hand knitted slippers using Jem Weston's pattern from her book Cute Little Knits.

I raised £8 and while they probably cost me more than that to make and post I was very happy to be able to be able to donate this money to The Eve Appeal, my charity of choice.  I wouldn't have decided to just donate this money so I didn't mind the cost to me, it all went to a very worthy cause.

Laura-Jo won the dip and she asked for yellow slippers, I couldn't get the exact yarn of her choice so went for the nearest.  Here they are on her feet, they turned out quite nicely didn't they.