My handmade home: crochet bunting

This crochet bunting is relatively quick and easy to knock up, and a fantastic way to shop your stash - I used lots of leftover yarn from my blankets, making it practically a free project.

I love bunting. Always have, to me it speaks of spring fairs, festivals, sunshine and summertime. I've been keen to make some for the house a while now. I have some amazing Hungry Caterpillar fabric from Higgs and Higgs that is earmarked to be stitched up for Harry although I've held off as I've not bought any tape yet. Well that and I've been crocheting like a woman possessed since last September.

Our home is a work in progress, before my redundancy we had a to-do list that we hoped to work through relatively briskly, dealing with the 70's tastic decor and a few more fundamental issues too. However, as always with these things, life got in the way and so we're slowly, happily and lovingly making the best of what we have.

I'm not really an ornament person so our mantle is adorned with photos and a cross stitch sampler I made when I was 16, but it needed more colour - something to brighten up the expanse of concrete. Crochet bunting it was...

I used Lucy's pattern for the granny bunting that adorned Yarndale a couple of years back - it needed a bit more concentration than blankets as I had to learn how to change colours when not crocheting in rows. Lucy had no pattern for joining the bunting triangles so rightly or wrongly I used a colour yarn I'd not used thus far in any of the triangles (Stylecraft Special DK in raspberry) I started with a chain of 20 and then used double crochet along the top of each triangle, joining them together with no gap, another chain of 20 at the other end finished my first row. Once I'd gone along one way, I turned around and went back, doing another row of doubles, this time into the stitch below. It was quick, easy and beautifully effective. As you can see from the picture above. Even M said (and I quote "The fireplace looks less pants than it did before"

I even made M some in motor racing colours - I'm just such a good wife!

So, crochet bunting... and brightening up our home. It's all good. Why not have a go at shopping your yarn stash and making some pretty bunting.

Next up on the crochet projects is a Crochet along in aid of Mind, the mental health charity.

I'm linking up this post with Attachment Mummy's Friday fabulous linky - do pop over and see what everyone else has added.

#PeriscopeMyProgress Learning to crochet

When I became a stay at home mum it was a huge change, for many years my identity had been sewn up with my career. A Workforce Development Manager by trade I was used to leading a team, working with senior managers, spending a lot of time on trains and being surgically attached to my BlackBerry. Fast forward 8 months and I'm so happy and so much more relaxed than I've been in goodness knows how long. My pretty frocks, manicures, hair and make up have been switched out for skinny jeans, converse and sunblock. That BlackBerry is long forgotten and not missed at all. And I spend every day learning about my son. All good so far.

However, I like learning and when I decided I was going to stay at home I set myself 4 objectives for this year:

1. To learn quilting
2. To learn coding
3. To learn to crochet
4. To find a way of working that suits us as a family 

Earlier this year I won some fabric in a competition from Higgs and Higgs which heralded my introduction into quilting. This post, details my progress and the quilt now has pride of place on the back of our sofa. I also have some Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric set aside to make Harry a quilt to the same pattern for Christmas. 

Coding is a slower process - I'm starting to get my head around it, and am better at using plugins now. Although sometimes a simple task will still phase me - I tried to install the shareaholic plugin the other day and was completely foiled! And don't get me started on Click to Tweet which I will defeat. 

Which took me to number three on my list and todays Periscope. Filmed shortly after I'd put Harry to bed, displaying my full of cold voice in full. I explained about learning to crochet and said I'd link up the resources I'm using here: 

Bella Coco is the Youtuber who I've found most accessible to watch and listen to, her blog is also really helpful too

Attic24 is the blog that I have saved as permanent inspiration. I've been following her for years, but only finally picked up my crochet hook with intent last week! 

My Crochet board on Pinterest for inspiration and how-to's 

I will be continuing to #PeriscopeMyProgress as part of Jennifer's challenge as part of my continued development in using Digital tools and my skill development in producing quality content, by combining it with crochet I'm hoping to distract myself from the fear I feel at being in front of the camera. 

Quilting for beginners - the story of my quilt (picture heavy)

Most people know I'm a keen crafter, I love to knit and embroider, but until recently most of my skills were funnelled into planing craft activities that 20 or so 10-14 year olds could do in an hour. Whilst being a stay at home mum has posed lots of challenges, one of the things it has done is give me the freedom to learn some new skills. As an L&D professional - continuing professional development is something I have a tendency to talk about a lot - however, much like the shoemakers child - I'm often the last to actually find time for my own learning and development. Being out of work hasn't so much given me the opportunity to learn some new skills, but more removed the excuses I had to prevent me.

Quilting was first on my list - it's something my mother-in-law does a lot of, and I love the quilts she has made me. It's always looked very complicated and my skills with a sewing maching somewhat negligible, but I'd started to get to grips with my machine by quilting my camp blankets. A combination of some fabric won in a Facebook giveaway, and a Quilting for beginners tutorial found on Pinterest picqued my interest and off I went. The pictures below tell the story of my quilt - I hope you like it. I'm certainly inspired to keep going.

If you follow me on Instagram you'll have seen these already - albeit interspersed with ones of Harry, and foodie shots... so here they are in order... The story of my first quilt

81 squares ready to be pieced

Piecing is much like sudoku it seems

Sewing squares together to make rows

Basting the quilt top with the back and wadding

Actually quilting

 

 

Hand stitching the binding

The finished binding

My first quilt

A spare morning and Emma Bridgewater

Firstly a confession. I love crockery. Pretty crockery is like – erm... chocolate, carbs or cake to other people. My heart races and more often than not I have to talk myself out of the imagined ‘need’ to purchase and own it. My cupboards are an eclectic mix of a much loved Woolworths duck egg blue set, some treasured Cornishware, and a haphazard selection of habitat bowls and plates purchased at bargain prices when the High Street Kensington branch closed down. I’ve not branched out into Cath Kidston yet although the pull is strong but I’m resisting (also see the CK mushroom print skirt).

On my twitter timeline I see a lot of Emma Bridgewater love, and have been lusting somewhat – but have no justification for adding anything to my groaning cupboards. Until now.

On our way up to Carfest North (my birthday present to M) we had a spare morning. We had stopped in Stoke on Trent on the Friday night and enjoyed a picnic in the car, the hugest thunderstorm I’ve ever seen (much less driven through), and a couple of glasses of wine. Over said wine we had a look at what we could do the next day. And that was when I spotted it. Emma Bridgewater factory tours, shop and a decorate your own crockery studio. I was sold. M less so, but as Carfest was primarily for him it was deemed a Penelope day.

Saturday morning found us popping our heads around the studio door and over cups of tea and coffee decorating the bowls you can see below. You decorate the bowls in the same way they do in the factory, with sponge stamps. You simply pick your crockery item(s) – we chose cereal bowls, your stamps and your paint colours. Then it’s just a case of working up a design, trying not to poke your tongue out with the concentration, or spill your coffee over your preciously designed bowl.

You then take the bowls and pay – and the studio arrange for them to be glazed and fired. You can either pop back in a fortnight to collect your handiwork or have them posted to you. We chose the latter, and duly two weeks later a gloriously pink Emma Bridgewater box arrived with our laboured over bowls inside.

I love them, M loves them and they’re so special to us. I’ve done pottery painting before – but freehand, and I have to say I enjoyed this session thoroughly. Maybe it was the company. Maybe the excitement. Maybe allowing my creative self free reign for a morning. Who knows. But I’m so proud of my bowl and it’s a memory of a very happy morning.

The workshop isn’t really cheap – including coffees, postage, and the £2.95 studio fee our bowls cost £40. But it was money well spent. Now I just have to not break them *crosses fingers* 

Springtime crafts with the Brownies & Guides

One of the fantastic things about being a blogger is the opportunities you have open to you. One such for me is joining the Baker Ross Bloggers network. Both my Brownies and Guides love Baker Ross craft kits, in the past we've made Mum cushions for mother's day (which we scented with dried lavender bags, craftily hidden inside the kapok stuffing), made jointed reindeer at Christmas, and used countless tubes of fabric paint to decorate t-shirts and pots of beads for points on camp. The nice thing about the craft kits are that for Guide age girls (10-14) it can provide them with Patrol time, where they follow the instructions independently, adapt the craft to their design desires and combine that with a good gossip with their patrol.

This was just how we used the gifts for Mothering Sunday, each Patrol got to choose one type of craft from Mum keyrings, to Mum phone cases, flowers in bottles, and decorated cards (Girls in the lead and all that). We gave them 45 minutes to chat, craft, and go wild with the glitter. The nice thing about the variety is that no one felt the need to 'keep up' with anyone else, and as the crafts were quite straightforward they could in essence lead themselves. The girls were then tasked by taking their crafts home to give to their Mum's a week later. Here's hoping that remembered. I think if you had a younger Guide unit than we do (we have quite a spread of ages, and the 14 year olds definitely found these a bit babyish) then more supervision would be required for some of the crafts, but the flowers, keyrings and phone cases were real winners.

The Brownies were - because of their age (7-10) a slightly different kettle of fish. Craft for them, is more closely supervised and supported. An age can be spent on colouring, the variety of stickers must be equally distributed and activities can take much longer or shorter than you expect. That said, they loved the idea of choosing their craft - normally we would all do the same. One group made Easter cards and bookmarks, One made Easter mobiles and the other made jointed figures. The jointed figures were the most straightforward craft and I had two of our littlest girls with me. Lots of fun was had with the colouring, and the girls managed the split pins without a problem. The table doing Easter cards, loved the sticky jewels for the cards, and enjoyed making a bookmark to keep as well as a card to give away. The table doing Easter mobiles ran out of time for theirs, so Wise Owl and I (Snowy Owl) tied the cord onto the Easter figures. A small criticism of this pack was that the string was much too slippery for our girls to tie their much loved reef knots, and it was a craft that would probably be better suited to a Brownie Holiday owing to the amount of figures to be coloured in. That said all the girls were looking forward to doing some craft over the holidays. I was a little circumspect about the Easter cards and mobiles as we are a multi-faith unit, but as the girls chose which crafts they wanted to do, we had no issues with that. 


Ratios for Brownies are higher than Guides (purely because of the girls age) and this works better for craft, where a leader needs to be on hand for the fiddly bits. The Baker Ross kits are a hit with both groups of girls - they get different things from the experience of crafting, and have different experiences. However, I think part of the success of the kits is up to giving girls the choice about what they want to do. Giving girls of any age a sense of control is always going to lead to success provided they're supported along the way. 


Now for next term - is it naughty to say I'm already drawn towards some of the Diamond Jubilee crafts - the Guides have asked for a Street Party so it has the potential to be lots of fun! 


It's worth remembering that as a Guider you get 10% off at Baker Ross, simply enter your membership no in as you're ordering.  This discount makes resources much more affordable, especially when you've a bigger unit. 

Silent Sunday