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Thursday 21 November 2013

Making lists......

Morning!

How are we all today? I have loads to get finished off today for the craft fair, along with lots of other odds and ends that need to be tied up by the end of the week. 

Waking up early-ish and feeling ultra-motivated (and also a teeny bit head-achy from the beers last night) I got down to one of my favourite tasks......making a list!

I love lists, and I don't think I'm the only one judging by the number of list pads on Paperchase. I don't need a fancy notebook though, I'm more than happy with a paper bag




I just love that feeling when you can cross something off and visually see you are making progress. I even managed to cross something off whilst waiting for this picture to upload.....that's multi-tasking yeah?!

The only problem I have with lists is that I am too ambitious. I aim to get this list crossed off by 5pm  tomorrow, but realistically I know it will be more like 5pm next Friday.......

SS xx

Wednesday 20 November 2013

WIP Wednesday.......pom-pom tastic!

Afternoon!

Today is all about the pom-pom! I hadn't made pom-poms since school until I made them for my Raspberry Ripple Hats, when my love for them was re-kindled.

Due to my wrist problems I am trying to do a bit less crochet at the moment so that it doesn't get sore again......so what better than to make some more pom-poms! I wanted to make small red and white ones for use as Christmas decorations.

I had always made them using the two card-board rings, but after a quick Google found some brilliant suggestions for making teeny pom-poms using a fork. Genius! This tutorial on Mollie Makes shows you how its done, but I have put together a few pictures too:






(and then you develop a slight addiction and make a bowl-full until you run out of ribbon!)




Mini Pom-Pom Decorations by SallyStrawberry


I also tried out this pom-pom maker I bought this morning at my local craft shop but can't seem to get it to work properly......anyone else used something similar? Did you have success?





Have a good evening,

SS xx

p.s. Yarning along again.....




Tuesday 19 November 2013

......and Durham in the day time!

Morning!

So after my post on Durham Lumiere yesterday I thought I would show you some pictures I took of Durham in the day-time. We were lucky enough to be able to stay in Durham overnight, leaving Sunday to explore Durham (and the shops it has to offer) in the daylight. Before we hit the shops though we walked all round the perimeter of Durham centre along the river.

It was a gloriously sunny morning (and not even that cold either!), with the Sun reflecting off the turning autumn leaves





I especially love this picture of the Cathedral from a distance.



and this picture across the river really captures the essence of the morning.



.....beautiful!

Have a great day

SS xx

p.s. hopefully some crochet to share soon!

Sunday 17 November 2013

Durham Lumiere

Hello!

Hope you all had a brilliant weekend! As you may have seen from my last post I was at Durham Lumière Saturday into Sunday. This is a festival where Durham is transformed into a city-wide spectacular of light every evening from Thurs-Sunday. I have never been in Durham before, and the trailer for the festival looked fantastic so was so excited to go! 

The festival consisted of installations across the old part of the city. One of the most spectacular were projections onto the Cathedral- so clever! Unfortunately I don't have any photos of this as it was too tricky to get a good picture. However, I did get plenty more.....

So here we have a couple of 'words in light' kind of installations......




I found the top one hilarious as I am the most impatient person ever (not the most unhappy though!)

Then we have some brilliant 'dresses' in the cathedral cloisters....



These changed colour and were absolutely gorgeous!

We also saw these light-up trees, all pretty and sparkly!



This was one of our personal favourites



...row after row of supermarket plastic bags filled with different coloured lights! Durham is on an anti plastic bag drive so this was partly to raise awareness....and a fantastic way of going about it I say. I loved the colours.....and there were hundreds and hundreds of them. At the end of this street was this:




....a Christmas tree made from carrier bags too!

There were loads of other installations too that I was unable to photograph, most notably a holographic elephant 'guarding' one of the bridges into the festival which was AMAZING! 

It will be on again in 2016 so if you can, definitely go! 

SS xx

Saturday 16 November 2013

Testing testing testing

Hello!

Please excuse this post as testing out blogger on my phone. Thought it might be quite handy. Anyone else had any experience of this?

Im in Durham this weekend for the festival of light so perhaps if this all works out ok I can share some pictures with you all.

Have a fantastic weekend!

SSxx

Wednesday 13 November 2013

WIP Wednesday........making progress

Hi all,

As I mentioned on Monday I was feeling like I was getting pretty behind, especially as I have a craft fair in 4 weeks (eek!). However, I feel that in the last 2 days I have been making progress. Today I have been finishing things off which not only has made me feel a bit more organised and on-track,  has also cleared a whole lot of space in my living room!

I now have something that may resemble 'stock', albeit a small one!

3 cupcake hats (still need their colourful sprinkles but that's a job for this evening)
3 baby-sized Christmas pudding hats
......and my new favourite a Candy-Cane Striped Christmas Wreath!





I know I still have a way to go, but to see that I am making progress is spurring me on enormously.

I would like to thank everyone both on here and on my Facebook page for all your kind comments about the hat I made Monday morning. Guess what? They have multiplied :-)





I sat looking at the hat on my coffee table all Wednesday afternoon and realised that it really reminded me of raspberry ripple ice-cream, so it is to be renamed the Raspberry Ripple Crochet Baby Bobble Hat. I'm going to make some more in a similar vein so keep an eye open...


Linking with Ginny again this week so pop over and see the wonders being created

Have a great evening,

SS xx





p.s. Apologies for the massively uninspiring photos, it was getting dark when I took them and I was feeling too impatient to get the 'big camera' out.

Monday 11 November 2013

Something I knocked up this morning.....

Afternoon!

I have been struggling to blog recently due to a number of reasons that there is no need to go in to right now....although I'm sure I will do at some-point...perhaps in a 'November round-up' post or something like that! 

Make-wise I have really just been finished off my Christmas decorations and Christmas Pudding hats. Last week was mighty stressful and things just got in the way of making......plus the guilt I felt when I was making when I should have been concentrating my time elsewhere was a bit too much to bear. T'is a new week though with lots of new projects planned :-)

I now only have 4 weeks to go until I have my first craft fair so am still predominantly making/designing things for that, and to start of the week I have made a hat! I woke quite early this morning, and as usual my mind was occupied by what I still need to make. This is made worse by the fact that I don't really have a plan and am jumping from one idea to the next, and on to the next, and back again and so forth. This morning though I knew I wanted to make a baby-sized bobble hat! So here goes......

Following the basic guidelines on Kat's brilliant tutorial on hat design. I made a basic hat in Sirdar super soft aran, finished of with a couple of rows of ribbing in a light pink colour. Then came the best part.....the pom poms!

I used the traditional cardboard ring method using both colours of pink yarn

                         1. 



                         2. 


                        3.


And all together now......"ta-dah!"

Crochet Baby Bobble Hat by SallyStrawberry

I'm pretty pleased with it considering I envisaged the design in the early hours of the morning. I never would have thought it would be something as inconsequential as hat design keeping me awake at night, but I should be thankful for that I guess!

I hope you all had a great weekend, and have a fantastic week to follow.

SS xx

p.s Sharing the link love with Handmade Monday


Wednesday 6 November 2013

OK, I'll confess.........

......I've become hat obsessed! I am seeing them everywhere and they are invading my dreams (got to be worse things though!). Last night was especially bad.....Bonfire Night.....people out en-mass to watch h local fireworks display....and loads and loads and loads of hats......beanies, hats with ear-flaps, berets, and my personal favourite the cabled bobble hat! I couldn't help but stare and marvel over them all. I then of course spent a couple of minutes lost in thought (helped by the Mead I had been drinking most likely) dissecting how they were made....were they made in the round, or were they seamed, was it a real cable or the 'mock' kind......

A friend recently asked me to make a hat for him....totally my choice and design. Its got to be a chunky cabled bobble hat as I'm dying to make one, and its the perfect excuse/opportunity to try.

I've done some cabling before (a scarf that was entirely cable right across the width) but unfortunately it was way before the time I started to take pictures of my work. I loved it and can't wait to try again. 

So today, I've been trawling Ravelry on the search for a perfect hat.....and I think I've found it. Next challenge is to find the perfect wool.....

Staring at everyones hats was bad enough so I couldn't take photos. Instead I will share with you some pictures of the fireworks.

All together now......."oooooooooh..........ahhhhhhhhhhh........"






Did you go to any firework displays??

SS xx

p.s. I know it should be a WIP Wednesday post but to be honest, I haven't really been making anything different from last week!