It's Arrived!

Forgive the excitement but Issue 1 of Simply Crochet  landed in my cat doormat this morning! I resisted the temptation to read is straight away (I was in the middle if doing some planning and printing for my tutotungband supply teaching) and put it to one side. 
Hours later I have finally sat down with a cup of tea and a mince pie to take my first look at the magazine and I can report that it is amazing!!!

It has everything you'd expect a good craft magazine to have and more. The presentation is funky and modern, the articles relevant and interesting and the pictures beautiful. And the patterns? Well, what can I say, Toft Alpaca and Nikki Trench, among others - amazing!!!

There's even an offer - 3 issues for £5 - to whet your appetite.

If you are a crocheter then you need this magazine in your life!

Simply Crochet - Issue 1

Squeal!!! There is a new crochet magazine about to hit the shelves in January.  I am so excited about this - a whole magazine dedicated to crochet from the makers of Simply Knitting and Mollie Makes (so it's bound to be fabulous!)

I am lucky enough to be able to share the front cover of Issue 1 with you all and when I saw it I was all excited.  They are also having a special offer - 3 issues for £5 - which I have obviously partaked of!

Roll on January!!

Me, me, me!

Hello to you all whether you are an existing follower of my blog or a new one (becuase I think I have acquired some new followers this past week!)

What a week I have had - and for great reasons!  So I have to warn you that, in the words of Louise from The Caithness Craft Collective podcast, this post is a bit ME ME ME!!!

Last weekend I was involved in the Art from the Heart bloghop to celebrate their 10th birthday (which is this weekend - Happy Birthday!)  Art from the Heart is my favourite art shop ever.  It is a good hour and a halfs drive from where I live, located in Harrogate in Yorkshire.  They sell the most amazing art and craft supplies and host fabulous workshops in art journaling amongst other things.  I am off there tomorrow morning, very early, for a gorgeous taster workshop with Dyan and maybe to spend some pennies!  So anyway, back to the bloghop, I signed up for it thinking it would be fun.  I was allocated to the 7 Gypsies team and so had to make anything using 7 Gypsies products, photograph it and then share my project in my blog hop post.  What fun!!! So, I made my journal page, filled in the template and set my post up to publish at 10am on Saturday morning.  Good, mission accomplished! 

Now, if you comment on my blog it has to be moderated before it goes live.  I check my iPhone and I have 6 comments to be moderated.  Ooooh, thinks me, how lovely!  However, it didn't stop there and I soon realised that this blog hop thing was going to be much bigger than I ever imagined.  To cut a long story short, I currently have something like 80, yes 80, comments on my bloghop post and, last Saturday, my blog was viewed 695 times!  I still cannot believe it - how amazing!!

So, after that most exciting event last weekend, my Craftseller magazine arrived.  This is a new magazine that is all about selling your crafts.  It is really good, has some great advice in it and projects that you can make and sell.  I got issue one back in May and made some little babushka dolls (you can find them in one of my past blog posts).  I joined the Facebook group and posted a link to my blog post about them (I like to share!) and that was it.  Until I received an email from a lovely lady at the magazine asking me if I wouldn't mind them featuring my dolls on their letters page.  So Issue 2 arrived on Thursday and I am in it, it is small but it counts.  I will also let you into a little secret, but I may be featured again in a future issue.  Squeal!




Me in print

 Now, you may think that that is enough excitment for 1 week, but no.  This morning I woke up rather early and was checking up on all the blogs I like to follow.  I was reading the lovely Random Wooliness blog by the gorgeous Ali, and her latest post, Seven things about me! is all about The Irresistbly Sweet Award she has received from another blog.  How gorgeous it was to read the post and then find that, as part of the award, she has to pass it onto 7 others and I am one of them!  Overwhelmed!  Thank you Ali x

Also this week, yes there is more, I have been asked to teach some workshops and to guest blog on another blog. (Slowly but surely I am taking over the World!)

I have to say that when I started to blog I never imagined that any of these things would happen, but it sure feels great that it has!  Blogging is a fabulous way of meeting like minded people and I have met so many.  So, whether you are an exsisting follower or a new one, thank you for stopping by and making my blog so special! 

The dreaded 'C' word!

The dreaded 'C' word has been popping up on Twitter and Facebook this week!  As the summer holidays draw to a close (not that we have seen so much of the summer) some of my favourite crafty magazines have been asking their loyal readers what they want to see in their Christmas editions.

But it's only August!!! I hear you all cry at the computer. And I feel exactly the same.  I hate it when the supermarkets begin to stock their festive ranges in August and, on a recent trip to a local crafty/homeware/vistor attraction, was riled to see them announcing the arrival of a mystery man (the display consisted of a dressed up mannequin, wearing a red suit surrounded by wrapped up boxes and snow sporting a large cardboard box with a question mark on it!  Can you guess who it is?!) 

Now don't get me wrong, I am no grinch and I absolutley LOVE Christmas, but I like it to start in December and be 4 weeks of excited preparation.

However, when you have handmade goodies to make for gifts, you need a little bit more that 4 weeks to make it all.  And so this week I started to think about who I was, and wasn't, going to be handmaking gifts for this year and what I was going to be making.  I have narrowed down my decision making to three key questions to ask yourself when handmaking gifts for Christmas.

Box with Gift courtesy of Robo Android on Flickr

1)  Will the recipient appreciate it?
I am not going to spend my time knitting/crocheting/sewing for someone who doesn't really appreciate it.  Now this doesn't make them a bad person, it just means they don't get it!  For example Mr Bunny actually said to me yesterday 'I don't want any handmade stuff for Christmas!' He is very supportive of my crafting and can see that lots of people appreciate it but, he doesn't want.  So therefore, Mr Bunny and a few other people will be getting money for Christmas this year.

Clock courtesy of wiwin.wr on Flickr

2)  How much time have you got?
I am knitting one scarf for Christmas this year and I have already cast it on.  I know that it will probably take me until Christmas to complete it so I have started it now.  Most other people are going to be getting small, quick items probably knitted or crocheted.  Mitts and hats are great for this as they knit/crochet up quickly. 

Money courtesy of Community Friend on Flickr

3)  How much will it cost?
For me, this is an important factor.  I do not have, as Mr Bunny often reminds me, a £50 tree in the back yard (although I wish I did).  So I don't want my gifts to cost too much in money.  By making smaller items, such as mitts and hats, you can afford to invest in a nicer ball of yarn as you won't need as many!

I have indeed asked myself these three questions and have drawn up a list of recipients, gifts and in some cases yarn (a good excuse for a yarn destash!) that I will be using.  Some may say my list is a bit ambitious and I do have a backup plan if I run out of time (Gift vouchers are wonderful aren't they?!) but I am determined to get these made and the sooner so what am I still doing here?  I have Christmas presents to make!

Keep calm and drink tea!

Photo courtesy of nicasaurusrex on Flickr

There is nothing better than a good cup of tea.  In fact, we Brits are well known for drinking copius amounts of the stuff.  The first thing we do when someone visits is to put the kettle on and 'brew up', making everyone a nice, refreshing cup of tea (and if you're lucky, there is often a scrummy biscuit to go with it!)  Even when faced with a crisis, there is always someone on hand to offer you a cup of tea because, quite frankly, a cup of tea solves everything!

As you are probably already aware, last week we witnessed some of the most appauling behaviour from a minority (and I emphasise that it was a minority) of citizens, as they rioted, looted and quite frankly made a right show of themselves, across the country.  In the face of adversity, there were, as only we could have in Britain, people on hand to offer our police officers a good cup of tea (all be it served on the back of a riot shield) to show their support for the very difficult job they had to do.

On Facebook, a group was started to encourage us all to calm down and drink a cup of tea. 

So, this brings me onto my crafting.  In the most recent issue of Inside Crochet there was a pattern for a magnificent tea cosy designed by the amazing Aoibhe Ni (I adore her patterns).  It was unusual, funky and quirky and so I knew I had to make it.  I raided my stash and found the perfect wool, as it needed to be one that would felt, and set about to make the tea cosy.  It had it's outing at the Stitch 'n' Bitch I hosted with my friends (my Mum, Jo and Jan) last Friday, and was admired by all. 

Inspired by making this tea cosy, I decided to have a go at desigining and making one of my own, and this is what I came up with;

It reminds me of a swimming cap from the Seventies!

Frog it!

Rip it, Rip it, Rip it!  That is the sound my crochet makes as I frog back, or rip out, all the lovely work done on my Esmee Cardigan!  In fact, the phrase 'frog it', as used extensivley by knitters and crocheters, has come from rip it sounding so much like ribbit, the noise associated with those lovely green amphibians, frogs!

I have decided to stretch my crocheting skills to the next level and make a full blown cardigan.  I have been admiring this paticular one, Esmee by Sarah Francis, in the issue 13 of Inside Crochet magazine for some time.  What has been putting me off was the ADVANCED difficulty rating: EEEEK!  Am I ready for an advanced difficulty rated pattern?  Can I do it after only 6 months on the hook?  I am never one to turn down a challenge and, after coming across some gorgeous teal King Cole yarn with a pretty sparkly thread running through it in a craft store, I knew that it had to be done.

See how pretty it is?  I just couldn't resist!

Now then, was it not enough for me to be attempting an advanced diffculty pattern?  Did I not feel that this was challenge enough?  Of course not!  I had to choose a yarn that is considerably thicker than the one used in the pattern.  Now then, some people would do a guage swatch.  Ha!  Not me, of course I do not need to waste my time on something so silly as a guage swatch - how silly I was! 

So far I have started and frogged the cardigan 4 times!  Given that it is a foundation chain of 233 stitches that is an awful lot of crochet to frog.  I am now beginning to understand the need for a guage swatch, if not to get my crochet right first time, but to preserve my own (and my husbands) sanity.

There is a happy ending to this story though!  I have learnt 3 things from my frogging experiences:

1.   After all of the attempts, the pattern is pretty much ingrained in my brain and could probably be completed from memory.
2.  I have learnt that guage swatching is not a waste of time and is suggested for a reason. 
3.  When substituting yarns, pick one the same weight.

I will not, however, be defeated by this cardigan and, if it takes me until Christmas, it will be done!

Project update!

Today's blog is going to be a project update.  So, here goes!

I have been making quite a few gifts recently.  For Amanda's birthday I crocheted her a purse out of some gorgeous turquoise wool, lined with some fabulous spotty fabric!  The pattern was free from the Lionbrand website!  I have the free iPhone App and it is amazing!  The pattern was easy and quick to make and I am planning on making it again!  

I have also been working on some baby blankets!  This blanket was for Jill's baby and she has very kindly said that I can post this gorgeous picture of her snuggled up in her blanket!  The pattern was another free one from Lion Brand and I crocheted it in Sirdar DK Bonus, an acrylic yarn which is really soft and very practical on the washing front for babies!  Rather than using 1 colour, I used a main colour, lilac, then trimmed it in pink as well as making the hood in pink.  The stitch is popcorn stitch and is really pretty.  I love it so much I am making a giant stripey one for me, and yes, there is a hood!

So cute!

I have also been making for me!  I am currently working on an altered book journal (Work has gotten in the way of progress but I hope to do more in the holidays and will be posting a tutorial on how I did it!)  A new journal means a new journal pouch!  I have made this one out of an old woolen/felt dress I no longer wear and have made a feature out of the pockets and the buckles. 

Last week, I bought a pair of purple jeans from a charity shop for £3!  The legs where a bit on the narrow side so I decided to turn them into a skirt!  I used some bright pink cord fabric to fill in the triangles and I love it now!  I haven't hemmed it as I'm not sure whether I want to - I quite like the roughness of the fraying edge!!!



I love the embroidery on the back pockets!

 And finally, my first big crochet project - a gorgeous granny square shrug! This is the Indian Summer Shrug from Issue 19 of Inside Crochet.  It is made in Rico Cotton and, I have to admit, not my favourite yarn!  I perservered with the cotton because I loved the pattern but, I will not be making it in cotton ever again!!!!  I wore it to work last week and had so many compliments about it.  Some people thought it must have been shop bought and couldn't beleive that I had made it.  It is really comfortable and so bright and unusual - I love it!

Bank Holiday Craftiness

I hope you are all having a good Bank Holiday weekend!  For those of you not in the UK, this weekend is 3 days long as we have a lovely extra holiday on Monday!  Whoop!  As I am off on my holiday next weekend, I am spending my extra long weekend being crafty and making lists and other such holiday preparations! 

I have already organised my travel craft projects into a bag (rather difficult as I wanted to take everything).  This consists of a mini travel art journal which I have already painted the pages in, some pens, pastels, glue and pics amongst other things.  After much deliberation I managed to cut it down to 1 pencil case and 1 A4 wallet!  I also have my Scottish Adventure Journal ready to add pics and mementos from the week in as well.  There are 2 books in there (just incase I finish one), including The Yarn Harlot book by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. As yet I haven't chosen the crochet projects I am going to take.  All of my travel craft projects must fit into 1 smallish bag - this is what I have told myself - but I'm sure I can squeeze a magzine and some crochet into my handbag to (my husband will never know!)

Last week I found yet another new craft magazine called Craftseller.  It is aimed at people who want to make to sell and it is looking like it is going to be a good one.  There are articles from established sellers, particularly Etsy and the web, as well as projects you can make to sell.  I have been using up some old felt making some of the really cute Babushka Felties in the magazine and have adapted it to make them into little bellydancers!  So cute and very easy to do! 

I have added brooch backs to mine so they can be pinned to bags or clothing but I'm also thinking they would be great as key rings too!

She now lives on my recycled jeans bag!

As I am going to be away, this will be my last blog post for a couple of weeks.  When I return I will have plenty to share with you I am sure!  I will be posting quick updates and photos on my holiday crafting and any exciting shops and products and general craftiness I encounter when away on my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/gingerbreadbunny) so hop along and like the page to keep up-to-date with my crafty exploits!

Take care and see you all soon x

Exciting new find!

This week has been quite slow on the crafting front!  Just not been able to get my head into gear to make much!  I have had a go at making a canvas with a dance quote on but need to think carefully about the colours so the ink shows!  I have also been making plans for a few more projects and hopefully will get more done in the next few weeks! 
I have spent a lot of my time moving my things into the spare room where I have a much larger table to work at, maybe this is the main reason for my lack of crafting?  I have lots more space now to work in and it is lighter.
One thing I would like to share with you is an exciting new magazine!  Well, actually my husband found this magazine on a recent supermarket trip and what a find it is.  It is called Simply Homemade and is just what I have been looking for, a general crafty magazine.

I was most excited to find that it is Issue 1 and that there were free gifts!  Free craft papers and a set of stamps.  Unlike other free gifts I  have had from other similar magazines, these were of high quality and something I will definitley be using in my projects!
The magazine is well made, on nice glossy paper, and is quite a substantial size for £3.99.  It has the usual magazine sections, contents, news and letters, as well as specific crafty sections covering a range of crafts and easy to follow projects.  The sections covered in the magazine are papercraft, recycling, soapmaking, sewing, felt and knitting and it is obvious that each issue will cover a wide range of crafts.
There are lots of projects I want to have a go at and they all have really easy step-by-step instructions with diagrams and all the templates needed contained in the magazine.  I really want to have a go at some of the bag projects , making a russain doll charm out of old jeans, the roman blind and making an apron.  Another feature of the magazine I really liked are the links to blogs and online market places. 
As you can probably tell, I am completley in love with this magazine and will be reading it over and over again, finding inspiration from within it's pages and having a go at the projects.  Within 2 hours of getting the magazine I had gone online and subscribed, the lure of the free gift did persuade me, it is just so pretty! 
If, like me, you are into general craftiness this is definitley the magazine for you!