Jacqui's Bag

A friend of mine has spent the last couple of months drooling over my Lucy Bag so what better present to make her for her birthday ....

Is it not gorgeous??? Believe me, it was VERY hard to give this one away but when she opened it and let out a shriek of delight it was all worth it!

You may notice that I changed the pattern slightly and did two rows of single crochet in each colour instead of the original Lucy pattern of one row of trebles. I crochet fairly loosely and having already made two of these bags, I had found that the treble pattern made the bag too 'holy' if you know what I mean. I did the increases the same as the original but just changed the stitch and this one came up much firmer and solid. I think I'll do all future ones like this as well.

I used bulk standard cheap acrylic in jewel bright colours and then went for a seriously dotty lining!

Stripes and dots ....YUM!!!!

The flowers were also from Lucy but this time her Triple Layer Flower which are stunning!!! They're even better than her original Lucy Bag flower pattern so again, I'll be making these from now on for all future Lucy Bags!!!

Don't you love that dotty fabric? It truly makes my heart sing!!!!!!!!

Til soon.

xxx

Two more bags!!!

Hello !!!

After making three Starling Bags as Christmas pressies for my work colleagues and posting about them here, I was asked by a friend if I would take on a commission to make two for her. I have done so and here they are....

I used cotton yarn this time and they came up just as beautifully as the baby soft double knitting yarn I used before. Here are the linings.....

A lovely pinstripe for the indigo bag -

and a cute floral for the burgundy bag -

I really hope my friend likes them! 

Til soon.
xxx

Wreaths, rainbows and a little bit of sewing.....

Hello!!! Thanks for stopping by. Before I tell you what I've been up over the last few weeks I have to show you this -

Is it not fab? A Christmas wreath made of recycled pages from newspapers or magazines! I love it!!! I haven't made one yet but I want to, I really want to. I love recycled stuff. We chuck away so much stuff that with a bit of thought, time and energy can be transformed into something useful or at least usable (if not always beautiful!). Anyway, this (to me) IS beautiful and the true beauty of it is that you can send it for recycling after Christmas this year and then make another one for next year!!! Genius!

Anyway. A week or so ago I received a parcel in the mail (yes, the real mail with real stamps and stuff.....)

Said parcel was from Maryanne and Vicky at Woolhogs. I had won a prize!!!! Yes, can you believe it, me, moi and I had actually won something!!!!!!!! Yay! In all my 40 something years I have never (repeat N-E-V-E-R) won anything, so this was the hugest of huge things for me (can you tell?)! I had entered a little competition on Maryanne's blog and then the parcel came..... How's the cute button?

Want to see what was inside? Do you? Well, here it is ...............

A rainbow of seven skeins of the scrummiest cotton yarn you could ever imagine!!! It's a local product made by Elle and is their Premier Natural Cotton range. I cannot begin to tell you how beautifully this yarn works because yes indeed I've already started a project and it's fab-u-licious!!!! Can't wait to show you but not yet.....no sir, not yet............. 

On a completely different subject, I have been trying my hand at a little dressmaking. After seeing the uber talented Elizabeth over at Mrs Thomasina Tittlemouse make her stunning Edelweiss Skirt, I felt I had to give something a go! My Mom (also very talented with a sewing thread) had a pattern for a super easy dress which she helped me cut out one day last week. Then, last Saturday, I took the bull by the horns and after a little of this

a little of this

and a whole lot of this

I made this.

What do you think? I know it's no haute couture but it's all mine! It's the most stunning apple green colour and there are these little embroidered punch outs in the fabric. Here's a close up.

Aren't they pretty? I think so. I have to tell you that my sewing machine and I have never had what you might call a real relationship. It's always been more of a battle of wills with the sewing machine usually winning! This time, however, I kept repeating the mantra "I am not afraid" the entire time I was sewing and it seemed to work!!!! The machine behaved itself and within 4 hours I had a dress!!! Yay! 

For those of you that are interested the pattern is Simplicity 5628.

 I'm sure there is a technical name for this kind of dress but I call it a 'straight up and down dress'. It's great for summer, especially here in South Africa, where it can get blindingly hot in December/January so I know this little gem is going to get alot of use. Cute bag too.

That's me for now. What have you been up to?

Til soon.

♥

A Crochet Coat!

Oh my. Have you seen what Kristen has made over at Cozy Things. It's this.....

Is it not the most stunning garment you have EVER seen? I'm very jealous. Extremely jealous in fact. And to top it all Kristen made it up from a picture - yes you got it, SHE HAD NO PATTERN!!!!!

Go on over to Cozy Things and have a look and you'll see what I mean. The woman has too much talent! I'm so jealous. Extremely jealous in fact.......

xxx

Christmas pressies.....

I work with three fabulous ladies and this year I decided to make them each a bag for Christmas.

What do you think? I was so pleased with them and they're really easy to make. You can find the pattern here so please have a go because they are truly gorgeous!!! I used a baby double knitting yarn because I wanted them to be really soft and floppy and they were just perfect!

The flowers were Lucy's (of course) and you can find the pattern here and then the buttons I chose had tiny little white dots on them which reminded me of pollen inside a flower!

Then came the linings. Pink for the pink bag.....

Grey for the grey bag......

And a cute floral for the green bag......

They're not huge bags so not great for that massive supermarket shop but for a local garden party, tea with the in-laws or a Summer fete they're just perfect! Or if like me you're a complete craft monkey, then you can always use them as knitting/crochet bags for small projects.......!

I hope you like them.

I do.

Til soon.

xxx

Christmas ideas.....

Can you believe that we only have 30 days until Christmas???? Have I done any Christmas shopping? No. Have I given Christmas a thought? No. Until today. I suddenly had a 'let's get a few Christmas ideas' moment and have spent the last couple of hours trawling the "tinternet" (as my little angels call it) for some inspiration. Here's what I've found so far....

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Are these chairs not gorgeous? So simple yet so effective. If you don't have white chairs (as I don't with two young boys in the house!) you could always make or buy some slip covers. But even without the white chairs  I think the ribbon, cone and greenery would look just as good.

On the subject of the Christmas dinner table, I saw this place setting which I think is stunning.

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I'm not a huge fan of too much bling on the table and I think the simplicity of this setting defines its beauty. The tags you could easily find and print from the net and we can all find a bit of greenery. Tie this all together with a piece of natural twine and there you have it. Gorgeous.

Next up .... a little bit of Christmas magic .....

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..... a Santa key!!!! I thought this was a wonderful idea for those children who don't have a fireplace in their home. This triggered a whole scenario for me (being a preschool teacher)  where the child is given the key on Christmas Eve - naturally presented in a beautiful magical special box decorated with LOTS of glitter (I mean fairy dust....) - and is told to leave it outside the front or back door so that Santa can access the house and leave all the pressies! Can you imagine the excitement, the joy, the decision making process of exactly where to leave it so that Santa will find it???? I think I would have exploded with glee if my mom had given me this to leave outside.....perhaps DH will read this and make one for me to put outside on Christmas Eve even though we do have a fireplace.......

Moving on to all things wrapping, I'm always blown away by the diverse rolls of wrapping paper that are available. The patterns, the colours, the shininess (is there such a word?) of them all. I must admit to loving them but when I saw this I thought how simple and beautiful and natural the pressies look.

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I think its the combination of the plain paper with the green and red of the accessories. It speaks more to me of Christmas than many of the sparkly blingy (again, a new word!) wrapping papers that we can buy. I'm definitely doing this on our pressies this year! I also love the basket and the straw.....

And finally I found this -

I'm not a great lover of Advent calendars but this one is such a lovely idea. Each tag contains a thought for the day or an action and can be general for the whole family or aimed at children which I loved. I thought up a couple on the spur of the moment -

"Hug your dog three times today!" 

"Tell your teacher you love her!" (I wonder why I thought of that one)

"Draw a Christmas picture and send it in the post to your grandparents." 

What do you think? You could make them very specific to your child or your family or (even better) you could make one as a gift for someone but leave the tags blank, then they could fill them in themselves! I might make one for my classroom for next year but we'd have to do it through November as we always close at the end of November for our major Summer holiday! 

So that's what I've found so far. I'm by no means finished but have made a board on Pinterest so please feel free to pop over and have a look. Here's the link.

Til soon.

♥

Books from way back when....

I was delighted to read Elizabeth's latest post on Mrs Thomasina Tittlemouse in which she spoke enthusiastically about a fairytale book that she used to read as a child. It got me thinking about all the books I enjoyed and my mind settled on this one.....

Do you remember it? It is, of course, by the indomitable Enid Blyton and whilst she is not loved by all, she is certainly loved by me. She's had a bad press recently, particularly with the making of Enid (starring the fabulous Helena Bonham Carter) and although she was certainly an interesting person (to say the least) she was a terrific writer of children's fiction. Her reasons for writing her books and the deep rooted psychological traumas that caused her to escape into her magical worlds were of no consequence to me as a young child romping through her pages. My entire childhood is one long Blyton memory when I stop to think about it and besides The Magic Faraway Tree (and the others that followed), I can remember Noddy, The Wishing Chair, The Adventures of Binkle and Flip, The Secret Island, The Secret Seven, The Famous Five, Amelia Jane, Mister Meddle, Adventures of Pink Whistle, The Children of Willow Farm and, of course, the entire Mallory Towers series!

Now that I own a bookshop I am constantly amazed at how popular her books still are and not just to people of my age group who buy them from a purely sentimental aspect. Young parents buy them for their children to read now in this highly technological age of computers, mobile phones and playstations, and that fact pleases me immensely. I think Enid would have enjoyed it too.

I can remember distinctly being curled up on my bed avidly lost in stories of schoolgirls and pixies, goblins and magical lands and even if there had been daytime television back then (which there wasn't), I'm not sure I would have had it any other way. Enid Blyton was then and will always remain to me a loyal and trusted friend......

Til soon.
x