bee handmade

January blues

January seems to have eradicated any blogging mojo I may have had. I'm tired of being cold, tired of the short days and can't wait for the warmer weather to kick in. It's hard to focus on the joys of the small pleasures in life when you are walking home from work in the dark, shoulders tensed against the cold. However this lovely sunset did lift my spirits the other evening on my walk to the station. Sorry about the softness of the picture but it was just captured on my iphone.

 

I'm still recovering from finishing my blanket so haven't been that productive on the craft front. Time for one from the archives.

I can't remember where I saw the pattern for these pincushions but they are easy to create and make a good little gift. There are lots of pincushion tutorials out there. Just sew two circles of felt/fabric together (right sides facing and remembering to leave a hole for turning), turn, stuff well, sew the hole together then use a long piece of embroidery thread to stitch through the centre, bisecting the circle into equal segments. You can sew on buttons in the process or use any decoration which takes your fancy.

 

ta daaa ...

It's finally finished, well aside from ironing, but I wanted to take some pictures before it got too dark. I hope the ironing will get rid of the slight crinkling in the border. It feels good to be able to think about other projects to start. Maybe a patchwork quilt or a ripple blanket.

 

 

The colours make me think of spring. Hopefully the brief moment of sun we had he other day was a portent of things to come. I've had enough of being cold - I'm ready for some sunshine and flowers.

Now I just have to decide where the blanket is going to live ...

Christmas

Time for an update on the bits and pieces of Christmas crafting that I managed to fit in amongst all the present buying and working.

Christmas cards. I made some woven Swedish hearts of out felt and photographed them together on a doily.

I then printed the pictures out on photographic paper and stuck them onto card.

Viola ...

 

Pompom garland. I made loads of pompoms in white and blue wool and strung them together with metallic silver thread.

 

Felt coasters. I used this Martha Stewart tutorial and made some felt coasters. There is a bit of a blue and white theme emerging here.

Walnut shell boats. Using Disdressed's beautiful decorations as inspiration I made some of my own walnut shell boats.

The sails are an image and some text from my copy of the Swedish story The Christmas Tomten.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and a merry New Year. My new years resolution was to not make any but I'm looking forward to a year of new beginnings, lots of crafting and FINALLY finishing my crochet hexagon blanket!

Eek it's almost here

I've been lost in a world of shopping and card and decoration making. I'll post some pictures once recipients have had a chance to not have their little surprise spoiled. I LOVE Christmas but it always creeps up on me. This is mainly to do with the fact that I steadfastly ignore it till the end of November at the very earliest. In fact, I think that perhaps any pre-December advertising should be banned, along with shops playing seasonal music and setting up their Christmas merchandise WAY TOO EARLY. It spoils the magic. I admit I'm probably too old to get a stocking but it really makes me happy. You can't beat eating and making merry. I think I'll be trying out some of Jamie's Chirstmas margaritas and eton mess.

Anyway I digress, this post from the witty Peonies and Polaroids made me smile today and spurred me on to write a post. I quite frequently moo at cows, miaow at cats, baaa at sheep ...  

Here is a picture of cows on the lovely Isle of Harris, the only place where I've seen sheep sleeping soundly on the side of the road.

 

And finally some characterful Highland cattle on the Isle of Skye.

weekend pleasures

• Strictly Come Dancing. I LOVE it. I'm full of admiration for them but unfortunately I have zero rhythm and a bit of a phobia of the dancefloor. I can't believe we've almost reached the end of this series. Saturday evenings won't be the same. If wishes were real I'd ask my fairy godmother to enable me to do this. Oh, to dance the Argentine Tango with Vincent!

• Cooking and baking. Today I'm going to make some of Nigella's spanish macaroons. I'll let you know how they turn out.

• Completing jobs. I finally finished one of the kitchen chairs before being rained off again. I'm really pleased with it. It looks much fresher.

• Appreciating being at home and seeing a little bit of sunshine. These are roses given to me by a friend. They lasted for ages and dried well.

• Reading magazines. The latest Easy Living magazine has a great supplement on stylish one off shops such as RE, Made in Hastings and Berry Red. Lots of fabulous Christmas gift ideas. RE is one of my all time favourite shops. It's so beautiful and full of things you suddenly feel you can't live without. I'm really lucky that I can visit when I go back to the homeland. I feel a bit excitable just looking at the picture.

• Looking at Christmassy inspiration to try to get into the December spirit such as this amazing advent calendar, An Angel at my Table's snowy white decor and Linaloo's beautiful advent calendar.

mixpod.com - how cool is this?

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

nb: I forgot to mention when I posted this yesterday that if you click the little arrows beside the reels you can move to another track. 'Northern Sky' by Nick Drake was played during our wedding service so it brings back lovely memories. I don't know why but melancholy music makes me happy. Weirdo.

best laid plans and one from the archives

The chairs were supposed to be finished today but I've been scuppered by dreary November rain.  The two lessons learned about spray painting are as follows:

• don't try to spray paint outside during a small window of opportunity when it isn't raining.  This results in using up the paint too fast as most of it disappears into thin air.
• don't construct a spraying area from a tent of dust sheets to resume the job indoors. Despite having windows open this results in nearly gassing the household.

So I can't show you lovely new chairs. This pretty white orchid can provide some distraction.

 

Time for one from the archives I think. I thought I'd written about this book before but, after searching through my posts, I think I must have imagined it.

This Japanese craft book is quite hard to get hold of. I think it may be out of print but ebay eventually came up trumps. It has a lot of good ideas and patterns for soft toys which aren't too twee and 'sugar coated'. One of the best things about the book is that it serves as inspiration rather than being too prescriptive. I've made three of these rabbits now, all for children of friends. They have been well received so the proof was in the pudding.

This was the first 'Hoppity'. She had her own hat and scarf and a pocket to keep her carrot in (one never knows when a snack might come in handy).

 

The only other pattern I've used from the book is this doll. She's destined to be the friend of a little girl named Alice. The beautiful pink fabric is from the Cloth House in London which is a veritable treasure trove of fabric, button and trimming delights. Just walking past it makes my credit card jangle in my purse.

 

 

Hexagon woe

Daunting huh? Look at all those ends that have to be sewn in. I HATE sewing ends in.  Has to be done though.

 

I've been distracting myself by looking at frolic's Swedish cottage. It's so beautiful and only serves to compound my obsession with white. It has inspired me to give my 2 kitchen chairs a makeover.

This is how they look before facelift. I'll post another picture when I've spruced them up.

an NYC taster

I really loved New York. It was fun, friendly, interesting and so much less hassly than London. We had a fabulous time and some really scrumptious food. I swear that I literally expanded my waistline on a day by day basis. We went to a great diner called the Lexington Candy Shop and had delicious french toast while soaking up its 1940s interior.

I really want to eat this RIGHT NOW.

Another gem was Cafe Habana. Unfortunately I was way too busy stuffing my face with their grilled corn to take any pictures but here it is in all its glory on their blog.

The Staten Island ferry journey was full of atmosphere as the New York Yankies had just won the world series.

The view.

Visiting Purl Soho felt like some kind of pilgrimage to a crafting mecca.  It was twinkly, inviting and packed full of gorgeous things.

Last picture for now is Central Park.

I didn't take many pictures with my digital camera so am really looking forward to getting my lomo films developed. Watch this space.

I'm in a crochet hexagon vortex at the moment, hence the lack of crafting news. The blanket will be finished soon. Repeat to self, the blanket will be finished soon.

the big apple: part one

Soooo exciting. I'm in New York City!! I can hardly believe it. I've never been to America before and we are spending a week visiting friends.

My other half got us into the spirit of things by making this New York cheesecake. Apologies for the poor photograph but it was so dark in our kitchen when we were about to tuck into the meringue topped wonder. I was so impressed - how clever was he? This is a man who has never baked before.

I've delivered these to two little ladies.

 

And will be trying with all my might to channel some of this.

 

and this.

 

Wish me luck, I'm now off to have breakfast in a diner. Bring on the pancakes ...