Pixel cross stitch

You may remember that we have a bit of a Space Invader theme going on in Tea Towers (if not then check out my post on laptop cases), if so then my latest make will be no surprise...

This cross stitch design was from a lovely little kit by mouseloft (www.mouseloft.co.uk) - these kits are simple, cute designs which are the perfect size for an evening of quick cross stitch.

I bought some black aida to use instead of the light blue it came with - this really shows off the design and makes it feel more like the graphics from the original game. 

With a little bit more sewing it has now transformed Rich's new bag.

I'm now itching to add some cross stitch to other items about the house, I had best go and buy a few more kits from the lovely Mouseloft designs!

Pretty patchwork

This year I have mostly been patchworking... I started paper piecing a number of hexagons after Christmas and have been very slowly putting them together ever since.

Once all the hexagons were completed I had some fun arranging them along the bottom edge of the curtains I was making, I then took a number of photos of them to act as a patchwork map for joining them all back together.

Months later I had finished joining them and sewing them onto the curtains... final seams and bits were done last night and today I finally have put them up, hooray!

Don't they look so very pretty and lovely hanging up in Emily's room?

After a bit more sewing I've finished my little deer decoration.

He has a very sweet little embroidered blanket/saddle with gold thread details. He also has a pompom collar with thread tassels attached.

I'm super pleased with him and he is now hanging happily on our very full Christmas tree :-)

Happy Christmas!

I've been trying to finish up this adorable little reindeer felt tree decoration, and I'm very almost there...

I'm a little stuck with the gold embroidery on his blanket saddle so I thought I would just share a photo of him unadorned as he is beautiful already.

He has been made from the lovely kit which came with issue 86 of Mollie Makes.

Crazy Christmas crafting

I've been a busy embroidering bee over the last two months making up a lovely stack of these Nordic style snowflake hearts. For each heart I free hand embroidered the snowflake before blanket stitching together and filling with stuffing.

I'm delighted with how they came out, these are on their way to new homes right now to help make lots of friends and family's trees a tiny bit more Christmasy. 

Back crafting :-)

It's been a long time since I've had time to do some craft... but this last week I've actually been able to do some and it has been wonderful!

These two circular purses I made from the photo tutorial found on handmadiya. They were quite a faff to make but it was lovely to be doing some hand sewing again and I love how they turned out. I'm calling them 'yo-yo purses' as that what they make me think of.

These purses were presents for two girls off to Australia for a year so I wrapped them up like parcels with pretty butterfly stamps cut from some tissue paper I had in my stash.

School has also just finished - as I've spent this year working as a TA in my children's primary I wanted to give all 35 children in my class a present... so I broke out the hama beads and made these initial key rings for each of them. I used the letter shapes from this flickr photo.

Simple sewing

Still working though the stack of Mollie Makes mini project kits that I've amassed. This little dachshund stuffed toy was super simple - perfect for a poorly elbow.

Yarny Kirby

My Sam's current Wii gaming obsession is called "Kirby's Epic Yarn". It is so pretty to look at with all the wool & felt detail the game has. You've also got to love a game where the main baddie has giant knitting needles with which he knits up all the other baddies in the game.

This yarn Kirby was made from the lovely free pattern from Nerdigurumi's lovely blog (pattern is here) and it works up quick and easily. For my Kirby's eyes I embroidered his felt eyes instead of painting them in the hopes they last all the love Sam gives them :-)

Costume making

Since Sam started at school it seems like there have been quite a few 'dressing up' days where he has needed costumes for some event or other. One week it was a 'cosy day' where they had to wear pyjamas/dressing gowns (Sam was excited that he also got to take in his blue crochet blanket too). 

But some have been a little trickier... like having to find a fairy tale outfit for a boy. So instead of dressing him like a knight like the rest of the boys in his class I thought he could be Hansel. Thankfully I was able to borrow some lederhosen from another mum and all I had to make was a suitable hat...

Then we had World book day and Sam's class had to dress up as characters from Julia Donaldson books. Sam decided that he wanted to be the ladybird from "What the Ladybird heard" and this time I had him helping to make his costume which consisted of cardboard wings (painted by Sam and then decorated with spots and much glitter then applied) and a ladybird mask we had in our dressing up box.

Now on to making up a Easter bonnet for the school parade...

Christmas tree decorations

 Every year I try to make a batch of tree decorations to give to friends and family - here are some photos of what I managed to make up this year:

First up I did some simple felt candy canes inspired by Bugs and Fishes lovely tutorial.

 

Next I made up a batch of simple stylised robin decorations (my own design)

These thread decorations were inspired by some pretty crochet baubles shown in this years Simply Crochet Christmas issue.

Lastly but most definitely my favourite would be these very adorable crochet snowmen. Loved making them - even thought the tiny tiny pom poms for the hats were a bit tricky! Brilliant free pattern available through Ravelry.

Halloween craft

Hope you all had a lovely Halloween yesterday - we did :-) Because of having two Halloween parties to attend we didn't have enough time to carve a pumpkin this year but we did dress up and I even managed to make some yummy Halloween cakes.

These cakes were simple fairy cakes and butter cream icing. The decorations were made with melted white chocolate and a piping bag... you just melt the chocolate, stick it in the piping bag and then pipe out whatever spooky shape you like straight on to greaseproof paper.

Sam wanted to be a ghost this year so after a quick trawl of the local charity shops I found an old table cloth that I cut up to make a poncho style body and added a hood to the top. He really loved it and I loved being able to whip something up last minute that actually fit okay!

School's out for Summer...

So I needed a quick project to whip up for the 2 teaching assistants and the 2 teachers in Sam's nursery. I've had my eye on these 'Apple for the teacher' brooches for a future project and loved making them up - quick and simple :-)

Pattern is from Heart-Felt Holidays: 40 Festive Felt Projects to Celebrate the Seasons

Movember

Happy Movember everyone!

If you are visiting the UK this month and think there is a strange trend towards moustaches while you are here then let me reassure you that this is just for this one month and most of the men you'll see sporting moustaches are just trying to raise funds for male specific health issue like prostrate & testicular cancer.

This little felt moustache is from the book "Heart felt holidays" and was quick and simple to make. Perfect as a gift for any female friends who want to take part in Movember :-)

Happy Halloween!

Hope you all had a wonderful Halloween last night... we did, what with making Halloween cakes, wearing costumes and getting to trick or treat the neighbours. In fact we had such a good time I completely forgot to share this year's Halloween project with you...

Happy bats from Paper-and-string's super cute Halloween decoration tutorial. These little guys are great fun to make and make really lovely Halloween gifts.

Because I was crafting these in a last minute panic I got my felt colours reversed - the body should have been grey and the wings black... not to worry though as they still look like bats :-)

There was also a bit of Halloween baking taking place here too - we did a batch of scary ghost gingerbread biscuits to give out to the neighbours to say 'thank you' for our Halloween treats. I really liked being able to give something out to our neighbours and I'll definitely be doing this again next year :-)

So now we've scared all the ghosts and ghouls it's time to start thinking seriously about Christmas.... now that really is scary!


This post has been shared as part of Lakota's Ta da Tuesday.

October's decoration: Little birds

So sorry for the lack of posting over the last week - Tea Towers is in full party preparation mode as the big event is this Sunday and there is still lots to do.

Thankfully I've managed to make up all the party bags now and I'm really pleased with how they worked, love the look of the simple brown paper bags and I'm hopeful that their recipients will like the contents.

This is just a quick post with my latest Christmas decoration - yet another felt project from the wonderful "Fa la la felt". I took this project along to a new craft group this week and made a couple of the birds up to be sold in aid of The Christie, however the pattern really is very small so I copied it up a bit larger at home and made a couple more birds to add to my fast growing box of decorations. I really love the mix of blue & cream in these and again will have trouble giving them away.

June's decoration: Felt hearts

After a day of unsuccessful crocheting I needed a break so I dug out my back copies of Mollie Makes magazine and found that I had marked these felt hearts as a quick project to try.

These hearts were very quick and satisfying... once I had cut out the felt heart shapes I started adding buttons from my stash and had a great time picking them out and sewing them on. Once the buttons were all on it was a very quick job to join the hearts with a running stitch, add a ribbon hanging loop and stuff them lightly.

Ahhh - feeling much better now, nothing like an enjoyable couple of hours of crafting to help you relax :-)

June's craft: Quilting

To give me a break from all the crocheting I've been doing for my new Etsy shop I thought I would make a start on my lovely 'Art girl quilt kit' which I won from believemagic last month.

Well - it would seem that making art quilts are a little addictive and I've not been able to leave this one alone, and now it's finished!

I embellished my pretty girl with a little ruffled apron and a crochet flower for her hair. I did a bit of free hand embroidered writing for the 'Time for Tea' which is okayish - but could do with being a bit more central.

This quilt has a little bit of everything, blanket stitching, patchwork, hand quilting & my first ever attempt to add bias binding. Not too sure what to do with my pretty girl now but I'm sure I'll find somewhere in our home to display her proudly :-)

Loving Aranzi Aronzo

After spoiling myself a little and buying one of paperandstring's lovely felt rainbows I needed to find a couple of quick felt projects to justify my purchase... so out came my faithful copy of "The Cute Book" by Aranzi Aronzo.

Seeing as I already had a couple of requests for characters out of this book I started straight away on these. First up I made the serious looking guy you can see on the left. I love his stern expression and his little arms wide open - perhaps a hug would make him smile?

Next up we have the 'mature fish' who is for 'mature people'. She is probably the fiddliest felt character in the book having lots of tiny felt pieces that need cutting and sewing on. I do love her pretty flowers though and did enjoy making her. However, crafting in front of the TV in a hurry did back fire a little this time as I managed to sew her head on to her body the wrong way up... yes that big fin is supposed to be at the top! Never mind - I don't think the recipient even noticed!

Meet Terry the Terrier

Terry is one of the Aranzi Aronzo characters (his pattern is from the Cute book)

"Terry is a wire-haired Fox Terrier. Because he's a terrier, we call him Terry. His real name is Terrible, which sounds real strong and cool, but he's not really strong at all. Terry works fro Aranzi Aronzo. His little beady eyes are so cute."

Terry has wandered off with his new proud owner and left me with a couple of requests for felt fish, bye Terry, take care!

Crafty weekend

We've had a lovely weekend here at Tea Towers, baby Emily & I spent Saturday morning having a go at making a pretty flower corsage at the wonderful Traders Outlet store in Sale. One of the new friends that we've made since moving up north (JanJan) has turned out to be a very crafty lady indeed - she has her own range of beautiful handcrafted cushions that she sells along with a number of other lovely handcrafted bits.

If you are at all local to Sale then it is well worth checking out the Traders Outlet store. There are so many beautiful hand crafted items to buy that I can guarantee you won't go away empty handed. JanJan & Jane Moran are going to start running a regular Saturday afternoon (1pm - 4.30pm, £20 per class including tea, coffee & a baked treat!) craft session with the first session being on 17th March making needle books & corsages.