Tag: new blogger

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Knitting In Miniature

Posted on by Jackie B

Sometimes you see someone else’s project and can’t help but be impressed. When a friend of mine posted this photo on social media I was intrigued. She’s a skilled maker and creates the most magnificent quilts (among other things), but these tiny knits are on a different scale entirely.

She knit them on hatpins! She reckons they are the equivalent of old UK size 24 needles, about the same thickness as sewing needles and very bendy. The cream jumper was made with fine crochet cotton (the sort you make lacy doilies with). The striped jacket is from a very fine old mercerised cotton that was given to her by an old lady (my grandmother used to use this to make tatted lace). The pink crochet is single strand embroidery thread.

Impressive work! I remember knitting dolls’ clothes when I was little and they always looked ridiculously chunky for the size of the garments (being made with average sized needs and DK yarn). These would have been perfect.

Have you been inspired or amazed by someone else’s work?

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Crafty Christmas Presents

Posted on by Jackie B

I got some great Christmas presents, and there was a definite crafty feel to some of them. They included…..

  • A kit to make a needle felted badger. Love these little needle felted animals.
  • A kit to make a needle felt picture – something I haven’t used this technique for
  • a set of knitting looms . These have been very popular with one of my knit and natter groups andI mentioned it in a blog post.
  • A book about needle felting to make dogs. Maybe I can make a replica of our Buddy!
  • A mug which says “Talk to the hand. I’m Knitting” How true. But people will insist on trying to talk to you when you are counting stitches. How rude!
  • Blogging for Dummies. Hmm. I thought K liked my blog. I’ll just have to read the book and see if I can do better!

I am lucky! Can’t wait to start using these.

Did you get any interesting Christmas gifts?

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The Table Gifts – Last Project Before Christmas!

Posted on by Jackie B

We have a family tradition of putting small wrapped gifts at each place setting for Christmas Dinner. This year I made these tree decorations. I couldn’t post these before Christmas Day and spoil the surprise for our diners.

To get the basic design shapes I found Google images for each of the figures and zoomed to get each image to the right size for a tree decoration. I was going to print these out, but ended up just tracing the the shape on copier paper held up to the screen. This gave me the templates for cutting out the shapes from felt, two for each.

These were the simplest two to make. It was easier to add the features to the front piece before sewing the two sections together. For the penguin I appliquéd a white oval with a notch out of the top end, then added black sequins for eyes and a yellow diamond shape for the beak. I sewed the front and back sections together, using tiny running stitches close to the edge and sandwiched the yellow felt feet and a ribbon hanging loop between the two pieces, stitching them in to the seam. – I left a gap, stuffed with polyester fibre (not too much – just enough for the item to hold it’s shape) then sewed it closed.

The star simply had silver sequins stitched on to one pattern piece and a ribbon loop added as before prior to stitching the two sides together and stuffing.

For the tree I sewed on sequins, including a star-shaped one at the top. After sewing and stuffing I wound a glittery pipe cleaner round for tinsel. and added a few more stitches to secure it. The bell had a row of sequins sewn close to the bottom edge and beads added for the ringer.

The robin had a red oval and a white crescent shape appliquéd onto the front. The beak was a yellow felt diamond shape. I crocheted the legs and stitched them into the seam at the bottom. The snowman’s nose was made by rolling up an orange triangle of felt and sewing in place. I added black sequin eyes and embroidered a smile and twiggy arms. I crocheted a hat and scarf to finish.

I loved the way these characters and the penguin took on a bit of a life of their own as I created their faces. Now most of them have gone to their new homes, I’m tempted to make some more to add to my own tree!

Our Christmas was lovely. K made a delicious meal: He cooked a goose to perfection. Daughter made a trifle as an alternative dessert for those of us who don’t like Christmas pudding. Hope you all enjoyed your festivities too. Merry Christmas!

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Too Many Birthdays, Too Close To Christmas

Posted on by Jackie B

I always try (and fail) to get everything ready for Christmas before 23rd because husband has his birthday then and it means we can keep the day free to celebrate. Then, son has his birthday on Christmas Eve (bad planning that – but he did arrive a week early).

It does add to the Christmas shopping, with extra gifts to buy for three family members (my brother has his birthday in early January) I always find men hard to buy for too.

K always felt that he got a raw deal, having a Christmas birthday and was determined that son would not feel as badly done to as he did as a child. We always tried to insist on a few basic rules

  • No joint Christmas/Birthday presents allowed (some people always seemed to use this as a money saving scheme.
  • No Christmas gift wrapping to be used on Birthday presents. My mother once fell foul of this and K sent son’s present back to be re-wrapped in something non-Christmassy.)
  • No missing out on birthday parties – we always used to give son the option of a party or similar – taking a group of his friends to a movie and pizza was always popular. Christmas Eve worked ok as there were always new films out for the holidays and parents of the other kids were generally pleased to get offspring out of the house for a few hours, though there were always some who were too busy with family commitments.

This seemed to work quite well, though I drew the line at not putting the Christmas Tree up until after the birthdays.

I think all this is why K doesn’t really enjoy Christmas that much. He does have a point that people seem to go shopping mad all for the sake of one day. The supermarkets turn into hell as shoppers go into some sort of survival panic mode. The shops are shut for 24 hours, which is hardly an apocalypse.

Even going out to celebrate a birthday is difficult. Everywhere is over-booked, over-decorated, with loud Christmas music playing and too much Christmas fare on the menu. It’s a bit more low-key, just the way we like it at one of our favourite pubs, The Red Lion in Alnmouth. We went there yesterday (K’s birthday) and met up with friends who are renting a cottage in the area over Christmas. It was lovely to see them (and their dog) – we took Buddy too – the bar is ver dog friendly – we ended up staying for lunch. No turkey in sight. Later on Buddy took the family for a walk on the beach.

Daughter got very creative with a fantastic birthday cake for her dad – lemon and poppy seed, complete with replica of his dog. Buddy wasn’t impressed because we wouldn’t let him eat any!

She also made this for her brother’s birthday today

We went out for a late pub lunch to celebrate – quite a low key birthday really. Everywhere was full of frantic shoppers but we managed to find a quiet pub that was serving food .

Do you have any Christmas birthdays in your family? Do you have any Christmas avoidance mechanisms to deal with this?

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Christmas Biscuits

Posted on by Jackie B

I’ve said before that I keep getting sidetracked into doing something crafty when I should have just got on with it. So, I made some mince pies and gingerbread biscuits and should have just stopped there really. I can’t help myself! I just had to play with the icing.

The recipe is quite simple and straightforward… you’ll need

  • 150g unsalted butter (cut into cubes)
  • 70g caster sugar
  • 70g soft dark brown sugar
  • 100g golden syrup
  • 360g plain flour
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 2tsp ground ginger
  • 2tsp ground cinnamon

To make…..

  • Preheat oven to 180 C (160C fan)
  • Line 3 or four baking sheets with greaseproof/baking paper
  • Melt butter, sugars and syrup together in a pan, stirring to combine.
  • Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl
  • Pour butter/sugar mix into flour mix and bring together
  • Knead well – if too dry, add a drop of water. Roll into ball and flatten. Leave to cool.
  • Roll out on floured board to 5mm thick. Cut out shapes (I used round, star and gingerbread man cutters) and place on baking sheets, well spaced. Bake for 8-10 minutes.
  • Cool on wire racks.

To ice the Rudolph biscuits I used ginger bread men upside down! I mixed up some glace icing and piped on antlers and eyes. I coloured small pieces of ready-roll icing black and red, and used tiny balls of black icing for the pupils and larger balls of red icing for the noses.

A while ago I bought these spring-loaded snowflake cutters

I used these to embellish the round and star-shaped biscuits. I rolled out white ready to roll icing to about 3mm thick. With such a delicate shape, the easiest way to apply the icing is to cut the design and while the icing shape is still in the cutter, wet the surface a little to make it stick to the biscuit using a a finger dipped in water. Position the cutter over the biscuit exactly where you want the icing to land then press the plunger to release it. Press very lightly to help it stick. I used the larger cutters for the round biscuits and the smallest ones for the stars. I finished off by dusting the icing with edible glitter

Aren’t they pretty? Perfect to have with coffee after Christmas lunch.

Have you been baking for Christmas?

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Knit and Natter Friday #6

Posted on by Jackie B

Today was the monthly Knit an Natter Group at The Amble Pincushion – and a bit of a Christmas party, with crackers, gifts and mince pies. In the picture you can see today’s work in progress – Clockwise from top right: moss stitch baby jumper (aren’t the colours beautiful); shawl in shades of blue: picot edged baby jacket (for a new baby granddaughter), stripy socks, a Christmas elf and the start of a twiddle mitt.

Here’s a close up of the elf – Anne knitted this and was wearing him as a brooch.

This was today’s raffle prize: a kit to make a group of Christmas decorations.

One of the group had brought sweets for everyone and group leader Anne gave us each some needles and a pincushion she’d made.

That’s the last Knit and Natter of the year. We’ll be back at The Amble Pincushion 10am-12, on the third Friday in January, for more knitting, nattering, expert advice as needed, tea/coffee and biscuits, a raffle and 10% off in the shop. All this for £4.50! Such a lovely group!

Have you received any knitting/craft related Christmas gifts yet?

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Scone of the Week #4

Posted on by Jackie B

Scone of the Week is back! Today Mum and I needed to do a spot of Christmas Shopping at Dobbies near Morpeth, so we had our Thursday cheese scones in the coffee shop there. It’s a Costa.

The scones were OK, though a bit heavy and had a decent cheesy crust. The butter, in foil-wrapped pats was at room temperature and easy to spread. I had a Black Forest hot chocolate (made with a shot of black cherry syrup) with whipped cream and it was yummy.

As next Thursday is Boxing Day there won’t be a Scone of the Week post – we’ll be eating leftover Christmas goose. K is a brilliant cook and he’s making Christmas Dinner – he’s not a fan of turkey so he’s cooking a goose. Not long now!

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Pompom Maker Tutorial

Posted on by Jackie B

My blog is now a month old! Thanks to everyone who has followed, visited and commented. I thought I’d mark the occasion with a little tutorial…nothing complicated (I haven’t written a tutorial before), but thought you might like to see how to use the pompom maker I used to complete the hat featured in yesterday’s post.

I can’t remember where I bought mine, but remember that they were very cheap and came in a pack of three in different sizes (2.5, 3 and 4 inches diameter)

Each one consists of two hinged rings, which both open out, once you’ve flipped the latch,

The two opened rings are placed on top of each other – there’s only one way they’ll sit together.

Then start winding the wool, securing the end as you go.

Continue until winding firmly around one half until it’s full and plump, then wind the yarn round the other half.

Keep winding until both sides are full, then cut the yarn.

Close the two halves together and flip the latch on both sides to hold the rings closed.

Pushing the scissor blade into the groove that runs between the two rings, snip the yarn, all the way round.

When you have cut all the way round it should look like this.

Cut a piece of yarn about 12 inches long, wind it twice round the central groove, pull tight and tie securely in a double knot (you’ll have left long enough tails to sew the pompom on to your garment).

Undo both latches and carefully open the rings to release the pompom.

And that’s all there is to it – just fluff up the pompom and snip away any longer pieces of yarn that are sticking out other than the tails you are using to attach it to your garment.

I used a chunky yarn on the small (2.5inch) pompom maker here but I much prefer the hat pompom I made yesterday using DK and the large (4 inch) maker. I think the chunkier the yarn, the bigger the pompom maker should be.

So…..much easier than cardboard discs, reusable, inexpensive and very quick to do.

Do you have a favourite gadget for your knitting and crafting?

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Christmas Cards and Pompoms

Posted on by Jackie B

Today I’ve been busy writing Christmas cards and finishing off a bobble hat for a friend’s little girl. I always seem to get very close to last posting date, especially for the cards that are going to family and friends abroad, but, with a little help from K this evening, managed to get everything written, addressed and with letters and photographs included for the people I’m not in touch with on social media. Just need to get them stamped and posted tomorrow now.

I also finished off this bobble hat.

I always knit (or crochet) something when anyone I know has a baby and somehow I missed this one, so when I saw L and her baby girl the other week I asked what she would like and this is what she was after – a warm bobble hat in a dark grey, to go with a pink and grey snowsuit. I used this free Cabled Baby Hat pattern by Marianna Mel that I found on Ravelry and used a really soft washable DK – Women’s Institute premium acrylic from Hobbycraft in grey.

I added a pompom made using one of these.

It works the same as two cardboard discs but as the plastic rings are hinged and fold out to two semicircles it’s much easier and quicker to wind the yarn round. I used the largest in a pack of three pompom makers and it produced a lovely fat, even pompom that barely needed any trimming – I just needed to snip a couple of stray pieces of yarn off.

It’s very stretchy, so I hope it’s not too big for L’s baby, but it’ll certainly be lovely and cosy.

Do you make pompoms like this or use the old-fashioned cardboard discs or another method?

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Drinks Down On The Farm With The Dog

Posted on by Jackie B

We visited our favourite pop-up bar this afternoon. Not far away, at Acklington Park Farm is the Rigg and Furrow Brewery. One of the barns on the farm has been converted into a bar, which opens about once a month and every December Saturday up to Christmas.

I got my favourite seat by the wood burning stove and toasted myself nicely (it was bitterly cold outside) while sipping a gin and tonic. K is the beer drinker, so he had a pint of his favourite Run Hop Run ale.

The Christmas tree is up and the lights and foliage over the bar give the place a lovely festive feel (along with the elves on the beer pumps).

There’s always a great atmosphere and I’m told the beer is excellent, though they serve gin, wine and fizz too. K has ordered a mini keg of Run Hop Run for over the holidays.

We ordered some rosemary salt fries to snack on (very tasty, nicely salted with a dollop of mayo) from Adventures in Aude, who are usually there with Audrey – a vintage Citroen truck which houses a mobile kitchen- they make the most delicious Mediterranean style flatbreads – my favourite is the chicken zatar.

Buddy the Lab loves it here – it’s very dog-friendly, with water bowl and dog biscuits available. Today he made friends with two greyhounds, an Irish Setter and another lab, as well as lots of humans, especially the people who had food!

In summer the lawn by the bar is covered in rugs and benches for people to sit out and enjoy the sunshine. Next to that is a paddock occupied by a Highland cow and her calf – we watched him get bigger every month over the summer.

Do you have a favourite place to eat or drink that’s a bit our of the ordinary?