Christmas baubles

I am officially addicted to making Christmas Baubles from my new book by Arne & Carlos - 55 Christmas Balls to Knit. 











I'd never knitted with 4 needles before, so I started doing these as per the pattern, but I’m a very colourful person so I got into experimenting.

I’m hooked now, and done qute a few, I've also created some of my own as well, one is of the Laxey Tram Station and another is a chakras colour scheme.


To create my own, all I did was use an excel spreadsheet, resize to same size squares and making the graph -
2 rows of each - 3 stitches, 4 stitches, 6 stitches etc up to 16 stitches. 13 rows of 16 stitches then reduce back down again to 3 stitches.

Then put my own design on using different colours.

Baby blanket #2

This one's for a little boy called Bruce.

 A combination of centre square, 4 triangles and 4 rectangles (with corners folded over to turn into a large square) and using thick black strips to join two squares together and full length thinner strips to join three squares to three squares - all together making it just off square completed.

starting to put it together

reverse side with a bit of right side showing

 














Putting all 9 squares together on the backing material. 
To start with, all 9 squares were placed individually and when the order was decided, pinned in place so I didn't forget the plan!
Next step was sewing the three together using shorter black strips, before sewing to the full length strip. 
Final step was to sew full length edging around the whole blanket......All very organised!

The finished article

Ceramic painting

There's a little pottery shop down the road, you can go and paint something and they'll fire it in their kiln and you collect it in a week.  Fab for me, there's no trying to balance something on a pottery wheel!

I chose to go with some friends for my birthday and then got a few of them hooked - there was another birthday and then a Christmas painting party too.  Here's a couple of things I did.

Fantail bird

Cookie Jar

Quilting - machine (2008)

My first attempts at quilting were quite small, only 9 or 12 squares sewn together on the sewing machine, with a plain fleece back.  I made three of these for babies due around the same time, and got a bit annoyed that I couldn't keep the lines straight - but I was using different types of material, so now I know more, I'm not really surprised!

One little girl still uses hers, but as a blanket for her dolly - which is as it should be!

Quick sews

How to keep a radio safe in the helmet box of a scooter?  Padded case!





After a late request (Christmas Eve) for Santa hats, I quickly made up some, using leftover material.

Dressmaking - fancy dress

I was going to go to a friend's birthday party, the theme was either the letter M or 1961 - I chose to go as Cruella DeVille, because 101 Dalmations came out in 1961.  Here's my outfit - I made the dress, collar, gloves and handbag. - I think I look quite scary, myself!

Garden ornaments etc

I made garden ornaments, and then got into making the moulds for them - had to get very inventive when it was winter and took longer to dry, considering we were just living in a flat!

 

I used to help make paving slabs, the ones with pebble facing involved "rugasol" to draw out the cement, which would then wash off and leave the pebbles showing.  The downside was that it was extremely potent and needed a lot of fresh air when using it!

Rugmaking - in years gone by

I used to do rugmaking quite a lot, unfortunately I haven't got any left and only two photos of ones I did.  The swirly one used two lengths of wool, on a preset pattern.  The rugby player was made from leftover wool and I designed the whole thing myself.

Baby Blanket #1

This one's for a little girl called Myla.

Each star is sewn using 6 diamonds, then joined together with a black diamond so the colours stand out a bit more.

the back of the stars - all hand stitched

The top and bottom borders were straightened out by folding the diamond in half, the sides were left zigzag.  To hold the shape a bit, I stitched around the zigzag sides and some random stars.  You can see one outlined star on the finished article photo.

the back of the whole blanket

The finished article