Knitting a scarf (with instructional videos)

For Christmas this year we are doing a handmade Christmas  This means that all gifts are handmade. The children are really looking forward to seeing what Santa will be bringing them and eagerly thinking of what they can make as gifts, so watch this space for all our makings.

Emily has been after a hand knitted scarf for ages now and so I have decided to give her one for Christmas, and of course once one wants something the rest follow and so now all three girls are wanting scarfs. So I thought about it and I have decided to make them all a hat glove and scarf set in the colours of their choice.

Emily wants purple, so please watch the video below to see how to do it.

Unfortunately the camera is on the wrong side so to watch you will have to tilt your head :( If anyone knows how I turn it please tell me

This one shows casting on and basic knit stitch

This shows casting off

This shows casting on, knit stitch and purl stitch

This shows how to cast off in purl stitch

And here is Emily's finished scarf.

And this is Jessica's

Handmade paper

I have been trying my hand at making paper. I can say I have learned a lot during the process and have decided to research and new projects I try before going ahead and doing them, instead of trying to remember how I did it in school when I was 10.

Anyway here is what I did and my recommendations for you to not make the same mistakes I made lol

You will need 

Frames, paper, water, Material, sponge, staples, bowl, blender (optional), cornflour/ cornstarch

First of all you need some frames, I got my hubby to make me some 

You then need some fabric to spread over them, I used an old pair of tights, but I would recommend something more stable like cheese cloth or muslin.

Staple it into place

You should end up with something like this 

OK next you need to take some old paper, this can be junk mail, or old bank letters etc, in fact this is a great way to use up all those documents you have shredded up.

 You then need to soak it in water

 At this point you can either blend it using 1 cup water to small handful of wet paper. If you are blending then I would recommend making sure the bottom of the bowl is fully secure (oops I didn't and made a right mess)

 Or you can do it by hand, This is great but time consuming, but if you are getting children to help then they will have much merriment doing it this way.

You want something that looks like this, from here on called pulp.

Add 2 inches of water in your bowl per handful of pulp and add in a few tablespoons of cornflour to your water too.

 dip your frame in, material side up 

carefully run a finger around the wooden edges, to remove the excess 

 place another frame material side down over the top

 press and squeeze as much water out as you can, use a sponge to really soak up as much as possible

 or use a towel but it will get very wet very quickly so have plenty to hand if using them. A sponge you can just squeeze as often as you need.

 Remove the top frame, and turn out the paper onto some where flat

 layer up as many as you want if you only have a small drying space and place something heavy on top to both keep it flat and squeeze it thinner 

Leave to dry overnight, best to be somewhere warm

then you can write away.

After I had done all this i found loads of instructional videos on YouTube where they made it look sooo much easier than I did it lol

Anyway off to learn a new craft.

Oh no so not fair

I could cry, I really could. I have been working on 'The Wedding' and guess what...with just 112 stitches to go I ran out of the thread I needed :(

I refuse to order just one thread and I don't know what colours I will need for other projects and so I will not be finishing this one for a little while now well until I reorder the thread I need.

So here is where I got to.

Day 33

Day 34

Day 35

There they are those pesky 112 stitches, taunting me.

Ah, well move on. I started another piece for the Xmas list.

This one is from The World of Cross Stitch magazine issue, 156

Day 1

 Day 2

Without the magic backstitch.

With the magic of backstitch, and some awful French knots. I am sooo bad at them.

I love the way a simple black line really brings the picture to life.

In other news, I have been quite ill recently and to my hubby's delight I lost my voice, I can tell you I wasn't very pleased as I couldn't stitch while I was so ill. There I was all tucked up in bed without the energy to lift my hoop.

I went to a council meeting last night too and as yet my voice is not fully recovered and so I couldn't really speak properly, but my Policeman had asked me to bring up several points and I couldn't let him down now could I? Anyway, after I had struggled to speak for 10 minutes, I covered all the points he wanted me to make and then guess what?? He turned up in his civvies and I must admit he was still quite hot in them but not as much as when in uniform. I thought it was poor form of him and had he turned up just 10 mins earlier he could have saved my abused voice. (* please note I conduct the business between him and the council with complete professionalism and would treat him exactly the same as any one else, this is just a bit of fun. It's always nice to have something pretty to look at. I just wanted to make that clear just in case)

I am looking forward to the weekend, as not only are the children all staying out over night Saturday, but I am also dog sitting for a friend. Her dog Pip and my dog, Benji love each other and can't leave each other alone so that will be fun, well until the tip tapping of paws on floor really starts to irritate.

OK I'm off to find something else to stitch. Speak soon x

Getting Prepared

Jessica has had an accident this weekend :( She was playing in her Grandmas garden when she fell down some steps and did this.

My poor baby, apparently she barely cried, my kids are hard as nails lol.

I also had the shock of my life the other night too, now my pets can not stand each other well Ceefer the cat hates the dog, Benji just wants to play. However in a first ever they spent 4 whole hours like this

I was happy they were so comfortable together.

I have been looking in to what gifts we will be making for the adults in the family. I have now decided what we will be making. I have also been looking up options to help etc. I have found a recipe for home made glue stuff, which I have made up a batch and will see how it works.

One of the gifts (2 people are getting the same gift) require 5 glass bottles and so I have been searching all over for glass bottles as I will need 10 altogether. I need a size 250ml one and so I have been looking on Amazon and Ebay and all blooming over I also went around all my local shops to see if anyone sold something like what I wanted. So after killing 3 hours in this fruitless task all the ones I found were too expensive for my tastes I struck upon an idea. Asda sell bottles of olive oil, in the size that I need. So I have decided to buy 10 from there. Not only does this work out cheaper than buying empty bottles but I also end up with loads of olive oil :D I have decided that this extra oil I will now have will be the perfect gift for some foodie friends, as I am going to infuse them with flavours and put them into bottles as gifts too. (I know I will have to get more bottles but I think I will use the Asda bottles again and use that oil in my cooking) OK OK long winded way of doing it decanting oil from here to there and back again but I know what I mean lol.

So, now in my head I know what is being made for whom and can now get a calendar organised for getting everything done. Woohoo, I'm much more prepared this year than any other year!!

Ok the meeting season has started once again and so many of my evenings have been taken up with council business, (tonight being a highlight for me as it was with a rather handsome police officer, yummy, no officer I don't mind at all that the meeting ran over, now what were you saying before I lost myself in your eyes??lol) but I have managed to get some stitching done too. Here is my day by day updates.

Day 29

Day 30

Day 31

Day 32

This is as far as I have gotten, as you can see it is almost finished now another week or so and it will be done yay me!

It is also TUSAL time again so here it is

Anyway time for bed for me speak soon x

A pity and a shame :(

I am not a happy bunny. My phone crashed and I lost all my photos :( and so I am now missing 4 days of stitching pics. I was so upset I failed to update my blog.

I have also been ill :( still am but hopefully will be ok soon. I hate being ill. I still have everything to do without the energy to do it and pain for doing it uff life is so ungrateful!!lol

Because I have been ill I have been suffering with migraines and so have not done much stitching recently.

I went to my friends' dogs' birthday party. 

On the left is Benji in his party hat and on the right is Opie in his. Holly didn't like having a hat on spoil sport. lol.

Below is the birthday boy with his cake. I must say they loved that cake!!

 Like I said the dogs loved eating the cake.

Here is where I have gotten up to with 'The Wedding' sorry most of the pics have been lost :(

Anyway off to bed for me, get curled up and try to sleep off this bloody illness.

Speak soon x

Finally Back To School

I am one happy mum again now the kids have all gone back off to school. Jessica started full time this term so for the first time in 5 years I can actually do my own thing during the day without having to break off at lunch time to either take or pick up from nursery. Here are the girls ready for the first day back.

Jessica was super excited about starting full time school.

Today I am going to a friends' dogs' birthday party. I know but I think it is really just a get together for the owners of the dogs rather than an actual party, though there will be a special cake for the dogs to share lol. 

In the meantime here is 'The Wedding' update.

Here is Monday nights pic

And then last nights

You can now see exactly how big this will be when finished. I think the next section I will be working on is the dress itself and the majority of that is white so I will keep taking the pics but you might not see much of the work as white doesn't seem to show up well on here.

Any who got to go get ready for the party speak soon x

Men... who'd have 'em??

Been very busy since my last post. Thursday I was stitching away, Friday I was baking some cupcakes for the lady I spoke about in an earlier post, Saturday was a friends wedding and Sunday I was making dinner. I have also been stitching today too.

So here is 'The Wedding' from Thursday.

Here are the Cupcakes I made on Friday. 

As you can see, 3 different colours. There is lilac, white and yellow. They were for a baby shower where the sex of the baby was not known.

The kids have loved it as I made extra for them too.

Saturday was rather eventful, as I mentioned we went to a friends wedding. We had a great time and I got very drunk, which I am suffering for now!!

I was dancing away, and used muscles that I had forgotten I had and today they have been aching like mad.

When we got home my OH decided that he no longer wanted to be involved in any of my internet sites and so I have had to remove all mention of him from my blog and my Facebook etc. He did make me very mad with it. So now as far as the internet is concerned, my family only consists of myself and the girls Kerry, Emily and Jessica, as Jade has also asked to be removed. I can tell you this has upset me quite a lot.

Moving on, I made Sunday dinner again this week, we had it rather late as I was too hungover earlier on to get it made so it became a Sunday tea lol. But I wanted to show you my Yorkshire Puddings as once again they were pretty great.

This one as you can see is bigger than my hand and it wasn't even the biggest!>>>

And finally, my Sunday update of 'The Wedding'

Time for me to go to bed, speak soon x.