Back Again

I find it really hard to think about how long it's been since I last posted.  I really just completely lost touch with everything there for a while, it's been such a long time since I even dropped in on some of my favourite blogs.  Since I was last here we have been through Autumn and now almost the whole of Winter.  Thankfully it's almost Spring and I can't wait for it,  I absolutely detest Winter.  It's the dullness I hate most of all, I just feel so much better about everything when it's nice and bright outside.  I've sort of hibernated my way through Winter and now I'm just starting to waked up again to greet the coming of Spring.

It has, however, been very busy here in my little world this past few months.  We have had Halloween, Christmas, lot's of cold family outing's, enough sickness to last me a life time (although, thankfully nothing to serious, just a month's worth of chickenpox), and lots and lots of growing up.

They really are growing up much too fast.  My oldest boy is over half way through his second and last year in  nursery,  this morning when he told me I could only kiss him on the cheek on his way out to school, I was devastated.  Last week my youngest little one started a little toddle and talk group, he goes for two hours two morning's a week for two month's.  On his first morning I was all prepared for a hard time when it came to leaving him, but to my utter surprise he just toddled on in not a bother to him.  I have to admit I was a little devastated about this as well.  It's just the sudden realisation that they are not so little any more and don't need me as much as they once did.  As mother's we expend so much time and energy teaching our children to be independent, why then does it come as such a shock to us when they begin to grow into confident independent children?

As well as all the family things that have been going on, I have found time to continue crafting.  I really don't think anything could stop me, it's the only thing that keeps me sane in this crazy world.  My very first craft fair, which i had talked about before, has long been and gone.  I was really busy getting things ready for it, but in the end it didn't go as well as I had hoped.  But nevertheless, I am not put off, I have another one coming up in April for Easter and am busy preparing for that.

After the disaster of the craft fair I was a little disappointed and I would be lying if I said my confidence didn't take a bit of a battering, but I busied myself getting ready for Christmas and home-made a lot of the gifts for my family.  One of which was the rag doll in the picture above, she is called Penny and thankfully is now much loved by my little niece.  There is nothing like the pleasure and delight a child get's from something you have made, to give you a little boost in confidence.  After Christmas I slowed down a little bit, and took some time to complete some projects that had been waiting for a while to have their finishing touches, and now I am once again in full swing and am very excited about some of the projects I have going on at the minute.  I promise more info. on those soon, but for now I am glad to be back!!

Granny Sitting and Crochet

We have had a pretty uneventful week spent in my Mum and Dad's house looking after my Granny.  Granny was largely independent until March this year, Mother's Day to be exact, when she had a really nasty fall down the stair's in her own house.  Leaving her with a good few broken bones and plenty of bumps and bruises.  She went to stay with Mum for a while and has just never really gotten well enough to go home again, although to be honest it's a bit of a relief to all of us that she is there, at least we don't have to worry about her being on her own quite so much.  This past week Mum and Dad have been on holiday in Benidorm (lucky them) so I was volunteered to move in, along with all of my clan, to look after Granny.  I absolutely love my Granny to bit's, I spent a lot of my childhood with her and my Grandad, who passed away when I was nine, and I have the greatest of respect for her and the older generation in general.  They have gone through more in their live's than we ever could, we have it so easy now and we don't even realize it.  All that aside, it really was a long hard week, I think Granny get's frustrated that she can't do all the thing's she used to and she hate's relying on other people to do thing's for her, so it was very hard work at time's.  It was nice, however, to spend some time with Granny, in this crazy life we now all live in everything just gets a bit hectic and thing's like spending and hour just listening to Granny's old stories doesn't happen as often as you would like.

I did spend my time wisely though, between school run's, cooking, cleaning, playing, etc. I did manage a bit of crochet. I think lately I have been sidetracked from my main crafting passion, crochet.  I do enjoy sewing as well, but i think because i'm still learning it can be stressful at time's, so this week i needed to relax and that's exactly what i did.  Although, as anyone out there who crochet's will know, you are constantly learning new stitches and technique's, crochet is just so comfortable for me, it's like my safe place.  When life get's stress full i pick up a hook!!  I thought I would try and get a little bit of stock together for the Christmas Craft Fair and so I spent the week doing small thing's that I think people will like.

This is the second owl bag I have made and i'm really loving them, I have a real 'thing' for owl's at the moment, and woodland thing's in general.  This bag and the other one I made have already been claimed by my sister-in-law for Christmas present's, so i'll have to make some more for the fair.  I'm debating whether to line them with material or not, i'm really not sure what i should charge for them either, is £10 too much?  If I line them should I charge more?  That's the part i'm not looking forward to at all, pricing the product's.  I want to make it worth my while, but I don't want to over charge and not sell anything.

The phone sock's are perhaps my favorite product of the week.  Again, it's the woodland thing.  I came up with the pattern for the ladybird as I went along and I made the owl one after seeing something similar on pintrest, but thankfully I did write the pattern's down so I will be able to make more.  Which is just as well really, because I've decided to keep Mr Owl for myself.

                                            

I got the pattern for the rose corsage via pintrest, here, and added some pretty button's to the middle, tidied up the back with felt and added a broach pin.  I did have a lovely orange one as well, but my sister swiped it, ah well, that's what family's for, or so she tell's me anyway.

I did the same with the triple layer flower's, added a button, felted the back and added a pin, I really do like these because the color combination's are endless and I am a girl who like's her color.  I will be making more of these as well, you can find the pattern here.

The little hair clip's are really simple, I used Lucy's pattern for Teeny Tiny Flower's, again added a button (everything is made better with a button) and sewed them onto a hair clip.  I also had more of these, but they seem to have disappeared as well.

Lastly, I tried my hand at a bit of felt sewing and made some Christmas decoration's.  I thought I really should do some as it is a Christmas fair.  My sister is usually the one to do the felt thing's, but her stuff is just so lovely, she inspired me to have a go and this is what I came up with.  I'm quite pleased with them and may just have to do some for my own tree this year.

So that's my week in crochet and felt,  I hope you like my little makes, thank's for dropping in, see you again soon.