A mish mash...

Well life has got in the way slightly as various friends have had problems, work has been taking it out on me and there have been various issues with my accommodation.  It's nice to be back posting though

 My second hyacinth has come out and is looking very pretty

 I crocheted a pretty coaster which I really like but is slightly too small.  I'm planning to make some more as there are so many lovely doily projects out there but I want to do relatively simple patterns as I'm still not too confident beyond the basics.  The pattern for this one can be found at http://www.crochetpatterncentral.com/patterns/aspiring_accents_coaster.php

 Carrying on with the crochet I started the scarf that was supposed to be llami's christmas present.  He doesn't mind as he got a knitted one from my boyfriend instead but you can see he's quite pleased about the prospect of having more that one!!

 Again a bit of a departure from mini-making I know but I want to make a patchwork/crazy quilt block (for a very sepcific reason but more on that later).  I've purchased some fabric scraps and pulled others from my stash and started laying out how it might go.  I've never done anything like this before although I have done some more sewing projects in the past six months (which yes I need to post, I know) so I'm a bit nervous but also quite excited/hopeful as this is definitely a positivity project.

 So I have been crafting in amongst all the crappiness and even if it isn't minis I hope you'll forgive me and stay around for the mish mash of everything that is me :)

Update on lacemaking

I have a bit of a problem...
1) the beads aren't attached to the ends of my bobbins securely enough and are starting to come off
2) the second pattern doesn't seem to make any sort of sense at all so I have no idea how to carry on
3) I have had too many setbacks and have run out of patience.
It is likely to be some considerable time before I pick this up again to have another go - there are more interesting things to play with that don't have quite so many issues.

On a positive note the hyacinths that I planted back in October have begun to flower.  They were Christmas presents for people but there was one left over for me :D

Each bulb is a different colour which means the pot as a whole will flower for longer as they'll all blossom at different times.  This photo was taken yesterday and more flowers have opened up today so it looks fuller.

Lacemaking

I received a basic lacemaking set for Christmas and have started playing!

Initially I thought that the plastic bobbins wouldn't be nice to work with but they are fine in your hands even if they're not very good quality.  A little niggle though is the  beads used for "spangling" the bobbins.  They are cheap and nasty plastic and do scratch.  It would have been helpful to have a little more wire to work with as there is very little excess to tie together and then thread in.  My bobbins are not the neatest but they'll do for now.

If you're doing this yourself points to remember are
- plastic bobbins are fine but you may want to file down the spare bits of plastic
- give yourself plenty of wire
- use wire cutters/pliers in bending/threading, it REALLY saves your thumbs
- treat yourself to some slightly nicer beads!!
- remember that the bobbins need to be done in pairs, NOT every one unique.  I laid my bobbins and beads out all nice and logically before starting and still managed to get it wrong and have to re-do half a dozen :(

  

Once you are all set up and get going the actual process of lacemaking isn't too difficult at all.  But before you get there you have to cut the thread and wind it on to the bobbins and put a special knot in to stop it unwinding.  It's quite time consuming and you do have to think while you're doing it.  I persevered with it but could quite easily have given up at this stage (particularly after the problems I had with the bobbins)

The lace I created looked quite nice and I was contemplating using it as a border for a flowery fabric collage picture.  But then the instructions got a bit complicated and I somehow ended up tying it into a not-very-neat circle.  I'm quite disappointed by this and acknowledge that I struggled to follow the instructions but am still pretty sure I did approximately what I was supposed to.


 I've given you a close-up photo to look at the detailing of the lace (now slightly ruched and stretched following the joining process) but I still think it can be used for something!

I'm going to carry on with the kit as there are several other patterns to try and I'm ?guessing, ?hoping all the different pieces will come together in some form of project.

OVERALL IMPRESSION
An OK kit for not a lot of money but some bits could do with upgrading.
Time consuming to set up but then fairly easy to actually carry out
Instructions for finishing off need a major re-haul and I shall be trawling the internet to find out how to do it properly

Miniature knitting

I've seen an image of a tiny felted owl sitting on a branch and knitting a scarf many times on pinterest and have tracked it down to an etsy seller called ScratchCraft

I decided that as I had time on my hands this week, as well as some crochet thread and cocktail sticks I'd give it a go and tried some mini knitting.  At that time I couldn't find the picture so made quite a few more stitches than this owl has!  That and it's just plain white thread

I also cut a long piece of thread and wound it up into a small ball and covered it in a thin layer of PVA glue to secure it.  The only problems I had were that the cocktail sticks are a bit pointy and the tips are prone to break (not being designed for knitting) but you could always switch one out when it gave up.

It doesn't matter too much that mine is a bigger scale as played around with Cow, making him pose for a photo

I saw a photo on a blog, someone had made a beautiful flower out of turquoise felt circles and I thought. "I can do that".

My picture isn't brilliant but hopefully you get the idea... I drew round three different sized circles and cut them out 6 times each:
               - a tub of lip balm
               - a £2 coin
               - a 5p coin
I layered each set of three (with the pencil lines on the bottom) and pinched at the bottom to get the shaping OK.  Then I glued them together with PVA and used a bulldog clip to secure them while they dried.  Unfortunately this doesn't work very well and takes for ever to dry so I suggest you use a glue gun instead.  I resorted to this but should have chosen the 'cold melt' rather than the 'hot melt' as you do need to do some judicious shaping and hot glue really is HOT, and burns...

Once you have all six petals complete you need to glue the edges of the petals together, start with a pair and then add anothet on round in a circle until you have to join them together.  You'll probably need to go back and add extra glue in where necessary.  Don't worry about there being too much glue because once it's cooled down you can go along and pick off the straggly bits, glue some stacked buttons into the centre and on the back another circle of felt (big enough to cover up all the messiness!!)

I have made another one (much better than the first) but that is already wrapped up as a Christmas present so all you get is another photo of the same one.

I'd quite like to start playing with felt so have kept all the scraps as I went along.  You could play around with having different coloured circles within the same flower (e.g. small circles yellow, medium orange, large red) but it can be difficult to get colours that tone well when you're in generic crafty shops.  An A4 sheet of felt will generally cost you 50p and there are often 3 for 2 offers.  I've made two flowers from my sheet and used a few snippets elsewhere.  I've got a fairly large chunk left to play with but not *quite* enough to make another flower.

A long long time coming...

I knew I hadn't been near the blog for a long time but didn't realise quite how long it had been!!  Since my last post I fell in love with the work in Hull and my amazing team who I was working with, I revisited my life list and added loads of new experiences, learnt to crochet, started a scrapbook for the year, moved to Reading for a Band 6 job, gained a (cuddly) llama and then went off sick.

Pain is never nice, constant pain is worse and when you feel like you want to rip your head off, even if yes that does mean you die, to stop it hurting then the situation needs a little external help...  Thankfully I am now on gabapentin (and several other new medications) which I can honestly say has changed my life and I have gone from counting down the minutes until my next dose of tramadol to not carrying anything stronger than ibuprofen in my bag! Such a huge change and one that I am so SO grateful for.

Over the next few weeks I'll try and catch the blog up with some of the craft projects that I've been doing.  They've had less of a miniature slant but I'm aiming to get back into that a bit more now too :)

Limited progress

I haven't really settled in properly yet and am realising how big the North/South divide is!! I've been quite tired recently as my job involves a LOT of driving and, particularly in this weather, it's been very demanding.  I've also been feeling quite low and uninterested in doing anything crafty so haven't bothered to blog.

Today is different....
- a large sheet of matboard has started being cut into pieces to make various furniture, I'm planning to follow this tutorial http://1inchminisbykris.blogspot.com/search/label/How%20to%20make%20a%20kitchen%20dresser%20with%20mat%20board

- I've started turning a box (approx 3inches x 2inches) into a teenytiny roombox and have put wallpaper in as well as the ceiling and started on the light fixture hanging from the ceiling - photos will follow.  I need to work out how to furnish it in the same scale which I'm expecting to be a bit of a challenge but there we go

All in all some much needed positivity - may it last longer than the end of the day.....