Hurrah

A lovely bright but frosty day here today.

Firstly I have had a really productive week this week on my works in progress  (WIP)

Beading

I have worked a bauble kit that I have had for some time bought from Spellbound Beads and finished the tea light cover for this year. My design..

As well as designing some tiny baubles for my classes and workshops...

Christmas Tree

This is still a WIP, and I still have glue everywhere, on the plus side most of the pieces of card are covered with fabric, I only need to glue them together.  ohhh gluuuuuue.
I used to make boxes years ago and never used any glue at all. The fabric was always stretched and laced around the card shapes, then the card shapes were sewn together.

Crochet

I am making more of the flowery shape just to see how many can be worked from the 5 balls that I have chosen to use. Colours used in no particular order at all.
It is Three Bears Yarns called Affection which is a cotton 4ply yarn in 50gram balls.

New website

Finally I have been taking photographs of my stock of yarn from Stylecraft and adding them to the shop on my new website Wool to your door, more colours are being added daily.

This seems a never ending job because there are over 60 colours.

I use Stylecraft because of the colour range for my dolls and toys. It is 100% acrylic, washable, comes in 100gram balls and is lovely and soft to use.

Abbie

Holly

Persephonie

I hope that you are all keeping warm and well

Take care in this frosty weather

Ali xxx

Finally back on track

Good morning

I hope that you are all well on this miserable day, pouring with rain, dark and cold here in the north again.

I really feel much better this week, back in to doing things at last, here are a few of my projects at the moment...

Bright blanket

The blanket I started to work on at the NEC show is finished, it is the bright blanket pattern using different colours.

I have also started to make a piece of beading for this years tea light design, the pattern has been done for some time and the ladies in my class have been working on them so that they will be done for Christmas, I have not made a sample one for a few years.

Caught up on my knitted squares from Simply Stylish knitting as well, working the continental way of knitting has really speeded up my knitting progress and now I like to do these small squares, not sure yet wether I would prefer knitting to crochet as knitting still seems slow to me.  Sorry to any knitters out there......

I have also started a Christmas tree kit from Pinflair which I bought a few years ago, I have not had time to start it until this week.

So far so good... I have not made too much mess yet, I am not very good with glue, it gets everywhere. This is the first time I have used bookbinding glue and it seems to be very easy to use, and a lot less messy.

Last night I started on a new design, it started out as  a doll and has ended up as a square, the doll is shelved, oh dear I thought that the brains were back in gear, perhaps not quite.

Finally not crochet related but I went to my local WI yesterday and enjoyed the talk very much. 

Pat had designed and made beaded flags and flowers from over 30 countries.  

Just amazing !!!

She was also selling these lovely trees and flowers in tiny pots for charity

Oh dear just look at the time it is almost 10am, I have a pile of ironing to do before I can do any fun stuff,

keep warm and crochet !!!!

Ali xxx

Catch up

Good morning,

I am sorry to have been so long in doing a blog, I think that I have had writers block and crochet block as well I have not been productive at all for the last couple of months.

I am feeling back on track now and although we have had a busy few weeks I have been crocheting again.

First things first I have put up the final 2 parts to the CAL 2016 on Ravelry and my website so that anyone who wants to finish for Christmas can work the borders and finish on time.....

I had a wonderful time at the Hobbycrafts show last week, we really enjoyed meeting everyone again.

I was really proud to have had a picture of my stand taken and added to the ICHF twitter account,

https://twitter.com/thecraftshows and scroll down to Nov 6th

if I had known I would have looked happier, I was coming down with a bad cold which finally hit me on Sunday evening when we were back at the hotel.
Thank you so much ICHF...



Unfortunately we have decided not to attend any more shows at the NEC, so I am afraid that we will not be there in March 2017.
Thank you to everyone who came to chat with us and buy my patterns over the last five or six years.
Please don't forget that you can contact me by email.  ali.crafts@ntlworld.com

I will be at the British Wool Show at Thirsk next year.

All my designs are on Etsy and Ravelry the links are on my website,  I am not giving up designing, just not going to the big shows they are costly to do and very hard work...

Finally I am sorry that we ran out of the Christmas tree bunting pattern so here it is :-

 Materials Required

Oddments of Double Knitting yarn and a ball of Twilleys Goldfingering

4.00 hook

1. 4ch., 2tr. 3ch., 3tr., 3ch., 3tr., all in the in 4th. ch. from hook, 3ch., ss. to join in 3rd ch. at beg.     ( 3 groups of 3tr. and 3 x 3ch. loops)
2. Ss. into the next 2tr. and into the ch. sp. 3ch., 2tr. 3ch., and 3tr. into same loop this makes a beg. corner group, 3ch., ( 3tr., 3ch., 3tr. in next loop,) this makes a corner group, 3ch., ( 3tr., 3ch., 3tr. in next loop,) 3ch. ss. to join in 1st tr. Fasten off.
3. Ss. into the next 2tr. and into the ch. sp. 3ch., 2tr. 3ch., and 3tr. into same loop this makes a beg. corner group, 3ch., 3tr. in next sp. between groups, 3ch., ( 3tr., 3ch., 3tr. in next loop,) 3ch., 3tr. in next sp., 3ch., ( 3tr., 3ch., 3tr. in next loop,) 3ch. 3tr. in next sp., 3ch., ss. to join in 1st tr.
4. Ss. into the next 2tr. and into the ch. sp. 3ch., 2tr. 3ch., and 3tr. into same loop (3ch., 3tr. in next sp. between groups,) twice, 3ch., ( 3tr., 3ch., 3tr. in next loop,) (3ch., 3tr. in next sp.,) twice, 3ch., ( 3tr., 3ch., 3tr. in next loop,) (3ch. 3tr. in next sp.,) twice, 3ch., ss. to join in 1st tr. Fasten off.
5. Using the 2 strands of goldfingering, work a standing tr. in centre loop on the lower edge, 3tr. 3ch., and 4tr. into same loop (3ch., 4tr. in next sp. between groups,) three times, 3ch., ( 4tr., 3ch., 4tr. in next loop,) (3ch., 4tr. in next sp.,) three times, 3ch., ( 4tr., 3ch., 4tr. in next loop,) (3ch. 4tr. in next sp.,) three times, 3ch., ss. to join in 1st tr. now make the trunk, 3ch., 1tr. in same place, 1tr. in 2tr., 2tr. in last tr., turn 3ch., 1tr. in same place, 1tr. in 4tr., 2tr. in last tr. Fasten off.

Standing dc.   =   place a slip knot on the hook place in stitch  work dc. as normal

Standing tr.  =  place a slip knot on the hook wrap yarn round the hook and place in stitch work treble as normal

I will also add it to Ravelry and my website if you prefer to download a copy.

Happy Crocheting everyone

Ali xxx