Witching Hour...

Hello there, I've been busy behind the scenes preparing for Halloween, making cross stitch projects for decorations round the house and sewing witches... First up, meet Mrs Winnie the Witch...

She is Tilda inspired and very tall (about 56 inches) with a spooky black robe with lace down the front..

Her boots have stranded varigated orange cotton laces.

She features a spooky spider round the hem of her robes and hand embroidered cobweb on the pocket with a special surprise trinket inside...

She is available to purchase in my Etsy shop if you are interested in her :) Love this time of year with lots of special times out walking in the countryside.

Lots of knitting happening here too. I've just completed a pair of Rowan crystal wrist warmers which just needs me to buy the velvet ribbon on to complete. Well TTFN and happy Autumn :)

Sunshine and Seagulls

Hello there, Just a quick post today ... I've been busy making more fabric buckets for the shop and I particularly like this one as it's sooo Summery...

It's teeny tiny (only 4 x 4 inches) perfect for your little trinkets. I just love seaside themed fabrics and am very pleased with the quality of it as it's cotton but has a linen look to it :) Other things I've been busy with are my Lynette Anderson sewing satchel embroidery.. had a big boo boo on part of it as I was backstitching the little buzzy bees and realised too late I was stitching with 2 strands of floss which made it look way too thick and highlighted instead of subtle! doh! Oh well many hours of unpicking later it's coming along now :)

(this is actually last weeks photo but you get the idea! haha) It's great to be able to sit out in the garden at weekends and hear the birds singing. We've been out for walks in Derbyshire and plenty of time at home playing board games too :) TTFN

Lynette Anderson Project

Hello again, This week I've been busy with my Woodland Winter Cross Stitch picture... working on the bottom left hand corner which is mainly the snowy ground part, I'm actually enjoying stitching this section as there are so many different blues and whites shading which make it interesting.. can't wait to see it completed with perhaps a gold frame? Am loving the crow thread keeper which I received for a birthday present recently. Stitching by lamplight at the mo ...

This sewing satchel which I'm working on is another project I got from March's NEC Sewing for Pleasure show. It's from Cross Patch and is a Lynette Anderson fabric one. Love the muted tones of it and am just working on the embroidery which I will sew onto the front of it.

My other project which I'm eager to show you are these little hexapuffs from TinyOwlKnits. Which is eventually going to be... in literally a few years time... a Beekeepers Quilt. They are really good simple quick projects to knit up in an evening but I'm going to need approximately 200 (yikes) to stitch together to create a quilt! ha ha I do like large projects to get my teeth into!

Enchanted Forests and other Forays

Hello there, Went to sleep for a few months there didn't I?! Not really, been very busy behind the scenes with moving house, my Etsy shop makings and creations and... in March I went to the annual NEC Sewing for Pleasure show which was brilliant :) I was very good and didn't buy too much. Bought some lovely bright vintage yellow Tilda fabric which is very hard to come by, some linen look sewing notions fabric and some lovely slate grey linen to make a lovely tunic which my mum kindly made up for me :). The keys in the photo are gorgeous, I think I'll incorporate them with some of the Milford mole makes.

I also bought a lovely little cosmetics bag kit to make which I'm really pleased with, especially love the lace zip :)

I received some Amazon vouchers recently to spend on a few bits. I couldn't resist this adult colouring book...gorgeous pics.. and also some lovely Lynette Anderson wooden buttons.

Finally, bought this month's issue of Country Living which has some lovely inspirational photos in and also these lovely paper pinwheels to make so me and daughter made a few and have put them on her windowsill :)

Hassop Station

Well this past weekend has been really exciting! Last week was my daughter's birthday - 6th :). We took her to Birmingham last weekend to the Christmas markets and to treat her. It was great, she chose her present really carefully and decided upon Disney's Frozen princess castle which was really good for the money - we had seen another one that was well over a hundred pounds and quite frankly, it wasn't great. It didn't contain any of the Frozen characters and was just an empty shell! The Christmas market was amazing! All the sights and smells - the mulled wine smelt lovely :) There were some really unusual present ideas, jewellery, ornaments, food... so we walked round there and then visited Waterstones.. Wow that was a brill shop, it looked like it used to be an old church so was amazing when you first walked in and saw the impressive spiral staircase! It had a fantastic choice of books too, ha ha!

In the evening we went to Frankie and Benny's which is daughter's favourite eatery! She had pasta and sauce then a huge ice cream sundae with chocolate sauce, yummy... Crafty news... I've been busily working on my mice..

And they were all completed and ready for my first Christmas stall!

Made quite a few sales so am very happy there :) At the weekend we took our dog out for a walk to Hassop station and of course, had to have a cake and a drink there! We had a cherry and chocolate brownie which was really tasty and the station looked great with all the fairy lights and decorations.. We walked a fair distance and the views were fantastic.. all in all we feeling very festive now and ready for Christmas yippeee!

(image above from Hassop Station's website)

Friday Night with Friends

Hello there, Well last night was my first evening joining in with Gone Stitchin's Friday night with friends sign up... here's progress so far ..

I'm working on Jane Greenoff's Tiny Red Sampler for a Christmas present. I've made a small amount of progress but would really like to complete it in the next couple of weeks. So last night was great stitching with tea and chocolate and catching up on last few episodes of Lost on dvd (yes I know that series was ages ago but only just got round to watching them hehe). My shop items are progressing well. Currently making two mini mice and other small items. On a bit of a deadline as I've booked myself to have a stall at my daughter's school for their Christmas fair... am nervous but really excited too... finger's crossed to get some sales.

Halloween Half Term

Well we all had a lovely family time off for the week last week ... We visited Crich Tramway Museum twice in the hols in the evenings for their wonderful Starlight/Halloween events..

Dr Who (David Tennant lookalike) was there along with a cyber man and Dalek which DD absolutely loved even though she's never seen the TV programmes... DD was dressed up as a Corpse Bride complete with 'stitches' on her face and white gothic dress. The whole event was very well organised and was brill :) :) We did some baking and made Homebird & Belle's Pumpkin Cupcakes (www.homebirdandbelle.co.uk) which were a great success and devoured in a few days :)

Lots of board games time was had and plenty of Lego! It was brill, ah well back to school today and Monday ... See you soon