Smashbook Update

So one of my New Year's items this year to to update my Smashbook once a month (if there's stuff waiting to be put in it). So this might mean some months nothing happens, but January was definitely not one of those months! I had stuff in my little scrap booking folder from like June, so it really needed emptied (as you can see below).

My Smashbook is actually almost full now! My Project Life supplies are calling!

This project is a step towards completing my New Year's List for 2015. You can check out my progress here.

Christmas Card Set

Yup it's January, and I just made something for next Christmas! What! Clearing out my free kits means there will be some quite premature Christmas crafting, but I thought these little guys were so cute I decided to give them a go last week when I was taking something to my mum's to craft.

This is a free kit from Cross Stitcher way back in 2012 (proving I definitely need to clear out my free kits and pronto!) and makes three different little Christmas cards.

Theses guys are so cute, and I'm in love with the green thread, the bows, and the cute little bells. It may be early, but it's good to know I'll have at least some handmade cards on the go for next year. I also love how the Cross Stitcher kits let you pop your name on the back, so people know it's handmade.

This project is a step towards completing my New Year's List for 2015. You can check out my progress here.

Crochet Flower Frame

First free kit of the year! Woo! Start as I mean to go on eh? I decided to knock up the the crochet flower frame kit which I got free from Mollie Makes as it looked quite quick.

You didn't get the base of the frame, so you had to cut a circle out of some cardboard and then cover it in double crochet stitches. However, when I had done the amount of stitches they asked for, my card circle wasn't really covered, so I did another 18 stitches, as the next bit was in round of 9, and it looked much better. However, this meant I didn't have enough of the provided wool for the project, so I used some grey double knitting wool I had instead. The little plastic crochet hook they provided was also rubbish! It was only 3mm, so it bent under the weight of trying to do a treble. I used it for about 2 minutes before I swapped to my own metal one.

I stuck a cute little deer picture, which I think was from a Mollie Makes calendar a couple of years ago, which I backed with some card to make it stiffer, and then fabric glued on. The kit does say it has free printables for the frame, but you actually have to print them from the Mollie Makes blog, so I couldn't be bothered, and decided on something cute instead.

I think it looks super cute hanging up on the side of our bookcase, and a little dent has been made in the free kit pile!

This project is a step towards completing my New Year's List for 2015. You can check out my progress here.

Nordic Shawl

If you follow a lot of crochet people on Instagram, you probably won't have been able to avoid the Nordic shawl pattern by My Rose Valley. I saw it cropping up on my feed all the time, and I was pretty confident I could manage it. I'm cold like all the time, so any extra layering is good with me.

I picked up the pattern from My Rose Valley's Etsy Shop, and then spent ages deciding on my wool colours. You need one main colour for the shawl and then another six colours to complete the coloured section, so it wasn't an easy decision. In the end I went for some lovely pastel colours and some silver to complete it.

I've been working on this on and off for a few months now, but I finally finished it recently, which means it'll still get lots of use in the cold months. It's huge and there's so much to see, so please excuse the large amount of photos!

I have to say, I'm pretty in love with it! The pattern calls for you to do the lace border in the same colour as the body of your shawl, so for me that would have been purple. However, I ran out of purple very near the end, and decided it would be cooler to do it in all the colours from the coloured section to make it a bit different. You're also supposed to double crochet around the entire thing to finish it off, again in the purple wool, but I did it in the teal wool. I think this made the edging stand out more, and the last colour of the lace border was the teal, so it framed it all nicely.

Please excuse our very full living room while I model the shawl! It really is huge (though my tension might not be the best considering I ran out of wool!).

The finished article may look like it's quite complicated, but don't be put off! I really still consider myself a beginner when it comes to crochet and I managed this no problem. It's a lot of very basic stitches, put together in a way that makes it look amazing! Even My Rose Valley says beginners should find this comfortable, so I would definitely give it a shot if you like the look of it!

Christmas Presents - Donald

My final homemade present this year was for Donald and it was an Evil Dead Kindle cover. A while ago a made him a little felt iPod cover which looked like the book from Evil Dead (as it's his favourite film), so I thought a matching Kindle cover would be pretty cool.

The pattern came from a book I had owned for a while called Evil Knits and I had never attempting it before because it had a lot of i-chord work, and a while ago that scared me. I came across the pattern again and decided I was brave enough to try it so ordered the wool and got going.

I started this ages ago, as I needed to knit it when I visited my mum so Donald wouldn't see, but I finally finished it a couple of week before Christmas.

You can see the different colours that run through the yarn in this picture. For some reason only the super close up made it light up like this!

It even had a little button closure on the back!

I'm super impressed with how it turned out. When I had finished the actual pouch, I wasn't that happy with it because it was just two rectangles of knitting, but when I added the face I was over the moon. It just looks so cool! Donald was super happy with it too, and even thought I'd actually bought it from Etsy or something because it looked so profesh.

It's actually a little big for his Kindle (as it's meant for an iPad), but it's so cool I don't think either of us care.

Christmas Presents - My Family

For today's post, I'll be showing off the presents I made my Gran, auntie and uncle.

First up my Gran. I decided to make her this little lavender coaster kit I bought myself a while ago. I really like the colours in this, but all that backstitch was a bit of a pain!

I also decided to make her a nice wee set of hand warmers, which I got the pattern for on Wild Olive. I've actually made a set of these before for Secret Santa in 2012, so I knew they were very easy to knock up.

I opted for some glitter felt to make them look nice and festive, instead of embroidering a pattern on them. I also included some instructions on how to heat them.

For my auntie and uncle, I made this cute little highland cow magnet kit, which again was a kit I bought a while ago.

He's super cute and was very fast to finish. Sometimes it's nice to knock up a little kit after I've been doing a lot of bigger pieces or massive knitted things!

Finally I made a set of two pot holders/oven pads from the leftover cotton yarn I had from my Beta Knit kit. I had so much left because I needed an extra ball to finish the last few rows of my tee, so I thought this would be a good project to use up the rest of it.

One is slightly smaller than the other, but I thoguht this gave them a cute set look. I used a granny square pattern from the Simply Crochet granny square app (I think it was Doris), as I wanted quite a tight granny square with not too many holes in it (to avoid burning hands!). I just added a few more rounds before the single crochet round to make them bigger, and then made a loop of chains to make a hanging loop on one corner. I also included some instructions with this to say they wouldn't melt and they were fine to wash!

Phew! Even splitting my Christmas presents up, that was still quite a lot of one post. It was super fun doing lots of different crafts this year though, as last year all I seemed to do was crochet!

Christmas Presents - Donald's Family

I'm used to making Donald's family something for Christmas, and I've done it for the past two years. I find it much easier to think of something they would like crafty-wise, rather than trying to buy something for them.

This year I decided to knit Donald's mum a cowl. I had this finger knitting kit that I bought in the Hobbycraft sale before I knew how to normal knit, and it's just sat in my wool stash for ages. The pattern I wanted to make from the kit was a cowl anyway, so I decided to just normal knit a cowl so that I could use the lovely green wool inside.

I found this pattern on Raverly and decided to use it, but obvisouly I had to use the wool I had/the needles that went with that wool. That meant that when it came to the decrease part, it made it too tight, so in the end I basically made up the pattern myself. I used the "cast on 60 stitches" from the pattern, but then just knitted till I ran out of wool. I edged it with the last of some chunky white yarn I had. I love knitting on circular needles, it's super easy!

Finally, for Donald's sisters, I decided to cross stitch them a little family portrait. I found this cool tutorial on Martha Stewart's website to help you come up with the patterns, and I draw them out on square paper.

I decided to cut the stitching out and then put a fabric background in the frame to make them a little less plain. I also used my trusty text tool to mark out the words.

The photos in the frame are a bit rubbish because they were so shiney and it was hard to get the lighting right. I think they turned out super cute though, and it's nice to make something so personal for a present.