Baby headband update!

Wow! It has been such a long time since I have posted anything-and there has been good reason I must add! Firstly My hubby and I went over to San Antonio to spend Christmas with his family. We had an AMAZING time and are really looking forward to going back sometime in the future. The fabric shops were MINDBLOWING! Just so many varieties of fabric and such reasonable prices, we have nothing in the UK in comparison to the selection over there. I spent literally all of my spending money in Joannes and Hancocks and Hobby Lobby! I bought flannels, and minky fabric and such lovely quality chevron cottons in turquoise, coral and grey, can’t bring myself to use them yet, I’m still just looking at them and planning what to make!
The second reason I have not been creating and posting is that we found that we are pregnant! Yay! But as a consequence I have been suffering with extreme morning sickness and so have been ridiculously unwell and really haven’t been up to do anything apart from nibbling dry biscuits and sucking ice cubes! I spent three weeks straight on the couch and in bed unable to function, the doctor gave me some medication and it’s much easier to manage now, so I’m back to supply work at school. I’m currently 19weeks and the nausea still hasn’t totally cleared up, so I’m taking cups of ice cubes into lessons and sipping coke from a mug so it looks like black coffee! Not much of a bump yet so the students haven’t noticed!
ANYWAY-you may remember one of my posts back in October when my Sister in law was over and we were making headbands for the arrival of her baby girl? (previous post) Well baby arrived well and healthy a couple of weeks ago and I couldn’t resist uploading pictures of her in the headbands we created! She is such a beautiful yummy baby already the headbands don’t add much!

A winter scarf

Well it really has been a very long time since my last post! The weather has changed a lot and I really hate the cold, makes me very grumpy! I do really like scarves though! I had been noticing a lot if these long loopy eternity scarves people were wearing and thought to myself it can't be that hard can it?? So with a tiny bit of help from a more experienced knitter, I learnt to cable knit (it really is SO easy)! If you want to make this too there is the pattern and equipment list below the photo.

Size needles:10mm
Super chunky wool (just under 3 balls)
And the pattern below:

Cast on 34 stitches
1st row: (right side) k10 P2 k9 p2 k10
2nd row and every following alternate row: p13 k2 p9 k2 p10
3rd row-As first row
5the row- k10 p2 c9b (See below) P2 k10
7th row: as first row
9th row: as first row
11th row: as first row
12th row: as first row
These 12 rows form pattern
Keeping pattern correct throughout, continue until you have the length you need! Then cast off and sew the two ends together.

To cable: (Slip next 4 sts. Onto cable needle and leave at back of work, k5, then k.4 from cable needle)

Christmas Stocking Tutorial and free pattern

Christmas fever is rising in our house! I LOVE Christmas and as we will be away in America for two weeks over Christmas visiting my hubbys Granny and Grandad, I thought I really ought to get the tree and decs up two weeks early in order to enjoy them to their full. You see the logic! In the process of untangling lights, fawning over all our lovely baubles again I found our stockings. The plainer one Dave made for me for our first christmas together and the following year I returned the favour for him with holly trim and buttons.

As people have requested a template for these christmas stockings,  I have made two different sizes, 1 large and one small you can down load the Large stocking template here and the smaller stocking template here. I have also done a photo tutorial ( Click "read more") so you can make one too!

Wallpaper envelopes DIY

Today Im going to show you how to make these super cool and easy customised envelopes! 

Free Downloadable Blog Post Planner

For quite a while now I have really wanted to get my blog up and running more professionally and try and get a post out at least once a week, and now I'm doing supply work I have the time to do that which works out perfectly! I really wanted to get more organised and plan out what I was going to post so that I didn't get writers block, and I could see in advance all the lovely things I had to write about. I have looked online for individual post planners but I couldn't seem to find many at all, only a full week plan, which would make me feel defeated as I only wanted to post one day a week! (How do you post something everyday!!??) So instead I thought I would make my own! I have looked at various planners to see the sort of thing that need to be included, like links, photo lists, publishing dates etc and  also included a little mind map space a the bottom (with a cute little cloud :-), as sometimes I structure my writing all wrong, so jotting it down first helps. Not only do I think it's cute and pretty, but I hope you will find it really useable, I certainly do! Help yourself to the free download here or click on the picture. Enjoy!

Floor blanket for baby

I've wanted to make a small baby blanket/play mat after seeing some really cute chevron fabric in John Lewis, there are so many nice fabrics, I didn’t want to use it up on small projects, but instead I wanted to display it in a large chunk so it could be fully appreciated! I had never done any quilting before this and it was such a good starter project. I didn’t have any cotton batting and didn’t really want to buy a load in case it didn’t work well, but a friend suggested a cheaper solution-thermal curtain lining! I can get it for £4.50 a metre in John Lewis and it’s really wide as it is used to curtains, so it works out really rather reasonable. They grey fabric I used came from a double bed sheet that had a tear in it and couldn’t be fixed, so good up-cycling there! I made a paper pattern of the size I wanted and then divided it up with a pencil until I was satisfied with the division. I then cut along the lines I'd made and used the paper as my pattern pieces, adding 1cm when I cut out the fabric. then I simply stitched them together. Once I had made my back and front, they had to be “basted to the batting” (batting is the filler that goes in the middle, you can get 100% or polyester and you can get it different thicknesses depending on what you need) . There are several ways that you can baste (which basically means temporarily joining the fabrics together so that you can stitch them on the machine without them moving)
1. Basting by hand-hand stitching the layers together in big stitches to stop the layers shifting around when you stitch
2. Basting spray-Spray on quilting adhesive that sticks the layers together and doesn’t affect the finished look or feel of the fabric (this seems to be the most popular and easiest)
3. Quilting safety pins-(they look like normal pins but have a kink in them, although I used normal ones and they worked fine) joins the fabrics together and can be removed as you sew.
I decided to use the safety pin method as I was in a hurry (like usual!) and didn’t want to spend ages hand sewing. I used the walking foot (good tutorial here: Anyone Can Quilt) to stitch the layers together, I didn’t do anything fancy, just straight lines so as the stitching didn’t distract from the fabric patterns. I thought I had to use bias binding to bind the edges of the quilt and really wasn’t looking forward to it as I’m hopeless at getting the binding to sit equal on the edge of fabrics-BUT hope was at hand! I found this amazing photo tutorial from Old Red Barn Co and Diary of a Quilter that shows how to bind a quilt using strips of fabric. It means you can make your binding out of whatever you like, make it matching if you need, and it’s much easier to get it equal and professional looking. You do half of it on the machine and the other half hand stitching, but its really vey quick and easy, so don't be put off! One thing i'll say is, that I found the more lines I added the stiffer the blanket got, so now it is definitely more suitable for the floor and not so much for wrapping a child in, I’d like to try and make a more flexible one in the future, and might try some free machining,  so watch this space!

Here you can see the full blanket and how I divided up the strips of fabric, with the grey in between. I had originally bound the blanket in yellow, but it looked horrible, and so I ordered the aqua green fabric from e-bay. It's not 100% cotton, which is a shame, but the colour was perfect and I was in  a hurry to get it done to be honest!

This picture shows how I bound the corners, and also shows a bit of my straight (ish!) stitching across the blanket.

Maile Cardigan from "What to knit When your Expecting"

I would not call myself an accomplished knitter, but last week, after a not very productive day I got the “creative Itch” and just HAD to make something. I have just recently been “pinning” knitting patterns for baby blankets and cardigans and after conquering crochet I thought I ought to up my knitting skills! I found a lovely, not too complicated pattern for the Maile Cardigan from What to Knit When You Are Expecting ( a great blog on all things knitting (and no I’m not expecting!)) (It’s in a lovely pink on my Pinterest board). The most wool that I had was the remains of a bluebell blue wool, no label, and think it must be an acrylic blend to be honest that my mum had crocheted me a blanket from years ago. I also needed size US4 circular needles which works out to 3.5mm-in between a 9 and 10 in Uk sizes and Lo and behold, I miraculously found a pair of 3.75mm circular needles in my stash so I just used them. I also bought two stitch big stitch holders and some stick markers (in my have colours! coral and mint green! See below) The pattern itself is very easy to follow, however due to the difference between Uk and US stitch abbreviations I did have to rip it all out 4 times, as I just couldn’t get the initial vine pattern correct! To learn the abbreviations that I didn’t know I watched on a You-tube channel from Bernat Yarns and they taught me all that I now know! To be honest I am actually surprised at how easy it is to create the lace patterns when you just follow the pattern it just appears! I did have to cross of each stitch as I went so that I didn’t get confused, I’m rubbish at counting and so I also retyped out sections of the pattern to include the purl rows as I can never remember what number row I am on or have just done! I am really pleased with the finished outcome! I think if I was to do it again I would like to do it in a nicer wool, as the synthetic wool that I had will probably bobble over time. Also I think I made the sleeves a little too long, so in the photos you can see I have folded up the ends. Oh and I miscounted where to put the button holes, so ended up with one too many and in the slightly wrong place!  BUT for now, as it’s my first attempt at complex knitting I am pumped and can’t wait to knit something else! Let me know what you think!