A rose for St George...

Happy St George's Day!

Last night I decided I would make a token craft gesture towards St George's Day with a crochet rose in lovely bright red cotton DK.  I wanted it to look a little Tudor-ish so slightly separated the petals as I worked.  

Anyway, I thought I would pop on a quick tutorial on how I made it...

To begin with you need to make a chain of about 38 then, in the 2nd chain from the hook begin to make a row of double crochets as the base for the petals. 

Turn the work and begin to make the petals as follows:
* 2ch and 1 tr in first dc
* 2 dtr in next dc
*1tr plus 1 htr in next dc.

That's the first 'rose petal'.  After that make a ss to next dc, ss to next dc and begin to make the next petal in it.  

Continue all the way to the last couple of dc which will give only you a 'half petal' but put add extra 2 x tr in the last one for the centre. 

Finish off leaving a long end for sewing the rose up.

Working from the end 'half petal', begin to roll the rose up...

Wrap all the way around to form a small rose..

Once you have the basic shape, use the long end to sew up underneath...

The last thing you need to do is stretch the petals slightly to space the stitches out (this is what I think gave it the more 'Tudor' rose look...)

Now you can simply add a pin to the back !

I am quite happy with the result and it's a good size to wear pinned to a lapel which is apparently a bit of a lost tradition.

Happy St George's Day!

xxx

The knitted Easter Hippy Hat & the Soldiers Buttons...

What fantabulous weather we are having this week!

Spring sunshine & warmth, along with the return of a burst of fresh colours in the garden always makes me feel inspired and, having been locked away sorting beads and various other have to do tasks for the last couple of months, I feel it's time to re-awaken the creative bloggyiness within and get making some new projects!

At the moment I love these gorgeous little 'Soldiers Buttons' flowers (as we call them in our family) which are abundant in our garden - proper name ' Kerria japonica pleniflora'...

I wanted to try and replicate their pretty golden fluffiness and somehow work them into a project. Making something similar was pretty simple - I got out my trusty flower loom, picked the smallest size circle and attached some orangey-yellow wool.. here's the step by steps..

Starting by attaching the thread to the side of the loom, you then begin to work the thread back and forth... 

Keep winding until you have gone all the way around... 

Because the flowers are fluffy, wrap the thread all the way around each peg  further two times..

Then use a piece of thread to sew back and forth between the loops across the middle in a star shape to secure the petals... 

Tie at the back and trim the wool ends... 

Carefully remove the flower from the loom...

Fluff it up a little... 

...and you now should have one cute 'Soldiers Button' flower!

Can you spot the fake flower?

After that I decided to knit a little 'hippy hat' egg cosy on which to put my little button flower..

Some green DK wool and a pair of retro size 4 knitting needles...

Cast on 20 stitches...

Work up 4 rows of rib (1 knit, 1 purl alternately along each row)..

Then begin stocking stitch rows (alternate knit row, then purl row) but knit 2 together at each beginning and end of row so the width of the piece decreases...

Keep decreasing...

Right down to the last few stitches...

Until the last stitch! Then cast off...

Leave a long wool end for stitching later.

Make a second side...

Place the two pieces with right-sides together then sew the first side seam up with one end of wool and the second side seam with the other end of wool.. 

Crochet the ends of the wool into chains..

Separate the end fibres of the wool with a bodkin..

A basic 'Hippy Hat'... so far so good...

Now just sew on the flower! 

It really doesn't take too long to whip one of these for a cute Eastery gift - they'd look great in all sorts of other colours too.

Happy Making :-)

Interruption to service...

Apologies for the interruption to blogging - life (and those darned beads...) have been getting a little in the way but there are lots of ideas floating around in my head and I'm really missing a bit of bloggy creativity so normal service will be resumed very soon :-)

Stay tuned !

New Year, floods & drowning in beads!

Happy New Year to You :-)

I hope you had a lovely Christmas and got lots of new crafting goodies to play with?  

What a start to the new year we've had with all that rain - the ground around here has just about had it and if there is much more I am seriously considering if my woodwork skills are up to making an Ark!  We started to feel a little stir crazy over the holidays so got out and about taking some snaps...

We had to face the scary flooded roads...

Putting the 'Lake' into Lacock?!

Poor drowning tree!

Definitely no nice country walks today!

Oh well, at least it's nice weather for Ducks..

Flooded fields on the way to Bath...

Baths disappearing weir...(sounds magical but really not!)

As with the beginning of any new year, you get that kind of 'must do' feeling such as must get fit...must eat more healthily... and in my case - must sell off the remaining BBL bead stock! 

'It' (as in all those tubs of beads I have been ignoring so well for months now...) has been sitting here for almost a year since I closed my bead shop and after being messed around for ages by a potential buyer I can finally no longer stand it and have gone full steam ahead towards selling it off...cheap!

Random mix ups...

Once they're gone they're gone!

It's not exactly what I wanted to do but I am staying determined and getting it all bagged up into lovely jubbly mixes at super bargain prices (cross checked versus eBays finest deals!) Some are random mix ups like those above which will be a first-come-first-served kind of sale and some will be one-bead type mixes of all sorts of colours...

Price examples are like this 250g of super large flat
 oval glass beads at £4.99!

250g of gorgeous large glass rectangle beads... only £4.99!

6mm round glass beads - a whopping 500g for £8.99! 

100g for £4.95 - that's over 180 beads! 

Huge 500g bags like these next 3 pictures are only £4.99/each

(if you are interested in any of the beads send me a message via the blog or contact page

 so I can give you a total price with P&P  etc. Paypal Payments & UK only.)

I've also been getting down to sorting out pendants and, with Valentine Day just around the corner, have re-discovered all these gorgeous hearts...I'd forgotten how much I loved them and how excited I used to get when a new shipment of beady goodies arrived!

Super bargain prices at £1.25 each or £7.99 for one of each!

and more!

There's loads more to sort too in all types, shapes, sizes & colours.  It'll take  while and it's quite hard work lifting boxes, sorting, taking pictures, pricing etc.  In fact, I think I need a make break right now...hmm.. which heart shall I pick to play with?

Happy 2014 Making!