~ ♥Giveaway Winner ♥ ~

Thanks again everyone for joining in my little giveaway, I was blown away by all of the entries, there were 141 in total across blogger and instagram!

I wrote you all down in a list and gave you all a number and the random number thingymajig picked No 133

~ drum roll please.....

Winner ~ Shelley - All4meggymoo (via instagram)

Please email me your address (kandipandi@live.co.uk) and I will send some goodies your way!

Thanks for entering everyone x

~ ♥ Back Soon ♥ ~

~ ♥ Giveaway Time NOW CLOSED ♥ ~

Well today is my 3 year blogiversary.

Although I find less time these days I do enjoy reading blogs and getting to see your makes and gathering inspiration and ideas, it is something I could not do without.  I have come to know many of you through your blogs and Instagram and I have made some great friends along the way.

As a little thank you for following and bearing with my ramblings, I would like to offer up a little giveaway.

I just bought myself this book and really love it so I bought another to offer to you.  I have made a little knitted wool pin cushion inspired by the makes in this book. 

I will add a couple of other little treats in there too.

To be in with a chance to get your hands on my goodies please follow the simple rules below, no jumping through hoops required :0)

Simple Rules:
This giveaway will run on both blogger and Instagram.

To enter the giveaway you don't have to follow me but I do need to be able to contact you. If you don't have a blog or instagram account please leave a valid email address.

Blogger - Just leave a comment on this post and I will add you to the list. 
Instagram - Please repost the giveaway photo and link to me so I can count your entry.

If you have your own blog and if you wish, please add my button to your sidebar and link to this giveaway and I will add you again. Please let me know if you do and I will add you twice.

I will draw the winner one week today on Tuesday 16th April and post out the following day!

~ ♥ Good Luck ♥ ~ 

A wooly catch up

I've been busy hooking up a few little easter gifts and though I would share them here, first up is little 'Lynda the Knitting Bunny' made for my Knitting Guru friend, made from the pattern here.

I made a little crochet spring / easter bag for my friend's little girl. 

Sophie is just over 6 months old and too little for chocolate so I bought her a few books and thought a little bag might be nice to give them in. 

I made this up as I went, it is just a big rectangle of alternating double crochet and treble crochet lines finished with a simple scallop at the top and a couple of curvy handles.

The daffodil is from an Attic24 pattern.

 Whilst the hook was out I did myself a couple more 6" squares for the CannyCAL crochet-along.  Hopefully at this rate I will have another crochet blanket to show this year!

 Check me out in my favourite position, feet up with my slippers on!

I've made extra squares that are not on the CAL just to keep up the momentum as I need to have this blanket completed this year!

 

Back to the knitting and my shawl kits finally arrived and I have made a start, but I am struggling. 

 I don't find knitting comfortable at all I have very tight shoulders after a short while, I am persevering for now though. 

In the meantime I made some knitted gloves from this pattern available from the same designer on Ravelry.

  Now I really enjoyed making these and didn't find the tight shoulder thing happened at all.  

They are not perfect and they did take me a while but I am in 

love with them.

Excuse the weird photo but they are hard to model!

I am wearing them with my Colour Affection shawl which was a special handmade gift from my talented friend Lynda and I adore it! I'm very much a pink stripe girl it seems!

I still love my little place in blogland and this Tuesday is my 3 year Blogiversary. To celebrate I would like to host a little giveaway, I will be back on Tuesday to share.

Back Soon

My Knitted Garment - or not!

So I mentioned that I wanted to knit a real life garment, well I have taken the first step and bought the wool (there is more than I have shown here).

It's Rowan Alpaca Cotton and its all fluffy and soft, however...

something is stopping me taking that first step and casting it on. I have the pattern and the needles and all the trankelybobs I need just not the confidence I guess.

I had a word with myself and thought, RIGHT! I must make a start and so I made myself a new 'knitting project bag' to put my as yet non existent knitting in!

I'm hopeless...

I used some pretty Cath Kidston Cotton Duck (I bought ages ago) and used some thick grosgrain ribbon that I had kept from some packaging.

I didn't use interfacing I only lined it as I wanted it to be soft and floppy, I intend to have it sat by my side as I knit this elusive garment.

I also made a long pouch for my knitting bits, needles and stitch markers and such, lined in a pretty tilda fabric.

So it's all ready for me take the plunge and KNIT SOMETHING ALREADY!

The thing is, I spotted a pretty pink Ray of Light Shawl and I have ordered the wool and the pattern to make it from The Wool Sanctuary designed by the clever Suzie, so I might start that first.  

Well it is a garment too, strictly speaking...

I told you, I'm hopeless!

Back Soon

Testing, Testing ...are you all still there?

Well hello folks, it's been a while hasn't it?

This is the longest I have gone without blogging since my blog started and I'm missing it.  Life has been getting in the way somewhat and with the discovery of Instagram it seems I'm getting my crafty fix over there.

I've mentioned it before but I have a bad back, it's been bad on and off for 18 years now but this last few months its been very sore and I am struggling with it at the minute.  The result of this is that the most I can manage to create revolves around crochet. Crochet requires no special position or extra equipment and when I find my least painful position on the couch I can crochet to my hearts content!

 My little crochet basket is a permanent feature on my sofa!

I started this in August last year and had hoped to complete it by the end of the year, seven months later it's finally done. It is lap size and nice to cosy under when watching the TV. 

I've joined a crochet-along on Instagram and Ravelry hosted by SewCanny and I hope to create enough 6" squares to add to my pile of WIP 6" and 12" squares to hopefully create another blanket, these are my latest efforts, on a pink and grey theme.

I've been inspired to make a crochet hottie cover by Lynda and Vanessa.  Following the pattern on Vanessa's beautiful blog I made this, if you can crochet it was very simple to make and will hopefully be well received.

Unfortunately it is still cold enough to need a hot water bottle!

Thinking forward to Spring and Easter I made a little Easter Bunny following this lovely pattern.

 Scary?

 Then cute.

 I love her little tail.

Well that's it from me for now. I promise not to leave it too long next time.  I have so many blogs to catch up on it will take me forever but I will try!

p.s. heartfelt thanks to the ladies who contacted me asking if everything was ok as it was so long since I blogged, you know who you are xxx

Back Soon

My Patchwork Pillows

On a recent shopping trip I bough myself a couple of bargain pillowcases.  I only opened them last Friday (after chucking the receipts) and realised that they were crazy huge, continental size 26" square! 

I had wanted standard pillowcases so was a little annoyed at myself as they were very pretty.

Normal pillowcase on the right, continental on the left.

Only one thing for it, I cut them into 6" squares.

My new pillows, I was quite pleased with these I have never attempted a pillow case before.

 Due to the odd size I didn't have enough fabric to make a full back so I had to patch it with white cotton at each end. 

I stripped the bed a day early this week as I was itching to try them out, I would like to report that they were very comfy and are still intact!

Back Soon

Mini Crochet Bunting

Whenever I'm frustrated or bored with a project I always put it away and go back to crochet.

Crochet is my default craft, it's so easy to do, you don't have to be sat up in the correct position with the right light, you can crochet almost anywhere, anytime it's very portable.

I have an intermittent back problem (for the last 18 years) and when it's playing up I get myself wired up to the TENs machine get on the sofa in a comfy position, pop the telly on and crochet. A week or so ago I had a bad day and thought I'd make some mini bunting for my bare bathroom door transom.

Using the pattern I used for the crochet hearts in my last post I made these little bunting triangles.  I used a smaller hook (3mm) and followed the pattern to make the heart from the bottom up and stopped at the length I was happy with. Joined with a simple crochet chain - ta da, mini bunting!

 The colours complement various shades in my bathroom.

I blocked and starched them, but with them going in a bathroom I though I would add glass beads to the bottom of each one to give a bit of weight to them to hopefully stop them from curling with the moisture.

before...

and after ....

  That's better! 

Back Soon