Summer Craft Days at Hobbycraft.

First of all, Lyn would like to draw your attention to a major event happening at Hobbycraft this weekend. As you know we have a terrific relationship with the staff of this shop, so please encourage your friends and enemies to support this event. The weather forecast looks promising and you could have a Pimms in your garden to cool down after attending this fundraiser.

Stephanie has amazed us again with her finishes. Her choice of fabric for this sewing machine cover was inspired and the embellishments just gave it that wow factor. Not bad for someone who just took up sewing a year ago! The baby set were worked in chunky yarn bought in Niffty Needles in Linlithgow.

  

This is my wee bag created using the shrink fabric that I demonstrated at the group a few weeks ago. I am delighted with the finished article. As you know I'm just nuts about blue!

The Scarves for the Shoe Box charity are mounting up but we could still do with some more. We have managed to donate just over 50 scarves so far, which is a magnificent achievement, but it would be appreciated if we could do some more. Linda has suggested that scarves in colours suitable for men would be appropriate. 

 This is another of Stephanie's scarves. How does she find the time! This one was just using up the remnants from other projects. Nothing goes to waste!

Isabel is still working towards completing the most scarves. She is determined to win and has collected 13 lucky tickets.  Do not be put off by this because she is not usually so competitive. The college scarf is a great way to use up odds and ends and the design is very distinctive. Isabel says that crocheting is much more energy efficient than knitting and is easier on her old arthritic hands. (I can say this because she seldom looks on Facebook!)

Margaret handed in another three lovely scarves to our charity. She is level with Isabel but I'm not taking any bets on the outcome of who will produce the most scarves. Margaret has varied the pattern for each scarf just to keep things interesting for herself.

These cute little baby shoes were crocheted by Elaine. How could anyone not fall in love with these! Altogether now.........Awwwwwwwwwwww!

Josephine has been working with chunky yarn recently and has completed these garments for her niece and nephew. The jackets are bonny and you should have felt the weight in them. They will be ideal for the winter!

 

Norma and Susan survived T in the Park and judging from the photos posted on FB they had a great time.

Nail Art comes to town!

Tuesday 9th July was a sweltering 29 degrees C. Everyone who turned up to the group was dressed for the Riviera! 

First of all I would like to showcase two of my finishes. The cot blanket was done using a spare 400g ball of aran left over from another project and was worked on a circular needle. The cover for my sewing machine was done at the sewing class run by Valerie Lennox. The fabric was purchased  from Hobbycraft using vouchers I received from a friend.

Karen completed these amazing Mosaic socks as part of her master plan to teach me the technique.

Her choice of colours works really well and I hope to complete mine sometime before Christmas.

Linda and Elaine went to a class in Damselfly on Great Western Road. The class had been purchased on Groupon and as you can see they were owling with delight as they displayed their new best friends. Linda's owl was named Patch and Elaine's burd was called Ollie. Did you know the collective noun for a group of owls is a parliament?

Since Stephanie retired she has been very busy crafting and enjoying her freedom. Just to prove it, she made these hats for the Shoe Box charity.

A big thank you to Lynn for bringing these goodies along from Hobbycraft. You really have to be quick on your feet if you want to enjoy a freebie.

 I was really impressed when I discovered that Agnes had made this lovely bangle as part of a set of jewellery for a  for a friends wedding. It looks very professional.

The highlight of the evening was Tracy and her Nail Art. What a talented lady! As you can see she brought with her every colour of nail polish under the sun.

Margaret indulged herself with a French manicure.

Norma and Susan were going to T in the Park at the weekend and wanted to be suitably dressed and accessorized for the event.

Lisa - July Member of the Month

1. Tell us three things about yourself that we might not know.

I'm a graphic designer, I have my own craft company and I have OCD in that if I am not busy I am not happy.

2. Who taught you your first craft?

My dad taught me. It was those boards with nails in them and you create picture with string. Can't remember what they are called.

3. What finished project are you most proud of?

I made a mermaid fimo crochet hook. I didn't want to part with it.

4. What has been your biggest crafting disaster?

The first time I dyed yarn I almost burned down the kitchen. I got the ratio of yarn wrong and it all bubbled over. Meanwhile I was upstairs bathing the kids.

5. What other crafts do you do?

I paint, cross stitch, illustrate, face painting, I don't think there is anything I haven't had a bash at.

6. Favourites
Favourite yarn - my own hand-dyed marino
Favourite designs - I really like old fashioned traditional designs.
Favourite colours - brights
Favourite shop - hobbycraft
Favourite online shop - wool warehouse
Favourite craft book - a conmpendium of crochet stitches.

7. What would you like to achieve in the future?

I would love for the charity I work with to recreate the hook up logo with blankets. We don't have enough of them at the moment and we hope to fill a stadium with them.

8. What do you like to listen to or watch whilst crafting?

Audio books, any kind normally but I love crime.

9. What would your advice be to beginners?

Never give up. Youtube is your friend.

10. What craft would you like to do in the future?

I would like to be better at knitting.

Our Lisa has kept very quiet about her crafting business which does very well. She doesn't like to promote herself because the group is for fun. So I'm going to do it for her. All those hooks and the yarn were all done by Lisa and she sells them through the name For the Love of Yarn. You can find her here on facebook. She also has instagram with lots of yummy images, again just search for her craft company name. If you are interested in any hooks (she will do her best to do custom made designs) or yer gorgeous hand-dyed yarn just send her a message on her facebook page. I can safely say they are all fab. She had the whole group oohing and aahing over them.

Nothing But Scarves!

There were no finishes other than scarves on Tuesday. Everyone seems to have the scarf fever thanks to the charity. Which is a good thing for the charity. We have handed over 35 scarves so far and counting. These three were handed in by Margaret on Tuesday. Love the colours.

Margaret also finished one on the night. I am surprised she parted with it since it is her favourite colour!

Isabel also handed in another 2. She is now up to 9 scarves. She is determined to win a prize in the raffle. Can't say our Isabel is competitive. Never gets upset at the thought of others beating her. She has finished another one but her husband is thinking of pinching it.

Stephanie also handed in another two scarves. Love the sparkles. I would be inclined to pinch the ruffle scarf.

There were other things going on too. We had another new member. Her name is Audrey and she is being taught to knit socks. Tuesday she was just practicing knitting on the round but she seemed to have picked it up very quickly!

We are also setting up a demo for the nail art I mentioned in the last post. Elaine's talented sister is going to do that for us and she is offering cheaper rates for doing nails on the night if anyone is interested.

Last but not least I did July's member of the month interview. I think you will all be surprised by this one as our Lisa has kept quiet about a few things. Worth looking out for.

Back to the scarf charity. Linda says a huge thank you. She also said that she has very few scarves for men so if people are knitting scarves could they make them with men in mind.

More Great Ideas!

I have to apologise for the lateness of this post. This was supposed to be from the Tuesday before the lovely Helen's post. On the sunny side you get two posts in one week. Truth is I have been trying to get a video of a demo to work without much luck. So it has been stalled. As soon as I can fix it you will see our latest star of youtube.

Janice has quiet of late as she has been working away. She had quite a lot of things to show us. This beautiful quilt was actually made from fabric she picked up on our swap night. I wonder if the person who put it in for swapping would like it back now.

She also used some scrap fabric to make this lovely quilted laptop cover. I love it. Love all the puples. As well as quilting and knitting it would seem that Janice is also a cross stitcher. Good words to live by on that sampler.

Roberta has finished these two lovely baby blankets for her charity shop. A customer requested them and gave Roberta the yarn. These were stitched up in next to no time.

I also had a finish. I knitted another pair of mosaic socks. This time for my sister (hence the small feet). I had of green left over from the last pair and she requested that pink was also used. Actually quite like those colours together.

Helen has been enamoured with the mosaic pattern and requested a lesson. Here she is starting them (although she has almost finished the first sock now). This is the first pair of socks Helen has knitted with any sort of pattern. It even has Isabel thinking about having a go.

 We also had two more scarves for the scarf charity. The first one was knitted up in a lovely purple by Janice (told you she had been busy). The second was crocheted by myself. I wanted to try the bobble crochet everyone was doing and this seemed like a perfect way of having a go.

We also had a demo of shrink fabric from Helen. It is this demo we have on video so you can see the full effect. As soon as I have it working I will post it here. You can't really see the fabric shrinking just from a photograph. I can tell you though that it was a great demo.

Caroline also had us intrigued with all these bits and pieces. It would seem she was working on something for the shoebox charity. She had quite a production line going.

This lovely needlecase holder was the result. She is making quite a few of them for Linda. I love the little motifs on the front.

Elaine also brought some samples along. Her sister has her own nail art business. She is willing to give a demo for anyone interested. My personal favourite is the Cath Kidston. I will email everyone the details of that soon.

There will be another two posts in the next week as I will be giving July's member of the month interview. So look out for that.