Impressive!

A few things to be impressed with this week. How beautiful does our Zuzanna look? It's her first communion on Sunday. Of course it wouldn't be Magdalena if she didn't make most of the items needed. The big one of course being Zuzanna's gorgeous dress. We love the detail, especially the little cap sleeves.

Zuzanna herself is trying her hand at a new craft. She is now making jewellery with beads. One of these bracelets was designed by Magdalena and made by Zuzanna. The other was designed by Zuzanna and made by Magdalena. Definitely a team effort. Zuzanna's friends have admired them so much that she has been taking orders. She even has a little order book all made up. Very impressive!

Many will have seen Anthea working on a crochet blanket for a friend. It's been killing her because she is so used to working in different colours. However, she has finished and the end result was well worth the frustration of only working with the one colour. She is even considering making another. Mean while she is back to working with her rainbows.

I haven't forgotten about Stephanie's member of the month interview. It's all done and I will be posting it soon. We are off to Gartmore tomorrow so it might not happen before the weekend is over.

Collaboration!

An actual early post for once. Or is that on time? There is a reason for that. As we celebrate our fifth year running next week I thought I would do some nostalgia posts. Have a few ideas up my sleeve so look out for that.

Meanwhile everyone is still working away. I don't think I have mentioned Yvonne here yet. She joined the group just before Christmas. She's primarily a knitter but brought this beautiful cross stitch along on Tuesday. It has a lovely story to it too. Yvonne's mother in law used this piece to teach her to stitch. Then her mother in law moved to New Zealand. Rather than give up it has been travelling back and forth between visits. When the can't visit it travels by post. It's really a collaboration between the two and I think it's a fantastic idea. Gives more meaning behind the work.

How lovely does our Helen look here? Practically outshines her beautiful knitting. After knitting an aran cardigan for Laura she decided to knit one for herself. Quite right too. This looks lovely on and so cosy. I love the lattice work on the bands.

Lyn has been claiming for a while now that she can't sew. Izzi on the other hand will tell everyone that anyone can sew, it's just a case of learning. Izzi has been giving demo's at Hobbycraft and whilst there she took the opportunity to help out Lyn and Fee. This gorgeous drawstring bag and make-up bag are the result. I love the colours. Now Lyne can no longer claim she can't sew. We have seen the evidence! Fee also finished a bag but she forgot to bring it along.

Anthea has been struggling a bit with her blanket. Not with the stitches. She says the stitches in this aran crochet are relatively easy. It's the monotony of one colour (if you have seen her previous finishes you will know she likes her stripes). To cheer her on I took a photo of her progress. It's looking fab and is just past the halfway mark.

Almost every week Helen and I discuss how wonderful it is that everyone in the group shares ideas. Here is another example of that. Fiona T had mentioned to Magdalena the idea of creating a sampler using small crochet squares. The idea is that you use the colours you would like for a blanket and see how they fit in. This is exactly what Magdalena has done. She says she has just one more colour to pick out. It looks so lovely too. Magda says that when she is finished this might become a blanket for a soft toy she has on her shelf. It would be a shame to let the little squares go to waste.

As most of you will know, Donna has been working on the Cath Kidston rag doll for little Abigail. The doll itself (which a few cruel people have named Bob - not telling why) is just about finished. She's also finished one of the dresses. I love the fabric. It looks so small and delicate. Not sure I could stitch anything that tiny but Donna has done an amazing job.

You can sort of see Donna and her project here. She's brought her sewing machine along so that she can get some more of it finished.

Izzi's bag lessons were also ongoing. After Fee's sewing lesson a few weeks ago she decided that she wanted to make a bag too. You can see her in the first photo preparing her fabric. Lyn has done that part and here she is cutting out her handles.

Lots of exciting things planned for next week so expect lots of posts as well as my nostalgia pieces. On Tuesday we will be having our challenge, swap night and some goodies to munch on. On Saturday we will be having our Gartmore at home day and then a number of us are heading out to Frankie & Bennies to celebrate. Should be good fun!

Them Birds!

Knowing that I was going to be away a week I let everyone know to hang on to their finishes until the following week and they did. The one I was anxious about was Alison's birds. I knew this was coming back from the framers the week I was away. Thankfully she also held off bringing it in. I know many of you will remember Alison working on this. A lot of work went into it and it was well worth it. In fact this piece seen us move from Starbucks to the Management Suite. I just wish the photograph could pick up all the tiny pieces of detail. It should be noted that Alison did quite a few other things while this was in progress.

Alison has also been working her way through all those free kits you get with magazines. Here are a couple of Christmas ones she finished. I love the second one on it's hanger. Someone will be organised for Christmas this year anyway.

For the last year Anthea has also been working on a large project. Remember her crochet blanket using up lots of odds and ends last year? That went to one of her daughters and as she has two they wanted one each. Anthea began this granny stripe blanket soon after finishing the first. I took a close up of the stripes so that you can see it in more detail. Like Alison though, Anthea had also worked on other things in between.

Anthea had also finished a crochet knitting bag. It has been lined with some funky fabric and even has a draw string closing. Stops those needles from falling out. I love the fan edging. The inspiration for both Anthea's projects came from a blog loved by many of the group. It's called Attic 24 and is worth a look for the fabulous photographs alone.

Roberta has also been busy. She got the pattern for the brick style blanket from Margaret and had a go herself. She used a smaller yarn size and more colours. The result is very different and very striking. Makes it look more delicate and will be a lovely, spring, baby blanket. She also learnt to crochet this beautiful flower. She has no idea what she is going to do with it now that it is finished. However, she was chuffed she rose to the challenge (rose - get it).

Margaret has once again been busy too. She also finished another of those brick style blankets. This time she used shades of pink making it ideal for a baby girl. The bold pink makes it very striking. You can also see the contrast between hers and Roberta's take on the pattern. It makes you wonder what other colours and methods would do to it. She also finished this cute, white, baby set with little cat buttons and the pink bootees.

Lisa is one of our newer members who joined us just after the new year. She has intrigued us recently as she has been working on a t-shirt rug. You might have seen it round the net, people making rugs from strips of old t-shirts. They are very effective and striking. Lisa bought her t-shirt material online already to work with and this is the end result. The colours are lovely together and it will make a fabulous rug.

Joyce has been with us a while but I don't think I have every posted any of her finishes. She knitted this beautiful wine cosy as a present for a friend. I love this pattern. Another unusual gift idea which is set off by the buttons up the front.

The last of our many finishes comes from Magdalena. Little Zuzanna's first communion is coming up and Magda is determined to make everything for it (we have no doubt whatsoever that she will be successful). She recently finished this beautiful shawl for the day. It looks so delicate but cosy. She got the pattern from ravelry and it's one especially for children. You could even adapt it for older children.

Speaking of Zuzanna. She has been working away too learning new skills. She has already been learning crochet thanks to her talented mum. She now has a few more stitches under her belt as she is learning to make granny squares. She used her favourite colour to practice.

Anthea also has an unusual technique to show us. She is making a blanket for her friends wedding. She found a crochet pattern that actually involves making an aran blanket. Unusual to have aran crochet. Has cables and bobbles. Look forward to seeing how it turns out.

There was also some Gartmore prep going on. As many of you will know we hold classes when at Gartmore. They are just a bit of fun but they really make the weekend. Izzi is going to be giving us the benefits of her wisdom again by showing us how to make bags. This time bags big enough to hold our knitting. On Tuesday she had everyone picking out their fabric and talked them through some of the preparation stages.