Happy Birthday!

Not our birthday this time. It was the birthday of lovely Noreen. Jean had brought along a cake which we brought out and sang to her. Much to poor Noreen's mortification! We hope she had a lovely evening though.

Margaret is knitting some baby items for a friend and finished this lovely baby hat and cardigan set.

I finished a sock. No, not socks, a sock. Magdalena asked me if I would mind knitting up the partner to a sock she had done herself. It had been so long she couldn't remember how. I was rather pleased that I managed to get them to match.

Lisa crocheted these beautiful baby blankets. The white, pink and orange is done in her own yarn so needless to say it's my favourite. She did this whilst waiting in the car doing the school run.

A number of you may remember this. It is in fact the logo to Magdalena's Stitching A Rainbow. For those of you who might not know, Magdalena makes children's quilts to order. This quilted logo is perfect for those gorgeous quilts.

She also finished her mood scarf. I am more than a little bit in love with this. The idea behind it was that each day she had to crochet a row. The colour she picked out had to match her mood. Hence, a mood scarf. It was doing this that Magdalena learned how to do crochet without the foundation row. The reason being that she didn't want the foundation to be classed as one row since she was only to do one each day. She also used variegated yarn as she said that her mood would change through out the day. The end result is gorgeous. Although Jill did say it would possible be interesting for a psychologist to analyse.

Esther had another finish and it only took some wheedling for myself to get her to show it. Her granddaughter is going to be the best dressed with all these cardigans and sets she is knitting up. This latest is gorgeous. Love the fan pattern and it is certainly beautifully knitted.

This beautiful hat belongs to Kathleen. I love the style of these hats and Kathleen always adds a little something to the front to make it extra special. Kathleen is thinking of having a go at craft fairs eventually. In the meantime though she is going to start up her own facebook page. So look out for that.

Jean has also been busy. This time for Christmas. She knitted this angel which came free with one of the knitting magazines. I love the detail. These angels definitely have character.

Stephanie has been back at the sewing again. She stitched up this lovely patchwork bag. The colours go so well together and it looks fab. Definitely something to be proud of.

You might think you have seen these socks before and in a way you are right. These are slightly smaller than the pair I showed a few weeks ago knitted by the lovely Isabel. This pair is going to her smaller grandson for Christmas. Her grandsons loved the fact that she had knitted herself Christmas socks and asked for some of their own. Hence Isabel's knitting frenzy.

This gorgeous blanket was done by Elaine. I love how a simple granny square can look so different just by switching to variegated yarn. Each of these squares look so different as a result and the effect is fab.

Despite being unwell last week Audrey has been busy. She finished stitching the gorgeous Santa cross stitch. Just in time for the Christmas season.

In getting ready for winter Audrey has also finished knitting up this scarf and hat. The scarf is beautifully done in lace knitting. Whereas the had is a lovely, chunkier knit.

If you were lucky enough to make the Christmas craft day you would have been able to take part in Izzi's lavender sachet lesson. She brought along a shoe box full of lavender sachets she had made up with the leftovers. These are so lovely and they smell amazing. Izzi was selling these ones to contribute to Lyn's charity. Alas they all sold out to the group within seconds.

You might remember Laura's hat from a few weeks ago. She has knitted up another one in reverse colours. I just love the design. I also discovered that Laura is charting her own fair isle design. I look forward to seeing that.

She also knitted herself a scarf. I love the colours and love that it starts with and ends with the same colour pattern. It's also extremely soft and cosy.

I have also been asking people what their bucket list for next year is. That basically means, what do they want to achieve next year. So each week I am going to post a wee list of what people say.

Isabel - love to learn to do traditional embroider and finish my advent calendar.

Elaine - Finish a cross stitch I started when Amy was 4. I also want to do something with Sashiko

Margaret - Finish the fairy cross stitch I started at Gartmore and the Christmas cushions from a few years back. I also want to try Japanese folded quilting.

Karen - I want to learn how to make a mug rug and learn to do tunisian crochet

Audrey - I plan to learn to do cables and to crochet better

Dawn - I want to make a granny square blanket for myself and socks for myself. Next year I plan to make things for myself for a change.

There will be more of that next week. I also did our member of the month interview. So look out for what Janice has to say as well as some photo's of her fabulous work.

Winter is Coming!

This beautiful shawl deserves to be admired by everyone. It's stunning work. This is the first shawl that Anthea has made. It was supposed to be a shawlette but Anthea added extra repeats to make it bigger. Glad she did as it looks truly stunning.

Anthea also knitted this chunky scarf for her hubby. When visiting her mother in law she was recently taught how to do cables. Looks like the lessons paid off.

Margaret knitted the angel which was a kit that came free with a recent magazine. Looks fab. She also looks a little squinty but that's because she is meant to be hanging up. She also used some of the yarn to knit this pretty star.

Still on the winter projects Margaret finished two pairs of mitts. One pair for myself and one pair for her younger daughter. With the cold weather I did consider wearing them before she had a chance to bring them along to the knitting group. They are knitted in chunky yarn to make them extra cosy.

She also stitched this card at the request of a friend. It's her friends granddaughters first Christmas and she wanted something special for her.

Norma continues to be busy. Her craft fair was this weekend and she was still working away on finishing projects in preparation. This beatiful blanket was one such project. Some baby is going to be very lucky. Hopefully we will here how it went on Tuesday and in the meantime perhaps Norma will actually make something for herself.

Jill is usually a cross stitcher. However, the stitching was put down to crochet this gorgeous scarf. It actually looks like noro yarn but it isn't and has a softer feel as a result. Jill claims that it was fairly easy to do however the effect is fantastic. Love the colour changes too.

Laura is one of our newer members. She came along a few weeks ago and last week she brought her first finish. Look how detailed this is? I do love fair isle and this hat is very impressive. Beautifully done.

Janice had been busy too. She has been taking a leaf out of Stephanies books and been knitting baby things with no one in mind. I love the cabling in this cardigan which goes all the way round the back.

Lyn had been busy with these pretty little hats. She took the flower pattern I taught at Gartmore and added buttons then used them to decorate a couple of the hats. The buttons just make those flower.s

Audrey has been doing some Christmas knitting too. She also knitted the angel that came free with a recent magazine. However she adapted the hair and this little angel even has a pony tail.

Kathleen knitted another of her hats for her granddaughter. I love her crochet hats. Love the feel of them too. This is a fab effect created by doubling up the yarn. Her granddaughter can definitely claim to be best dressed.

I feel so rotten because I don't remember who knitted this fabulous hat! We had a queue of people at that point. I do remember the person felt that it was a little big. It looked fab to me though. So cosy.

Libby has been busy with the crochet hook again. She made this beautiful cardigan and hat set. I love the little flowers stitched on both. It was supposed to be for a 3 year old but turned out a little bigger. So it's now being sent to family abroad.

More winter crochet and this time from Carol. She made this lovely hat for her son. It's for him to wear in the car during the cold weather. I love those colours!

This is a group photo of a group project that some of us are taking part in. I didn't explain it very well on the night. So hopefully I can make up for that here. There is a facebook group page called For the Love of Yarnigans which both Carol and Lisa are administrators of. Lisa came up with the idea for the members to do a crochet along. The idea is that it can help with some stash busting. So the challenge is to creat a mood blanket of scarf. Each day we contribute two rows to our project. The colour we chose on each given day is supposed to reflect the mood we are in at the time. Fran, Lisa, Magdalena and myself are all taking part. Magdalena is the only one among us who is doing a scarf. She is also using a lovely ripple pattern with variegated yarn. I thought it would be a great idea to get a group photo to see how everyone has interpreted the project. Can't wait to see them all when they are finished.

The 9th of November is our Christmas craft day. We have three classes on and one of them is making these beautiful lavender bags and sachets. I guess I don't need to tell you that this project is from the lovely Izzi. I have a list of names for each class. So if you want to join in please let me know as it will determine the supplies brought along. I have emailed out details of each class and posted it on our facebook group page. However, you don't have to join the class to come along. The important thing is to spend the day doing something that you enjoy and to have fun.