Lessons in Pom Poms!

Our Freya had a finish with some of her famous decoupage. We all admired the colours used on this little pig.

Anthea liked the bag Izzi made so much that she made a larger version and decorated it. I love the blue ruffles.

I think this is the first time we have shown a finish from Grace (not to say that she hasn't had any but they are usually given as gifts). This is a Wedding present. I love the camper van.

Caroline made these sparkly strawberries for the Strawberry Tea held by hobbycraft (run by Lyn). Each of these little strawberries contained a chocolate.

Lyne has also been busy for the tea. She made these tissue and soap covers. You might recognise the lace as she used it to knit her hedgehogs which I posted a while back.

Isabel has been busy knitting for her granddaughter. She is going off to see her next week and knitted this dogs jacket for her.

She has also been knitting for the Big Knit charity. I love the alien and the bumble bees.

Margaret, Stephanie and Helen have also handed in quite a few hats. I think we have now breached the 200 mark. These hats have to be handed in by the 1st October. So I am making our deadline 18th September which will give me time to send them off.

Stephanie has been making lots of hats with pom poms and her secret is a pom pom maker which everyone has been fascinated by. I took some photo's as she demonstrated how to use it.

Voila one finished pom pom.

Isabel liked it so much she borrowed it and made three during the evening.

I have also begun taking names for next years Gartmore. We have quite a few this time round. So I think it will be a good one.

Strawberry Tea!

Last week I showed pictures of purses stitched by Izzi. It's for the Strawberry Tea hosted by Hobbycraft that she got the sewing machine out for. It's this Friday at the times above and there will be other goodies to purchase. It will raise money for Breast Cancer so it's for a good cause. Just from our group buying some of those purses £50 has been raised. I will be there so hopefully will see you there.

The Big Knit is still going strong. We have one or two people racing ahead in the novelty and quantity competition. These are some of Helen's lovely hats.

Stephanie has also been busy again. Some of those beaded hats are among my favourite.

Roberta has joined in too. She has a few with buttons on top rather than pom poms.

Lyn has also started knitting for it. The banana is one of my favourites.

It's not just been about the charity. Caroline knitted this lovely Chef for Elaine's birthday. I'm afraid though that it gives away the birthday celebration (sorry Elaine).

We had Donna along with little Abigail last week. I had attempted to knit for the baby back when we had the baby shower. It went horribly wrong and ended up using the yarn to knit this shawl for Donna instead.

The sewing machines have also been busy. Roberta has got back to the quilting again and made this beautiful spread for her bed. I love the colours.

How nifty is this? This is a quilted burping napkin which Izzi made for Donna. Stops all her tops from being ruined from the baby being sick. I can see a market for these.

Knitting For the Big Knit

On Tuesday there were quite a few knitting for the Big Knit. Think there will be a lot of photo's to come. First of all how amazing is this? Caroline adapted another pattern and knitted this ice cream hat. Complete with flake and beaded sprinkles.

Helen did a few pineapples which she got from an online pattern. She also adapted another pattern for this very creepy spider hat. Would give anyone nightmares. Believe it or not the pattern was originally supposed to be a flower but Helen decided it looked more like a spider and voila!

Margaret has knitted a fair few special hats which she has adapted or invented herself. Lots of Christmas themed hats in there. I personally feel sorry for the chick in the back which looks like it has been plucked.

She also knitted some other hats using the basic pattern. Lot of lovely colour combinations in there.

Stephanie has also been knitting away and she has been adding pom poms to hers. She even used some of her fluffy yarn to make those white ones.

I have also been knitting some although not as many as others and certainly nowhere near as inventive. I'm looking forward to seeing what others come up with in the next few weeks.

Izzi has also been working on a charity. She is making these little coin purses to raise money for breast cancer. There is a tea hosted by Hobbycraft where you will be able to purchase them (don't know the details of that yet). Luckily we have Izzi at hand and a number of us purchased them on Tuesday. Hopefully that's a good start to the charity.

 There were other finishes too. Roberta knitted these lovely baby cardigans and jumper. The pink and white have a sparkle to them which is sadly lost in the photo.

Caroline also had a finish. She crocheted this beautifully bright blanket for a friends baby. Love all those bright primary colours.

Happy Birthday!

We had two birthdays last week. The main one was Elaine who had a big birthday. I'm sure she wouldn't mind me telling how big but I'll keep quiet just in case. Elaine herself makes fabulous cakes which we can all testify to. Her workmates felt that there was no pointing in baking her a cake as they could get Elaine to make her own and it would taste better. So instead they all knitted her a cake and Elaine had to guess who did what. The group thought this was a fantastic idea and we all admired the knitted cakes which Elaine brought along. I'm afraid Elaine only got one right.

This chocolate cake was knitted by Linda who works with Elaine too. How yummy does it look?

Our second birthday girl was Roberta. She finished knitting this cowl for the shoe box charity. It was originally going to be a scarf but Linda stitched it together. Looks quite effective.

Rhona also had a few finishes. She finished the aran waistcoat (which I tried to get her to model but alas no). She also finished this jumper which I love. It's a loose knit and yet still has large cables. It was meant for her older daughter but she didn't like the sleeves.

The last few weeks Freya has brought her sewing box along. On Tuesday she stitched a headband and wristband for her bear. Then she stitched the red dress also for her bear. Guess who's bear is best dressed?

Helen finished knitting one of her scarfs. The marbling effect of the purple yarn is lovely. Helen herself was just happy it was done as the yarn is supposed to be used in two strands which was rather irritating (the yarn came like that).

I can also finally announce our charity this year. We have decided to take part in the Big Knit. I don't know if any of you have seen it but every December Sainsburys sell innocent drinks wearing knitted hats. The knitted hats are sent in by knitter from all over the UK. For every one of these bottles sold 25p goes to Age UK. We have decided to hold a little competition alongside it. A prize for the member who knits the most and a prize for the most inventive. So watch out for all these photo's.

Play Time!

I would have posted last week but blogger was playing up. So I decided on a two for one post but then there were no finishes at the last get together.

I can tell you that we have had the pleasure of young Amilie's company the last two weeks. She has been good to us and kept our Isabel out of trouble. You can see them both playing with trains from Thomas and Friends. Last week there was also some singing but I was made to delete the video I took of that one. It's a shame as it would have been our second youtube video and Isabel's singing debut. The world will never know just how talented she is. In between Isabel also got to work on her bunnies.

Our other Isabel, Izzi, has been working away on her sewing machine. She made this lovely quilted bag. It even has a zip and a pocket inside.

Helen  has again been busy. She knitted these socks and scarf. I love the colourway in the sock yarn. Very effective. Also I am partial to a cable and so very much like the scarf too. Plus the great thing about the scarf is that it is reversible.

Congratulations Donna!

Our Donna had a little girl yesterday. Her name is Abigail and she weighed in at 9lbs 10.5oz. Congratulations to Donna and her husband, Russel.

Quiet Night

First of all an apology to Jill. I got her name wrong when I said that she did this beautiful cross stitch. Don't know where I got Julie from.

It was a very quiet night last week but a nice one. Everyone was just working on their projects and chatting as usual. Mainly about books. There was a suggestion that we have a quote of the evening but sadly last weeks quote, whilst funny, would have meant I would have had to change access to the blog. It will just have to be a you should have been there moment.

Whilst there were no finishes there was lots going on. Laura was doing some cross stitch and was working on a book mark. Margaret was also doing cross stitch, this was for Christmas. Helen was knitting a scarf using a lovely cable pattern. Rhona was also knitting a scarf using cables but in dark green. Alison was working on her bird cross stitch. Roberta was crocheting a blanket as a favour to the charity shop she works in. Isabel was working on the egg cup bunnies which she is selling for charity. I was also working on some cross stitch, a camper van. There were more projects on the go but sadly that's as far back as my memory will go.

Oh, and for those anxiously waiting, still no news from Donna.