Last couple of gifts

Fella has 2 girls and earlier this year I found this eyelash yarn in my stash and thought that I would knit them a scarf each for Christmas.   Each one took 1 50 gram ball and I did them in plain old stocking stitch 20 stitches wide.

Both girls loved them and fella says they have been in constant use

Lucy also got a spike bracelet

Please excuse the mess in this pic, my bead mat is always untidy but it shows the spikes off really well

Mum's Christmas Present

Mum is also a beader and had I just given her the kit for this she would probably of asked me to make it up anyway as she doesn't do as much as I do!   So I decided to skip that step and give it to her already made up and ready for her to use.

This is the Pasture Scissor keep and tassel from Spellbound and is one of the items I couldn't share when I went to Harrogate.

Unfortunately this was the best overall pic I took

So I've added some closer up ones as well

The scissors are not included in the kit and were also bought at Harrogate

Some Christmas gifts

I've made a few of the gifts I've given this year and of course I couldn't share them until they had been handed out so here goes.

Lucy loves skulls so when monthly bead along appeared for 2 drop peyote and someone posted a link to this etsy shop I had a hard time picking one but eventually settled on this one

Mel is an animal lover and when I saw this racing turtle bracelet kit I had to get it for her

Lucy is also a huge Doctor Who fan so again when someone posted a link somewhere to this Etsy shop I had another hard time picking which one to stitch for her. But it did make for an easy stitch when I was sick a few months ago

More gift ornaments

The last of the ornaments that I'm giving as gifts this year have been handed out now and are with their new owners so I can post them here without letting the cat out of the bag :)

This is for my Parents neighbour

This one is Mel's

And this one is fella's

Some ornaments

On Saturday the family went off to Krampus and as has become normal for me I gave my parents their ornament for this year but I also gave Lucy her's and Teejay's was completed this morning before I took them home.

Mum and Dad's

Lucy's

Teejay's

Flower Fairy

Another item made for the charity fair which I'm told raised a total of £7,500!

I made one of these for myself years ago (in different colours) and she sits on top of the tin I keep my needles in.

The thing in her hands is a flower shaped bead and I hadn't noticed it was on it's side when I took the pic and I no longer have her to take another.

With this post I've made it to the end of NaBloPoMo 2013 and have managed to post every day with resorting to posting an old TW finish, yay

Kris Kringle

I've been on a class today with Oak Tree Crafts to make a Christmas decoration called Kris Kringle.

It started off badly for me and it took 3 attempts to get his hat started!  Then it took me I don't know how long to figure out why the white at the bottom of the hat refused to sit in the right place on the mould but I got there in the end.

I did manage to get him done by the end of the day and I've booked myself on a class in January so here's hoping the weather plays ball for me to go.

Here he is in all his glory

Better view of his hat

Better view of his beard

I had a phone call while I was there to tell me that a friend from WI passed last night and I have to say it's shocked me quite deeply as she was only 50 and in good health.

More charity bead work

This time it's a few tube ornaments.

These are done round the tube's that beads (mostly Delica's) often come in and the patterns are all from Threadabead.  I spotted a new one on facebook I think it was that's a reindeer and he's really cute.

Anne over at Feather Stitching asked about the tassel from yesterday and where to get it.

I should of posted the link and I forgot to, sorry about that :(  anyway it's from Spellbound and comes in a few other colours

Balmoral Tassel

Another project that was made for the charity event a friend did.

She gave me this kit and asked me to make it up so I did.

It was a more enjoyable make than I expected it to be and far more sparklie as well.

Thank you all for your support over the death of my family member.

It's probably going to be at least a week before a service is held for him as his repatriation has still to be arranged (he passed in Saudi)

Matrioska aka Russian Doll

I love Russian Dolls, they fascinate me and always have so when I saw this free pattern for one I just had to do it.

I started it back in June but other things came along that needed to be done sooner rather than later so it got put aside, last week I sat down and got her finished.

Angel Pen toppers

A friend has been busy beading for the last few months ready for a charity garden party near her that she does every year.

This year I said I'd do a few things for her and here are some of them.

The one top left is in the given colours but I didn't want to do them all the same so used up some oddments of delica's for them.

Fiendish Fancy

Back in April when I got my copy of Sweet Treats and made some Fondant Fancies I decided that each time a limited edition version appeared I would have to have a box research.

So when Fiendish Fancies appeared in early October I had to have a box.

It took a bit of time to find the right shade of orange and although it doesn't look it in my pic it's almost perfect

Today while shopping I noticed that Festive fancies have appeared on the shelves so a box of those will have to make their way into my food shop sometime in the next few weeks for more research :)

Christmas poem book

Last year (almost to the day I might add but not planned to be) I posted my finish of the Christmas Carol book and mentioned that I had the poem book to do.

Well it's taken me 12 months to get round to it but it's done at last

Front of the book

Back of the book

And open showing the clasp

It comes as a kit from Threadabead but you can buy extra books which is what I did with Mum last year

Mel's Rose

When I posted the pics from Chester Zoo I forgot to post the one of Mel's gift.

I found this freebie on the web years ago and always had Mel in mind for it and I finally got round to making it this year.

It's mounted on a box I painted black out side and purple inside but I can't find a pic of that and I'm sure I took one :(

Unfortunately the link no longer works to the chart as the designer passed away last year so I can't point you to it, sorry folks

Psy-cat-ic

My latest beading finish is Psy-cat-ic from A Muse Ink

If your a friend on Facebook you may remember me complaining about a pattern I was working on a month or so ago saying that the pattern was totally different to the pic on the front.  I'd emailed them about it and not got a reply so I emailed again with even more difference's and got a reply, both thought the other had replied first time round lol.

Anyway they fixed the chart and sent me a replacement within a few days and once it arrived it took me a little while to get round to finishing it off.

Poor guy had a post it over his face while I worked the top of his head so he wasn't staring at me having the chart do that was bad enough!

Beading finishes

I splashed out on some patterns recently from Threadabead and here's the first one completed.

One is going to my bowls captain who has retired this year from the job and she has spent the last couple of years training up yours truly who has been dumb enough to take over!

The other is the first of many that I'm doing on behalf of a friend who is having a stall on Charity market in a couple of months time.  

I came across the pattern for a thimble at The Bead Loom Gallery when looking for 2 drop peyote patterns to take part in a bead a long and fell in love with them.

I bought one pattern and discovered that I didn't have the right size rivoli for it :(  because my fingers were itching to make one I just had to go back and buy another pattern that would use one of the one's I had.

I can see more of these in my future

Weekend progress

There won't always be a beading project on a weekend but as I reached the end of my desire to work on the robe for the time being and it was mid morning today I thought I'd add it.

And my progress on Legends.

I got Majesty's name done and finished his border then made a start on finishing the border top and bottom on Magic.  The bottom is done as far as it could be without moving the frame to allow me a full length of thread and the top just needs a little more backstitch doing to finish that off.

Health wise I'm slowly starting to see some improvements now, I'm not getting as out of breath when I do stuff and it's not so hard to breathe all the time but the steroids are having a bad effect on my sleep :(

Couple of beading updates

I'm still not well :(  while I feel fairly OK in myself I'm still struggling to breathe at times esp in the afternoons so I'm still making good progress on things.

Today my Dragon Robe got some attention, last time it appeared here it looked like this and no I didn't do all the progress today I just haven't taken a pic of it for so long.

Today I worked from the gold up apart from the first couple of rows with gold in them 

It would appear that it's getting on for 18 months since I last shared progress on my beaded CdC.

It's not been touched for a few weeks again but it kinda jumped in my hands and demanded I take a pic of it after I'd done the Dragon Robe one.

I'm plodding on to being half done :)

Tassel Finish

Feel free to Happy Dance, I don't have the energy to

Restarted on Aug 28 and finished around 10 am today my Purple Tassel.

I felt this one needed a nice simple finish so that exactly what I did

The top needed a little something to finish it off so I added a ring of 3mm facets

And just a nice simple drop effect round the bottom half with 6 mm, 4 mm, 3 mm facets and the same delica as the diamond to break it up a little

T updates

I'm getting really close to finishing the top of the tassel off and tomorrow I more than likely will do just that then I have to decide what to do with the bottom of it.  I have a few ideas but don't know which one my needle will go with when it comes down to it!

And my toms are getting bigger, that one in the middle of the bunch was the first one out and is much bigger than it appears in the pic

This morning when I took it I had a quick count up and there are at least 28 tomes of various sizes now for someone that has never grown toms before I think that's pretty good going.