This is so cool! I was asked to test knit this hat for Kate of Tot Toppers, and I jumped at the chance. It’s a stegosaurus inspired dinosaur hat, and I knew F would love it. Five hours later, I had a finished hat. It was so easy to make, with the spines being the only slightly fiddly bit. He’s been wearing it ever since – here’s his dinosaur face!
I’ve been tagged by Vonnie with this – here goes!
1) I’m a professional actor, and fit in acting work around being a mum. This Christmas I’m touring as Smee in “Peter Pan” – can’t wait to be a pirate!
2) I have an enormous stash of crafty things, and a notebook full of ideas, but never get enough time to do them all. Once the kids are in bed, I’m so tired that I generally just veg in front of the telly with a bit of knitting. I’m determined that one day I will try felting and beading though.
3) I used to work as a juggling teddy bear at Blair Drummond Safari Park. I hoped that sweating inside a fur fabric suit for eight hours a day would help me lose weight – no such luck! It was quite good fun though.
4) I’ve never been to school in my life, apart from to sit exams. I was home-educated from the start, and did all my GCSEs/A Levels through distance learning. Definitely the best thing my parents ever did for me.
5) I’m probably the biggest wimp in the world. I can’t stand horror films, heights, dogs, wasps and rollercoasters – I do like spiders and snakes though.
6) When I was a kid I wanted to go to university and study Japanese. As it turned out, I trained as a nursery nurse and then went into acting – don’t know what happened there!
7) I have a big family. My parents have ten siblings between them, and I’m the oldest of six. It makes family gatherings very big, noisy and fun.
8) I can raise one eyebrow, curl my tongue and make a noise like an owl hooting. Can’t whistle in tune to save my life though.
9) I went to Milan on a college “research trip” (ie holiday) and did street theatre outside the cathedral in the middle of the night, then nearly got arrested and had to make a quick escape on the subway.
10) My favourite ever meal is lasagne followed by chocolate fudge cake. Very unhealthy but amazing!
Ok, I posted a few days ago about possibly having a problem with my stash. I decided to organise it a bit better, and I have discovered that I most definitely have a problem. I’m not proud of this, but here is a photo of my yarn stash all in one place.
It’s ridiculous! I’m getting close to the Ravelry term SABLE – Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy. In my defence, about 50% of this stash was given to me by elderly friends or people cleaning out their cupboards, so I haven’t actively bought it all. Even so, I need to get it organised and start using it up.
I currently use Ravelry’s stash organiser, which is a fantastic idea, but I find it hard to keep up to date. I never get round to uploading photos of my yarn, so then I start to forget what I have. I decided to revert to a good old fashioned low-tech notebook. I’m writing down the name and weight of the yarn, the meterage per ball, and the number of balls in stash. Then I’m attaching a small sample of the yarn to the side of the page, so that I can instantly remember what it looks and feels like. The notebook can then be used alongside my pattern collection when I’m trying to find yarn for new projects.
Believe it or not, I do have plans for most of the stuff in there. The only problem is that my brain knits faster than my hands, so it’s going to be a while before yarn becomes finished objects. However, my aim for the next few weeks is to match yarn to patterns and try to find some sort of order in the chaos. Wish me luck!
I found myself with time to kill yesterday, and spent a couple of hours browsing the craft books section in Borders. This book just jumped off the shelves at me, with a fantastic mix of craft projects, cooking, home-making ideas and gardening. It’s called “Homemade: Gorgeous things to make with love”, by Ros Badger and Elspeth Thomson.
There are so many amazing ideas inside this book, you could spend hours trying them all out. It’s divided into sections for the four seasons, and the projects go along with this theme. I particularly loved a decorating idea for a patchwork wall, using wallpaper scraps or postcards. There’s also a fantastic bag, made using old clothing labels sewn together in a patchwork design. The lining is created with the front of a shirt, and the buttons and buttonhole band form the fastening at the top of the bag.
If you’re looking for inspiration I would highly recommend this book. It’s whole philosophy is based around recycling, thrift and imagination, and there are plenty of projects that you can create with children as a family. The crafts covered include knitting, crochet, sewing and painting, so there’s a little bit of everything.
I think I might need Yarnaholics Anonymous, if such a thing exists! I can’t resist yarn when it’s a bargain, and I happened to stumble upon three huge bargain bins in my local craft shop today. Even though there is far too much yarn in my stash already, I couldn’t help having a rummage through the bins just to see if there was anything that took my fancy. Half an hour later, I came away with this…
Now, I know it seems like a lot of stuff, but I paid only £15 for this whole pile of yarn, and it’s worth almost £50! There’s some soya, a lot of cotton, and a small ball of some beautiful sparkly pink fluffy stuff. I do have plans for the sparkly stuff, as I thought I might make a sequinned purse, but I don’t know what I’m going to do with the rest yet. It will probably end up as clothes for my kids, or the blue cotton might possibly become a textured cushion. It’s going to be fun finding things to make!
Torya Winters Designs 