Silly crochet!

Two macaroons and a jammy dodger!
I did these a while ago but forgot to blog them - silly and adorable!

Introducing Grim Rita!

Greetings to my second amigurumi from the creepy crochet book pictured in all her glory!
I had done most of it yesterday and finished her off tonight, it's getting easier to read the patterns now which is good and my ability to remember how many stitches I have done is also improving thank god! Nothing more frustrating than forgetting and having to unwind the thing for the fiftieth time.
Not sure which one I'm going to attempt next, would like to make the skeleton groom but that requires going into town to purchase some black yarn... which means I will put it off until I have about a million reasons to go and have no choice in the matter. Should probably finish off all the other things I have to do before starting another creepy cutie... but they're so quick (well a couple of hours) to make and sooooooo adorable!!

Amigurumi skeleton bride!

For my birthday I got a super cool book called 'Creepy Cute Crochet' by Christen Haden. It is full of the most adorable little amigurumi creations....sod kittens, I want a crochet zombie!!
For those of you who have never seen a crochet pattern it is basically a big enigma with sc's (in England we call them dc's - more confusion!) and inc's and all manner of coded mumbo jumbo. The picture guides of said mumbo jumbo make quantum theory look like a child's homework! So I had to start off with a beginner project from the selection including a skeleton groom to accompany the pictured bride, a ninja, a fuzzy alien and the grim reaper.
For future headaches and eye strain I can move up to intermediate, difficult or epic projects, epic projects including a Trojan, Spartan and cyber zombie!
You also have to learn how to make a magic ring, otherwise renamed in my house as the magic anus. This was problematic, frustrating and made me violent. Eventually I found a tutorial online that I understood and from there it was up, up, and amigurway!
Finished article is cute albeit wonky (what a surprise there...) and I'm almost done with a pink grim reaper (I had no suitable black yarn so improvised) but my eyes are about to explode so it will be finished tomorrow.

Hello Sailor ;)

Well it's been a while! Having had a little break from the sewing machine I kick started my sewing with this awesome (if I do say so myself!) nautical dress.
This is what gave me a stripe headache for all those that heard that little tale!
Basically I picked up some navy and white striped cotton jersey for a reduced price and thought I would spoil myself with a dress to wear in the sunshine. I only have a small selection of patterns to use and didn't think the fabric would work well with any of them. A lot of the problems involved it being too complicated to match up the stripes as I'm a novice when it comes to stripy fabric! So after hmmm-ing about it for a while I decided to use two patterns and frankenstein them into one... So I used a wrap style top and the skirt piece from the halterneck dress pattern. So far so easy.
I then had a stripe worry, being a rather well rounded girl, I didn't want all the stripes going horizontally for fear of looking massive(r). Diagonal stripes would have worked well for the whole thing but I didn't have enough fabric to do so. I don't half make things awkward for myself!
So I decided I would use stripes going in all different directions as you can see from the pictures. Cue headache and spazzy eyes! I have no idea what the deal was with that, the finished dress does not induce weirdness!
Anyway, I cut out all the pieces and sewed 'em up, then needed to sort out some sleeves. I used the sleeves pattern piece from the wrap top but shortened them, sewed them on and then cut them diagonally for a bit more room. It looked pretty silly. So I ruched them, added a button and voila better sleeves!
I also added four buttons to the front for decoration. The buttons are really cool, they have little anchors on the front adding to the nauticalness.
I also had to add a 'modesty panel' to the bust, I would happily have had my boobs out that much but old ladies are prone to tutting at me so I thought I would spare them the need on this occasion, and it is a daytime dress too so a little modesty is ok!

Next project I'm going to be working on is a dress for my mummy, a version of the infamous halterneck dress I have made many times previously, won't take me too long, two hours maximum so I'll post it up tomorrow probably - and maybe I can persuade mum to take a picture of it to put up here too!

Jam jam jam!

I made peach and raspberry jam. I made cute labels. The jam tastes awesome! That is all!

The tragedy that was the craft fair :(

Well. Well, well, well. What a disaster!
Beth and myself got to Kind (the venue) had a look around for our table and couldn't see it. So we asked a member of staff. Who said we weren't on the list. Weren't on the f-ing list!! She asked us when we had booked so we told her that we had booked at the last one and also confirmed via facebook. Basically they had messed up big time. So the only two options we had were to go home or to use what was essentially a shelf and some chairs.
We decided to use the shelf. We should have decided to go home.
Where we were there was two other stalls, one selling dog leads, dog collars and purses, the other selling jewellery.
And due to the lady selling the jewellery being rather fat, and her friend who turned up rather fat also, people couldn't get through to our stall! Their big butts blocked the gap and people were waiting for a minute then going when they couldn't get through.
Perhaps we still wouldn't have sold anything if we were elsewhere. At least we would have gotten a fair chance to do so though.
It was also really annoying watching the fat ladies sell stuff alllllllll frickin day. it was cheap, but also generic. I'm not just being jealous but our stuff was better, with love gone into it as opposed to a handmade factory production line thing.
Big thanks to Beth though for her ingenious use of poundland washing paraphernalia to display my clothes, I had too much anger to think in my normal make the best of it way.

Best of all there was never much of an apology from Kind, very indifferent and uncaring about the whole thing even though it was completely their fault!!!
So we are now looking at other places to go.

Two other things I made for the craft fair!

First pic is of a dirndl skirt (as I found out today, didn't realise it had an actual name!) which is basically an elasticated tube and takes about half an hour to make. I personally think the fabric is a little on the awful side of things but I'm a fan of black, black, polka dots, black, black, leopard print and err more black! Colour and pattern freak me out a bit, I feel messy if I'm wearing more than two colours (one having to be black).
Second pic is a halterneck top in daisy print, basically just a shortened version of the dresses I've been making. I was really pleased with myself whilst making this as I didn't have to look at the instructions at all, it's been granted a slot in my brain to remember forever!! I do like the pattern though, I might even sneakily make myself one, probably just a top rather than a dress, will look good with shorts, unlike my legs haha!