There’s a Project afoot

Hi there everyone 😃

It’s been a good old while since there has been anything crafty going on over here … not that there haven’t been projects buzzing around my head.

For a while now I’ve wanted to update the contents of a large photo frame with multiple apertures. For ages it’s been filled with photos from a trip to Heligan, a beautiful garden in Cornwall.

I wanted to make it a bit more personal and reflective of our own garden over the summer months.

I started off thinking I would fill it with watercolours that I’d done myself and started out with these echinacea …

… and some Roses …

… and some leaves

Well … for some reason I had a bit of a change of heart and thought I’d mix it up a bit … starting with a bit of a garden landscape made from fabric. I wasn’t particularly wanting it to look like the garden, as I thought that would be a bit tricky, but to just reflect the colours of our garden over the summer months.

It was time to get the scrap box out …

… and take a photo of the garden to see what I was looking for … I have only just taken the photo, so it’s more a reflection of autumn than summer, but I can remember the bits that have changed …

I was thinking of building up fabric strips in rows to reflect the colours of the garden … so starting at the bottom with earthy tones, moving up through greens for the grass and foliage, then purples and hot pinks for the flowers, with splashes of white and yellow, going back to greens for the tree canopy and then blues and whites for a summer sky … here is my first go at laying our the fabrics …

Straightaway I could see I needed to condense it down a bit if I wanted it to fit the largest aperture in the frame …

So I squished it all up a bit to fit the gap …

It was time to get out the sewing machine and have a go at stitching the pieces together, I did deliberate for a while over whether to seam them together or whether just to overlap the raw edges … in the end I opted for seaming. This did make it a bit tricky getting the spacing right and I did end up having to drop a couple of the pieces as it would have been too big. After I’d finished it and pressed it I had a go at playing with some of the decorative stitches on my sewing machine and I’m quite pleased with the final result, though some of the strips are a little wrinkly …

So I’ve just got three gaps left to fill in my frame now … need to get my thinking cap on for what I can fill those with 😃

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Creating :: Art Class in a Box #3 ... The Winter Wreath

Hi there everyone 😃

It was Saturday a couple of weeks ago and  the forecast was a shocker ... heavy rain all day ... not only was the forecast a shocker it was spot on ... it was definitely not a gardening day?

I decided I was going to make the most of it and started off by getting my favourite ginger cake in the oven, before getting the dining table set up for a watercolour session ...

We’d been waiting for the right time to crack on with the next of the projects from our January Art Class in a Box and it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

This was the project I was most looking forward to completing ... and was the one that had really driven me to buying the kit ... the winter flower wreath ...

I was really drawn to the colours ... though I have to say that what I ended up with wasn’t quite as planned.

We traced the design onto our paper and, as we hadn’t done any florals before, we started off with a bit of a practice ...

It’s only our third attempt at water colours and already we’ve learned that how ever things look early on you need to stick with it ... as it’s only when you’ve finished you can really see how you’ve done ... if it doesn’t look quite right there are ways and means of pulling it back ...

The roses were a bit tricky and the colour of the petunias wasn’t quite right ... a bit too red ... but once we started to put the leaves in it did start to come together ...

I was quite chuffed with the final result ...

As was Martin ... who had been really frustrated with his first petunia and was almost on the edge of packing in or starting again ...

We just have one project left to complete ... the duck ... which looks pretty tricky, but who knows ... we’ve done all right so far.

I have to say it is the most relaxing way to spend an afternoon ... we just got all set up, stopped and started the YouTube tutorial and took our time.

We have had another play since ... working through a few Youtube tutorials ...

We’d definitely made the best of a bleak and miserable day and there was still ginger cake to be sampled 😜

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Creating :: The Crochet Blanket Ta-dah

Hi there everyone 😀

It's been a good while since I've done a totally crafty post and this one has certainly been a long time coming.

Inspired by Attic 24's Harmony Blanket I started this project in June 2017 and I am so pleased to finally be able to say 'Ta-dah'.

My epic journey started off with a hunt through my yarn stash which seemed to be turning into quite a collection, with no real plans for using any of it, to see if I had enough already to make my own version of Lucy's Harmony Blanket.

After a good play I managed to find 13 colours which I felt could blend together well and decided to give it a go ...

I started out fairly full of enthusiasm and by November of 2017 had got all my squares up to the third row and it was looking good ...

In May 2018 I was still plodding on and the blanket accompanied me to my first local craft morning ...

By the time I'd got all of the squares up to the fifth row it was April 2019 ...

I decided I would try something new and have a go using the join as you go method for the final row of all of the squares and there was lots of laying out on the dining room table ...

... until I found a design I was happy with ... deciding to go with a kind of a colourwash ...

The join as you go method for linking the squares together worked an absolute treat ...

... and in what seemed like no time at all they were all joined together ...

... and looking very neat ...

I opted for a fairly simple, but wide, border, using my favourite of the blanket colours ...

I did make a bit of a 'schoolgirl error' with my border ... completing it in the same size hook as I had used for the squares. Whilst all started out well ... as I completed more rows of the border it did tighten up so made the blanket difficult to lay totally flat without the corners curling up. I understand that if I'd used a bit of a larger hook I may have been able to avoid this.

The blanket then sat in a bag by the sofa until last week when I decided that it was time to darn in the ends and finally ... nearly four years from starting out I had my 'Ta-dah' moment. I now have myself a hand made crocheted throw and I have to say I am quite proud of it ...

I'm not quite sure what my plans are for it but I do know that I love it and it is really snuggly when curled up on the sofa watching TV ... especially on these seriously cold nights we've been having of late. 

I'm not sure what my next crochet project will be ... but whatever it is ... I hope it doesn't take as long to finish as this one did 😀

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Photo Scavenger Hunt :: January 2021#1 Gifts

Hi there everyone 😀

I’ve really enjoyed taking part in Kate’s photo scavenger hunt challenge over on I live, I love, I craft, I am me and fully intend to try and join in for 2021.

To start the year off, instead of the usual monthly challenge, January’s scavenger hunt will be a weekly one, so I hope to be able to find something that fits in with the theme each Friday

The first word is ‘gifts’ so here we go with my first contribution for 2021 ...

Having retired from work in January 2014 I soon fell back in love with crafting ... inspired by a friend I started off having a go at making jewellery.

In January 2015 I shared the first post of the ‘50 things I want to do before I’m 60’ series. The first thing on the list was ... "to make hand made Christmas and Birthday gifts" ... it seemed the ideal outlet for all the bits I was making.

These beaded bracelets were the first of my home made gifts made for everyone for Christmas 2014 ...

I soon ran out of people and occasions to gift them for and needed to come up with something else ... and so began a hobby that has stayed with me since. I love making things as gifts and here are some of my favourites ... starting with a selection of things that I made for Christmas 2015 ...

I have been lucky enough to have had friends and family who have had babies over the last couple of years and these are ideal opportunities for gift making ...

As the babies grow to toddlers then I've hunted out new things to have a go at ... this matching pairs game I made for my nephew is a real favourite ...

... and he did go through a bit of a robot phase ...

It's not just babies and children though ... I have made a few random bits for grown up friends too ... including this tea cosy which is still in use today ...

... and this is the first go I had at a paper piecing pattern which I used to decorate a bag that I made for my Goddaughter ...

I didn't actually make that many hand made gifts, other than for babies, in 2020 ... so when my sister-in-law added a knitted headband to her Christmas list it was just the nudge I needed to start scouring Pinterest and get the crochet hook out ...

Sorry that I've took a bit of a ramble with this one and there are so many photos, but as I'm fairly new to the scavenger hunt I thought it might be a good opportunity to let you all know a little bit about me and what I get up to.

Next week's word is 'New' ... and I can guarantee that I won't have much to share with you at all, but I really hope that I can find something ... you never know, I might surprise myself 😀

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2019 - A Year in Crafts

Hi there everyone 😀

I know I've shared bits and pieces of the things that I've made over the course of the year, both here and on Facebook, with some on my Hand Made at Number 27 page. I thought it would be nice to just bring them all together again for a bit of an annual round up ...

January to March
It's always nice and quiet for Hand Made at Number 27 in January so it's a good time to have a go at making something just for me. I decided that I would finally have a go at making something with mosaic and made a start at my January craft group and I'm really pleased with how it turned out ...
Inspired by my first attempt it wasn't long before I had another go ... this time it was more of a recycling project, using old tiles ...
There were also a couple of sewing days, making up plenty of reusable facewipes and peg bags for stock, another session making up beeswax wraps and a gorgeous snuggly baby blanket for a customer who had bought a sensory blanket from me in 2018 ...

April - June
The second quarter of the year was a busy one on the crafting front. With craft fairs on the horizon it was time to get busy making up lots of our best selling items ... more beeswax wraps and reusable face wipes, which have sold like hot cakes right across the year ... I'm really pleased that both of my best selling items are in line with our journey to zero waste ... long may it continue ...
As well as the popular old favourites I got to have a go a few new bits and pieces too ... some 'men's shirt' bunting, some little house key rings, where I had the chance to try out free motion machine embroidery and another two mosaic hearts ...
April saw our first of a number of craft fairs that we attended across the course of the year ...
Exciting news from my good friends, who became grandparents in the spring was another good cause for getting the sewing machine out ... and in May we were all delighted to welcome Emma Holly to the World ...
There was a bit of button art ...
... and time to have a go at something new for me, which didn't end up working out that well. It looked fine, but the soap bag just wouldn't dry out after use and using soap in the shower just left such a mess that it was abandoned as soon as it was started ... definitely a bit of a zero waste fail for us there ...
There was a totally unexpected and random order that I picked up from someone putting a call out on our local 'Spotted ...' Facebook page ...
Inspired by the Great British Sewing Bee I thought I'd have a go at making something to wear ... I think the least said about this project the better ...

And finally for this quarter ... do you remember this? Well it's been an ongoing project for about two years now but there was a bit of a spurt of progress ...


July to September
This quarter started off with a button art order picked up from our visit to the Lullington Open Gardens event with the craft stall, where we were blessed with glorious weather for a lovely couple of days ...
As seems to becoming the theme there were plenty more beeswax wraps and reusable face wipes made up ...
I tried a few new bits ... including fabric bookmarks ...
and ... after having fallen in love with all thing William Morris following a visit to Whitwick Manor ... I had another go at free motion machine embroidery when making these simple gift cards ...
There was time for me to finally make up some home made dish cloths for the kitchen ...
And ... though it seemed early ... it was time to start getting ready with a few Christmas makes ...

October to December
After our three week break on the Isle of Wight this quarter started off with some more card making ... this time using some positive 'self-affirmation' papers that I'd had free with a magazine ... trimmed up with bits of lace or ribbon. I'm really pleased with how professional they ended up looking ...
It was then time to start making for Christmas craft fairs in earnest ...

There were a couple of short notice Scrabble frame gifts made up which I don't seem to have photographed, along with a Christmas gift for Baby Emma ...
There were lots more beeswax wraps and reusable face wipes, including some larger sized ones, which continued to sell really well and are still doing so into 2020 ...
There were the regular Christmas gift tags, which are always popular ...
... and I added matching bookmarks to my William Morris cards ...
There was a bit of a last minute rush on Scrabble name tags ...
For me there was the 2020 calendar ...
... and my first ever Christmas wreath, made at the last craft group of the year ...
My very last crafty make of the year came in that quiet period between Christmas and New year when we finally decided to have a go at doing something with the candle ends we'd been saving across the year. We built up the courage to make some new candles and, whilst not perfect, we were both pretty pleased with how they turned out ...

Looking back I have been quite surprised at how much crafting I have actually done. I consciously decided not to do quite as much this year, concentrating more on attending monthly craft fairs than trying to sell on Facebook and it has actually gone pretty well.

I'm really pleased that my most popular makes for Hand Made at Number 27 are showing that more people are starting to think more about reusable options to replace single use and I love the fact that there has been a little bit of recycling in the mix too.

It's also nice to see that I've had chance to try a few new makes from my ever increasing list of things I'd like to have a go at ... as well as making a few bits for myself.

We are already booked in for plenty of craft fairs across the year for 2020 so I'm sure it will be another productive and crafty year 😀 I can't wait to get cracking!

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