Handy Andi

My charity shop find that I re-upholstered with stupidly expensive fabric.

Possibly my greatest achievement this year was re-tiling my en suite floor. The original flooring was seriously ming (as pictured below) so I took matters into my own hands... Cutting the tiles and applying the sealant gave me many sleepless nights but I think it was worth the sweat and tears.

Before... (blurgh!)

After...!

Record Breakers!

I do believe we have beaten last year's number of posts! Woo hooo!

The above is not craft related at all but I thought you'd appreciate it! This is a game that I played at one of my many hen parties this year. The actual game sucked but I LOVED the box cover and general principle!

Rowan's Birthday Treats!

For Rowan's birthday this year, Flegg and I bought some cakes from the Hummingbird Bakery in Soho. The top cake is a slice of Red Velvet which was AMAZING!! The little square boob is a cheesecake topped brownie - ridiculously rich!

Show me heaven

These are basically little cups filled with chocolate ganache served with puff pastry plaits. So simple but so tasty!

Return of the Mac (Donalds fiend)

Ladies, I am back! I'm sorry it's been so long!! Feels mighty good to be back in action too!

I made this bag for my friend's 30th. The beautiful leather is courtesy of Anya Hindmarch and I bought the broach pin from a vintage shop.

Hey Joe

The 'knitivity' for my friend Leah grows by one this year! Mary now has a boyfriend, isn't he dashing with his wrap around beard..?!

Slightly more highbrow literary tastes
than Mary...

Close up (I made a lot of mistakes on this
somehow, you can see here he has no shoes
on the bottom of his feet.  Poor Joseph...)

Are any of you (obviously I am just talking to you really S-te, certainly not you AND) using this new thing (I don't know what it's called) / way of writing a post that looks different but is so much easier and I can now write a post without getting angry..?!

I knitted this for my cousin Alec and Claire's baby girl who was born on 5/12/11. I finished it that morning. Only taken about 5 months - I started before Nathaniel was born. It has been a SLOW process. Nathaniel is modelling but I posted it today so hope it can be modelled by Baby Irving soon. Nathaniel just about melted when I put it on him in our 25 degree heat. It should keep her warm in Wintery England at any rate.

Maxi-bon

Not craft in any way (well my mum did knit that hat), but I thought I should share the vintage love I have for my new kilt with y'all.  Charity shop find (obvs), it was £5!  And it's PROPER.  Buckles, pin etc etc.  Fits like it has always been mine, I wore it for the first time today.  Clearly it looks mad but I like to think I am channeling Vivian Westwood...x

Pud

I've been doing the tiniest amount of Christmas knitting, feels like there is no time this year!  I found this pattern for my friend Sarah Puppy who requested a Christmas pudding hat ages ago.  She will finally be receiving it this year.  It looks good here but is actually a weird shape in real life.  I had to chop the top off and knit it again because it was too pointy!  Big up to Rowan who gave me the skillz to knit two colours at once!

Mum

For my mum x

Cornish Crafting

Was back in the Corn for a week and OBVS did some crafting (and bought a rapper - do you remember the rappers in the beach shop?  They were reduced to £2, how could I resist..?)

Beginning the pasty dans le corn

Leaving present for my friend Fiona.
Made her cry, result.

My mum has been making for my
cousin's new baby Ryan
(I made him the pixie hat!) but
refusing to model... 

Cordially Invited

My friend Ruth's mum (Judy!) made us some elderflower cordial.  It was so much better than the stuff you can buy.  Gone in 60 seconds, just like Nicolas Cage.  

Ruth modelling said cordial

Before...

Time for Tea (Towel)

This is the first of (hopefully) many tea-towel themed crafts. I made it the week before Nathaniel was born. It is not perfect - where 4 meet it is a bit bumpy but the next one will be better. If I ever have time to craft again that is.

A Cornish Pasty from a Cornish Maid.

Here is Nathaniel Black Wolf enjoying his pasty rattle. I really love it Flegg, Thanks! He will love it too when he can hold things :o) And I promise to supervise to ensure he does not rip it open and swallow the bell. :o)

This is the pixie hat (a la Rose) and booties knitted for his journey home from hospital - which of course never happened. He's 2 days old in this picture. So - I hope you girls are crafting, I obviously have a backlog of baby related posts now that the model is here - but I want to see your efforts!
xxx

Rowan's Robert Rabbit!

Here is Rowan's awesome Robert Rabbit, who is as big as Nathaniel. And the Midwife used him to demonstrate a pinless way to fold a cloth nappy. So he is a multipurpose demonstration bunny! Thanks Ro! x

BBW Blanket

Obviously I have a new obsession, and every post for the next wee while will have the lovely Nathaniel modelling some piece of knitted craft.
For most of the pregnancy I was pretty sure he was a boy - confident enough anyway to knit a blue blanket!

Baby Black Wolf and the Labour Day Marmalade

So, on Friday morning (19/08/11) I woke up and thought I might be having contractions but I wasn't really sure, and it was going to be a crazy day with everyone arriving, so I didn't want to be! So I decided to make some marmalade that I had been meaning to make all week. And so this is the Labour Day Marmalade, limited edition (6 jars), Grapefruit, Lemon and Orange. It is a bit more set than it should be, but still tastes good and hey, I was in labour! How mental. Also here is BABY BLACK WOLF, now known as Nathaniel Ward Collins. We are still making decisions about his middle name....

Lots of love, ST xx

All Spun Out

This is a joint ball of yarn spun by Georgie and myself. We went to Nikki's house and tried her spinning wheel. Georgie was a natural and I got better as I went along. It reminded me of drumming - having to do one thing with your feet and another with your hands...

Alison's Goodies.

This is the awesome cardi and hat Rachelle's mum Alison made for Baby Black Wolf. How choice is that?! It fits him perfectly now, just in time for Winter :) And look how happy he is to be wearing it!

Owlie

This is Owlie, which is one of my pottery efforts. Basically the only one so far that is not so shit I can't put it on here. And even Owlie is borderline. Owlie is glazed with Terrasigilata made from our clay in the paddock. It is a sort of tea-light candle or maybe incense holder. Very practical! I am still waiting for most of the things I made as the kiln was not working.... have not had the pots made from our clay fired yet. Pottery has now finished but starts again the week BBW is due. I have been told just to come and bring the baby along - not sure if that will work in real life but we'll see! In other craft news, I am half way through the baby blanket... and have knitted a pixie hat (a la Rose) and booties (very similar but different to the EASY ones) for BBW, but I will wait now until s/he is born and then I'll have a model! I'll also post Rowan's awesome bunny she has made then. Rose and I are hatching plans to attend the Northland area Creative Fibre retreat in November if she can get up here, which sounds really fun.
Yours in craft.
St xxxx

Hand Made

Georgie and I went to Wellington's Hand Made extravaganza. This is us sitting in the knitting lounge - especially for Steph so she can keep up her friend crush. :)



So, Hand Made was a whole load of classes on everything crafty. The idea of a craft class terrifies me and true to my terror, as soon as I got into my class on making socks I immeadiatley forgot how to cast on and then dropped all my stitches. After that disaster, I managed to recover myself and to make a miniature sock (see below). In theory I can do all the sock making stuff now. The reason I like Georgie so much is that as soon as she got into her making cushion covers class she broke the needle on the sewing machine! (And then also recovered herself and made some sweet as cushions.)



I also did a course on how to make a Fraisier - a french cake with layers of sponge, fruit, cream and then piped with meringue. All excellent life skills...

Fascinating Rhythm

Final Hen Weekend done! There was much crafting done for both but I forgot to take any photos of the efforts for the first one. Above is the bride Rachel who is marrying a policeman and hates fancy dress. I made her an extremely tasteful police hat fascinator (from the top of a roll on deodorant). She wore it all night, but probably because she was very drunk. The next day we had the hens around to our flat for a 'pink picnic'. I made the cookies above, the picture is misleading because they actually look okay, they were the only acceptable ones, the others looked like they'd been made by a child. The most impressive 'make' for that day was the decoration, me and Ruth tented out the front room completely (I dyed my parachute pink!), it looked like a womb.

Cheesymate Swirls

My mate Ruth made me cheesy marmite swirls after I told her of my INTENSE SADNESS at not being able to buy cheesymite whirls in England. They are my new favourite snack. Needless to say I ate the tubfull. Above you will notice a lovely photo of Ruth 'presenting' them to me!

The White Stripes

This is the first actual completed item I have made for Baby Black Wolf. It is made from ends of balls of wool so is just random stripes, which is OK, but next time I would plan it more I think. I finished it ages ago but didn't sew it up til now, in my usual style. I am now knitting a blanket but obviously that is taking ages, although Flair I don't want to kill myself yet. Ten weeks to go so I have a deadline!

Lady Marmalade (has that title already been used?)

This is the mandarin marmalade I made from the rejects. Using the Sweet Orange recipe from the Edmonds. And that bread is homemade too. The last pick of the season is this Saturday - can't say I am sorry to see the end of mandarin sorting...but I am not sick of eating them yet. BBW will probably come out orange. I have about ten every day. In July the oranges will be ripe so it will all start again....

Reject Kiwi Chutney

This is the kiwifruit chutney I made yesterday. In it are bananas from the orchard and rejected golden kiwifruit from the packhouse up the road, courtesy of Richie's Uncle. I don't know why they are rejects, they look perfect to me. This is a view from our deck. You can see the sheep and the cattle, and that tree behind the chutney is a mountain pawpaw. I am excited about that fruiting!

Dan's Hat and other purchases

I have not been very busy on the craft front lately BUT I have been shopping up a storm.

I bought some new boots. This photo really does not do them justice. They are blue suede and ridiculously comfortable and lovely. And they were quite expensive.

I also bought a new coat. From a shop in Napier. I tried it on about 3 months ago but because the price tag was ridiculous I didn't give it a second thought. Until last week when I rung Mum to see if it was still there! It was. And I now own it - even though it hasn't made it down to Wellington yet. The coat is by this lady and I will post some pictures when I get it. Its the most expensive thing I own and I cant wait to wear it!

http://www.paulacoulthard.co.nz/

I did make brother Dan a hat though. I dont know if he will wear it after all that because he is more of a slouchy hat kind of guy but I think it looks great!

Mooooooesli

Look what I made Stephanie, your microwave muesli! Here it is in disguise amongst the real cereal! Stephanie made muesli when I was in New Zealand which I talked about everyday (and probably every day since), it is the best cereal I have ever eaten! I shouldn't really post it yet cos I haven't tried it with milk, just while it was so boiling it will burn your mouth. It tasted pretty good then! Can you even IMAGINE how excited I am about breakfast tomorrow morning? Unless you have tried this you CANNOT.

ps. Steph, I went to a 'natural food shop', wandered around for ages and left with some fudge. So it basically doesn't have all of the right ingredients.

"je joue au babyfoot"

Stephanie's favourite baby gift combo has been put to good use here, everyone is having a baby! I knitted a yellow set for Baby Thomas and this 'petrol' set for Baby Noah. Beautiful Baby Noah is modelling the booties below...

Saucy

One of my birthday presents from my friend Ruth, chocolate sauce that tastes as fattening as I look right now. In a lovely jar and then (down below) in 'action'!