The Craft Cupboard

Today I decided that my 'craft cupboard' had actually become somewhat of a hazard. When the door was opened, an avalanche of fabric, yarn, paints, stamps and buttons fell in the general direction of... well, everywhere! Tidying it was actually quite rewarding, as I began to realise I have actually accumulated quite a good lot of 'stuff'. I like it when I have an idea, and then can say 'I have just the thing for that!' Trouble is with that logic, is space. It uses quite a lot of it!
But a few days ago I decided that the Little P and I would make a card for her Gran's Birthday, and I was pleased to say 'I have just the thing for that!' Ok, so getting the crafty boxes out with the Little P was a bit hectic to say the least, and there were only a couple of major incidents, one involving a button spillage and another throwing clear cling stamps everywhere... but by the end we had made a card. I was quite chuffed actually, for a spur of the moment thing. I used Distress Inks to make a background and then stamped the words 'Happy Birthday Gran' on the top. The Little Lady then stuck pretty paper flowers on, followed by buttons. She loved the craft boxes and had a great time wading through stamps and paper and buttons. Hopefully I may pass this craft addiction on to her and we can have 'crafty time' together!
It was good to have a sort out, as the cupboard was getting a bit, well... full. I do love my crafting, obviously crochet is my número uno, but I'm dead excited about getting to use these too...

Yep, that's a couple of Lino blocks and equipment I need to have a go at making my own Lino block stamps. I've never done it before, but keen to have a go! I've just got to print off the image I want to try then when I get the time (as ever! - crochet time is priority!) I will give it a whirl.
I finished the owl square cushion last week too, very pleased with it, and so is Little P, who is constantly dragging it around and playing games with it. I love the little owl squares, and the fact I could explore my DK cotton-based stash and use a whole load of different colours. I'm not sure I would like to make a blanket of those squares though, as there are a lot of ends to sort out, it's much better when you can just hide them away! It seems the Mollie Makes crew liked the squares too, as Gathered magazine featured a picture of mine in their 'readers makes' page and Simply Crochet magazine picked it as their 'square of the week' on their Facebook page. Thank you for the owly love! It's lovely to see something I've made liked by people at magazines I really enjoy reading, it's really rewarding. I must credit the pattern to Repeat Crafter Me - its great and very easy to follow.

I've also been hammering the rainbow granny stripe blanket. I'm now on the final colour! So then I need to plan what to do with the edge. I'm not sure whether to keep it neutral with cream, or whether to add colour in with the cream to make it a bit more interesting.

Whilst emptying the cupboard earlier, I found the cushion cover I made at the beginning of the month at the sewing machine course. I thought I'd take this opportunity to show it off! It really is a very basic envelope style cushion cover, and not in my colour choices, but the fabric was already cut and ready for us to use. But it's not about that at all, it doesn't matter how it looks, what matters is I made it! My very first sewing machine project! I really enjoyed the course and learning to use the basic functions of a sewing machine and overlocker. I really did love the overlocker, but it looked so complicated, how on earth do you thread one of those up?! So without further ado, here is my baby -

Notice the ric-rac detail. For a complete novice seamstress, keeping a straight line down the middle of that stuff was very tricky! I never really thought about the construction of things like that before, so it was great to see how to make something like that, and very useful too. Hopefully that cushion cover will be the start of a whole new world of creation. When the course ended, we obviously had to go and buy some fabric to give it another go on our own at some point. We found a lovely little shop and I bought a metre of fabric and a couple of fat quarters (Amy Butler fat quarters to be precise!). So I'm just waiting for an opportunity to have another go at something on a sewing machine - my friend's craft room is up and running, I shall be visiting it later for a sneak peak - and I'll also drop a hint about using her machine! Of course I'd love my own, but current circumstances do not allow for this, and I'm not sure it would fit in my craft cupboard even though I have cleared it up a bit!

Right, must be off, a little hooky time before popping to see the craft room in all it's glory!