Spring is in the air and so is my first craft fair of 2013.  It’s now time to make sure I have plenty of stock available!

One of my New Year resolutions was to do at least 4 craft fairs this year, I think one a quarter should do nicely.  So my first one at the beginning of March will hopefully coincide with a turn in the weather to a warm dry Spring!

The fair is being held at

North Manchester Reform, Elms St, Whitefield, Manchester, M45 8GQ (opposite Morrisons)

Sunday March 3rd from 10am – 3:30pm. 

Just in time for Mother’s Day and in plenty of time for Easter.  So do come along and say hello if you’re in the area.  I’d love to see you.

Happy crafting

x

I’ve had a busy run up to Valentine’s Day this year and thank all of my new and returning customers for their purchases. 

I took several orders for cards to be personalised for loved ones.  My favourite being this one below.

My husband even made a card for me this year!

I wish you all a Happy Valentine’s Day.

K x

That favourite spring celebration of all our Mums is fast approaching.  This year it’s Sunday 10th March.

I’ve been trying to get a head start on my Mother’s Day cards and my earlier launch of the hearts and flowers cards has helped.  But I really want to expand on these flowers, using other colours and materials rather than just paper.  I’ve experimented with more patterns already and the Papermania capsule collections make matching differing designs quite straight forward.  I love the simplicity of the single flower on a plain white card, with complementary hand drawn borders on the card, insert and envelopes.  However, I want to take this further.

Over the last couple of days I’ve been thinking about this and how I can use flowers more, particularly for Mother’s Day.  So I’ve been looking at my ever popular handbag cards and thinking about adding the flowers as embellishments on a collection of ‘designer’ handbags, just for Mother’s Day.

I also want to do some experiments with fabrics.  I bought some beautiful offcuts of vintage fabrics from Nathalie at the U in cute and I think these will make some stunning card embellishments.  I may take this one step further and turn the flower into a small brooch attached to the card, making both a card and gift in one!  I’d already been thinking about this for crochet and knitted flowers and hearts, however, I need to keep practicing my crochet (my first attempt at a flower was somewhat disappointing).

So I think it’s going to be a busy few weeks of making designer handbags and paper flowers, and practicing my crochet some more.  And added to my list for the future os to get out the needles, thread and fabric.  It’s got to be worth a few experiments!

Happy crafting

xx

Last weekend I finally found a couple of hours with little on the tv and no particular project to do.  So I hunted out my newly purchased crochet hook – bought for the princely sum of £1 from the Wool Stall on Bury Market.

Having watched the beginners crochet show on Create and Craft and read loads of advice, I was hoping to get a 4mm hook.  Alas I have been unable to find one, so I got a 3.5mm hook instead.  It’ll have to do for now!

I then had a root through my huge bag of yarn and plumped for a multi-colour dk yarn – very cheerful!  Out came my ‘learn to crochet’ book and my memory of the shows I’d recently seen on tv.

As a reasonably experienced knitter and with all the advice I’d had, I thought it would be intuitive, but I’ve found holding the hook quite difficult.  I started on the chain stitch.  It took a few efforts before I was happy with the appearance.  It’s true that having tight stitches makes it harder to thread the hook through, but finding a happy medium between too tight and too loose is proving frustrating.  For some reason the book moves striaght from the chain into treble crochet stitches, which seems strange to me as a novice – maybe it will all become clear later! Trying to understand where the put the hook through was interesting!!

I managed about an hour or so of stitching in all and had a small piece of crochet fabric to show for it.  (3 rows and 1 chain).  Next stop casting off – is it even called that in crochet and is it really as simple as threading the end of the yarn through the last loop?

Since then I’ve managed a few spare moments to keep practicing.  I took it to work on Wednesday and managed another couple of rows over lunch. And after an hour on Thursday I had a square of treble crochet!! What do you think?

And I now have a project in mind for my practice rows – 80s style bracelets for the 80s themed party I’m going to next weekend!  Bring on the New Romantic vibe – I have my outfit planned and I may even post a pic if it works out!!

Happy crafting

Kath  x

The winner of the prize draw for new followers is

Lyndsey Brumby

Congratulations Lyndsey.  Please have a look at my for sale gallery to choose your prize.

Thank you to everyone that has liked my facebook page and my website.