Starry starry night

Well  it would be a starry night if it were not for the clouds and rain. Today I finished my christmassy felty garland. I love love loved making this. It was one of those projects which is quick to complete but requires enough effort that you feel you have accomplished something. It was also an excuse to get my sewing machine out. I find zipping things about on it relaxing and oh so fun!

So I started with some felt. This was perhaps the boring part. There is always a boring part is there not? I chose red and white mainly as there wasn't much of a selection in my local craft shop which was a surprise. I cannot be the only person in my little corner of west London who is making Christmas decorations from felt?

After making a template from some baking parchment I began chopping. The was a great deal of scissor action involved. Cutting out what felt like hundreds of pairs of felt stars.

Look at the neat piles of felt stars. Are they not full of the promise of Christmas!

Then began the sewing and the stuffing and the sewing again. First of all I zip nearly all the way round each one on the sewing machine leaving a small hole for stuffing. This took more time than in anticipated but was lots of fun. When the moomoos had her afternoon nap I sat on the sofa listening to radio four whilst I stuffed each star with toy stuffing until it was all chubby.

Once all the stuffing was complete it was back to the sewing machine to stitch up the stuffing holes. I then threaded the pretty stars onto lengths of red cotton. Don't they look pretty?

All of the red stars then had little bells sewn below them so that when they move they tinkle. They bells really were the perfect finishing touch.

Of course I hung them up right away.

I think I may make some more with a different motif. Maybe angels or Christmas trees. What do you think?

Now I am just sitting down with a cup of tea to write this post having just baked 35!!!! Yes THIRTY FIVE cupcakes! It is the pooks Christmas party at school tomorrow. He asked me to bake cakes for it late last week. I am sure I was distracted when he asked. I cannot think why I would think it a good idea to bake that many cakes but we did and here they are.

 The pook decorated them and I think he did a rather good job don't you?

Now to feed the children and get them off to bed. I am rather sleepy this evening and am looking forward to cosying up on the sofa to watch a film.

dec the halls with funny things made of felt.

Yesterday, the first day of Christmas, was very productive. After popping into Chiswick to pick up the photographs I had ordered to put in Mr B's wallet that we are giving him for his birthday I pad a visit to Turnham Arts and Crafts. I became slightly carried away by the array of crafty wonderfulness! In a first for me I exercised some restraint and only picked up what I had come on for which was red and white felt and also some little bells. You have probably guessed what I was planning to make.

In Novembers Mollie Makes they had instructions for making the most adorable Christmas decorations. These little felty beauties were too much the resist and I knew the moment I saw them that I would have to make some of my own.

Look are they not adorable?

Here are the ones I made. There are plans afoot to make many many more.

And some close ups for those who are interested in the scruffiness of my handy work :)

I played around with different embellishments.

Some worked better than others. I think my bells need a bit of work!

I was pleased with this one decorated with buttons. I need to find some more christmassy buttons to decorate future ones.



With all the decoration distraction I have done not one hooky stitch to my rainbow blanket. I wanted to finish it before Christmas which is seeming like the impossible task. I will try to get some done today between baking, cleaning and school Christmas fairs.

Hours pass by in the blink of an eye...

See I only meant to be gone a moment whilst I settle to moomoos and then finished my last post. However a few seconds turned into five whole days. I don't know where the time goes really. I seem to spend a great deal of time chasing my own tail attempting to keep up with things I am supposed to do, things I want to do and things I feel I should do.

Over the last five days I have atleast had a few stolen moments to add a couple of rows to my rainbow granny stripe blanket. It is really coming along. When I do have a moment to work on it I find it grows at an extraordinary rate. The rhymic speed of the pattern pausing only to change the colour of my yarn every so often.

Can you see all the ends I will have to weave in. Not one of my favourite jobs. I have considered teaching the pook to do it and then bribing him with chocolate!

Here is a couple of the moomoos enjoying the rainbow blanket.

She seems to love the stripey rainbow fun. I have attempted to keep the stripes random changing from one colour to another without following a pattern. It is really hard not to fall into a pattern though.

Also this week I attended the last print making class. I will be very sorry not to be attending this class every week anymore. I have really enjoyed myself and the other people on the course have all been a pleasure to work with. This week I set to screen printing bags and tea towels of christmas gifts. Here are a couple of them.

I love the combination of the blue print on the orange bag. Sadly I only printed one in this colour combination so will not have one to keep.

I also experimented with printing the motif in repeat on a bag and working in different colours. It was all wonderful fun! Maybe I should sign up for another six week course in the new year.

Now on my list of things to do today I need to find two secret santa gifts, bake two christmas cakes and source some felt to make pretty christmas decorations. This months Mollie Makes came with loads of beautiful ideas for christmas which made me very excited. I will have a hundred and one different projects on the go over the next few weeks.