CLICK HERE FOR FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES, LINK BUTTONS AND MORE! »

Welcome to my blog!

I'm Lori and I love to craft. I cross stitch, knit and crochet and anything else that takes my fancy! I love to make amigurumi and other knitted and crocheted characters.
I live in the north east of England and when I'm not busy with thread or wool I love to read thrillers and watch things on the TV that make me laugh. I have a love of tattoos too and have quite a collection!


Monday 26 September 2011

What a mad busy week!

Sorry I've been a bit AWOL this week, it's been a busy one!

My boyfriend was off work for a weeks holiday so I wasn't left to my usual devices, not that I mind him being here of course but it does rather wreck your routine and they do get a bit underfoot, lol! So we had a couple of days out in the town looking around, not much happening there, some things never change, a lot of shops seem to be closing down lately. Guess everyone's broke!

We've also been busy in the house, we decided to re-do the kitchen. When I say re-do I mean tart it up a bit as a new kitchen is wayyyy too pricey. So we have two lengths of worktop propped up in the hall, the only room big enough to stash them, which I'm tripping over every five minutes! Then we trotted off to B&Q, bought some primer and and paint to do up the kitchen units and 14 handles too to change them.....
HAVE YOU ANY IDEA HOW EXPENSIVE HANDLES ARE????? I was stunned! £50 just for handles! That's the same as one of the lengths of worktop! For handles! Anyway, I'll take a deep breath and calm down now :-)

So we have half the kitchen cupboards painted now, gone from horrid orangey fake pine sort of colour to white and it looks way better already. The horrid blue marbley type worktops are out on Saturday to be replaced by said ones in the hall which are black marbley looking instead, vast improvement! I have no idea what they were thinking when the people who lived here before us picked that kitchen! I hated the blue worktops most of all as it's meant the walls have been yellow since we moved in 8 years ago. I mean other than blue which is more bathroom-ish and white which I hate on walls there wasn't much else it could be but yellow. So after the worktops are in and the cupboards are painted I'm painting it bright fuchsia pink :-)

Now the current problem is how to get the worktops from said hall to kitchen....... This really is a tough one! You see our house is tiny and lots of corners too so there is no way it's going through the house, they are just too long. So we thought the only thing is to take them back out the front door and round the back to the kitchen door. We live halfway down a terrace so not as simple as you might think, it means going down the street and round into the back lane. But then we have the same problem with too many tight corners and no way into the kitchen. It seems the only option at the moment is to cart them round the back and take the kitchen window out! Oh well, guess we'll find a way!

I have the before pictures and will show them with the after ones when it's finished :-)

I have a couple of crafty finishes this week, one is the ami for the swap so can't show that yet! But I made this for my shop


A glow in the dark ghost for Halloween! The white looking threads are the glow in the dark thread and it does work great, unfortunately my camera won't oblige and let me take a pic of the glow, it just takes a black nothingness so you'll have to take my word for it!

So I hope everyone had a great weekend that wasn't covered in paint, unlike me!

Don't forget the giveaway too, the draw will be made on Sunday

Wednesday 21 September 2011

A crochet ragdoll.....

Hello to everyone and welcome to my new followers, lovely to meet you :-)

Don't forget to enter my giveaway HERE if you haven't already! It's great to see so many entries so far!

So I've been busy making a new crochet rag doll this week. A new addition for my shop, here she is....


and from the back.....


Her petticoat is removable so this is her pretty dusky pink dress..


Hope you like her :-) 

Now I'm busy making an ami for the monthly swap with Steph, not telling what as she'll read this! All will be revealed in a week or so.........



Saturday 17 September 2011

It's giveaway time!

Hello hello to all my lovely followers :-)

I want to thank you for the lovely comments about my new venture into opening my shop on etsy, it's been really nice to know you support me and like my stuff, so thanks and hugs to you all!

So the giveaway is launched today for reaching 30 followers, although now it's gone up to 32 :-) Hello to my new friends!

So without further ado here's the giveaway prize.....


I made an amigurumi witch this week just for this giveaway. Hope you all love her! I thought that we're near Halloween and I love witches so a witch it is. Also one of my felt heart hangings that I've been making too for etsy.

So I hope you all will enter! Here's the rules, pretty straightforward really, you have to be a follower to enter and leave a message on this post too. That's it! If you want to mention the giveaway on your blog that would be lovely but I don't require it so it's up to you.
The names will be put in a hat and a winner will be drawn by my boyfriend on the  2nd of October so that's two weeks time. Good luck!

Thursday 15 September 2011

I've opened a shop on etsy!!


So this week has been busy! I decided that I would open up shop on etsy to sell my things and have spent days getting things sorted. Everything from photographs, which were tricky as the weather has been so dull and grey getting them light enough meant dashing to take a pic every time the sun came out for two minutes to weighing everything for postage costs and then converting all the prices to dollars. Now I have my first items up in the shop though and got all excited this morning when someone favourited my latest make! Here it is.....



pretty little felt hearts. I've enjoyed sitting stitching these so much I've done 21 so far, lol! Anyway the shop is  HERE so wish me luck!

Been busy making too, something for the giveaway which will start on Saturday so don't forget to come back and enter!


Sunday 11 September 2011

Woohoo!

I've hit 30 followers!! Thank you all for being here and listening to my ramblings!

This was my target for my first blog giveaway, I'll be making something for this and will launch the giveaway next weekend so watch this space :-)

Saturday 10 September 2011

Hazel's Wardrobe finished!! A few other things too...

Finished off the stitching this week, YAY! I love how this turned out and loved to stitch it with all the bright colours, here it is....


I'll sort out a frame and mount for it in a couple of weeks time and get it all framed up. 

So since this was done I've been busy, made a cute pair of teeny baby shoes for my Mam to give to her friend who's going to be a grandma. They are so small! 


After them I finally got round to knitting a pair of bedsocks for my Mam, she asked me months ago :-) So they are now finished too, I've had a productive week!


Now I'm playing with felt, I've had a few ideas for things to make including Christmas tree decorations so I'll see how they work out. I have a totally empty weekend ahead with nowhere to go so I'm going to have fun playing with my crafty stuff!




Sunday 4 September 2011

Village show results from yesterday :-)

Well this is the third post in three days!! That's a lot for me, lol! Guess I have a lot to show at the moment. So the local village show was yesterday afternoon and off I trotted with my entries. I showed some of the things a couple of weeks ago but here they are ready for the day.


The Christmas decoration category, I entered this holly hanging with a beaded tassel.  I got 2nd for this :-) 


Christmas card. My santa got no prize :-(


Any crochet item. I decided to enter my crochet Hello Kitty, made this ages ago but just grabbed it as an extra entry! Turned out to be a good move, it came 2nd and a lady bought her too! I was just standing looking at the other entries and she said 'what a shame they aren't for sale, I love this!', so I said 'it's for sale if you want it as it's mine!' So off kitty went to her new home :-)


Lastly my sampler which I framed and mounted all in white. This was in the embroidered picture section and I got 1st! Yippee! I won £11 in M&S vouchers, £5 for a first and two £3 for the second places, which I sold to my Mam as I don't shop in M&S, lol!

Oh yes, I won a bottle of wine in the raffle too :-) A pretty good haul!

Saturday 3 September 2011

The secret stuff I couldn't show before :-)

Now my friend Chris's birthday was yesterday and I can show the things I'd made for her over the last few weeks :-)

She's a fan of beach huts so I stitched some and then wondered what to do with them, I thought about a mini cushion, maybe a full size cushion.......... I settled on a tote bag though and here it is....


and a close up of the beach huts.....


I thought the blue ric-rac was a bit like waves and added some beach charms too. The lining is bright stripes like a deck chair!


Chris also loves pigs so I did this little hanging cushion of birthday piggy's...


I stitched a bookmark too...


and here's the card I made too.


So that's all the stuff I've been keeping back from showing! Happy birthday Chris!

Thursday 1 September 2011

Ami swap time!!!

First can I just say a big hello to my new followers *waves to my new pals* Lovely to see you! It also means I've crept closer to the big '30' followers which was my target for the first blog giveaway :-) Guess I better get busy making something for that then! Hope you'll all enter!

This week being the start of the new month means it's ami swap time!! So Steph was waaaaaay more organised than I was this time around and my parcel arrived last week to avoid the Bank Holiday whereas I was still crocheting away at the weekend, lol! Still I got it posted on Tuesday and now it's at Steph's place I can reveal them both.

This is what I got from Steph, Geraldine the psychedelic giraffe!!


Isn't she fabulous!! She has a little beaded bracelet and looks brilliant, thank you Steph I love her!  Now this photo had to be taken really quickly as Poppy one of my kittens has taken a real fancy to Geraldine. Here is what happened straight after this pic.....


Poppy appeared (look at her poor shaved patch, they were both neutered yesterday) and grabbed Geraldine, then.......


picked her up in her mouth to try to take her off and claim her! She's a bit too heavy though so I managed to grab her back when she dropped her and put her out of furry peoples reach. A few days ago she stole the gorgeous Hattie the monstie that Laura had made for me off the table. She was found in her favourite hiding place....my boyfriend's work boot, lol! She drops things in them and pushes them right into the toes so you can't see them :-)

Anyway...... back to the swap, I seem to have wandered off here! So, I sent Steph this.....


a hot air balloon! In the basket is a bear and a rabbit and,


another bear and a chick.


I'm pleased to say she loved it :-) Another wonderful swap, thanks Steph!