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!


Thursday 26 April 2012

Fairies are appearing!

Hello!!

A welcome to new followers too, lovely to meet you.  90 woohoo! I'll be having a giveaway when I reach 100 but you'll have to wait and see what it will be because I'm not telling  :-)

Busy week for the Jubilee Cottage! On my last post I was saying how I'd made it twice last week to re-list as two had sold, well I've sold another three since then so three more made this week!


Just finishing up another one at the moment, sewing it together tonight. So that kept me busy!

It was the Maker's Market craft fair on Sunday, the first in the new location and the genius idea of holding it in a pub :-) I mean, who can argue with that idea! So I had new stock to make for that too, I had almost run out of the hanging mushrooms so I made a new batch.


I also made a few new felt heart keyrings, forgot to take a pic of those but they are just simple little stuffed hearts so you get the idea!

The fair went really well, not a huge amount of people yet but word is still getting around that we're there now. However it was a good day and I made a few sales including a mushroom cottage so all good and I was in profit :-) I forgot my camera so no pics of the stall I'm afraid but I promise to try to remember for the next one next Sunday! Lots of gorgeous stalls there, I find it impossible to not end up buying something when there's so many great stalls around and this was no exception. I bought the cutest stuffed cat hanger that hangs by it's tail from door handles, it's fabulous!



These were made by a lovely man and his grand daughter, you should have seen the patchwork he did, just wonderful. It took me ages to pick which cat as he had lots in different fabrics :-)

The Fairy Fair is next Saturday as well as the next Makers Market on the Sunday so I have a busy week ahead making more stock. Obviously fairies are appearing! I have been fiddling about coming up with a pattern for a fairy I like that is simple. I used the body and skirt from a freebie pattern I found ages ago and then designed the rest to look how I wanted her to. Took a few attempts but I came up with this,


I plan to make a whole group of these little fairies in different colours :-) I knitted a hanging elf too.


So a week of fairies, elves, gnomes and mushrooms awaits, which makes me happy :-)

Have a great week everyone!


Wednesday 18 April 2012

I seem to be coming over patriotic this week!

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

This week has been the usual mad mix of making that is my life! I started off with a hanging mushroom decoration that was a custom order. I was asked for a lime green door, tulips, lots of hearts, a gingerbread man, cupcakes in green cases and hearts for the spots! A lot for a little mushroom but not for a bigger one so a bigger one it became. I used little heart buttons to make some bunting around the roof and for the gingerbread man's buttons and a black bead for the door handle. It's bigger than the usual and measured 6 x 6 inches.


So that went on it's way to it's new home :-)

I've made two Jubilee Cottages this week too as it sold twice! It makes me very happy to send away my mushrooms to new owners, it always gives me a thrill to know people will pay for my creations :-)


I'm off Sunday to the craft fair. It's moved location since last month due to the council causing problems with the venue we were in and now is in a pub (yay!) called The Alexandra in Sunderland. So I've been making some keyrings for my stall. St George's Day is Monday so I thought flags would be good.


These are the same both sides. Then I moved on to Union Jacks and came up with these,


the middle one is the reverse side of them. I'm thinking maybe pink ones or something now........

Today I've started to knit fairies, I have a Fairy Fair at the start of next month and plan to have plenty fairies, gnomes and elves done for that which will be fun!

So it seems that there is a theme for this weeks makes and it's all patriotic :-)

Have a great week!

Wednesday 11 April 2012

Finished 3D cottage and the craft room is done!

Hello to my new followers and of course the rest too  :-)
Hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend and the weather was better than we had here, rain and cold and more rain :-( Still I didn't go anywhere so it didn't really matter!

Had a busy weekend though as on Friday morning I decided to finally sort the craft room/room where everything ends up getting chucked if it has no home. This was no small undertaking I can tell you! Over the space of the four days I got 5 big bags for the charity shop and the same in rubbish. The huge wardrobe that lived in such a small room and took up half of it was smashed up and chucked out. Then the boyfriend was despatched in with a paint brush and tin of white paint. Monday I finished off by rearranging the furniture and tidying everything away and now it's fabulous :-)


The big box on the floor will disappear as soon as I can get through all the cross stitch mags in it and file the charts away!


the leaning tower of wool boxes, it's four huge boxes piled up and Poppy and Daisy have claimed  basket of fabric on top as a new bed!



So here's the end result, waiting for me to make some bright colourful things to decorate the walls. I'm thinking crochet flowers for a start and some of the finished cross stitch that I had no room to hang...... oooooh Vin Diesel! I still have to frame him and that would be perfect! Just found him on my blog post HERE so you can see him in all his glory :-) Embarrassing that I finished him in February last year and still he's not framed though, hadn't realised it was that long ago!

I also finished off the 3D cottage, yay! That was a real pig to stitch together, the stitched pieces are wrapped around plastic canvas to make them rigid and I now have a hole in my finger end off pushing the needle through the plastic too many times! However it does look good and I'm happy with it as well as happy to be finally finished! So a ta-da moment.......


the front....


side....


back complete with bench, tiny watering can and basket of flowers....


and the other side. I do love these cottages but think it might be a while before I make another :-)

I'm off then, busy making a custom order for a mushroom decoration that needs finishing.

Have a great week!  




Thursday 5 April 2012

Lots of gorgeous post and it's ami swap time!

Hello :-)

Hope everyone has sunshine back again after the cold and snow of this week and  I thought I was being a pessimist last week in the gorgeous weather when I thought 'we'll pay for this!' lol!

Well this week has been interesting. I was out on Saturday night with all my family for my parents golden anniversary, posh hotel for dinner, ooo fancy! Then I was up all night and ill all Sunday throwing up so I guess it wasn't that fancy, lol! Turns out it was only me that was ill so I have no idea if it was a bug or something I ate but not fun. Luckily it didn't last and I was fine again Monday :-)

So while feeling awful and trying to stay focused I had an order for a Tulip Cottage to get stitched and posted for Monday morning. I made it! I loved the red door that was requested, I hadn't thought about red for a door as there was so much red with the cap of them but it looked good.


Lots of tulips around the garden and purple climbing flowers round the door.....



I also made another Jubilee Cottage for a customer, I do like stitching that one :-)


Now I'm back to the 3D cottage I'm cross stitching, it seems to be taking ages to get done but the walls are stitched and I'm onto the roof then I just have to build it! Here's a progress picture so you can see how much detail is in it with all the backstitch and French knots.


The bit at the top that looks like a barcode is the start of the thatched roof!


It's getting there! 


Ami swap was this week too yay! For those who don't know this it's a swap I do at the start of every month with the lovely Steph over at Show and Tell. We have been doing this for a couple of years now and it's always brilliant to get lovely presents every month :-) So This month Steph sent me this gorgeous pink sheep, isn't it so cute! Also a little bunny, very sweet and a little stitched friendship cushion with gorgeous beads around the edge. Thanks so much Steph it's fabulous! 



and this fabulous card too, it's the sheepish sheep, lol!


I sent Steph this cute bunny and chick and embroidered card. 


This was the first of these bunnies I made, it turned out so cute I made another for my Etsy shop :-) I can see more bunnies in the future! 



Got a lovely surprise this week too from Laura with a Easter pressie arriving! Thanks Laura! She sent me the cutest little blue birdy with a sweet tuft of hair, three gorgeous stitch markers and a bag of Creme Eggs :-)  


Two lovely cards too from the lovely Helen and Laura.


And if that wasn't enough gorgeous post I got this! My lovely friend Jeanne in Canada made me this fabulous business card case...............


Isn't it perfect for my cards? I was amazed that this is the first felt thing she has made, wow! It's gorgeous! It's been a great post week :-) 

Whoa, that was a lot of stuff! So that's me for the week,  have a good Easter everyone!

Now back to the cottage building.......