One I won't make again!!

This jumper is one of those things that looks nice till it's on! Shame as I love the idea of the collar but it didn't look right on so I shall not be following this pattern again.

Animal hand puppets

These are for the story sacks that we're making without a teacher - the story requires many animals and these are the ones I created for it. If you need help it's a goat, zebra and giraffe.

A little something for my new one!

I'm expecting a baby next month so have started filling gaps in the wardrobe for a newborn. I used matinee jackets a lot with Katie so assume I will do again. I don't know what sex the baby will be so being boring with white and tried making the pattern more interesting by using a moss stitch for texture. It's quite dinky!

Just look at that!!

Nothing yummier than a perfect looking home-made loaf.... mmmm....

New baby Joseph

Lisa, Joseph's mummy asked me to make him a rocket hanger for his carseat and while I was about it I made him a mobile too. Joseph was born in July.

Katie's new hat, well, it wasn't hers, but it is now....

What a beautiful model eh?

Olga's 30th Crochet hat

I taught myself to crochet this year, I am such an old lady now!! Ha ha!!


Olga was admiring the wool I was using for another project so I made her a hat for her birthday from it. This is my first completed crochet project - complete with flower. I absolutely love this and my mum wants me to make her one too!


Also, I think my balloon makes a splendid model!

Celebration cake

I went for black and white with this to make it more striking, we were all pleased with how it came out.

Lottie and Emily's cakes 2009

Lottie and Emily are my nieces, these are their cakes from last year. Emily turned 7 so I made a seven spotted ladybird (clever eh?!) and Lottie was a fairy princess....

Age related cakes - 2009

Courteney's birthday cake

Courteney likes cats....

Mala's Wedding Cake

Also the chocolate cake (it's a real winner!)

Mala wanted delicate chocolate hearts over the cake but she got married in the height of summer so unfortunately they kept melting!! I made the best I could, I think some of these more robust hearts melted too so the cake was decorated in a mixture of chocolate hearts and fresh jasmine. Lovely!

Izzy's 1st birthday cake

This is from last July. My special chocolate cake of course!! Yummy!

Lorraine and Matt's Wedding Cake - March 2009

Lorraine and I have been friends for more than half our lives and she is my bestest friend in the whole world. It was a pleasure to make the wedding cake for her and Matt when they got married last year, it was also a great culinary pleasure to try to create the best tasting chocolate cake ever to present to them as their gift from me.

Matt was married in his US Army whites (forgive me if I get the terminology wrong!) so a traditional English bride and groom topper would not have done. I actually commissioned a woman to make me a lego bride and groom in order to show off his whites, sword and his special black pointy shoes!! I hope these photos do it justice.

Lorraine and I on her big day:

Cutting the cake:

Close up:

Last year's cakes - Jacob's Christening

I loved this cake!! It's a vanilla sponge and a fruit cake with traditional icing and all the trimmings including hundreds of blue Smarties. Martin and I heroically undertook the task of eating all the other coloured Smarties - which was no mean feat!!

I am honoured to be Jacob's Godmother too so it was a pleasure to make this for him and his guests. Note the shot glasses full of Smarties to seperate the two tiers.

Marissa's 2nd birthday present.

It's the start of the birthday season!! We're off to another party this morning, just enough time to put an image on here of the cardigan I made Marissa. I've made this cardigan a few times now, it's a trusty favourite!! I am not too happy with the quality of the yarn, but I'm allergic to wool so it is a little limiting when searching out colours.

Anyway, it will certainly keep her warm and that's it's main purpose!

NB. I realise I need to edit the pictures a little better but I've run out of time with this one!

Jacob's Dennis the Menace jumper. Happy 2nd Birthday little man!

My little godson was 2 yesterday and we had a wonderful party at the local leisure centre with our little creche of friends! There were bouncy castles and little bikes and cake (most importantly!) and all kinds of wonderful things for the under 5s and over 30s. I particularly liked it when Martin and Dave Foord were throwing themselves around in the bouncy castle and doing back flips when they thought no-one was watching, then grabbing their daughters to justify their playing on there! Silly daddies!!

I didn't quite finish this present for Jacob in time but I am seeing them again today and so I am sure they will forgive me. I hope it fits him, if not I have chosen a classic theme...

Goth/pirate jumper

I designed this myself and am chuffed to bits with it!! Should fit 3-4 years - shall have to wait a while to see if it is too big for the intended child though.

New baby tank top

Armish puzzle ball.

I'm not sure how authentic this is! I've put a little bell in this too to make it a lovely toy for a baby.

Goldilocks and the three bears

I've been attending a course making Story Sacks at our local family centre with a group of other mums over the last few weeks. Now we no longer have a course instructor we are still meeting and making our own story sacks for the centre so that the children can play with them and encourage them to read with the help of puppets, games and other props that we create.

These are my bears for the story of Goldilocks and the three bears. Goldilocks is currently bald as I have no yellow wool for her hair!!

First knitted cardigan

For Katie, for the summer. I used self-patterning wool which makes itself stripey, very clever and I really like the effect.

Nice action pose eh?

I meant it to be this size....

This one took me a while because it's such a complicated pattern but I did it! I had deliberately made the next size up knowing it would take a while to complete so it should fit her perfectly next autumn. (Or during a typical English summer!)

Aaaarrrrrrrrr........

I've been experimenting with two colour knitting - this is fair isle technique which was far easier than I had expected. This is a patch I created from my own design so I'm very pleased with it. I just need to work out how to incorporate this into something useful!

Arrrrr capt'in.

My first knitted jumper!!

I am so proud! I've never knitted anything "technical" before, following an actual pattern. I didn't even ask for help from my mum!

I had thought it would be far too big for Katie but it fits perfectly as you can see.

There's just no stopping me now!! Woo-hoo!!

Lexie's Christmas present

I found this book which is about a daddy Lion who takes his cub out hunting with him one night and they encounter an owl, a snake and an elephant on their adventure. I made felt finger puppets to go with the book as a little gift for today's visitor. I like this idea so be keeping my eyes peeled for more books like this.

Reuse, reduce, recycle - clothes

The orange and red dress is an old pair of curtains which were doing the rounds on Freecycle. They were no use to anyone as curtains so I made a little dress out of them!

Two new, unique dresses for under £3! I am very pleased with the results!

Reuse, reduce, recycle - clothes

I have made a couple of summer dresses this week for Katie. The one she is modelling is an old linen A-line work skirt of mine which I'm not likely to fit into again! I used the zip fastening of the skirt for the fastening of the dress so it made it very simple to make and I even lined this one with an old bedsheet.

Daffodil pot

This was made for Sarah as she loves daffodils. I painted the pot and varnished the inside and out with several layers of acrylic varnish then added a pot of bulbs that I planted at the end of last year. In a couple of months all the plants should flower and look very pretty. Sarah was very happy to receive it!

Fabric toy bin

I wanted to make a fabric toy bin for Katie's bedroom which she could pull about and climb on but it would hold it's shape..... it seems to do the trick!

Homemade crisps.

10.02.10

Today is the first time I have ever deep fried anything but decided to try making homemade crisps and they were really, really nice!!

I cut the potatoes on my grater so they were nice and thin, soaked in water to remove the starch, dried and fried. Flavours added once they've drained of most the oil. I shall make these again, but not right now as they took a bit longer than I thought they would....

One for Ruby, who I hear likes Peppa Pig...

...so I made her Peppa and George doing their favourite thing: jumping up and down in muddy puddles!!!

There is a ribbon along the back so it can be hung on the wall. It is a decorative piece really but I have made it from felt and thread and so it should be washable and continue to be bold and beautiful certainly until she grows out of this cartoon.

Merry Christmas little James!

I have so many little friends!! This is another toy to attach to car seat or cot with bells in. James is about 3 months now so will be about the right age to appreciate it's tinkling.

Another Santa special

This one was for Marissa, I used a dalmation print fur for the trim to try and make it look more interesting and I like the way it turned out. I can only hope she did.

Santa's Roadie (because he's just so hairy!!)

A little late for this really as I've packed all the decorations away but I wanted to make presents, firstly because we have so many little friends that it's starting to cost more than we can afford to give them nice things and secondly, most importantly, a handmade gift is far more special. At least now I've made this decision it's something I can do every year and start our own tradition of giving home made gifts.

This was for Jacob, my godson, my darling little man!! The shot is not so good though, I was in a bit of a hurry to give it to him once it was made.