Folksy Friday - Lace

Since I'm crocheting a lace wedding shawl I thought I would search in Folksy for lace. I found a plethora of gorgeous things so here are some of them.

Here is the first and perhaps the most traditional use of lace although not in a traditional way. A beautiful dress that would be just right for a summer picnic on the lawn of an English stately home. Simply stunning...I tried last time to make the pics the links but instead I got rather untidy writing under the photos...sometimes I really hate Blogger..anyway hopefully you can click here to see this site.

On to jewellery, well how long can I go without browsing jewellery!..

This amazing bangle is made by trapping lace in resin, there is some lovely resin jewellery out there and this is such a great idea...love it. Please go to the site here

And just to keep the theme going is a beautiful pair of earrings..

I would love to know how they are made, they look stunning and would certainly be a lovely thing to wear on St Patrick's day. Please visit the site here

Now on to something completely different, (ed, did I already use that link?..)

This gorgeous bowl is in porcelain one of the most beautiful clays to use. It allows you to make delicate though still strong details such as the lace rim of this classy bowl..make a lovely wedding present...but more of that in my next blog. Please visit the site here.

What can I say about this lovely scarf. I adore knitted lace, I can't do it myself which makes me yearn after it all the more. Crochet lace is good but I actually prefer the look of knitted lace...go figure. Beautifully photographed as well with the complimentary colour background..see getting technical there..lol. You can see the site here.

And, last but not least this charming bag made of lace and animal print, also decorated with flowers, buttons and sequins it looks lovely inside as well so check it out here to see all the photos...

TTFN hope to manage another blog next week but who knows I might be flooded with orders...lol..or sick kids, the latter is the more likely option as we wait for the work cold to strike us down.

I've been featured in a Magazine

Yay, here it is the exciting news I promised on Face Book. This is a page from the February issue of Inside Crochet the UK's only monthly crochet magazine. In my naivety I thought that when the mag came out I would be deluged with orders. I managed to stop myself ordering huge quantities of this yarn! Good thing too.

I was contacted in October by someone from this magazine saying they would be featuring my kit in the January issue which came out in December. I sent them a kit, then in December I got another email asking me for a photo of the gloves, (the one featured here). I was given another email address to write to and ask for a copy of the mag, which I did of course. So I sat back and waited for my mag and waited for the orders to roll in....

....Cue February, and still I had heard nothing. I emailed my first contact but heard nothing. Then I phoned the company and found out that my first contact didn't work there anymore. They gave me the email address of the woman who was doing her job. All this time I thought they had decided not to feature my kit, that's why I took so long to re contact them. I didn't want to hear bad news. Anyway as soon as I contacted this person I got an email back with good news. I had been featured and she would send me a copy of the magazine and my kit back. They also said they would include a link to my site on a new website they were setting up.

And here is the feature, it looks great and I'm thrilled in be in print. Thank you Inside Crochet..great mag by the way, I think I will subscribe to it.  But...and here's the big but, I never did get that rush of orders..I made two sales, one a kit and one of a pattern. I thought those were just random sales and that the rush was still to come...ah well, I guess its just one more thing I've learnt. By the way, if you add postage and the fact that I still haven't had my kit back then I made a net loss from this effort. Its still good to see my work in print...

Folksy Friday - Purple Hearts

Yes its that time again and as Valentine's day approaches what could be more seasonal than hearts, yes I know that its probably too late to buy your cards and presents but I found these little gems when shopping for a card for him indoors. And since I prefer purple to red I had to make it purple hearts....and my dad had one of those, the real one.
So without further ado on with the picks.

 So here is a card, the first thing you should think about for your valentine...I love the original personalisation on this one and of course the colour...oh and the overall look...See the site here

Now on to some jewellery another typical gift, still very welcome.

 

This lovely bracelet which can be seen here would match my new necklace which I received as a birthday present from the in-laws. I already have some earrings from Etsy so the bracelet would make the set...no..no..

So moving swiftly on...

This gorgeous and original card would certainly show your love and this new seller needs your love. So come and see all her makes here

Now for something completely different.

 

I've never seen or heard of anything like this. It really is new, a charming idea and a sweet execution. Great shade of purple too. See it in more detail here

And here is some more jewellery....well everyone knows that a girl can't have too much jewellery....

These sparkling earrings feature a bead of a stone that I've never heard of before, dragon vein agate. Its beautiful and I may not be able to resist buying this one. I may have to stop doing Folksy Friday its getting too expensive..lol. I made a new years resolution not to buy any new clothes till the summer..so instead I've started buying jewellery, and I never used to buy jewellery! Visit the site here and buy them so I won't be able to

Wedding Shawl

Well here it is the yarn for the wedding shawl......to catch up. Last summer I bought a copy of Interweave Crochet. In it I saw a lovely lace shawl and thought ummm I'd like to make that, then put it to the back of my mind. Jumpt to last month when I overheard one of my work colleagues saying she didn't have a shawl for her wedding dress...yes you can see where this is heading. Up I jump and volunteer to make this. I've got till June, I've hardly ever worked lace, I don't even know if I can use such a small hook 1.75.

Well I've bought the yarn which cost £42!!! well at least she is paying for that..here is the yarn and a tension sample. This turned out to be too small so I'm now doing one with a 2.5 hook but now a post on my Crochet Me newsletter has made me really worried. Basically it showed how much you stretch out lace when you block it. So do I have to block and stretch my tension samples when I measure them, if so then it might be that my tension samples are all wrong and that maybe the one using the suggested hook size is the right one once its been blocked. Please can anybody advise me on this?

Any helpful comments greatly appreciated.....thanks in advance

Folksy Friday - the power of green

In honor of finally getting one of my new crochet kits listed, (on Etsy, not yet Folksy) I thought I would feature some lovely things in my new colour, olive green. This is actually the only shade of green that I like and it is one of my favourite colours. I looked on the internet for a more interesting name to give my new colour kit. I couldn't find any but I did find out that the shade nearest my wool is called olive drab!! who on earth would want to call a colour that. Especially such a wonderful colour. Then (after I'd posted it on Etsy) I remembered that one of my favourite gem stones is Peridot which is olive green...duh..still I did find Olivine to call it. That is another gemstone and infact Peridot is a kind of Olivine.
So less of the waffle here are the picks.

 

 

A sweet book thong to start with available here

And of course my own media, I really like the big knit pattern and the misty shade

 http://www.folksy.com/items/900937-Olive-Green-Slouchy-Beanie

 And then sticking with fabric a gorgeous bag, no, no I have too many bags..sigh..

 Click here



And here is some beautiful jewellery...

http://www.folksy.com/items/696413-olive-crystal-and-ribbon-bracelet-choker

And last but not least an example of that lovely stone..

Doris Chan

I've just been reading my birthday present, Doris Chan's Amazing Crochet Lace. Great, I've really been enjoying it. I  want to try some of the patterns but its very difficult knowing what English yarn I can use. I do like books that give you alternatives not just one yarn, still that's just a little niggle.

Before I start I need to do some practice on foundation crochet. I tried it once and worked out how to do it but when I tried it the other day for I pattern I'm doing from CrochetMe. (finally got my first issue, I suscribed in May, but that's another story) it didn't work. Doris Chan gives a slightly different method in this book so I must get round to trying....I don't like the preperation, I just want to jump straight in....which leads neatly on to my next point. Tension Samples, more like tension headaches. I have found time after time that no matter how carefully I knit or crochet my swatch the finished garment never comes out the right size. Imagine how pleased I was to read Doris's thoughts on this, she points out that crochet stretches, that there are all sorts of other things which make tension samples redundant. I have found this with my own patterns that I write, so now I don't feel so guilty about my tension samples not even matching my own designs. One amazingly wonderful advantage that crochet has over knitting is that its possible to see within a short time whether your garment is the right size, although this doesn't take stretching into account, but for width rather than length this works well. On one cardigan that I made I ended up doing the first two or three rows of the pattern and measuring this to the schematics. Even doing this a couple of times was better than endless tension headaches. Mind you that stretched like no ones business...sigh..

The picture above is from a free pattern so I hope Doris Chan won't mind me using it. Click here to find the pattern.

Finally getting round to doing another blog. So much water under the bridge but not much crochet news as most of the time was taken up with Christmas celebrations.

I'm posting some pictures of the craft fair I went to at Sutton House, a local National Trust property. I did enjoy it, well at least on the Sunday but despite huge crowds of people I didn't sell much. Just covered my stall costs and not all of mine and my children's fueling!!

Now that the whole xmas/birthday/new year/nother birthday binge is nearly over I should get back to concentrating on Etsy and Folksy. I did quite well in September/October but then all the momentum I had built up was completely lost because I stopped to concentrate on making stuff for the craft fairs. It takes a lot of work and time on the computer to make Etsy and Folksy pay. Also the best results I got were when I was posting new products almost every day. I could only do that because I made and photographed quite a lot of stuff over the summer, but didn't do any actual posting or much online work. I can't actually make stuff that quickly so I can't see me being able to do that all year round.

I have got some stuff left that I could put on sale and I have some new kits to photograph but I just can't seem to get started. It doesn't help that its cold and grey outside as I have to photograph my stuff outside to get any decent natural light.

Oh well sorry to rant on but it helps me to put down in writing some of this stuff, probably not exactly riveting reading though....lol....