WIPs, WIPs everywhere

Current WIP count: 8

Ah, Christmas. That time of year when my WIP list runs out of control and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Actually that’s not true; I exerted some control this year by deciding to only make presents for a select few people. It would be lovely if I had the time and resources to make for everyone, but I somehow skipped half of October and November, and I have a full-time job that takes up far too much of my day, so that’s just not happening.

I compromised a little for my other friends, and raided Etsy for handmade-but-not-by-me gifts. This way everyone I love gets something special, I don’t end up having to pull all-nighters from now til Christmas Eve, and a few Etsy sellers get to do a happy dance. Wins all round!

As for the pressies I am making, obviously baby Flax Light is now going to be a Christmas rather than birthday present, as I only have this much of one sleeve done:

There’s also a hat present in the works (thank you, Alissa, for bringing this gorgeous yarn to my attention months ago):

And I decided the cupcake hat will also be a gift, as I have a couple of friends who love bright colours as much as I do. I just need to work out how to attach a pompom so it stays put.

Considering there are only 3 weeks until the big day, I’m feeling pretty calm and in control about Christmas this year. Probably because I’m not thinking about all the Christmas cards I want to make!

Hannah

xXx

52 card pick up

For my birthday this year I received this cardmaking kit:

It was a very thoughtful present. I do love making cards and I got it in plenty of time to make them for this Christmas.

But.

I didn’t really like it.

My aesthetic is vivid colours, simple lines, and minimalist embellishments.

But this kit has busy, busy papers in quite muted colours, and the embellishments contain possibly my least favourite thing ever: cutesy vintage.

No judgement, I know there are people in the world who find these adorable. I’m just not one of them.

Now, I’ve written before about Jess Crafts videos where she uses one paper pad to make lots of cards. Example here. After watching a few of those I had the thought that if I whack out cards like that, I can use up the kit and maybe sell the end results. Because it’s a birthday present so I can’t just give it away unused.

So I chopped all the papers into backgrounds, squares, and strips

Then went to it, churning out cards like I never have before. It’s quite freeing having all those pieces ready to assemble, and not having to think and plan a unique card every time. And it turns out I actually quite like some of them!

Another life lesson for me; don’t dismiss something outright just because you don’t like some aspects of it.

Hannah

xXx

Tangle of the week – Sea Wave

 

Today we’re having a look at super simple, but effective, Sea Wave. You can check out the official step by step info here.

You can see why it’s called Sea Wave,  but I see this Tangle as lots of different things as well. I’ve used it for mermaid hair and a unicorn’s tail in some of my ZIA drawings.

This is not that tail; just an example

 

The image in the step-out makes me think of a line of muscles, all bunched up ready for action.  It could be a visual representation of the wind, or music, or a heartbeat.

Basically it’s a really pretty, versatile Tangle!

So what do you think of Sea Wave? Do you see anything else in the pattern? Let me know in the comments!

Hannah

xXx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tangle of the week: N’zeppel + cockles n mussels

Do you know the song ‘Molly Malone’? If not, you can listen to it here.

Right, now we’ve all got that stuck in our head let’s get on with today’s twofer post. First up is N’zeppel, tutorial here.

When I first came across N’zeppel it seemed like a lot of faff to me; drawing shapes just to draw them again with rounded corners. But after a couple of tries I started to really like the look of it. And then when I tried drawing the initial grid in pencil and rubbing the lines out afterwards, I fell in love.

It reminds me of a pebbled beach.

Then I discovered that you can do even more with N’zeppel.

As you may have seen in this post, I made a card for Kelleys DIY giveaway.

This tangle is called ‘cockles n mussels’ (alive alive-o), which is just N’zeppel with the rounded shapes filled in. You can find the tutorial here.

Cockles

Mussels

And clams!

What do you think? Which tangle do you prefer, plain N’Zeppel or Cockles ‘n’ Mussels? Let me know in the comments!

Hannah

xXx

here

30 days has September

August turned out to be really quite productive.

I finished off my shawl and star blanket, I tried out a granny basket, made a gift for my sister, got some knitting done, and made so many cards they’re literally piling up.

There was even time to make it to an all day Sacred Harp singing and my monthly book club as well!

I reckon I’d be quite entitled to a rest after all that, but I’m still planning to have a useful September as well.

I have invested in a really big piece of white card, which I can hopefully use as a backdrop for some better photos. I also realised that the light bulb in my hallway is about ten times brighter than the one in my living room, which is stupid if you ask me, so I’m going to swap them round and that should also help with less-terrible photos. And being able to see what I’m doing in the living room.

The yarn for my brother’s Christmas present(s) has arrived so I’m going to make a start on that, as well as some little Christmas goodies to be listed in the shop. Feeling terribly organised, even though I know some people started with Christmas in July.

I’m also going to finish off all the little bits of projects that are hanging around and getting on my nerves.

So that’s my (rough) plan for September; better photos so I can stock the shop, finishing up, and Christmas! What’s everyone else got planned? Or are you just going to wing it? Let me know in the comments!

Hannah

xXx

A cure for insomnia

I’m not a brilliant sleeper. It usually takes me over an hour and 15 different positions before I finally get to sleep, and the slightest noise can have me wide awake in a second. But generally I still manage to get the 7.5 hours sleep I need to not bite everyone’s head off the next day.

Then there are the nights like last night. 2:00am was the last time I checked the clock, and then I stopped looking.

You may as well do something useful while you’re not sleeping, right? My initial plan was to get my existing cards listed, but as you can see from these photos the light was not even close to good enough for photographing stock.  Maybe I should invest in some spotlights for next time insomnia hits!

Emma from Puddleside Musings introduced me to Jess Crafts and her “1 paper pack, x cards” youtube videos (go check them out, she got 27 cards out of one paper pack!), and that was my inspiration.

Obviously I didn’t make it to 27 cards, but then I don’t like making multiples of the same design so it took me a little longer.

This one if my favourite of the batch:

I also made these three earlier in the day

 

 

Including previous makes (the butterfly cards), that’s 11 I’ve made from this pack so far and I’m nowhere near finished. I’m enjoying the challenge of using the same elements in different ways.

What do you think of the cards? Not bad for a sleep-deprived and cranky crafter, right! What’s the highest number of cards you’ve managed to make from one paper pack? Let me know in the comments!

Hannah

xXx

FO Friday 28.07.17

Here is my finished puff scarf, which I have wanted to show off since I finished it last Saturday morning! 

I’m really pleased with the colours now. So glad I had that other Caron Cake to play with.

Aside from that, I have no crochet FOs to show you. I’ve been working on the bigger items so it’ll take a wee while to finish them off. BUT I have been beavering away with my paper stash and have quite a few finished cards to show off:

I learned this new technique and am doing it do death 😉

This idea came from Isn’t She Crafty, although I had to alter it a bit as I didn’t have any ribbon that went with the scraps.

Despite buying the least useful set of letters ever, I managed to make a few wooden scrabble tile cards.

‘Ren’, ‘Non’, and ‘Pare’ are some gender-neutral terms for children to call their parents, if you’re wondering.

There’s also this card I made during my woodstamp printing workshop

I was really surprised at how well the yellow shows up on the card. I was expecting it sort of fade into the background, so I could stamp a different colour slightly off-centre and it would look like a shadow or reflection. In the end I liked it this way so much I just left it as it is!

So that was my rather productive week.

As I’m away next week helping out with a summer camp for girls, there won’t be any WIP Wednesday or FO Friday post. Or much crochet being done at all, really. So I probably won’t be liking or commenting until a week on Sunday at the earliest, but I will do my best to catch up when I can, and hopefully my scheduled posts will actually publish in the meantime!

How’s everyone’s Friday going? Got any FOs to show off? Let me know in the comments!

Hannah

xXx

FO Friday 21.07.17

I have managed to shrink my WIP list, hooray! Although only a little

Here is my super cute finished cactus pin cushion.

Thank goodness I never have to use that yarn ever again.

My third finished octopom.

I used a bigger hook for this guy so he’s turned out with a bigger head, but somehow I managed to stitch his face the same size as the smaller poms so he’s ended up looking quite smug. Oh well, I’m sure somebody will love him.

And that’s all I’ve managed to finish. Curse those camper van wheels, that’s all I’m gonna say.

 

In other terribly exciting news, I made my first Etsy sale!! *happy dance*

As an added bonus, it wasn’t a member of my family or a friend. A complete stranger on the internet found my card and decided it was worth spending money on. I’m so happy 😀

This is just the boost I needed to get my backside into gear and list all my stock. Now I know for defnite that people are willing to pay for my items, but they won’t be able to if they’re just sitting in my FO drawer never to be seen!

 

So that’s my Friday. 2 WIPs down, 10 to go!

Who else is having a good Friday? Got a FO to share? Let me know in the comments!

Hannah

xXx

Still here

Hi there *waves*. Despite appearances, I am still here!  A lot of rubbish, Life stuff has been going on, which took my blogging mojo away.

Thankfully my crojo has been unimpeded, and I’ve even managed some tangling as well:

I finished my virus shawl

It’s meant to be for the shop, but I’ve kind of fallen in love with it…

I made a card for Kelleys DIY giveaway.

I realised I’ve done this star wrong. Again.

I had to go all the way back to the green bit in the centre! Now I’m back out to the pink and so far it’s still behaving itself. 

I also made a start on a couple of ideas I’ve had:

Can you tell what it is yet?
I’m taking steps to sort all this Life stuff out, and hopefully I’ll be back to blogging as normal soon 🙂

Hannah

xXx

May’s end

Not news of the current PM’s resignation (sadly), but a review of my goals for May.

 

1.Finish pic-notting the baby blanket and get it sent to my sister

I get half a point. The blanket is finished and ready to go, but it hasn’t actually gone yet.

0.5

 

2. Finish the kindle cosy and get it sent to my cousin

No points whatsoever. I didn’t even pick it up!

0

 

3. Finish the lacy scarf and list it in my shop

Well the scarf is finished, but currently still sitting on the blocking mats right now.

I’m letting myself off with this one because the stitch was causing me so much wrist pain I couldn’t work on it as much as I was planning to.

1

 

4. Finish the chevron blanket and gift it to my friend

DONE!  I finished in two weeks (much quicker than I expected) and gave it to my friend. He loved it, and it just happened to fit exactly on the back of his sofa!

1

5. Get all my zentangle cards listed in the shop

Yet another half point. Although I finished up all my zentangle cards, I hit a snag with my photography.

I thought I’d found the perfect set up; the sun was shining on the back of the house, but not coming directly through the window, I had a pale coloured sheet and off-white walls in my bedroom. It looked great!  So I took about 50 photos, really getting into it. I loaded them onto my computer and…

Blurry. Every last one.

0.5

 

6. Make at least one knitted item Work at least 2 rows of knitting every day

It’s a good job I modified this goal, because  last week there was a disaster. I tried to move the stitches a bit closer to the tip of the needle so I could knit them better, and this happened

I don’t even know what counts as a stitch in there, so I had to frog the entire thing and start again from scratch. I may have cried a little bit.

1

 

7. Have at least 10 items listed in the shop

Like… a quarter point for this. I have more than 10 things ready to go, which is a much better situation that the start of the month, but they’re never going to sell if I don’t actually list them!

0.25

 

Total: 4.25/7

It’s over half, I suppose.

The thing is, I know exactly why I didn’t meet my goals – I was too busy doing other stuff!

I did a few rows on this star blanket

before realising it was wrong all the way back at the beginning. So I frogged the whole thing and started again, doing about 20 rounds.

I tested a gorgeous pattern for Ocean’s Originals

I did Some face painting

Had my first go at blocking

 

Joined in with #aheart4mcr

And just basically had fun rather than getting down to business.

I’m not saying that’s a bad thing – having fun is important, and even if I hadn’t completed a single goal I still would have dropped everything to make hearts for Manchester. But I do need to work harder on getting the fun/focus balance right.

So with that in mind, here are my goals for June

1. Have at least 10 items listed in my shop (for realz this time!)
2. Finish the kindle cosy and send it to my cousin
3. Post at least twice a week on this blog
4. Work at least 2 rows of knitting every day
5. Create a logo (more on this in a later post)

And that’s it. Totally doable!

How was everyone else’s May? Productive, not, or halfway between the two like me? Got any goals for June? Let me know in the comments!

Hannah

xXx

 

Out of stock

I remember now why it took me so long to open up my shop in the first place.

Yesterday I decided to add my zentangle cards to stock, as I’ve got a few made up ready to go, so I opened etsy and signed in.

Wait, I need photos of the cards first.

I set them up and took a few photos – rubbish photos because it was starting to get dark, but I figured they would do as placeholders until I could take better ones.

But wait, if somebody actually buys one it might get damaged in the post.

Over to Amazon, where I lost half an hour comparing various plastic wallets and board-backed envelopes, and trying to decide which size(s) would be best to get. That’s another £20 closer to just not tracking how much I’ve spent on this shop with no return because it’s becoming too much to think about.

Right. Those should arrive tomorrow so let’s get the cards listed at last.

Oh wait, I wanted to take proper photos of them so I can get a run printed instead of them just being one-offs. But now it’s dark and there’s no hope of getting quality pictures.

You know what, never mind. I’ll just go to bed.

So my little shop is still sitting there with only 4 items in stock and not a thing sold.  But at least I thought about the board-backed envelopes now, and I’ll have some ready when I finally sell my first card. That’s quite organised for me!

Hannah

xXx

Tangle of the week – B’Twined

This is another tangle that I love, love, LOVE, but still haven’t quite perfected yet. My lines always come out a little wobbly, and getting them to meet up is difficult!

Instructions (click on the photo to see it clearly) can be found here.

There are a few different ways I do this tangle. For the card up at the top of this post, I left in the basic grid lines that start it off. I didn’t draw in the diagonal guide lines for that one and I think it shows; most of the ‘arms’ are more curved on one side than the other.

Obviously you can also leave in the diagonal lines if you like

But that looks pretty messy to me, so I never do.

You can also remove all of the guidelines if you draw them in pencil rather than pen.

A more subtle difference, which might be difficult to explain, is the way the arms overlap each other. In the instruction photo you can see that Pegi draws every arm facing one direction first

And then every arm going the other way

Which produces a B’Twined that looks like this:

See how each cross has 2 arms that are on top and 2 that go underneath others.

But an alternative is to draw them in a zig zag pattern, which produces this:

Now it looks like there is one upper layer of crosses with all arms on top, and one lower layer with all arms running underneath. It’s a subtle difference that probably nobody would notice unless it was pointed out to them, but I love the fact that I can produce more than one thing from a single tangle.

What do you think of B’Twined? Have I inspired anyone to give tangling a go yet? Let me know in the comments!

Hannah

xXx