Lots of snow here

We have a lot of snow, try to keep the bird table and feeder topped up.

Lots of snow!! Warm Sweater

Just finished my winter sweater, I knitted this from the top down, all from oddments of handspun yarn and vintage buttons from my late mother in laws button tin.

Yarn Dyeing

Have had great fun overdyeing some spare hanks of grey yarn spun from a Jacob fleece, I plan to make a sweater or perhaps a bodywarmer style top, dyeing over grey gives a subtle difference to the finished yarn, there was still dye in the vat so I added more colours and used up quite a few odds and ends of yarn. I think the colour variations will make a good mix for a very subtle stranded yarn pattern.

Chutney and Jam

Made Crab Apple Jelly, Norwich Apple Chutney and Apple Tomato and Chilli Chutney, which is hot!, plenty of Chutney stored up for the winter, but only made two jars of the crab apple jelly, which set very well and has a very pleasant taste.

Crab Apple Jelly

Brought back some crab apples from Ross Park in Devon and now making some crab apple jelly. The fruit was cut up and cooked with a small amount of water, then I improvised a jelly bag, when all the juice is strained through it will be boiled with sugar (1 pint juice to 1 lb sugar) to make the jelly.

Cottage Style Hearts

Some more hearts, for daughter this time, cottage style as she has a rustic cottage kitchen, she has hung them over the door, the buttons and some of the fabric were from Homespun Loft.

Lap Quilt for Me

This Teresa Kogut fabric caught my eye on ebay, from Homespun Loft who has some lovely fabrics. I felt a fairly simple surround would be most effective, and had some pieces in my stash that matched. I machine quilted this by following the outline squares of the pattern, this made it easy to do as I was able to create random patterns for stitching. The wadding and the red backing fabric were slightly larger than the quilt panel, rather than trim them down I found that by wrapping and folding the backing fabric over the wadding I ended up with a soft slightly padded edge and it's warm and cosy.

Black and Red Hearts

Made some black and red themed heart decorations for my Grandaughter, made by copying heart outlines, put right sides together, sew about threequarters of the way round starting on the side of the heart, leave a small gap, trim seams, turn right way out, add a hanging cord and stuff with pillow stuffing, then close the seam - she likes them very much, I covered a small cardboard box with some of the spare gingham to put them in.

Scottie Dog Cushion

I found this great pattern for a Scottie Quillow and could not resist trying it out on a cushion. A Quillow is a quilt which folds into a pillow. The cushion is red fleece, the scottie is black felt, the coat is an oddment of red marl fleece and the collar is a little piece of check fabric, really fun to make.

Hearts

A group of hearts, just for fun decoration, I saw something similar a shop and thought I would try and copy the idea.

Bears and Honey Throw

A cuddle throw from Debbie Mumm fabric, backed with honey coloured fleece, made for my daughter, who still enjoys teddies, (so do I!). The pattern on this fabric runs along the selvedge so I did very little quilting, but added a double border around the edge. She was very pleased with it.