A December Drawing

Hello Lovelies ,

following on from my November drawing ( which I shared at the end of THIS post) I've been enjoying drawing something similar inspired by December and the festive season...........

Once again I've been I've been using my favourite nature illustrations as inspiration............

Along with the greenery I see around me at this time of year...........

The December birdy had to be a sweet Robin.........

And I'm pleased with how my Ivy turned out.

The most obvious plant to include for December has got to be Holly. I love the way it's glossy leaves shine in the sun.........

And I've tried to show that in my Holly leaves and berries..........

I love this little December drawing , but to make it a bit more festive I cut around the heart shape and placed it on a sparkly background.

Ta-twinkle-da :0)

I did enjoy designing  and drawing this picture. The colouring in is where it comes to life for me, as always it was my favourite part.

And, happily ,  it was so easy to copy the photos I'd taken of this project to create a few cards for close relatives, and still keep a hold of the original.........

I made the images smaller in a word document and printed them onto photo paper. Middle son and I then stuck them on various coloured papers. He suggested the French "Merry Christmas" wording.
I hope the recipients like them.
Thank you all for reading  and especially your kind comments and Christmas wishes, I know it's such a busy time of year.
I'm really hoping to pop back at the weekend for my 51st "Happy" post, so I will wish you all well till then.
Jacquie x

Sunburst Granny Hearts...with pattern

Hello Lovelies,
Does anybody remember the circles I teased you with at the end of this post ?
Well I was making a quick gift to take with me to Yorkshire.
As I said before , it wasn't a blanket or a bag , rather something purely decorative.

 Would you like to see what they became ? 

 Here we are , a little Ta-dah moment ( my favourite )..........

 

Colourful , Happy Hearts :0)

I first came up with this pattern back in February 2011 , made one and hung it up, then never got round to doing any thing else about it. 

Then ,when I knew I was going to meet up with Heather I decided  I could make some to string together as bunting ( to look pretty in her babies nursery ).......it had never occurred to me to do that before. These are quite big when made up . I used Style craft double knitting yarn and a 4mm hook...........

Luckily I had jotted down the pattern and managed to pop it somewhere safe . I thought maybe some of you lovelies would like to try your hand at these so I'm going to share the pattern......sorry it's not a tutorial but I simply don't have the time to do one at the moment.Hope you  understand .

 The centre sunburst is not my pattern . There is an excellent photo tutorial for these HEREso pop over there first then come back here for the heart shaped part :0)

Got your three round circle ? Good . 

Here is my pattern, written in my usual U.S. terms

Abbreviations are as follows :-

ch = chain 

sc = single crochet

hdc = half double crochet

dc = double crochet

htc = half treble crochet

tc = treble crochet

Round 1

In any space around your circle ( Space 1 ), attach yarn and ch 1, 1 dc,ch 1.
space 2   3tc, 2 ch, 3 tc, ch1
space 3  3 htc, ch 1.
space 4  3 dc, ch 1.
space 5  3 dc, ch 1.
space 6  3 dc, ch 1
space 7  1 htc, 2 tc, ch 2, 2 tc, 1 htc, ch 1.
space 8  3 dc, ch 1.
space 9  3 dc, ch 1.
space 10  3 dc, ch 1.
space 11  3 htc, ch 1.
space 12  3 tc, ch 2, 3 tc, ch 1.
space 1  1 dc, 1 sc.
Your heart should now look like this.........

You could stop at this point , but this was not properly heart shaped enough for me so I carried on with a second round to make the heart more pronounced.

Round 2

Note there is no need to join the end of round one to the beginning , simply ch 1 then work into the next space ( first space of round one )
space 1  2 sc, 1 hdc, ch 1.
space 2  3 dc, ch 1, 1 dc, 1 htc, 1 tc, ch 1.
space 3  5 tc, ch 1.
space 4  1tc, 1 htc, 1 dc, ch 1.
space 5  3 dc, ch 1.
space 6 3 dc, ch 1.
space 7  3 dc, ch 1.
space 8  3 dc, ch 2, 3 dc, ch1
space 9  3 dc, ch 1.
space 10  3 dc, ch 1.
space 11  3 dc, ch 1.
space 12  1 dc, 1 htc, 1 tc, ch 1.
space 13  5 tc, ch 1.
space 14  1 tc, 1 htc, 1 dc, ch 1, 3 dc, ch 1.
space 15  1 hdc, 2 sc.

To finish off insert hook into the stitch in the middle of space 1 on round 1 and slip stitch.

As you can see there are a lot of different stitches and not many repeats so while it's not difficult you need to keep referring back to the pattern and concentrate on where you are up to .

If you want your hearts to look flat it's best to stiffen them in some way. I pinned mine to some foam and sprayed them liberally with this stuff......

then I left them over night to dry completely .

Here is Heathers own  photo of them strung together. It was all a bit last minute so I forgot to take a proper photo of how I joined them onto a long chain...........

 But I simply chained about 30cm then attached a heart by stitching from to back, close to the top of the first "bump" at the top of a heart. Then I chained enough to reach the second bump and joined that, both times I used  a slip stitch.
 Then I counted how many chains till I attached my next heart and joined it in the same way. I continued till all 9 hearts were joined but you could make yours as long or short as you like. Just one heart hanging up somewhere you want to prettify looks great too :0)
 Hope you have fun with this. Please let me know if anything is unclear.
 Jacquie x

This Christmas

Hello lovelies ,
What's your favourite part of Christmas? I think mine is Christmas eve, when all the decorations are looking lovely and the children's anticipation is infectious. This year I noticed the wonderful seasonal colours in the treats laid out on our coffee table... Quality Street are traditional in the BM household...they taste yummy and I just love the colours of the wrappers.
 I was very happy to pick up these clementines locally...I adore the fabulous shiny fruit in their cute little wooden box .
  Another tradition is nuts in shells...mostly because they remind me of my childhood Christmases .......

Over on the sofa  the Christmas cushion cover I made a couple of years ago was making me smile...it could be the robins slightly odd looking Santa hat ....never the less , I still love it .....it was inspired by a Christmas card brought home by one of my boys and simply appliqued onto a plain cover I already had.......

Sadly I didn't have much time to sit down as baking was required for our Christmas eve visitors. Along with mince pies and fairy cakes I decided to make a  cake .
Not your traditional Christmas cake (which I love, but the boys are not keen on) but yummy chocolate cake . I added some red,white and green sprinkles and my mums old cake decorations to make it look more festive......

I was thinking about cuckoos wonderful baking when I finished this ...that girl is an amazing cake decorator ( scroll down this post to see her beautiful cake )....mine looks so basic in comparison, but then I realised I could borrow something Id seen on her wonderful cake .......a fun banner...yes!! no cake decorating skill required:0)  
I literally threw this together in less that ten minutes. I love it when inspiration strikes and you end up with something similar to what popped into your minds eye with very little effort.......just a couple of kebab sticks, some yarn ,ready made pompoms,and some coloured paper. I was going to write the letters on the little triangles but came across a stars alphabet I printed  ages ago ( from here ) and they looked perfect .......

The pompoms were threaded onto the yarn with a large needle and the boys reminded me to add two dots above the E ......

                                                                            LOVE IT :0)


Something I'm also loving is my Pay-it-forward gift sent to me by ANDAMENTO. Isn't the wrapping lovely.............

I was very good and waited till Christmas day to open it, only to find lots of individually wrapped items...

Inside were these lovely things........

No less than three tree decorations , a pretty glass magnet, mulled wine sachet , chocolate coins , and a little red box containing this tiny  Nativity scene........

I love it all , thank you :0)
I now have a year to make three parcels of my own to pass onto any lovely bloggers who are willing to do the same.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. I do love it ,but I will admit to being ever so slightly relieved  when it's over . Still, the decorations will be staying till new year and I've found another spot for my impromptu cake banner...it's now an impromptu hyacinth banner ......

Jacquie x

A quick crochet gift

Hello Lovelies,
At work we have enjoyed having a sweet young lady's company over the last few weeks. A visiting colleague from the other side of the world who will be missed by myself and quite a few others due to her lovely , friendly , generous nature.
On Wednesday evening it suddenly dawned on me that the next day would the last time we would meet and I wanted to give her a little gift  . No time to go shopping meant it would have to be something handmade. Something quick to make ...but what ?
I hit upon a crochet bowl ( like the one in my side bar ) and dug out my assorted cotton yarns. I was looking for the right colours when I spotted a little forgotten W.I.P. in the bottom of the bag, some pretty stripes....

I think this was started from a library book a couple of years ago.....possibly to make a child's handbag. With time short I decided to turn it into a little pouch. Luckily I still had the same yarns so I just added a few more rows. It was about half this deep when I found it........

I didn't even sew in the ends...just trimmed them a bit so they were not quite so bulky........

The next morning I  hand sewed a lining from some thrifted fabric. These days sewing dark fabric requires daylight and some help with vision :0).........

I then added a zip...not so hard to do with small hand stitches .....

Pin and then sew the first side between the lining and the pouch ,then unzip the zipper and pin and sew the second side .............

As you can see this zip was a little small and not really matching in colour but I think it looks OKish and It was all I had. It was a 6 inch zip , to give you an idea of size......

The whole project took a couple of hours .If these photos look a bit hurried , they were ........

I popped a little tin heart on some gingham ribbon that I had bought as a Christmas decoration inside , wrapped it up and gave it . Phew , just in time !
I hope she likes it ...I think it could have lots of uses, like make up or gadgets........

Soon it will be another well traveled bit of Bunny Mummy crochet so it's nice to have a record here :0)
Have a great rest of the weekend .
Jacquie x