Stitched Zig Zag Necklaces

I've recently been experimenting with stitching with wool in zig zag designs onto plastic canvas. The first 2 necklaces I made, I sold the day after I had finished them at a Christmas Market, and so I thought I should make some more.

Here are some photos of my second batch...

All available from my Etsy and Folksy shops, details at www.fairlyamy.co.uk.

A Quick Sewing Project - Neoprene Ipad Case

My boyfriend recently bought a new Ipad as he decided that it had been too long of us sharing one, plus he wanted a newer one as ours is quite old. He decided that it needed a case to protect it in his bag, but after looking at some neoprene ones, decided that they were too expensive and that I could just sew him one instead.

So we went to Goldhawk Road and bought some black neoprene for £4.95 for half a metre! Bargain! This was only 2mm thick neoprene though so I decided to stitch 2 layers together to make it really protective - something which my sewing machine was not particularly happy about!

So I stitched the two layers together in a grid pattern, using the quilting attachment on my machine to keep the lines parallel, and then folded the fabric in half, and overlocked down the long edge - again my overlocker was NOT happy about stitching 4 layers of neoprene together!

I added a flap with a piece of velcro to the top to keep the Ipad in, making sure that the scratchy side of velcro was on the outside of the case, and the soft half was on the flap so there was no risk of scratching the Ipad when getting it in and out. 

So here is the finished case! It took about an hour altogether and I think my boyfriend is pretty pleased with it!

Christmas Shoebox Time!

Yay! It's that time of year again when I am allowed to be buying Christmas presents without it seeming too early as I need to buy things for my Christmas Shoeboxes!

I planned to do 2 boxes this year, but as usual got far too excited shopping and have ended up doing 4. Here are some of my favourite finds for the boxes:

Mini connect 4, a giant pencil sharpener and cats cradle!

Boden Knitted Baubles (& Reindeer & Robins)

Way back in June I was asked to knit some decorations for the Boden Christmas catalogue. It seems like so long ago now but the catalogue has now been published and here are some photos or my creations.....

Here are my reindeer and robins...

Wow that was a lot of knitting!!

Knitted Animal Hats Number 3!!

So while I was getting into the swing of Animal Hat knitting, I had to knit one for my lovely friend Zoe who gave the book to me for my birthday back in April. At the time she'd said 'I'd love it if you would knit me one for my birthday' which I'd remembered, but I wasn't sure if she'd remember....

(I had to knit new cheeks for the final hat as these were too small!)

I used a blend of 2 pinks as the grey wool I used for the rest of the hat were chunky, but I couldn't find a chunky pink that I liked. 

The ear front and backs are knitted separately and then stitched together.

I think she likes it!!

Knitted Animal Hats 2

So as well as knitting a hat for my niece, I also knitted one for my 2 year old nephew. Now as you can probably imagine of a boy that age, he is a little monkey. He climbs up things, throws things and breaks things so a monkey hat was the only thing appropriate.

I had to work on the sizing a little as he is so tiny, and the child size hats in the book went up to age 8, which would swamp him, but I used smaller sized needles and shortened the hat by a few rows and this seemed to work pretty well.

I love the mix of stocking and garter stitch top give the texture on the monkey's face, I knitted eyes for this one, rather than use buttons as I definitely don't trust my nephew not to try and eat buttons!

It was hard to get a good photo of him in it as he does not stay still for a moment, but I did manage to get a few...

Knitted Animal Hats

My friend Zoe gave me a lovely booked called Knitted Animal Hats for my birthday, which has some amazing patterns for very fun animal hats. As my niece was 5 last week, and my nephew was 2, I though that was a perfect opportunity to knit them some hats.

My niece loves the colour red, and is quite cunning so the fox suited her perfectly. I found a lovely soft red wool in John Lewis, which almost has a hint of black in it, and then a lovely cream marl wool for the face.

I used a thinner black wool which was a charity shop find, but also very soft, for the ears, and so just adapted the pattern slightly to make them bigger. I stitched on a knitted nose, and then used big black buttons for eyes, as I trust her not to eat them. I then lined the hat in a thick jersey cotton to make it lovely and soft against her head and also very warm. 

Here are some photos of her wearing it....I hope she likes it!