Tag Archives: christmas

British Wool Advent Calendar

For a few months now, I’ve been working towards selling my own hand dyed yarn. Finally, I’ve begun to do this! My first major product that I’m selling is my British Wool Advent Calendar which you can buy here at Etsy for £36.

British Yarn Advent Calendar

 

From the 1st to the 25th December there is a parcel to open every day. There are 10 that each contain 10g of hand dyed British 4ply yarn, one for Christmas Day that contains 50g of hand dyed British 4ply yarn, and 14 craft related treats and gifts.

Please take a look, and if you have any questions or comments don’t hesitate to contact me.

Happy New Year!

Sorry it’s been a bit quiet at Crafterways over Christmas and New Year. I hope everyone has had a lovely break.

Works in Progress

I’ve got a few things on the go that I plan on completing in the not too distant future.

The first is my Rough Weather socks from Think Outside the Sox. I thought they were suitable considering the weather we’ve been having lately! I finished the first one over Christmas and want to get the second done fairly soon. I’m using Regia sock yarn for a change. I’ve had it in my stash for a while and it’s the perfect colour for these socks.Rough Weather Sock

The second, my Thermal, hasn’t really grown much. I took it with me to knit over Christmas but didn’t take any spare yarn. This would have been fine had one ball not decided to be thinner than the other, so I had to stop and wait until I could swap it out for a real one. Not sure why that happened, but it was cheap yarn so that might explain it.

The third, and final for non-hibernating projects, is my Demalangeni Shawl. I’ve had this yarn for a while, and I finally found the perfect shawl for it. It’s Araucania Ranco which I love, and I’m hoping it turns out well. It looks it so far!Demalengeni Shawl

Christmas

For Christmas, I got a ball winder and swift. I’ve wanted these for a while. I immediately set about using them on my new Exmoor Sock Yarn as it’s the only thing I had.

When I got back to my stash, I then also wound some yarn that I had previously hand wound. I love the neat cakes the ball winder creates, and they’re so much easier to knit from than hand wound balls.Caked Wool

For Christmas I also received a little tripod, so hopefully that will improve the quality of my photos here considerably!

Coming Up

This year I am setting several crafty challenges for myself. The first is to knit a pair of socks every month. A group on Ravelry has set a theme (flora) and you have to find and knit patterns that in some way relate to a particular flower. It’ll be quite a challenge, but hopefully by the end of it I’ll (and various other people) will end up with some more lovely hand knit socks.

With some of my Christmas money I bought this book on dressmaking and this is where my second challenge comes in. For several years I have attempted to teach myself, with no help from books or anything, how to make clothes. I can make simple skirts, but that’s about it. So I decided it was about time I learned how to do it properly. Hopefully in the not too distant future you’ll see works in progress and finished objects not only from knitting, but also sewing!

My final challenge is to finish things! I’m really bad at finishing anything that isn’t socks or a shawl, so my challenge is to not start too many things. I need to at least finish my Zora cardigan, and not let myself start a new one until Thermal is complete. That is going to be quite difficult seeing as I found this for half price in the John Lewis sale.Wendy Roam

It’s Wendy Roam in a lovely blue colour. I’m going to use it doubled so whichever cardigan I choose to make from it doesn’t take forever.

Have you set yourself any crafty challenges for the year? I’d love to hear about them!

Homemade Christmas Wreath

I’m trying to do Christmas cheaply this year, so I decided to make a homemade Christmas Wreath. It was quick to make and cost about £4.

I visited a pound shop and found a glittery garland and some glittery pine-cones. I then visited a local shop and bought some florestry wire and some ribbon. The main bulk of the wreath I got from the garden. Overflowing the fence from the lane behind the house is a huge ivy bush. Some of it has berries on, so I cut off a few nice looking branches. I couldn’t find any holly so stuck with the ivy.

First, I wired some lengths of ivy/holly together, overlapping enough to make it sturdy.

Christmas Wreath

I then twisted it into a circle and wired the ends together, again overlapping enough to make it sturdy. I wound in the garland and added the pine cones. They were on sticks so I could just wire them right in. I made a big bow and wired that on, making a loop at the back to hang the wreath.

Christmas Wreath

 

It looks a little uneven but not bad for a first attempt, and it looks better in person.