A special post

Hi everyone,

Today I have a bit of a different post for you all. My brother has asked me to do a special post today to help him with his PSHCE project about animal rights. Part of his project is to raise awareness so he wondered if I could mention it to all you lovely people :)

 

Some of the issues involved in animal rights are:

 

- Testing on animals

- Using animals for entertainment (In a badly treated forced kind of way)

- Using animal skins and furs for fashion

- Animals being treated badly as part of the food industry e.g. in intensive/battery farming

 

As many of you will know I sponsered a rescue turkey (called Lord Gobble Gooble :) and I have looked into some of the apalling conditions innocent animals have to survive in around the world. I am genuinely concerned about the issues above.

 

Many companies do try to avoid profiting to the detriment of animals by avoiding animal testing and treating any animals used in their processes well. For example; Lush, The Body Shop, The Co-op and many others are some of the well know producers of animal friendly toiletaries and cosmetics.

Yeo valley the Yoghurt manufacturers even provided comfy matresses in the cow sheds for their dairy cows to lay on! Now that is how it should be done! :P And there are soo many other fabulous companies that are also dedicated to animal rights- look out for them and please try to support them where you can :) Also try not to support any kind of animal entertainment which doesn't seem to be quite right.

 

PETA (people for the ethical treatment of animals) have a lot more information about all of the issues above and more and also have many different ideas on how you can get involved in supporting animal rights: http://www.peta.org.uk/ and on many company websites you can find thier ethical policies too to check what they are doing to ensure animal rights.

 

Thank you very much for reading this special post, I have enjoyed posting about this important issue and my brother is very thankful to you all too, he has been working hard and really wanted to spread the issue further than just our school. He has also made a youtube video and would be very grateful if you could watch it: It is here! :)

See you all soon,

Bye :) xxxXxxxXxxX

Crafty kit makes :)

Hola my lovely friends!

 

Last post I mentioned the purse I made from the Crafty nana kit I got from my aunt. It was easy to make and I managed to finish it all in one day, christmas day, using my sewing machine, ready to use in the January sales to hold all my bargain hunting money, lol :P

 

Here it is, the bow wasn't part of the kit, I just added it for fun and to glam it up a bit:

 

And last post I mentioned the Paper and string kit I bought in John Lewis, in the sales, quite a bargain I would say at £7.50 as I have been having alot of fun with it. Here are my two woodland friends I have finished so far:

 

 

An acorn and a mushroom..... any good name ideas anyone? lol :0D I tried out googly eyes for the mushroom (not part of the kit, again just for fun :P) and I think it made it look cute. I still have a fox and a hedgehog to make too, I can't wait to have the whole crew finished, I will probably cut out the felt using the patterns for them later!

 

I will probably experiment with some different felt characters of my own designs when I have finished, I have had a few ideas whilst I have been stitching these little guys up.

 

I hope you all had a lovely Monday,

 

see you all soon

 

Byeeeeeeeee xxxxx

Sock wildlife

Hello everyone,

I hope you all had a nice week!

 I helped out at my school sports day yesterday, that was fun :) And today was textiles club :D It was only me today as I think the other years had exams but the teacher said I could make a sock toy from a book the textiles department just bought. It was called Stray sock sewing and there was tons of cute creatures to make in it but I chose a little sock piggy. I made about half in school and then when I got home I finished him off :0) Here he is....

Hehehe :P I decided to call him Sid, the sock pig!

After I finished sid I had the urge to make another sock animal but this time I thought I would make up my own design, using a similar construction method. I came up with Sock shark:

Just when you thought it was safe to rummage around in your sock draw...... lol!

It is quite amazing just how much you can do a couple of socks really :-) I might try another animal out of the book next week, I will look for some good socks at the weekend! If you want to try some sock animals I reccomend looking in £1 shops as they often do packs of different socks for £1 and usually they are kids socks so are super-bright coloured!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend,

See you all soon,

Bye XXXxxxXXX <3 <3

March Swaps

Hola!

The other day the ATC's I made for Laura as part of the March ATC swap we decided to do arrived do now I can show you them :):

The 'Meer-Bunny!' cross stitch design was from a kit I bought in Hobbycraft. The cross stitch designs on the Food ATC are my own and I called that ATC 'American diner' :-) Laura liked them so 'Yay!'

I really enjoyed making the ATC's and will definitely be making more in the very near future!

Thank you for swapping with me Laura , and sharing your ATC know-how :)

Another swap I signed up for in March was the Cute and Quirky swap, this months theme was 'Super Safari' and yesterday my parcel arrived from Oddsocks, look at all the super cool stuff I got :D:

I can't wait to make the cross stitch kit and I really love, love, love the little crochet elephant she made :) The eyes are even handmade! They are so effective, I must try making some eyes soon (I think they are made from fimo type stuff)

Thank you Oddsocks!!!

Here is the little lady in a leopard costume I designed and stitched to put in the parcel I sent :P:

Hehehe, pretty random I know but it was just and idea that popped into my head when I looked at the leopard print felt I had and thought it would be fun to make and the swap is for quirky stuff :D She was liked, so once again 'Yay!' :0) You can see the rest of what I sent on Oddsocks blog: here!

I'm off now to keep working on the mini ami astronaut I am making for my brother for his birthday which is coming up this Sunday,

See you all soon,

Bye xxx

I'm back!!!

Hello everyone!

I'm Back! and better than ever, Hehehe!

I have missed you all lots!

 I had a brilliant holiday though! :0) The apartment we stayed in was nice and had a great view of the sea and the water park was very fun, we went rock pooling and snorkeling quite a few times too!

This was the view from our balcony:

and here is a picture of the water park:

In the end I was brave enough to go on all the slides :)

This is one of the beaches I visited:

The water was quite clear and contained lots of fish and little creatures, I went floating round on my lilo wearing a snorkel, exploring! I kept creeping my dad out by saying 'I can see a hermit crab' and 'Whats that thing?', he's not as keen on the creatures of the deep as I am, he worries he will tread on them and get stung/bitten etc...! :0)

I can't blame him though, I did see some pretty odd marine life, such as this centipede type thing:

I think he is quite cute in his own way :)...?

In the rock pools there were lots of crabs and some baby hermit crabs too, which, of course I took pictures of to show all you lovely people!

I also manged to fit in a lot of crafting (post coming soon :) and bought loads of good stuff from the local shops such as a realllly cute hello kitty backpack and pair of shoelaces, some little hair clips and some bargain bracelets which had loooaaddsss of beads on which I am going to cut up and use for crafting :)

I also bought some stuff for a giveaway which I will be posting up soon, it has just been pretty hectic first day back. My GCSE results were meant to be posted to me, as I was away but there was a mix up and they weren't (I did find a little thank you card in the post though from Laura from Cute crocheted creations for the gift I sent her for her wedding, which you can see on her blog. That made me smile, thank you Laura!)

In the end I had to go to school to try and get them, thankfully the exams officer kindly came in especially for me, to sort them out :-)

I got:

English literature= A

English language= A

Maths= A*

Biology= A*

Physics= A*

Chemistry= A*

Citizenship= A*

RE= A*

PE= A*

Geography= A*

Business= A*

Food tech = A*

I was soooooooooo happy! I really wanted to get straight a's and was really nervous but in the end I managed to do even better than hoped, I cried when I saw the sheet! :D My family were thrilled too and to celebrate they are treating me to pizza and ice cream tonight, mmmmm...,

Yum! :P

I am a VERY happy bunny! =:0)

I also got to go to my knitting group today :) ( I will post about that soon as well)

I think I need too go and lie down now though, I have had a lot of excitement today and I didn't get back till about 1:00am this morning so I think I definitely need to relax a bit before my next dose of excitement, my pizza and ice cream spectacular! 

See you all very, very soon!

Bye xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(p.s thanks to Cucki for looking after wooly! Lol :-)

Bye <3

Where are they now? : 2011 knitting and crochet blog week! (Day 4)

Yo! :D

Today the post is about the fates of past projects, basically where all the yarny items live now, enjoy....

Rice ball!!!! and Tiny the little circus elephant live on my special shelf with my collection of brooches and other handmade bits and bobs.They like it there as they have lots of friends to talk to :)

My mum has both her kindle cases in her room and uses them regulary to keep her kindle nice and snug!

My dad keeps the little halloween pumpkin I made him on his baking shelf in the kitchen. The kitchen is where keeps lots of the little items I make him as he spends alot of his time there each day ( making cakes, breakfast and dinners etc..) so he gets to enjoy them :D

The bunting I made him ages ago is also up on the wall in the kitchen:



I regularly use the slippers I made with the Hello kitty buttons and they are on the end of my bed with my pyjamas :0)

And finally the new home of my Red Nose Day monster is tucked up nice and tightly in my bed,

Hes just so lovely to hug!

Ill see you all tommorrow for a very special experimental post as part of the 2nd K&CBW,

Cioa!

Mini ami circus elephant: 2nd February pattern!

Hola!

The time has come, I have for you now the second free pattern of February! Hes special and he's small and you can make your own, a mini amigurumi circus elephant :)

This little guy is about 3 inches from tail to trunk and can be made in only a couple of hours.

Here's how......

You will need:

• Some DK yarn in silvery/greyey blue (For elephant body, ears and feet)
• Some DK yarn in red or whatever colour you wish (For seat cover on elephant)
• A 3.5mm crochet hook
• A pair of 3.25mm knitting needles
• Two small cream/pearly beads for eyes
• 1 small star sequin/confetti/gem and 2 larger ones (or whatever you wish to decorate your little friend with.)
• A small amount of stuffing
• Some fabric/all purpose glue
• A darning/yarn needle
• Scissors
• A stitch marker/safety pin to mark start /end of rounds

Pattern:

(I worked the pieces in continuous rounds which are not joined by slip stitches unless written.)

 

Body (make 1):

 

Using 3.5mm hook and blue DK yarn make a magic ring, 5dc into ring (5sts)

Rnd 1: 2dc into each st around (10sts)

Rnd 2: *1dc, 2dc into next st* repeat from * to * around (15sts)

Rnd 3: *2dc, 2dc into next st* repeat from * to * around (20sts)

Rnd 4: *3dc, 2dc into next st* repeat from * to * around (25sts)

Rnd 5-9: 1 dc into each st around (25sts)

Rnd 10: *3dc, dc2tog* repeat from *to * around (20sts)

Rnd 11: *2dc, dc2tog* repeat from *to* around (15sts)

Rnd 12: *1dc, dc2tog* repeat from *to* around (10sts)

Stuff body here!

Rnd 13: dc2tog around (5sts)

Rnd 14-16: 1dc into each st around

Rnd 17: dc2tog twice, Slst into next st (3sts)

Fasten off

 Ears (make 2):

Using 3.5mm hook and blue DK yarn make a magic ring, 5dc into ring (5sts)

Rnd 1: 2dc into each st around (10sts)

Slst into next st

Fasten off


Feet (make 4):

Using 3.5mm hook and blue DK yarn make a magic ring, 5dc into ring (5sts)

Rnd 1: 2dc into each st around (10sts)

Rnd 2: dc2tog around (5sts)

Slst into next st

Fasten off



Seat cover (make 1):

Using 3.25mm needles and red DK yarn

CO 6sts

Stst 12 rows (beginning with a k row)

Cast off

 

Making up:

Start by taking your elephant body piece and sew the small pearl beads either side of the base of the trunk to create the eyes. Then take the ears and sew them slightly wider apart a bit behind the eyes, the pictures can be used a s a guide. Darn in/fasten off any loose ends on the ears or body piece. You can stuff the feet if you wish however I didn't. Sew the feet to the base of the elephant as seen in the diagram (in a kind of square/rectangle placement):

Next take a piece of  the blue DK yarn and tie a knot in the end. fasten it to the back (bum :) of the elephant so only a short length of yarn and the knot stick out to create a little tail (see picture for guidance). Sew the seat cover across the back of the elephant and  finally, attach a small star sequin to each side of the seat cover and one to the elephants forehead using fabric/craft glue to make him look a bit more showbiz! :D

All finished!!!!!!

Abbreviations:

(I am using UK crochet/knitting abbreviations)

st(s) = Stitch(es)
Rnd(s) = Round(s)
Slst = Slip stitch
dc = double crochet
dc2tog = double crochet two stitches together
Stst = Stocking stitch
K = Knit
CO = Cast on

I hope you all have fun making the pattern, see you soon

Bye :0)

Cute 'N' Quirky swap!

Hi everyone :)

I set up a swap group on ravelry for swapping cute and quirky items and today when I came home my parcel from the February swap was waiting for me! This months theme was kawaii critters here's what I received:

I got:

• 2 very kawaii panda hairbands
• a little penguin keyring
• 2 reels of lovely ribbon
• Some mini star beads
• 2 quirky little stickers (not pictured because I accidentally left them in the envelope till now *doh!* :)
• AND some utterly amazing Hello Kitty buttons which I will have to save for a verrrryyy special project!

My partner seems to know me very well as I absolutely love everything, Thank  you!!!!!!!!

I'm off to enjoy my parcel but I will talk to you all very soon :)

P.s keep your eyes peeled as I am working on two free patterns to be posted up in February and loads more great stuff before that!

Bye xxx