The craft group I'm involved with made some more cards yesterday. They were donated to a shop that raises money to help pensioners. The cards are bright and cheery, so I hope they will sell and add a tiny bit to the coffers.
The craft group I'm involved with made some more cards yesterday. They were donated to a shop that raises money to help pensioners. The cards are bright and cheery, so I hope they will sell and add a tiny bit to the coffers.
I'm hoping to squeeze a bit more honey from the comb, with the help of more sunshine today, but I'm very happy with the haul of honey so far!
And I thought I could get into a sticky mess with glue? Try honey. Jack's not feeling up to processing his honey, so I said I'd do it. Read up on the internet and off I went. It turns out that we don't have many sunny spots in the house. The veranda is sunny, but Jack was warned not to take the honey outside or the bees will reclaim it. Which is why one bowl is poised precariously above the taps. It will take a while for the honey to drain, even in a sunny spot.
I made two more hot water bottle covers, hippo and shark, and delivered all five to the gift shop yesterday.
The lady at the gift shop down the road asked me if I could translate my puppet animals into hot water bottle covers. Mmm, I'll give it a go. These are my efforts so far. She asked for 10, but I think I'll start with 5 and see whether there's really a demand for them and make sure they're not too this or too that. The gift shop doesn't pay me until the item is sold, so I don't want to go overboard.
You never know how your day is going to turn out, do you? Instead of spending Friday messing with glue at the retirement home, I spent it tatting leaf braid in the hospital next to Jack's bed. Because I was well prepared, I was able to ask someone else to step in for me, so the glue was duly wielded and thank you cards made. Jack is home again now, thankfully. I was glad I could grab my 'handbag tatting' when I had to leave in a hurry.
I thought that as the market was over, and there's time to prepare for the next one, I'd take the gap and make myself a blouse. I've had the idea in mind ever since the pattern was returned to me in December.
I did view 2, minus the pockets. The polka dot fabric is flimsy and see through, so I lined back and front with linen that was left over from making a skirt. I left the sleeves sheer. I could have made it a little shorter, since I plan to wear it out, rather than tucked in, but it's too difficult to alter, attached to the lining as it is, so it will stay like that.
I bought some more petunia seedlings as well as pansies. And two ceramic mixing bowls that I've been looking for since mine broke. I was pretty restrained and managed to come home with more noney than I left with!
The little fellow who comes to me for sewing lessons is turning 8 next week. With the weather getting colder, I thought he might like a cap and mittens. I used a pattern from The Ashford Book of Spinning by Anne Field. I didn't use handspun yarn though. I thought acrylic would be more practical, so I used yarn left over from other projects. The pattern works them flat, but I knitted the hat with a circular needle and mittens with double pointed needles. I think they're neater that way.
On Sunday I found enough ripe naartjies (tangerines) for a batch of marmalade. I used this recipe.
It came out really well. There were four bottles, but I gave one to my neighbour before I took a photo. There are plenty more naartjies on the tree, so I will be making more as they ripen. Jack might have to replace the tree, which would mean a few years before I can make naartjie marmalade again.
After a bit of a diversion to knit a hat for an order, I've finished knitting these socks in handspun wool. The next market is on 14th May, so I might have time for another pair. Though there are always diversions to be had!
One of the ladies in the craft group I am now running (eek!) in a retirement home, told me recently that she only wants to do sewing projects, not paper projects. She has my sympathy, I'd choose fabric over paper any day of the week, but it's impractical to exclude paper altogether. I'm preparing tomorrow's project.
I came across this gerbera type paper flower on Pinterest here. It's pretty simple to make, everyone in the group should manage it. But what to do with the flowers?
I thought I'd make use of these boxes I was given. The box is sturdy, but covered in writing. I tried painting over the writing, but that didn't work, so I turned a box inside out and then painted it. I know the group members will decorate the boxes much more elaborately than I have, but I've made a sample to give them the idea. Now to assemble anything and everything that could be used for the job, from paper and templates to beads and ribbons.
I know I criticised the Cloudburst Pattern in my previous post, but the gloves have turned out really well.
Sarah, my fellow market stall holder, put pictures of my socks and gloves on her mailing group on Saturday evening and I got an immediate response, which was gratifying! Some one wants the Leaves gloves and asked for a hat to go with them. I sent her photos of various patterns I found and she plumped for Fishtail Hat Pattern, by Gail Bable.
When it comes to patterns that is. This pattern is Cloudburst by Arienne Grey. It's six pages long and very garbled. There's no way I was going to print out six pages, much of which was unnecessary. I printed the page with the chart on it and, on the other side, the page with a picture of the finished gloves and then scribbled notes for myself. I made the gloves a bit shorter than the pattern, both before and after the thumb shaping.
Nalu, on the other hand, was concise and clear. Hats off to Sparrowhawk. Leaves was somewhere inbetween.
This pattern is called Leaves and is by ValKnitting. I printed it out years ago, so I'm not sure where it came from. Ravelry? Probably. They're knitted on 5mm needles, which is a bit big for my handspun wool. Next time I might adjust the stitch count and use smaller needles. Of course I could spin thicker wool....
I finished knitting the socks I showed in this post and spun and dyed the blue before last week's market. I even found some labels from my previous incarnation. I didn't sell any socks or yarn at the market, but there was a lot of interest, which is a good start. Now I'm working on fingerless gloves. I started with undyed yarn so I can see exactly how much yarn they need. Half the yarn of a sock, so that's handy!
Right, now I know why knitters don't finish off necklines with cables. When I finished Jack's pullover, I thought the cable finish looked good. But it stretched, so the pullover looked saggy and horrible. Not a good look. I did mean to correct it in the middle of summer, when the pullover was languishing in the cupboard, but of course I didn't get around to it until the weather turned cool and winter was definitely on its way. I used a circular needle to pick up stitches around the neck and work a more conventional ribbed neckline, without undoing the cables or anything else. It has worked fine and the pullover looks a whole lot better.
The weather on Saturday morning was cold and windy, not pleasant, so the morning market was a bit subdued, but it did go ahead. I sold the dinosaur towel and four bath puppets, so I it was worth my while to go.
Of course I didn't just sell things at the market. there are always interesting things to buy. The trick is to bring in more than you spend, which I did manage this time. I bought a jar of rasberry jam and 8 petunia plants from one lady; pitted dates from another; and handmade soap from Sarah, my fellow stall holder:
The story of pepperdews is quite interesting, as you can read in this article. They're a pickled pepper that are heavily trade mark protected in South Africa. The peppers I pickled this morning are not pepperdews, they're a mild chilli pepper called grandmother's bonnet. (I wonder if that's a nod to Scotch bonnets, a similar looking but very fiery chilli?) A friend gave me a packet of them yesterday. I followed the recipe in the article to pickle them. It's a copycat recipe, the author's version of how she thinks it was done. These will have to mature for a few weeks before we start eating them.
What a difference a day makes, as they say. When the market was cancelled, I put a note on a local Facebook group and received two orders, after the note from the shop wanting puppets on commission. One order is for 11 puppets - 5 monkeys, 5 frogs and a crocodile. The other order is for a monkey and a rabbit. So I only delivered 6 puppets to the shop yesterday, because a definite sale trumps on-commission-not-sure-when-we'll-pay-you. And yesterday I heard that there will be another market on the 9th April. Usually they're only held on the last Saturday of the month.
Yesterday afternoon I made two monkeys in tandem and now I"m making four frogs:
The main advantage of working this way is that there are fewer changes of thread colour. I didn't do all the monkeys at once though because they're more complicated than the frogs and I didn't want to end up with a whole bunch of half-made monkeys.
But eventually I'll have a troupe of monkeys. I'm not sure of the collective noun for frogs, I'll have to look it up.
Next week I'll have to make more puppets for the market.
Considering how mediocre this rainy season has been, it's really a swizz that the market on Saturday was rained off again! It was beautiful rain, and we really need it, so no one dare complain.
I'm sending the bath puppets to a gift shop down the road on consignment. I'm not sure that's a good idea, I'd much rather sell them direct at the market, but plan B was required and I had a message from the shop owner asking for them.
Mr Giraffe is the tenth puppet in the group.