Random Witterings!

Yesterday my lovely friend Tracey and I went to the Birmingham NEC for our annual spring attendance at the Craft and Sewing Exhibition.  As we walked down to the main entrance my inner fangirl perked into overdrive as we saw a huge line-up of Stormtroopers, Darth Vader and numerous other characters from Star Wars, SG1 and Stargate Atlantis.  Unknown to me, there was also an exhibition called Memorabilia going on too that I really wish I’d known about!  Anyway, I managed to bug Tracey into taking several pics for me of the line-up which she kindly did and also I accosted a few Stormtroopers who were bravely patrolling the corridors inside   I have to say they were awesome, really polite and must have posed countless times for a lot of people.  I even saw one elderly lady having her picture taken with a couple of them which just really tickled me.  Later on I saw Indiana Jones cracking away with his whip and a very shiny Cylon stalking the halls.  The SG1 team were really cool and ooh, Darth Maul growled at me… heeee

All the characters were there courtesy of www.ukgarrison.com and their partner organisations and I have to say HUGE kudos to them.

Here are a couple of the pics!

So I finally managed to get another cross stitch finished!  Because my moods can be so variable cos of the dumb dysthymia I go through phases where I lose interest in some things.  I’m really glad the interest came back eventually cos I loved this kit.  It’s a Cat’s Rule kit by Heritage Crafts and I love them, have at least one other to do next

This is so like my lovely Bubbles it makes me giggle every time I see it!

On another note, I’ve had a good rummage through my project boxes and I realised how much my tastes have changed and there are kits and charts I will never do now.  Rather than let them gather more dust, I’ve put them up on ebay and can see the list here.  Also up are a set of Princeton Gallery World of the Unicorn collection plates that I’ve had for so many years and never had out of the boxes and on display.  I kept telling myself that eventually would find a place to put them but have finally accepted that will never be

That’s all for now!

I’ve been collecting Fimo Polymer Clay stuff with the desire to try and make some little cat fridge magnets or something like that.  I’ve never tried using Fimo before nor really done much in the way of sculpting so have been putting it off until I had some inspiration… or bravery

The mood struck me today so I got everything out then decided I really needed to learn about it first – how it feels, how easy it is to manipulate and how it looks after it’s been baked.  Since I like making jewellery I thought I would have a go at some beads.  I’d received a free heart mould when I’d bought some Fimo so thought I would use that (I also had a nice red Fimo clay).  I’m actually really pleased with the way they turned out.  They looked how I wanted them to, I could envision a use for them and most importantly, I learnt a lot about the clay.  My fingers ache now with all the kneading but it was worth it

Here is a pic of the finished beads!

I like making the odd bit of jewellery, mainly when I come across something I would like to use and inspiration strikes.  I also love making chains.  I could sit for hours (and often do) linking rings together into a kind of chain-mail style chain.  I use a 2-in-1 or a 4-in-1 pattern depending on how wide I want it to be.

Last time I went over to Hobbycraft I found these lovely leaf shaped beads in a variety of colours.  I found the autumnal colour ones the most attractive and decided to make myself a set of earrings, necklace and bracelet.  These are the results!

I finally got the rug properly finished, I used an iron on binding tape for the edges on the underside which worked really well.  Both cats have had a go on it and Bubbles thinks it’s her new love rug (she stands and kneads on it for ages while purring her head off).  Really pleased with the finished result and it’s great seeing it down in front of the fire and part of the room

Worked a bit more on the cross-stitch so it’s time for another photo   Leigh correctly guessed it involves a cat somewhere (surprise surprise!) but not what the whole picture is, so I can at least retain a little mystery about it

More soon!

Apologies to Rolf Harris for borrowing his catchphrase

So I’ve already started on my next craft project and it’s a really cute cross-stitch.  I’m not going to tell you what the design is other than that!  Yes, it’s mystery cross-stitch theatre

The picture so far…

More soon!

The rug is finally finished!  I just need to trim the excess and put some rug binding on before it can go down in front of the fire   I’m sure the cats will love ignoring it, even though all the way through making it, they kept trying to lie on it

Here is the last in progress picture

And here it is finished!

I decided to set out all the pictures in thumbnail form so you could look through them all at once.  For me, it’s great seeing it all come together!

I really enjoy doing cross-stitch and have done it for many years.  I’ve finished a few large projects and lots of little ones as gifts for friends and family.  I’ve not really kept any kind of picture record of projects that have been completed, but as Tony kindly took some pictures of the larger projects that I kept, I thought I would post them here

This was the first large project I finished.  Probably one of my favourites too even tho I cursed it a lot when I was doing it.

As I had 2 cats at the time, one black (my old darling Squeak) and the ever cute ginger Bubbles, I loved this one as a representation of them.   Happily it is still appropriate as Fizz is also black

I couldn’t resist this kit when I saw it, it makes me smile whenever I see it on the window sill

This is the most recent one I’ve finished.  It actually took 10 years from starting it to finishing it but I didn’t work on it solidly in that time, I probably packed it away for a couple of years and did other projects in the meantime.  Also due to a couple of annoying errors, it ended up being unpicked completely and started again.  Thankfully it wasn’t too far along when I had to do that.  I’m still pleased with it now it’s finished and I just need to get a good frame for it.

I have loads of kits to be started so I will witter about it here when I decided which one to do next after the rug is finished

The rug is really close to being finished now, and I’m really pleased with the way it’s turning out!  Fizz is already trying to sit on it

Here are some more progress pics.