The Christmas Rag Wreath Factory

I spent a lot of last week chopping up Christmas fabric ready the first rag wreath workshop at Roses and Rue...  I was also the sad one up at 6.00am to make sausage rolls for the tea breaks, we had pork and apple and, pork and caramelised onions, rather yummy!


Managed to get the room set up really quickly and both of Sharon's daughters were there too:

This is Rosie... firmly following in her mum's footsteps making a bandana for herself

And this is Rue, who had just woken up from a nap behind the cutting table,
 with her mum  knitting in the background

So we had nine ladies, all ready to get going on their wreaths, everyone had the same basic pack ... except for Lara, who has a themed and tasteful Christmas, when I am grown up, I might be like that but I doubt it!


So here are the various wreaths

Behind this lovely grey, silver, red and white wreath is Lara... she used a gorgeous white satin ribbon to set it off.

Now this is the very speedy Barbara... first to try out the rotary cutters and first to finish, her wreath looked so lush and thick... I had wreath envy!

Here is Pat, she is the most amazing knitter, so precise is her work that I reckon she is the only person  who possibly knits a tension square for her tension square... when I grow up my work is going to be as good as Pat's!

Darrell was totally focused (I love her t-shirt, almost as stylish as she is!) and I can tell you her wreath looked fabulous when finished.

As you can see, we had a real factory line going and no-one was going to leave a single piece of white showing.


And here is another one that I have made, I rather like this as it is rather manly, surprisingly I have used a lot of black in it but I am really pleased with it.

And this is the song that got everyone singing:

So you know what to do next, hightail it over to Wendy's Handmade Monday to see what everyone has been up to this week.


Oh and the weekly Christmas tutorial will be up tomorrow... I promise :)

Housework - Phooey, I'm too busy playing!

Firstly I have to welcome some new followers, Ola to the lovely ladies from Brazil who found me through Minha Casa Meu Mundo, Goeiendag/Bonjour to Roziemie from Belgium and finally G'day to Carmel who is a friend of my sister from Oz - and Carmel, I know Annette has told you that she taught me everything that I know, but this is wrong, she could never make the mess that I make when I am working!


Do you ever have one of those weeks where you just don't know where to turn cos you want to do everything?


Well, here are a pair of pure Alpaca handwarmers which I designed, Sharon at Roses and Rue had received a sample ball of just 100m, so after we had finished stroking it, I got to take it home and knit it up, hence designing a pair of handwarmers with a little heart motif and a picot edging tied with a narrow black velvet ribbon.  Let me know if you would like me to publish the pattern on the blog?

Sharon has also asked me to do some classes at the shop, so I am going to do a flower workshop - as you will know I can manage Kanzashi flowers, so I thought I should also master some other sorts of flowers which can be made into fridge magnets, so I have been playing with some handsewn flowers, including yoyos - yep I even have a yoyo maker - and I have been deconstructing a felt flower that a friend has which I think may join the fray (no pun intended as it will be in felt!).  I feel a set of mega flower-making tutorial coming up.  Do you think we could make five different flowers in two hours... I bet we could!

Then I popped into the shop on Saturday and Sharon was on a mission, she was going to master freestyle machine embroidery, so armed with the Poppy Treffry's book she was off.  I had to run back home to find some  embroidery hoops and then I got started too.  We really went for it, down went the running dogs (the little teeth you find on the plate under the foot) and then with no regard for our own safety off came the foot.  It was really liberating - the only way I can explain it is to say you move the fabric and not the needle... but it is such fun playing and so different from classic applique where you do not see any raw edges.

Please note the classic machinist - ironing board on in the background,
coffee by her right hand and book open in front of her.

And this was her very first time, sans dogs and sans feet,
I love the smoke coming out of the chimney

I am still working on my piece which is called hearts and flowers, it is a freehand picture of a bunch of flowers and hearts in a vase, I promise to post it up during the week so you can see what you think.

Now as tomorrow is Monday, go take a look at Handmade Monday on Wendy's 1st Unique to see what everyone has been up to... she is also the Queen of Camper Vans as you will find out when you read it :)


Finally can I take this opportunity to thank you all for reading my blog, this weekend, I went through the 10,000 hits mark, it still amazes me that so many of your read my meanderings in so many places.  Thank you everyone :) 


And because it made me smile when I went past yesterday, this is the school allotment for North Street Primary School, which is just around the corner from where I live - I love the huge scarecrows, they are super!

... BTW, you should have seen me with my camera thrust through the fence taking my snaps but the sight was too lovely to miss.