Black and white ATCs

I have just finished a swap, ready to send to my swap partner. Three (I had to do two, but I did an extra one) black and white hand drawn ATCs. The theme was our own choice and wasn’t defined by your partner’s profile, which is just as well as it took me ages to decide what to draw. I’ve had a migraine for the last four or five days, and found drawing quite difficult. I managed to finish tonight, and although not my best art, better than something I could have done at the beginning of this blog, a year ago. I think I am progressing. I still have difficulties avoiding a woodeness about my drawn objects, but that is improving slowly. I just haven’t twigged what it is that’s stopping it become more realistic. Possibly my shading needs to be softer or blended more appropriately.

 

        

Two new bags.

I have been very busy making more bags and experimenting with new stitch effects and beading. The first little bag is a mini drawstring, with beads added in the crochet, not sewn on afterwards as in the last beaded bag (little blue bag below). It was easy enough to do, but very time consuming and fiddly, especially with a very fine yarn. I expect it gets easier with practice. The effect is lovely and with different coloured beads there are endless possibilities. I shall be trying some more 🙂

The other bag is totally different. I made this with one of my daughters in mind. Sturdier design, neutral colours and practical. It has a flap which can be used outside the bag, or can be tucked inside, with the button strap over it, to disguise the fact that there is a pocket inside. I haven’t zipped the inside pocket…not that adventurous yet, but the crochet is dense enough for money to be held securely, so long as the bag remains upright. The bag is worked in half double crochet using only the back loop of each stitch. This forms the ridge effect. It’s a variant of back loop double crochet. I halved the stitch to make it more dense. The design is my own. I love experimenting and I’m having great fun learning new stitches and patterns each day.

 

                                                            

Anyone for gingham?

A few weeks ago I decided to host a swap on Swap-bot. Since I am a big fan of gingham, I thought I would host a swap for it, and eventually chose to host a papercraft swap and a sewing swap. The papercraft swap has now closed for sign up, and only has eight participants. This was a bit disappointing but I still think potentially it has the chance to be a good swap. This was the picture I used to illustrate the swap page. All the items in the picture were made by me to give examples of things that could be made for the swap.

 

       There are cards of various shapes and sizes, ATCs and bookmarks, but there is so much you can do…it is only limited by imagination and the papercraft criteria.

 

The other swap is still open to sign up for, (for a few days only). Again I am disappointed with the take-up. There are only five participants as I write this. Its all about sewing something in gingham, or with a large part gingham. It could be a toy, or clothing, or something for the house, or a gift even. I haven’t decided what I will make. I will decide on something according to my partners profile, but I have bought or been given lots of gingham fabric and ribbon.

 

There are fairies at the bottom of my garden…

One of the things I love about Swap-bot is the sheer variety of swaps on offer. It can be ATCs, fabric, postcards, letters, mobiles, magnets and so many other types. The list is endless, let alone the themes! One I just finished is for two fairy ATCs. These are the resulting ATCs. I did an extra which is just butterflies, but matched! They are great fun to do.

            

        

Even more fun was a swap I did about a month ago which was themed Gnomes, owls and fairies. This was a matchbox decorated in this theme, and containing miniature ATCs. I loved this, once I had got used to how fiddly it could be. These are some of the results…

 As you can see, I got carried away and did more than the required six mini ATCs! This was the matchbox I decorated and sent them in.

 

 

 

Little blue beaded bag

I decided to use some beads to decorate my next creation. It’s a little blue crochet bag, draw-string, with ribbon and beads. I used complimentary coloured seed beads around the top to trim it and added some bigger filigree beads to the ribbon, to make it look slightly more eligant. It was made with crochet cotton…not sure what brand, as I lost the label, but it was a lovely 2ply worsted cotton to work with. I am thinking of making some more of these in christmas colours to stuff full of goodies, for gifts.

Feeling guilty…

Today I have finally got around to writing something in here. The truth is, I just don’t have the time to blog any more, or the energy, but I am going to make an effort as it would be a shame to let all my previous work go to waste.

So, what Have I been doing? Well lots of things. Swaps for Swap-bot, a bit of quilting and card-making, and recently, just the last couple of weeks I have become engrossed in learning to crochet again. I leaned to crochet when I was a child. My grandmother taught me. She was a brilliant crocheter and made complicated doilies and table cloths etc. When I can crochet that well, I will feel good, but for now, just relearning everything I have forgotton is complicated enough for me. I do enjoy it though and love to design my own things. So here are the first results of my efforts, bags and purses. I am trying to learn a stitch or something every day and incorporate it in a pattern…well the last few projects at any rate, so that I learn as I go along. I am quite pleased with these. Hopefully as I progress they will get better.