Okay so I have had a slight change of plans.
I will still be posting here with my mother... but I will be sticking more to the topic in future and less about my stuff. If you want my thoughts on things, stay tuned here. If you want to see what I get up to during the next year head on over to my new blog Lellie Loop.
Well that's about it from me for today,
Bye :)
Thursday, 12 February 2015
Wednesday, 11 February 2015
Blogful of Beanies!
Hi...
Okay so yesterday I was looking over my posts and I noticed that I often start with "Hello again" so today it is just Hi.
Last week and part of this week I have been working on ribbed beanies for my stall in March. In total I want to have ten ribbed beanies to sell. At the moment I have made five. They actually take quite a long time to make. It is about 4 hours if I just sat down and focused really hard. But considering I take time to make tea and do some house chores and answer the phone and have lunch it lands up taking me a whole day to make one. (in case you were wondering I charge as though it were four hours. I timed it the first time and I made it without stopping.)
I am so tired of making these beanies that I am going to change to making some of the other stuff before I make the next five.
Here are some photos that my sister took for me. I even got my other half to help me model them.
As you can see the beanies are quite stretchy due to the ribbed stitch. There is only one blue beanie and I can wear it and I have a small head (I choose my glasses from the children's range) and my man has a large head. He struggles to find hats that fit him and as a consequence gets sunburned on his face quite often.
I hope you enjoyed the little peak into my life,
Keep Drinking Tea,
Diella
Okay so yesterday I was looking over my posts and I noticed that I often start with "Hello again" so today it is just Hi.
Last week and part of this week I have been working on ribbed beanies for my stall in March. In total I want to have ten ribbed beanies to sell. At the moment I have made five. They actually take quite a long time to make. It is about 4 hours if I just sat down and focused really hard. But considering I take time to make tea and do some house chores and answer the phone and have lunch it lands up taking me a whole day to make one. (in case you were wondering I charge as though it were four hours. I timed it the first time and I made it without stopping.)
I am so tired of making these beanies that I am going to change to making some of the other stuff before I make the next five.
Here are some photos that my sister took for me. I even got my other half to help me model them.
 |
| Blue Beanie without PomPom |
 |
| Pink Beanie with Pompom |
 |
| Red Beanie with Pompom |
 |
| Blue beanie without Pompom, not folded |
 |
| Blue beanie without Pompom, folded |
 | |
| all 5 beanies, although two still need sewing up. |
As you can see the beanies are quite stretchy due to the ribbed stitch. There is only one blue beanie and I can wear it and I have a small head (I choose my glasses from the children's range) and my man has a large head. He struggles to find hats that fit him and as a consequence gets sunburned on his face quite often.
I hope you enjoyed the little peak into my life,
Keep Drinking Tea,
Diella
Tuesday, 10 February 2015
Harfield Village Carnival 2015
Hello again lovely readers,
I am sure that you have noticed me hinting at the market I am going to attend, but I decided that it was high time that I actually gave you some more details.
Last year I went to an indoor market at Longbeach Mall and I met a lovely lady called Lucretia who was selling her crochet goods. We started chatting about our shared love for crochet and we exchanged details. Fast forward to this year. Lucretia contacted me some time in January to tell me that she was working with the Harfield Village Carnival and she wanted to know if I would be interested in having a stall.
To be honest I had not been so sure about going to markets because it is summer in South Africa and that means most days it is like 32 degrees C and even doing crochet is very hot never mind wearing it. I was also admittedly a little nervous of trying to figure out who to contact about getting a stall and how the whole process worked. So when Lucretia contacted me and sent me all the required forms I just felt like it was meant to be.
So what am I planning to sell?
Beanies, scarves, wrist warmers, bags, bracelets, milk jug covers (aka fly nets), head bands, shawls, and possibly some cushion covers if I have time.
So what happened to me complaining about the South African heat?
Well I figured that
Okay well it is only March so it is more like Autumn is coming... but since February is often the hottest month hopefully things will be better in March. Otherwise I suppose the fly nets will do well. Heehee.
Well that is it from me for today,
Keep drinking tea,
Diella
Thursday, 5 February 2015
Letter Case
Hello Again,
I love all things hand crafty, not only crochet. Crochet is my passion but I do do other handy work as well. Yesterday I sewed myself a letter case! And I am going to share the process with you.
As most of you know I majored in English Literature. And during the course of my studies we of course read a little Jane Austen. So two years ago when I was at a book sale, I found Jane Austen's Sewing Box and I just had to buy it. After that I was so absorbed in my studies that I did not actually make anything from the book. Yesterday however I decided it was time to break out the sewing machine again. I am sure that these projects are supposed to be hand sewn but as I am currently preparing for a craft market and I have a lot of crochet to do I decided to save time and machine sew it.
I decided on the Letter Case partly because I already had some material that I could use and partly because I am an avid fan of writing hand written letters and posting them to my friends and family. I am not going to share the whole thing with you but I will share the basics and what I did to change it. I won't share the pattern from the book because I am sure that that would contradict the wishes of the author.
The shape is 42cm tall and 20cm wide.
Now comes my first deviation... (did I ever mention that I suck at sticking to patterns.) I was supposed to use two panels of patterned cotton and one panel of interfacing. But unfortunately I did not have any interfacing that I could use. However I did have some stiffer material. It is either a very stiff cotton, or I suspect it is some kind of linen. But I decided that it would be nice to have a different colour fabric for the inside of the case anyway. So I cut one panel of the cotton (floral), and two panels of the stiffer striped fabric.
Okidoki think that we are done with deviations? Think again. The pattern called for an extra square pocket to be sewn on. But I got out one of my usual envelopes and measured... and decided that this would make the case way too big for my liking. I wanted something that could easily stay in my handbag until I could post the letter. So I went with out the pocket.
Now I pinned my three panels together. The floral and striped facing each other and the third panel doesn't matter which way it faced. Then I got my sewing machine and sewed up the one side, round the top and down the other side. I left the bottom open.
Now you turn the case the right way round.
This part is a little tricky. You need to fold the edges of the bottom inward to face each other. This is made slightly difficult by the middle panel. If I did it again I might have made the "interfacing" panel slightly shorter than the other two. Anyway the stripes on mine made it slightly easier to see that I had the fold relatively straight. Then I pinned it and did a hem stitch across by hand.
Then the rest is rather easy. I just folded the bottom up to make a little pocket. I checked with the flap that the proportions were to my liking. I pinned it in place in the middle not along the sides. Then I ironed the sides flat. This made it easier to take through the sewing machine. And there it was done.
Well it was done in theory. But for me I decided to cut some lace/ribbon and decorate it a little further. My mother showed me how to lay the ribbon log cabin style, apparently this is a patchwork thing. and I sewed it on with the machine again.
Keep drinking Tea!
Diella
XOXO
I love all things hand crafty, not only crochet. Crochet is my passion but I do do other handy work as well. Yesterday I sewed myself a letter case! And I am going to share the process with you.
As most of you know I majored in English Literature. And during the course of my studies we of course read a little Jane Austen. So two years ago when I was at a book sale, I found Jane Austen's Sewing Box and I just had to buy it. After that I was so absorbed in my studies that I did not actually make anything from the book. Yesterday however I decided it was time to break out the sewing machine again. I am sure that these projects are supposed to be hand sewn but as I am currently preparing for a craft market and I have a lot of crochet to do I decided to save time and machine sew it.
I decided on the Letter Case partly because I already had some material that I could use and partly because I am an avid fan of writing hand written letters and posting them to my friends and family. I am not going to share the whole thing with you but I will share the basics and what I did to change it. I won't share the pattern from the book because I am sure that that would contradict the wishes of the author.
The shape is 42cm tall and 20cm wide.
Now comes my first deviation... (did I ever mention that I suck at sticking to patterns.) I was supposed to use two panels of patterned cotton and one panel of interfacing. But unfortunately I did not have any interfacing that I could use. However I did have some stiffer material. It is either a very stiff cotton, or I suspect it is some kind of linen. But I decided that it would be nice to have a different colour fabric for the inside of the case anyway. So I cut one panel of the cotton (floral), and two panels of the stiffer striped fabric.
Okidoki think that we are done with deviations? Think again. The pattern called for an extra square pocket to be sewn on. But I got out one of my usual envelopes and measured... and decided that this would make the case way too big for my liking. I wanted something that could easily stay in my handbag until I could post the letter. So I went with out the pocket.
Now I pinned my three panels together. The floral and striped facing each other and the third panel doesn't matter which way it faced. Then I got my sewing machine and sewed up the one side, round the top and down the other side. I left the bottom open.
Now you turn the case the right way round.
This part is a little tricky. You need to fold the edges of the bottom inward to face each other. This is made slightly difficult by the middle panel. If I did it again I might have made the "interfacing" panel slightly shorter than the other two. Anyway the stripes on mine made it slightly easier to see that I had the fold relatively straight. Then I pinned it and did a hem stitch across by hand.
Then the rest is rather easy. I just folded the bottom up to make a little pocket. I checked with the flap that the proportions were to my liking. I pinned it in place in the middle not along the sides. Then I ironed the sides flat. This made it easier to take through the sewing machine. And there it was done.
Well it was done in theory. But for me I decided to cut some lace/ribbon and decorate it a little further. My mother showed me how to lay the ribbon log cabin style, apparently this is a patchwork thing. and I sewed it on with the machine again.
And here is a little picture of our tea pots... haha my mother and I drank soooo much tea yesterday that we had our own tea pots. Mine is the pink one with the blue butterfly. We also had a power cut yesterday. South Africa is starting to feel more and more like a third world country. We now have scheduled weekly/daily power cuts depending on the stage of the electricity problem. So we had two hours yesterday where my father couldn't work and I couldn't use my sewing machine or the internet (my phone uses the home wifi) or my computer. This is a problem for my getting patterns.
But this got me thinking. The next thing that I sew might just be a tea-cosy so that next time I will be able to have warm tea. Hehe.
Keep drinking Tea!
Diella
XOXO
Wednesday, 4 February 2015
Thursday, 29 January 2015
Crochet Bracelets
Hello Again,
I wanted to show you have I have been spending my time doing these days.
Since yesterday I have been focusing on making these :
The ones pictured here I am not selling because these are my sister's ones but you can see them as an example of the different shapes that I have been doing.
I have started making more because yesterday my sister went to university and she came back and told me that the bracelets had been getting a lot of compliments and that she had even given my facebook site to someone. So I figured that if people are interested I better make some more. :)
The photos were taken by my sister by the way. I love her photography.
Keep drinking tea! I am going back to my crochet and tea now. :D
Diella
I wanted to show you have I have been spending my time doing these days.
Since yesterday I have been focusing on making these :
The ones pictured here I am not selling because these are my sister's ones but you can see them as an example of the different shapes that I have been doing.
I have started making more because yesterday my sister went to university and she came back and told me that the bracelets had been getting a lot of compliments and that she had even given my facebook site to someone. So I figured that if people are interested I better make some more. :)
The photos were taken by my sister by the way. I love her photography.
Keep drinking tea! I am going back to my crochet and tea now. :D
Diella
Monday, 12 January 2015
Happy 2015
Hello again and welcome back to our blog!
Happy 2015 and I hope that you are as excited about it as I am.
This year I am opening my craft business, xyoopx. I will mainly be selling my crochet but I also do paintings and tatting and macrame and knitting and sewing, all of which I may land up selling.
So far it was my mother's birthday on the 6th of January and it is my birthday on the 15th of January so we have been having an extended celebration period. Christmas, New Year, Birthday, Birthday!!! So much busy-ness going on!
I also officially started working on xyoopx on the 6th of Jan (the day that my boyfriend went back to work as well.) And it has been going really well. Made a bunch of new items to sell as well as making a lino print to make business cards.
Keep drinking Tea,
Diella
xxx
Happy 2015 and I hope that you are as excited about it as I am.
This year I am opening my craft business, xyoopx. I will mainly be selling my crochet but I also do paintings and tatting and macrame and knitting and sewing, all of which I may land up selling.
So far it was my mother's birthday on the 6th of January and it is my birthday on the 15th of January so we have been having an extended celebration period. Christmas, New Year, Birthday, Birthday!!! So much busy-ness going on!
I also officially started working on xyoopx on the 6th of Jan (the day that my boyfriend went back to work as well.) And it has been going really well. Made a bunch of new items to sell as well as making a lino print to make business cards.
Keep drinking Tea,
Diella
xxx
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