What to do with my left over yarn... ?

I had found myself with with a small bundle of left over yarn from projects I'd completed in the past and wondered what to do with them.  I came across a lovely pattern on Pintrest for crochet coasters

After sitting happily and crocheting coasters I realised a few things;

1.  I had crochet way more coasters than I'd realised.
2.  I still had a lot of left over yarn.

Well seeing as I really didn't think my friends would be into a pile of home made coasters for Christmas presents I decided that I had to re-think things.  Granny squares!  Which of course naturally leads to a granny square blanket. 

This lead me to many happy afternoons and evenings turning the remainder of my left-overs into coasters and the coasters into granny squares. 






Now sometimes I get to a stage in a project where I seem to loose the will to live.  So unfortunately these lovely little granny squares sat around in my closet for the next 6 months before I got up the gumption to finally crochet them together into a lovely blanket

Although these are not colours I would have chosen for a blanket if I was planning it from scratch, I'm still very pleased with the result.  I haven't had the courage to do a big granny square blanket since my rabbit ate through the last one I'd so painstakingly created. 

Well on wards and up wards.  My next project is a heart shaped wall hanging for my daughter.  And I'm going to try my hand at a multi-coloured shrug.

Take care and happy crafting!

Trying my hand at Cable knit...

I'd still consider myself a real 'newbie' at knitting.  Most of my projects have been simple sweaters for my daughter.  This spring I decided to try my hand at a cable knit sweater and was really surprised at how simple this was!  For years I thought this twisted knit was something beyond my basic skills and I am glad to say that its so easy that anyone could master it quite quickly.

The success that I had in making this project has definitely made me more confident in my ability to understand patterns and produce a lovely knit.  Now if only my mother in-law lived in the same country so she could show me how to sew these projects up a little better I'd be sorted!

Learning to Knit

I remember my mom teaching herself to knit when I was in my early teens.  She struggled through making an afghan for each of her 4 children.  It took her approximately a year for the first one.  As she became more confident she sped up and finished mine, the last one, in about 4 months.  I remember how happy I was when I finally received my white and yellow afghan.  I still have it some 30 odd years latter.  Other than a few frayed ends from our rabbit Bunbun trying to eat through it, its still as cozy as the first day.

As a teenager I knitted scarves but that was the extent of dalliance with knitting.  As I mentioned when talking about learning to crochet, the desire to create something warm and soft seemed to blossom at the same time my little Sarah was getting ready to make her appearance in the world.  My first project however was to make a surprise Christmas present, a jumper - sweater for you North Americans :-) - for my then husband Rob.  Being a surprise present I didn't take Rob's measurements but guessed at his size.  Rob's tall but thin.  I figured to fit his arms I should make the XL size.  When Rob tried it on he looked like a boy in his Daddy's clothes!  If he put on an extra 50 pounds it may have fit!


After that I decided maybe I should try something smaller.  My next project was to make a little hoodie for my daughter who was now 18 months old.  As you can see this one turned out well!  I was very proud of this jumper.  Especially the front 'invisible' pocket.  Getting my head around knitting patterns definitely was, and still can be, a challenge. I made this one for a 3 year old so that Sarah would get some wear out of it.


My next project was to make a lovely little cardigan and beret style hat for Sarah in shades of pink and burgundy wool.  I loved this set and Sarah still wears the beret in the winter.


 

 Here is my next project.  The wool is slightly sparkly and Sarah really loved this extra special quality to the wool.  Like any little girl anything that sparkles is wonderful.


This jumper was made even cuter with the lovely button left over from an old project of my mother's.

Learning to Crochet

When I was pregnant with my daughter Sarah the desire to create something warm and comforting was born as well.  I tried my first attempt at a crochet baby blanket based on a very simple pattern I found on the Internet.  My first blanket was, well its wasn't the greatest, but my daughter still uses it with her dolls so it served a purpose as well as taught me the importance of using the correct weight yarn for the project you are making!

My second attempt was much more successful and I even made a smaller matching blanket specifically for my daughter's dolls.





My next crochet project was a bit more adventurous.  A granny square blanket made from 180 granny squares in shades of blue.  I was very proud of how well this turned out.  Unfortunately this blanket too met a nasty end with a certain little furry creature.  Lets just say that its very fortunate for Bunbun that she's cute or I'm not sure I would have forgiven this.  I've taken the blanket apart and there are about 20 squares that have met their end.  Haven't sewn it back together yet...  but I will.

Other than baby blankets for expecting friends I haven't crochet much till this winter when I tried my hand at different styles of scarves and gloves to give to friends for Christmas presents.  I enjoyed learning different and more complicated crochet patterns and still have a lot to learn.  Lets see where it takes me.

Minecraft Themed Party

Sarah decided this year the party theme would be all about Minecraft and video games!  Since she first heard of Minecraft from our neighbour's son she was addicted to it.  I think one of the things that solidified Sarah's love of the game was coming across YouTube gamers Stampy Longnose and iBallisticSquid.  She watches both of their broadcasts religiously and whenever she is feeling low there is no one like Stampy to change her mood!

Here is everyone getting ready for cake!

Sarah and I enjoyed getting everything prepared for this party and all the little bits and bobs we did to make the house all Minecrafty.  With her father's assistance Sarah printed a load of mine craft blocks (grass, gold, diamond, redstone) and decorated the walls with them.





Sarah had the brilliant idea of making Snow gollums (from Ihascupquake's YouTube channel QuakenBake playlist) from marshmallows and candy melts.  They were really simple to make and Sarah enjoyed giving them all individual expressions.





We made loads of Minecraft themed treats to go along with the Snow gollums.  Gold ingots (toffee), red stone (red hard candy), TNT (red licorice wrapped in TNT labels), Sticks (pretzel sticks), Cookies (mini chocolate chip cookies), Sand blocks (Rice Krispie Treats), Grass blocks (RKT with green icing), Dirt blocks (chocolate RKT) and Diamonds (blue hard candy) and of course Mr Stampy Cat's favourite... cake!

To down load your own copy of my food labels click here.

We also coloured the Fanta Orange and Sprite green and called it Creeper Juice!

We played 'Pixel-ary' which was Sarah's pixelated take on Pictionary.  Everyone had to make their drawing on the wall using different coloured sticky note squares.  It was great to see how creative they could be.









Sarah had asked that I decorate her cake with her favourite Minecraft Youtubers.  On this cake LforLee has joined Mr. Stampy Cat, Ballistic Squid, AmyLee33 and Agatha the friendly creeper with a bit of Minecraft cake.




Dr. Trayaurus from the Diamond Minecart and Mr. Drippy (Lord High Lord of the Faries - from a Ni Ni No Kuni lets play done by Stampy) also joined the festivities.

KCakes

A while ago I was trying to figure out what type of work I could do and still be available for my daughter after school and on holidays.  I've been a stay at home mom since Sarah was born and I wanted to be able to still give my only child as much attention as possible, while helping to bring in some income to my family.

I've always enjoyed being creative and have dabbled in many things from pottery to stained glass, baking to crochet.  One day a friend suggested we get together and try our hands at fondant and cake decorating.  Although my first attempts at the medium were very basic and not so well executed I really enjoyed it.

My first attempt at the art of fondant cakes!

My love of all things sweet, and the fun I had making the cake, put in my mind the idea of doing cakes to order.  Being very luck to be surrounded by wonderfully supportive friends and family I found that once I mentioned the idea of making cakes I started to receive requests for birthdays and extra special occasions.







As my confidence has grown I have found great pleasure in creating cakes that I know my loved ones will enjoy and feel happy to share!


I'm now at the stage where I am starting to set-up a proper business and see if I can make a living at something I love to do.  Please check out my cakes at my website www.kcakes.ie and let me know what you think!

Harry Potter Themed Party

Harry Potter Themed Birthday Party

A few years ago my daughter decided she wanted to have a Harry Potter themed birthday party.  Being a big Harry Potter geek myself I was right into the idea.  I got a lot of my ideas from the My Harry Potter Party web site were she did a fabulous job.
 



I thought I'd share some of the things I created so that you could use them for your party too!

We used a bed sheet (with a slit in the centre to make it easy for the children to enter) that I'd painted a red brick pattern on using a sponge to symbolise the wall the children walk through at Kings Cross Station.  We also printed the 9 3/4 sign on our plotter printer (A3 size paper) and painted the frame and lettering in gold paint.

Through out the house we had images from the movie.  'The Fat Lady' was hung on the sitting room door to represent the entrance to the Gryffindor common room.


A ghostly image of Moaning Myrtle along with a picture of the stained glass mermaid from HPGoF movie were hung in the bathroom.

When the guests arrived they were all brought to Diagon Alley to select their wands, Charms & Spells books and Potion Books for their classes

The information in these books was down loaded from The Harry Potter Lexicon and put in book format.  You can download my PDF flies for the Charms and Spells book and the Potions book.  

 

Durning the day we had great fun with Professor Trelawney giving a Divination Class....

Professor Lupin taught DADA but I think the favourite class of the day was by far Potions class.....

I was surprised at how well the children got into the world of HP asking 'Are these really dried crocodile hearts?' and being really grossed out by the puffer fish eyes (small pickled cocktail onions with red dye in the liquid).  I made sure that certain ingredients would react well so that potions would boil and explode (mixing baking soda and vinegar does this well)  They had great fun and I can assure you that the kitchen was quite a mess after this class!  You can down load the labels I made here.

For the party goodie bags I decide to take the children on a visit to Honeydukes Sweet Shop so they could pick up their own candies. Licorice wands and chocolate frogs were a great hit!

HoneyDukes Shop sign

 

Labels for sweets

The chocolate frogs were a lot fun (and work) to make.  My daughter had some HP video games that awarded you chocolate frog cards for achieving certain things.  I copied these on the computer and printed up one for each box.  The boxes I found on the Internet and you can down load a pdf copy here.

Chocolate frogs