Baby stuff and Crochet Classes

.............................................................
Baby stuff
It has taken me since April last to crochet this baby quilt. Its rectangular-about 31/2 ft x 4ft and is made up of 63 blocks with a heart at the centre - 3 colours per block. Oh, its made up in pure cotton DK. Nothing but the best for Liam's first grandniece down in Barna, Co.Galway. The little peach cotton cardi is also gone to Galway. Its crocheted in aran-style, ideal for any Galway girl even if she is half Spanish. This is only the second time I've made up this pattern and it'll probably be the last! Too time consuming!
Well, I've been busy making cards for two charities; Dogs in Distress and the Hospice Coffee Morning on 18 September. My friend Pat in Malahide is holding a Coffee Morning and I'm making cards-strictly Sunflower themed- to sell at it. Now a little snippet of good news. A brand new Wool Shop has opened just up the road. Its called Stitch and guess who will be teaching Crochet there in a few weeks time????? Apparently there's great demand for crochet tuition and the Wednesday night is already booked out!!!! Other classes are planned for Mornings and Afternoons. Lotsa hooking Northside this autumn girls. (Knitting classes are planned as well but we wont mention the war....)

Well, its over and it has taken me nearly a week to get around to putting up a photo of our stand at Coolearth. The amount of work involved was vast and afterwards you wonder what all the fuss was about. Saturday was the busiest day.It was dull and wet and a lot of people wandered into the exhibition hall. Dunlaoighre/Rathdown Co. Council handed out loads of freebies: pencils made from recycled CDs., Biros, leaflets and cotton shopping bags. By the time people collected their handouts and arrived at our stand seeing price tags came as quite a shock! Most of our customers werent locals; they were tourists, foreigners etc. They seemed to appreciate the work that went into the driftwood more than the locals - who did buy my cards it must be said. In fact I sold out of my (recycled cotton rag) cards that were embellished with bits of driftwood so I cant post a photo of them.

We met loads of interesting characters and one group - Sunflower recycling - asked Liam to put some of his furniture into their shop for sale! So a good result all around. As some of you know we didnt do this for money - all profits went into sponsoring an acre of rainforest in Peru. Would I do CoolEarth again next year?????

Shipwrecked

At the moment this house looks a little like a shipwreck. The reason? My other half, Liam, is getting ready to take part in the CoolEarth Event in DunLaoighre this weekend. Liam is a talented woodworker and uses recycled wood, mainly driftwood to produce his creations. Any time we go to the beach we collect drift wood and other bits and pieces to be recycled into mirrors, furniture, household objects.... So Liam will be showcasing and selling his creations this Sat/Sunday 11am-6pm at the County Council offices in DunL. Now, I intend to have a few bits as well...cards made from recycled paper;jewellery made from beach glass and other "finds"; and some windchimes. Hope it all goes well.

This was a neglected corner of our garden until it was "landscaped" with driftwood and beach finds including a lobster pot. The lobster is long gone. Below is one of Liam's mirrors decorated with more driftwood, shells and beach bits. Some of it MIGHT have come from the Titanic!?! Well, that's my sales talk. But there is driftwood all over the house and the start of Liam's display on a table in the living room. I suppose its better than moaning about the bad weather.

Oriental & Celtic

Been busy this weekend. Made this card to wish Christina in Kent good luck. She loves making oriental themed cards. The lucky cat is machine embroidered on felt. Apparently a lucky cat symbol or statue is a Japanese version of the horseshoe. Business display them - if the cat has his right paw raised he's beckoning money; left paw = looking for customers.

Got a call from a customer at 10.30 am this morning. She needed gifts for in-laws who are heading home to Austrialia on Monday next. They wanted to bring home gifts for 11/13 year old girls so we decided on bracelets made with some Celtic beads and a mobile phone bag.

So I set to work and made 1 "normal" bracelet and 2 memory wire bracelets. Hope they like them. The mobile phone holder is crocheted in pink cotton. The beads are strung on to the cotton first and the crocheted in.

Green memory wire bracelet with gold celtic beads.

Close up

Mobile phone bag with flower

Must make a few more of these. Now all thats left is to make matching phone charm,package and deliver the goods. Back to work.

ger

Beady bits

Beady bits

Here are two beady items that I made recently. The dragonfly came from a kit sent by another crafter and the bracelet is mainly4mm crystals with seed beads worked in right angle weave. The flowers in the centre are two shades of blue.

New cards

3 more cards made from Kate and Karina's embellishments and Kate' s cardstock. I usually make my own embellishments so playing around with these made a nice change. Many thanks to two crafty ladies.

More New cards...

I have decided to start this blog to keep track of the craft items I make and sell. Very often someone askes me to make them a scarf/card/necklace just like the one I made Masie/Jack/Anne two years ago - but in purple? Now generally I cant remember who Maise/jack etc were let alone what I made for them. So the plan is to use this blog as a kind of diary.
Here's wishing Maureen(a very good customer) Frank and the lads a great time in the USA. Dont forget to come back to Minkey and the rest of us.


Specially for Karina and Kate - here are some cards made with card blanks and Cuttlebug Swiss Dots backing supplied by Kate and embellishments by Karina - the buttons and gems come from my own stash. Its great to have a chance to play with some one else's stuff.