A day in the workshop with Lucy

It's been two weeks since I last posted and really it's because the time has just flown by! I've been back at work after a period of illness and to add to the fun I've had the most awful cold that has just dragged on and on for the last two weeks.

Today is about a lovely workshop I attended at the beginning of February with the lovely Lucy from the Attic24 blog.



It was the first workshop Lucy has done, and also the first crochet workshop I have attended. It was a nice small group of 8 ladies, some travelling from as far away as Scotland and Wales. I had a lot shorter journey from Leeds to Skipton! Despite the weather being grey, windy and awfully wet we all had a good time (at least I did, I'm sure all the other's did too!) and were suprisingly quiet as we all concentrated so hard on the pattern. In fact, now I think about it, the drenching I received on the walk back to the train station and the damp cold journey home might have had a hand in my stinking cold!

The project we were working on was the wonderfully cute Bower Bird. I know Lucy is working on a tutorial for the Bower Bird and I'm sure she'll share it on the blog as soon as she can. Here is her Post including her workshop- you can just see my hands on the left of the picture and my crochet hook roll!

We all finished our birds and had a little bag of goodies to take home to finish our bower including a nice little bag of lavender so we could make our next little birdy into a lavender bird. I haven't made another bird yet but that lavender sure smells amazing! Here are our little birdies all lined up.



Mine is the teeny tiny bird! I was the slowest that day because I was concentrating so hard on being perfect and being absolutely 100% perfect on my count and I crocheted so tight Birdy is half the size of everyone elses! Never mind- he is small but perfectly formed!



Here is Lucy taking a pic of our birdies and one of me having a geeky 'look-I'm-with-Lucy-and-she's -faaamous!' moment.

I must say I found Lucy to be lovely, friendly and welcoming (not that I expected otherwise) and the cafe that her workshop is above does the most aaaammmaaaazing Rocky Road. Yum Yum. If you are ever in Skipton check out Cooper's Cafe Bar- you walk past it on the way to the town centre from the train station.

I haven't, as yet, finished my bower. I'm not 100% sure I don't want to make another bird in brighter colours. I'm happy with my purple and green bird, but I'm  not sure if he would look a little lost in a colourful bower. If I do, I'll turn Birdy into a little individual hanging ornament.

Today we had a hint of sunshine so I literally ran out into the garden a took a few pics of Birdy perching on my climbing rose. 

So here he is: 

Hope you all have a lovely week.

L x 

My happy crafty day

Hi again. I thought today I'd share with you the lovely day I had yesterday pottering around the house and getting a couple of crafty projects done. It was very satisfying all in all.

I'm very pleased to have finished some crochet fingerless gloves. This is only the second pair of gloves I've made and my first were really basic so I was really happy with these which use two different stitches (back loop double stitch and extended double uk terms) to create a ribbed band and a different pattern on the main body to create interest and I added a couple of little buttons on the cuff.

 

The pattern for these can be found here at CROCHETDREAMS or on Ravelry. There is also a pattern that matches for boot cuffs which I'm sure I'll make up at some point. The pattern is simple and relatively quick to make up (the pattern says two hours for the gloves but it took me about 4 hours for both gloves. Maybe I'm a fairly slow crotcheter, or maybe it's because I watch TV at the same time ;-) )

The second thing I got done yesterday around finishing the gloves was giving a couple of frames a shabby chic makeover. Inspired by the progress on my mirror at the weekend I pulled out a pair of cheap black plastic photo frames I bought from the Pound Shop recently in order to give them a makeover (for anyone from the US reading this the Pound Shop is sort of equivelent to your Dollar Store) Here they are:

Not too attractive I think you'll agree. I liked the vintage style detailing around the edge but black plastic? Yuk. There is nowhere these would go anywhere in my house. First I gave them a coat of the ivory chalk paint I had left over from the weekend. It had been in an airtight container but had got a little drier and thicker. This may be a problem for some projects but I liked the texture that it gave, like old plaster. Here they are after one coat of paint:

Not bad but some of the black was still showing through so I let it dry a while and then added a second coat.

Much better. I didn't want to 'distress' the frame by scuffing away any of the ivory paint as I didn't want any of the black to show through so to pick out some the detail I very lightly sponged on a pale lilac colour. I mixed together my own colour by mixing up some 'powder purple' coloured chalk paint (which was a little too bright to look vintage in my opinion) and then added in some of the ivory.

 I hope that you can see the purple on your monitor.. it's not showing up so well on mine and I have tried my hardest to get a picture in good light. It is very soft and subtle though.

And here is a nice picture of the finished frames. Quite a change from the nasty black plastic. I am so pleased with them and can't wait to find the right pictures to put into them. They will eventually go into our bedroom as I am working towards a Shabby Chic makeover of the whole bedroom in the summer time. :-)

Thank you for reading. If you have liked this post please leave me a little comment to say hi!

L x 

Shabby chic mirror progress

So, today I'm going to share the progress I've made with shabby chic-ing the 'brass' dressing table mirror (notice the ''? That's important later) I hope you will excuse the not great photo quality. I'm continuing to battle with poor light quality and, I'll be honest, I've mislaid the charger for my camera battery so I'm using the camera on my phone. The charger is somewhere in the cupboard under the stairs but if you could see the cupboard under my stairs you would know why I can't find it!

Anyways, here's a couple of the before pics. As you can see, it's old, it's dirty and the mirror is not doing what it should be. That is: it's not staying in it's frame and mirroring.

Step one was giving it a good clean. As it was purchased as a 'brass' mirror from Ebay I got out the Brasso and started cleaning. This is where I hit a snag. It wasn't brass after all. It's a cheap metal covered in a brass coloured layer. I should have known, really, as it is quite light and my husband commented when he saw it that although it is definitely quite old it is poor quality. So I invented a little story in my head about my mirror. This mirror belonged to servant in a big house 'Downton Abbey style' and was the best she could afford but she wanted something pretty. I'm sure brand new and shiny it looked lovely. Here's a couple of pics of the frame after it was cleaned.

As you can see it cleaned up a bit but not all shiny like proper brass would clean up. Never mind- on to stage two. Next was two coats of a creamy colour chalk paint. Branded chalk paints are available such as Annie Sloan and Autentico to name a couple. I mixed up my own with a matt emulsion in Pale Ivory and a chalk paint base purchased from Ebay.

 

I quite liked it at this stage before I distressed it and I did debate a little while with myself whether to distress it or leave it in the ivory colour but as this is a practice project I went ahead and distressed it. First I applied one layer of clear wax and buffed it off and then I sandpapered off a little of the chalk paint on any raised bits and edges. Anywhere it would rub. The idea I had originally was that the gold of the brass would come through but instead what I ended up with was little bits of the gold brass like layer and silvery colour of the base metal in places.  After rubbing off the paint I did another layer of the clear wax to seal everything. Here's a couple of close up pics of the detail.

And here is a nice extra large picture of the frame all finished.

The last thing I want to do is decoupage the back board that holds the mirror in before securing. I have five vintage patterned papers and I can't decide between them. I'm not sure that the colours have come out great on the computer but they are all cream and green variations. I think the top two are my favourites but I'm still debating. I also need to get a matte varnish/glue as I think it will work better with the matt chalk paint.

 

 

























So, that's where I am with my mirror project. When it is finally all finished I'll do you a nice picture, hopefully in daylight and with some nice staging. I hope you like it so far and will pop back to see the completed project.

L x

That difficult first post.

So, here it is. That most awkward of things. The First Post. Da da daaaa. (Imagine that in a sort of impending doom, sense of menace tone. You got it? Ok. Onwards)

I must confess that I've spent almost 24 hours trying to decide what to write here and eventually decided to just drop myself in and start swimming. Or is that sinking? Definitely doggy paddling at least.

So, who am I and what is this all about?

My name is Laura and I live in Leeds in the UK with my husband and our 2 cats.

My husband and I at Christmas time. Obviously. We don't wear Santa hats all year 'round.

Our cat Harold. Look at those eyes. 'Why don't you give me treats? Don't you love me???'

Our other cat Tippy in a crochet cat sack I made for her. By the radiator. Cosy

I am what I would class as one of life's Enthusiastic Amateur Crafter's. I like making things. All sorts of different things.

My husband says I have a short attention span and I'm always flitting from one hobby to the next, and to some extent that's true. I'll find a new hobby and I will persue it almost obsessively for a few months, and then I'll find a new obsession..and the cycle will begin again. However, I never forget those old crafts which have fallen by the wayside. My craft stash is wide and varied. I often pop back and dabble with something I've played with before, and I do have one or two WIPs I could really do with picking up again..

So this blog, my blog, is all about my Enthusiastic Amateur Crafting. What new craft I am passionately persuing. What tutorials I am using and craft blogs I'm reading. What works. What doesn't. My results both good, bad and ugly and maybe..just maybe..my own tutorials.

The final goal: I'd really like to find that one craft I love above all others. The one I really feel 'This is it, this is the one I am best at. This is the one which I can complete most professionally' Then, I'd really like to have my own craft stall at a fair- then I can become an Enthusiastic Amateur Professional Crafter! (Can you be an amateur professional? Does that even make sense? Well that's the goal!)

If you've made it all the way to the end here maybe you could leave me a comment. Are you a EAC? Maybe there is a blog or craft you would like to recommend. Please, say hi!

L x

Oh, I almost forgot- Purple Lolly. It's quite simple. Purple is my favourite colour as you will see, I'm sure, and Lolly is a nickname my husband gave me. Simples. :)