Christmas Craft Night (Alternative title: "Smell my kitchen")

It's only a few months until Christmas, and it's now cold and dark outside. Lots of candles, lovely smells, tasty food and Christmas related craft books greeted us at Fiona's house. And wine and tea, all of us were looked after :)

Amy had lost her crochet circles from last time, and was struggling with  mountains of wool...

Nom, cranberry cookies from Laura - delicious

Gingerbread with buttercream icing - amazing and very festive!

I wasn't quite sure what to make this evening, just something involving my weirdly large amount of festive patterned fabric :)

Reindeer applique time

Fiona is knitting a mug cosy, Laura crocheting a complicated chevron blanket and Amy crocheting  circles for bunting

Becky is crocheting the very beginnings of a blanket, with a little bit of help from a lady on the internet...

Wonderful Fiona made us very alcoholic mince meat, which involved apple, cranberry, oranges and rum (brandy?) and smelt amazing. Going to have mine with ice cream I reckon!

Applique reindeer!

Gold and green

Little squares!

Circles!

Chevrons!

Cosy!

Reindeer with final red stitch around.

Wonderful crafterevening. Still have a lot of fabric to use up tho...

Ali

xx

Shipley Fun Times

Hey y'all

Belated post to mention a few crafting things the craftergirls have been up to for the past few weeks.

1. Crafting Chez Bainbridge

Amy hosted craft night a few weeks ago, much fun was had, pizza and chocolate eaten. And not only was there fantastic hospitality, but Fiona also brought some pretty darn (yarn!) goodies in the form of homemade beetroot chutney, a mahoosive bag of wool to share and some Moomin related treats!

Don't know what Fiona has said to get this face from L!

Nom!

Moomin!

So very very much wool - my stash has already gone in to two seperate blankets and the beginnings of some Christmas decorations :)

Some not at all creepy patterns...

This is amazeballs - I'm sure either my Auntie Doris or Grandma made this for my Barbie when I was little!

The blanket is enlargening - and in constant blur!

Sorry to not write more - I am both tired and ill and can't remember anything else! Amy was there too but seems to have hidden from the camera all night!

2. Collected Threads Exhibition and Craft Market at the Shipley 

Laura and I headed up to the Shipley - a fantastic but small craft and design museum and gallery, which is part of Tyne and Wear Museums, and happens to be mere minutes from both of our houses!

Craft activities! And yes, we did partake.

Want this rug! Knitted giant tubes made on a 19th C weaving machine!

Lions and robots!

Fantastic patterened rug

Rainbow rag rug made with fabric scraps

Very fuzzy photo of the craft market!

Shipley Gallery

Textured wall rug artwork piece

Fantastic exhibition - a rare glimpse at some of the textile collections held by the Shipley with lots of different textures and techniques to pore over. Definitely worth a look if you are in the region!

There also happened to be a good little craft fair on that day, taking up most of the main hall and selling some delicious cupcakes (<3 Pet Lamb Patisserie) and a number of interesting little stalls selling some funky items. Laura bought some brilliant dinosaur socks, and I got a Mexican style skeleton butterfly box!

3. Shipley Lates

Lots going on at the Shipley this month! Laura, Fiona and I all moseyed on down to the gallery for an amazing evening of crafting. 7 different stalls with lots of different fabrics and instructions to play with, and all covered by the incredibly reasonable £5 cover charge! And wine too, what more do you want! We had a good time, although some of the crafts I found a bit too difficult after 2 glasses of wine, but I loved making the silk button broach, and the random curled up wool things - not sure what to do with it, maybe a tiny hat/fascinator?! 

Scraps of wool that we curled up and sewed together! Why, not sure but it was cute!

Possible tiny hat?

They usually do a few of these each September, but this year they decided to cram all the activities in to one evening and it really paid off. 

And that is it for now - very busy times coming up at work over the next month so won't be much crafty happening :(

Love Ali

xx