sewing, knitting and other such stuff.

A story of 3 Dresses :)

Posted on June 30, 2014 by bethbutcher

Summer is well and truly here in the UK. Wimbledon is entering the second week; the world cup has entered the final stages and it’s almost time for the British Grand Prix. We had our school Fête this weekend and although it rained pretty much the whole time, there was something rather wonderful, watching people walking round under their umbrella’s, sipping a glass of Pimm’s and eating a punnet of strawberries and cream while their kids ran around having fun (you don’t get more ‘English’ than that!).

For me Summer doesn’t just mean the chance of long lazy days, sitting on a picnic blanket, soaking up the glorious weather (or just as likely, huddled under an umbrella waiting for the rain ‘to pass’); it means more sewing. I guess as someone who does a number of different crafts, it only makes sense that when the weather gets warmer I put down my hook and knitting needles and dust off my sewing machine. When it’s really hot the last thing I feel like, is being surrounded by balls of wool! This summer I’ve set myself the challenge of making some clothes. I haven’t made that many before as, to be honest, they scare me! I’ve plucked up the courage however and started with a few dresses for little miss.

I found this pattern (it’s super easy if you fancy trying it….hence why I chose it). As you can see, I decided to start with a couple of little dresses for little miss (mostly because they need very little alteration and tailoring, unlike clothes for me!).

Cutting out :)

Here’s the final dress. All I did was cut two dresses, one out of the main fabric, one out of the lining, then I sewed them together and added the finishing touches. It was really simple and actually quite fun, so I made a couple of more.

One with butterflies…..

….and one with strawberries.

If you fancy having a go, I’d recommend a bold print like the butterflies or the strawberries as they look great on.

A new Adventure in Crafts…….learning to felt!

Posted on June 15, 2014 by bethbutcher

So, when my friend told me that she was thinking of running a ‘learn to felt’ workshop, I was very excited. I’ve always loved and admired the things that she makes and having the chance to learn a new craft was very tempting (you know how I love all things woolly). I signed up and a couple of weeks ago, spent a very nice Saturday afternoon, relaxing and learning how to create felt pictures.

IMG_20140531_140516408 These are some of the things Pippa makes…..aren’t they beautiful? You can see why I was so keen to learn!

When we walked into the room there was a large table full of the things she’d made as well as magazines and books full of things to inspire us. I love the person in the boat. As someone completely new to felting, the way the waves were created was fascinating. If you want to check out more of her lovely creations, pop over to her facebook page.
There were also two large tables in the room for us to sit at. We were each given a foam pad, a felting needle and were then told to choose some wool to felt (I mean, how on earth can you choose just one colour from a basket full that looks so beautiful?!). You’ll be proud of me, I did choose just one colour.

Pippa then explained all about the wool fibre and how we needed to start to create a felt base for our picture (we were going to create flower pictures). I have to admit, I was torn between wanting to felt the wool and wanting to spin it (It was so soft, and look it’s calling out to be spun!) however I persevered and did as I was instructed.

This is the first layer.

A couple of layers in.

Pippa then showed us how to stab the wool correctly. Now if you haven’t tried felting like this, I highly recommend it. It’s amazingly therapeutic! The idea is that you stab through all the layers of wool to bind them together. Basically you are allowed (and encouraged) to stab it….a lot.

Here’s how mine turned out. The holes do disappear a little if you rub the, now sheet of felt, between your hands gently.

Next we were taught how to make a straight line (it’s not as easy as you’d think).

Then onto making our flower shape. Now I’d like to stop here and say that I was impressed how good the results were. I honestly haven’t tried anything like this before, yet my flower looks like a flower and my straight line is straighter than I can draw one! That is mostly down to how clear and easy to understand Pippa made it. I know she’s my friend but I believe that part of being a friend is offering honest feedback and I was trying to stay objective. So I can honestly say I was impressed with how professional she was and how easy she made it. I really felt like I was sitting relaxing and was completely unaware of learning, yet came away remembering everything and being able to make my own things at home afterwards, which is a real achievement (how many times have we been to workshops where you get home, try to make something else and realise that you have no idea what to do or where to start….or is that just me?).

Anyway, back to Pippa’s workshop. This is my finished piece. What I loved what how different everyone’s picture were.

Here are a few of them.

There were two ladies sitting on the table with me, one made this beautiful flower (I love the steam and leaf, such a good idea!)

The other lady wasn’t happy with the flower she’d made so made it into a butterfly instead. I think it looks great and love how versatile and fluid the creative process can be with needle felting.

You’d think by now that it would be time to go home as the workshop was only 2 1/2 hours however it wasn’t. It was time for a cup of tea and slice of very yummy chocolate cake in Karen’s Kitchen.

When we came back Pippa said we could ‘go crazy’ and make a picture of whatever we liked. We were given free range of all her books and magazines to get inspiration and paper and pens in case we wanted to sketch our designs. There is a reason I prefer making things with my hands…..this was my ‘sketch':

You wouldn’t believe that my two sisters are very accomplished artists would you? It really did pass me by lol!

Anyway this is what I ended up with and was actually very close to the picture I had in my head.

I decided to make a woolly sheep as I felt it was fitting. You can’t see it here as my phone camera isn’t great but I managed to use different colours of green to create a textured grassy background. Pippa is running another workshop next week on learning the basics of 3D needle felting. I’ve already signed up and really looking forward to it! If you want more information about her courses, click here :)

Little Crochet Bird Pattern

Posted on May 30, 2014 by bethbutcher

I have decided to help a little with The Craft Clubs yarn bombing attempt. Do pop over and have a look. I can’t wait to see what they end up with.

Anyway, I decided that I wanted to make something a part from flowers and butterflies (if you want my daisy pattern its here), so I came up with this simple bird pattern.

I used a 3.5mm hook and DK yarn. You will also need a wool needle to sew the eye at the end.

The pattern is written using UK terminology

Abbreviations:

ss- slip stitch

Tr – Treble

ch - chain

st – stitch/stitches

Fancy giving them a go?

Ch 4. Join to first ch to make a ring.

Round 1: ch 3 (counts as 1 tr) work 13 tr into chain ring. ss into 3rd ch from beginning (14st).

Round 2: ch 3 (counts as 1 tr) work 2 tr into each st from previous round. Join with ss to 3rd ch from beginning.

Round 3: chain 3 (counts as 1 tr). Work 1 tr into same space then 1tr into next st *2tr into next st, 1 tr into next st*. Repeat from *to* until the end. Join with ss to 3rd ch from the beginning of the round.

Round 4: ch 3 (counts as 1tr) work 1 tr into same st, work 1 tr into next 2 st *2tr in next st, 1 tr into next 2 st* repeat *to* until the end. Join with ss to the 3rd ch at beginning of round.

‘Round’ 5: ch 3 (counts as 1tr). Work 1tr into same st. *1 tr in next 3 st, 2tr in next st* repeat *to* 1 more time. 1tr into next 3 st Turn.
‘Round’ 6: ch 4 *miss one st, tr into next st, tr back into the st you’ve just missed, ch 1* repeat from *to* until last 2 st from round 5. Miss one st, tr into last stitch then tr into missed st. Fasten off.

In contrasting colour work first two rounds.

Fold bird in half, sew the contrasting colour circle on then sew up bird from the bottom of the tail to the beak end (leaving the top of the tail to the bottom of the tail open).

Attach another piece of thread to where you want the beak. Ch 4 and ss back into same place that you started. fasten but don’t cut off. Using the same tread, sew eyes. Fasten off.

I’m going to hang mine up eventually. If you want to do the same, attach some thread in the middle of the back. There you have it :)

Mine are going to join the other flowers and butterflies that will be making their way to yarnbomb but I’m sure more will be appearing around the house very soon…… ;)

Rainbow cake Tutorial

Posted on May 11, 2014 by bethbutcher

We recently celebrated Little Miss’ first birthday. It was a lovely time even though she was too little to remember it. Still, I wanted to mark the occasion so I made her this birthday cake. I first saw it on one of these ‘awesome cakes I want to make’ type facebook links and I loved it. However when I came to make this, the link no longer worked so I can’t direct you to the original post. I know that the original post was just a picture not a walk through, so I already knew I had to make it up as I went along (It’s worth noting here that there are probably much better ways of doing this as I actually made it up as I went along, I have never ‘learnt’ how to make or decorate cakes). Would you like to see how I did it?

First make 2 Madeira cakes (you can find the recipe in most cake books or online as it’s a basic for occasion cake baking). Level the top of each cake so the are flat.

Cut each cake in half.

In two of the halves, cut a rough oval shape. Make sure you have cake around the sides so that the cake remains stable once finished. These will be the middle layers of the cake. We’ll fill this hole later with M&Ms :)

Take the bottom layer and cover with butter icing.

Put the first middle layer on.

Cover this with icing.

Put the second middle layer on top.

Fill hole with M&M’s.

Put more butter icing on top.

Add the final layer.

Turn on it’s side so it’s up the right way.

Now cover the outside with butter icing.

This will stick the icing to the cake.

Now roll out your blue icing. I didn’t buy blue icing (although I know you can get it). I bought some white icing from tesco and some blue food colouring and worked it in until I got the shade I wanted. If you want to do it like this, my top tip is to use a cocktail stick to apply the food colouring as you don’t need very much of it.

Now pick it up (I used the rolling pin to carefully roll and carry it then unwrapped it onto the cake).

Smooth down with a cake smoother (it’s worth getting one of these if you want to get a smooth finish). Cut off the excess carefully. It doesn’t matter if the corners at the front are a bit messy as these will be covered up with small marshmallows later.

Now to make you rainbow. Choose the colours you want and mix them if necessary. Then roll out a sausage in each colour, starting with the top colour (in my case, the red). You can see that close up, it isn’t that neat. Next time, I’ll work on getting it neater but by this stage I was starting to run out of time!

Finally, using a little butter icing to start, pile up white mini marshmallows and add candle and edible glitter if desired. When you eventually cut into the cake, make sure you cut a big slice to get the full effect of the hidden M&M’s!

Banana Cake

Posted on March 28, 2014 by bethbutcher

I’ve heard this called ‘Banana Loaf’, ‘Banana Bread’ and ‘Banana Cake’. Whatever you call it, there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s very yummy. It’s very easy to make which makes it perfect for doing with children and freezes well, meaning you can make it well in advance.

Ingredients:

4oz Margarine

6oz Sugar (can be any kind. I use the Demerara sugar as I like the flavour)

8oz Self Raising Flour

2 Eggs

2 large or 3 medium Banana’s (it’s best to use very ripe, almost brown banana’s)

Pre-heat your oven to 180oC

Mash the banana’s in a bowl with a sturdy fork and then put to one side.

In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar.

Once it’s mixed together, add the eggs and mix.

Then add the banana’s that you’ve already mashed.

Mix together.

Add the flour.

Mix until it comes together.

Put it in a loaf tin. If you aren’t using a silicone loaf tin like I am here, you will need to line your tin. I like my silicone tin as, as long as you are careful, you can ease it out without needing to line it. It’s worth noting that my tin won’t give you the perfect loaf shape as the sides move slightly.

Cook for 40 minutes at 180 oC then turn the oven down to 150 oC and bake for further 30 minutes.

Take out and turn out onto a cooling rack. Resist the temptation to eat it straight away (it smells really yummy)!

Washi Tape Fun

Posted on March 26, 2014 by bethbutcher

For Christmas, I was given this lovely little recipe tin:

It was such a thoughtful present as I’d run out of room in my last recipe book and spilled over into another. Now I can keep everything together in one place. There was only one problem with this tin:

These were the inserts. Now they aren’t that bad but all the titles, apart from this one, were not the kind of thing I wanted. They had things like ‘soups’ and ‘starters’ which is fine but I don’t organise my recipes like that. Basically it was the perfect excuse to revamp them and label them how I wanted to label them.

Here’s the ‘after’ shot, after they got attacked with washi tape (which by the way was brought back by my wonderful sister when she travelled to Japan a few years ago). I love them!

Granny Square and birthday fun

Posted on March 20, 2014 by bethbutcher

Do you remember this from my last post? Well I finally finished my blanket for little miss just in time for her birthday.

Here’s a close up

She had a lovely day. While she was asleep I blew up some balloons so that when we came down in the morning she could play with them before little man came down and took them away (he doesn’t like the idea that they could burst).

Here she is chasing the balloons around the room

Wow a year goes by really quickly! Anyway back to crafting stuff….

I’m a little late with the latest Granny Square so here it is. It wasn’t until I finished it that I realised I had already made this square but I liked it so I’m glad I worked it again .

The last few weeks of my Granny square Blanket :)

Posted on March 7, 2014 by bethbutcher

Here are the squares I’ve been making over the last 3 weeks:

Week 8: When I was looking at my blanket, I realised that I needed a few more ‘solid’ looking squares so here’s one in blue to celebrate the beautiful spring sky that can be seen now the rain has mostly stopped.

Week 9: Inspired by the spring flowers that are popping up all over the place.

Week 10: I enjoyed the flower square so much decided to make another one :)

And on that note, this is what I’ve been working on over the last few days:

I loved the pattern for the flower squares so much that I’m going to make a flower granny square lap blanket for Little Miss.

Yummy Chocolate Brownie Recipe

Posted on March 3, 2014 by bethbutcher

I’ve decided that I want to add a few things to my blog as believe it or not, I do enjoy other things apart from crochet! I realised as I was looking back through my blog that I haven’t post any recipes for a while so I’m going to be adding a few of my favourites over the next few months. The first one is for these yummy chocolate brownies. Now I’d love to take credit for these but they come from a friend whose family is famous (well in their circle of friends) for these brownies. They are fairly easy to make but there are a few steps. Believe me though, they are well worth it.

Ingredients:

100g Butter (don’t be tempted to opt for margarine, this gives a much better flavour)

100g dark chocolate

4 large eggs

1 teaspoon of salt

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

350g soft light brown sugar (again, don’t be tempted to opt for white caster sugar, this one gives a better flavour)

150g Self Raising Flour

25g Cocoa Powder

150g of Milk and White chocolate (I usually use 100g of milk and 50g of white as hubby isn’t a massive white chocolate fan but you can do whatever you like).

Grease and line a 20cm by 20cm square cake tin and pre-heat your oven to 180oC.

Chop up the dark chocolate.

Put the butter and dark chocolate into a pan and over a medium heat, melt.

Leave to cool on the side.

Chop other chocolate into chunks (I usually cut each small square into quarters).

Whisk the eggs and salt until foaming and then add sugar and vanilla extract.

Whisk until roughly mixed.

Pour the cooled chocolate and butter unto the rest of the mixture and mix roughly.

Sift in flour and cocoa powder and fold in gently.

Add the chocolate chunks.

Pour into tin and cook for 35-40min.

Test whether it’s ready by sticking a knife in. It should come out slightly moist as though not quite cooked. If it still looks completely uncooked, try another again, just to make sure you haven’t hit one of the chocolate chunks!

Turn out carefully onto a cooling rack to cool. Once completely cooled, cut into brownie sized pieces.

(Hubby decided he wanted chocolate brownie instead of a birthday cake, hence the candle!)

Heart Crochet Square Pattern

Posted on February 21, 2014 by bethbutcher

I said that I would blog this pattern so here it is (apologises in advance for the pictures, it’s been hard with this light to get good ones) :

This pattern uses UK terminology.

Abbreviations:

Ch= chain

Ss= slip stitch

Dc= double crochet

Htr= half treble

Tr= treble

Tog= together

Things you will need:

Two colours of yarns (I used DK weight), colour A for the heart and colour B for the rest of the square.

Crochet hook (I used 3.5mm)

Foundation Chain: (Working in colour A) chain 4 and ss into first chain.

Round 1: ch 3 (counts as 1 tr) then 2tr tog into the fountain ch ring. *ch 3, 3tr tog into foundation ch ring.* repeat from *to* twice more. Ch 3 then ss into the 3rd ch from the beginning of the round.

Round 2: ch 5 (counts as 1 tr and 2 ch).* 3 tr tog in next 3 ch space, ch 3, 3 tr together (creates corner), ch 2* and then repeat *to* twice more. Work 3 tr tog, ch 2, 2tr tog then ss into 3rd ch from beginning of the round. Tie off yarn.

Round 3: Re-attach yarn to any 3 ch corner space. ch 3 (counts as 1 tr), 2 tr tog, ch 3, 3 tr tog. Change to colour B and ch 2. Then tr 3 into next 2 ch space, ch 1, (3tr, 2ch, 3tr) into corner 3 ch space, ch 2 then join colour A and 3 tr tog in next 2ch space. Re-join colour B, ch 2, (3 tr, ch 2, 3 tr) into next corner 3 ch space, ch 1, 3 tr in next ch space, ch 2 then re-join colour A and (3 tr tog, ch 3, 3 tr tog) in corne3r 3 ch space. Re-join colour B, ch 2 then 3 tr in next 2 ch space, ch 2 and ss into 3rd ch from beginning of the round.

Round 4: ch 4 (counts as 1 tr and 1 ch), *(3tr, ch 2, 3tr) into corner 3 ch space, ch 1, 3 tr in next ch space, ch 1, 3 tr into next ch space, ch 1.* Repeat from *to* twice more. (3tr, ch 2, 3 tr) into corner ch space, ch 1, 3 tr into next ch space, ch 1, 2 tr into next ch space then ss into 3rd ch from beginning of the round.

Round 5: ch 3 (counts as 1 tr), 2 tr in next ch space, ch 1, *(3 tr, ch 2, 3 tr) into corner ch space, ch 1, 3 tr into next ch space, ch 1, 3 tr into next ch space, ch 1, 3 tr into next ch space, ch 1.* Repeat *to* twice more. (3 tr, ch 2, 3 tr) into corner ch space, ch 1, 3 tr into next ch space, ch 1, 3 tr into next ch space, ch 1, ss into 3rd ch from beginning of round.

Round 6: Join Colour A and ch 2 (counts as 1 htr). Htr into each tr from previous round, working 1 htr in each ch space and (2ht, ch 2, 2 ht) in each corner ch space, ss into 2nd ch from beginning of round.

Round 7: ch 1, dc into each htr from previous round and 5dc into each corner ch, ss into first dc. Fasten off.

beth butcher