Quilting!! (I know its not knitting, BUT its my first proper attempt!)

I know this has nothing to do with knitting, but I am impressed with the outcome so decided to add it to this blog instead of my Creative Me blog :)

I brought a sewing machine some time ago now intending to do some quilting work with it (baring in mind that I hadn't used one since year 8 at school!). I finally brought some material on Friday (after finding a pattern that I wanted to follow) and as I had a weekend at home, I was keen to make a start on the reversible rag tote bag pattern that I found on the internet.

Here is one side of my finished bag. There is one join bottom left that is slightly out, but it is my first attempt, so let me off please? ;)

The second side marries up better :)

As I said, it is reversible... I chose blue and white for the inside.

And the other side...

I haven't used my bag yet or tested out how much weight it can hold. I am tempted to add a few extra stitches to hold the handles on, just in case!

I'm impressed with it anyways :) What do you think?

THEN on Sunday I decided to try a bit of freestyle quilting (without using a pattern!). Here is the sewing machine in action...

I made a little 'tidy' for putting bits and bobs in. My lounge colour scheme is red and white so this little tidy goes well in my lounge :)

Knitted headbands...

I have had a lot of compliments about the headbands that I have knitted for my niece and someone suggested that as I have a talent, I should try selling them! - That's exactly what I am going to try and do. So far I have knitted one and a half (just needs some finishing touches).

I will be selling the headbands here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/thehouseofsteph on Etsy. There is also a link on the top right hand side of this blog -->

Here are a few examples of the headbands knitted so far...

This one is for sale on Etsy!

and how cute they look on...

:)

Knitting for my Niece Lydia

Before I knew whether my brother Paul was having a little girl or a little boy, I tried to find patterns that were a neutral colour and of course the bear hat came to mind! I found this dead cute pattern for 3-6 months as I was told not to knit her anything for 0-3 months as it is hot in Switzerland in the summer so I was looking at 3 months plus patterns.

I found this cute bear hat in the latest edition of my Simply knitting magazine.

So, I ordered the suggested wool in the colours that were suggested also and quickly knitted the cute little hat:

The ears were stuffing with the teddy stuffing material (I have forgetten the name of it!!! lol)

I was sent a picture of Lydia in the bear hat! :D Bless her, they put the hat on backwards! lol ;)

Of course, she needed some matching shoes to go with her hat, and I managed to find an ideal pattern on the internet! I used the same wool as I did for the hat :)

I knitted these as size 6-12 months I think (smallest size the pattern did).

Here is the whole set :)

They are a tad big for Lydia at the moment, but she'll grow into them :D

Lydia was due her first visit to England, so I got my knitting needles out and knitted her some baby Ugg boots:

A penguin as her Daddy (my brother) is a big penguin fan!

A cute little headband :)

And here I am with my niece looking super cute in her headband and she seemed to smile a lot at the penguin too :D

Here Lydia is in her Ugg boots! I think they are still a bit big for her though :P

Lydia had outgrown the headband I knitted her, so I asked her Mum Christelle what colours her dress for James & Kelly's wedding were so that I could knit her a pretty headband to compliment her pretty dress at the wedding :) I came up with this...









And her is Lydia wearing the headband. (How cute does she look?!) ;)





The little UGG booties now fit Lydia :D Heres a piccie...

The Art of Knitting Magazine Blanket

I saw a fab offer on TV for a new knitting magazine where you get the wool and pattern each week to make a big knitted blanket.





Here is my first square :


I'll add more to this post as I complete the squares :)

Second square:

Third square:

Fourth square:

They were hard to take photos of as they kept curling up at the edges!

Kelly's Cable Bag

I saw a great looking cable bag pattern in my Simply Knitting magazine, and I had received some free bag handles in the same issue. I then realised that it was my Sister-in-law-to-be's Birthday in a couple of months and the pattern I loved was in a colour that I thought she would love, so I ordered the exact wool off the internet and made her the pretty cable bag.

Reaching the end of the pattern I noticed that I also needed to buy some wadding and lining fabric. The wadding was easy as they sold some in Hobbycraft, I had a look on Ebay for the lining fabric and found a listing for some 'plum' coloured fabric. I thought plum would go well with the purple flecks in the bag.

Kelly's 30th Birthday hat

I knitted my friend Kelly a hat for her 30th as I was too poor to get her anything, plus I hoped she'd think it had the personal touch, as time and effort had been put into making her present :) I know that Jo liked her woolly hat that I made her for Christmas :)


I knitted the hat from a pattern I got off Ravelry (I had knitted the hat twice before and think its great!) with a white wool and some 8 & 10mm needles (nice chunky ones!) 

One I'd finished the hat, there was still a couple of days until the party, so I thought I'd see if I could find a pattern for a flower that I could knit to the side of it. I found a lovely pattern and decided to get my bead box out to add a little extra to the hat.

Here is the finished hat...

I woke up the morning after the party to see Kelly had opened her hat present and posted a photo of her wearing it on Facebook :)

The Bear Hat

I saw a cute bear hat pattern in my Simply Knitting magazine and thought it would be a great present for my friend Siba's little girl Macie. I ordered the wool from the internet in the colours that the pattern specified. (I normally just get a similar wool I find in Hobbycraft) and quickly made a start on the hat once the wool had arrived.


I seem to have lost the photos of the bear hats in process! :( I took them on my old mobile and I sold that! d'oh!


Here is the gorgeous Macie in the hat I knitted for her:

I was then invited to Kirsty's son Samuel's first birthday party, so with all the wool left over I decided to knit him a bear hat, but with the colours reversed:

Then Kirsty kept going on about how she wanted a bear hat too, so for her birthday she also got a bear hat! I had to adjust the pattern to make it adult sized! My pattern can be found on the Ravelry website (for sale). I used a similar wool from Hobbycraft as there wasn't enough of the other wool left to make an adult sized hat.

Knitting for the little Kaveney

When I heard that my friends Bud and Lorraine Kaveney were expecting a baby, I got excited about knitting her  something soft, cute and pink. I normally knit booties for newborns, but thought I'd try mittens and a hat for little Lily Scarlett!


I used a pretty pink bambino wool and got the pattern for the mittens from my Simply Knitting magazine. I should really update this blog more often as I can't remember where I got the pattern for the very cute hat!


Apparently Lily has worn them, but I didn't receive a photo to add to my blog.


Here is the set. I normally sew a 'hand knitted' label into the things I knit, but I didn't want the label to rub on the babies soft skin, so I loosely attached a label to the set so they knew I had knitted it. :)

Jo's Christmas hat

On one of my trips to Hobbycraft (can't remember what I was looking for this time) I decided to wander down the  wool aisle, and as I browsed the wool a certain colour wool jumped out at me and I thought straight away that my friend Jo would love something in that colour! So without even knowing what I wanted to knit for her, I purchased a ball of the wool. 

I browsed the patterns on Ravelry to see what I could knit with the chunky wool I had brought and found a lovely chunky cable knit pattern that I thought would be perfect.

I didn't get a very good photo of it as it was dark and my camera is rubbish in the dark, but Jo was very impressed with her hat :)

Christmas Knitting 2010

As half of my year wasn't taken up with knitting a certain Christmas jumper for my brother (that he lovingly left in storage when he moved back into our parents house with his at the time fiancé!!), I had more time to work on lots of little knitting projects.

I saw a great pattern for some knitted snowmen in my Simply Knitting magazine, Mother, Father and Junior. I thought I'd make one as a fun present for someone at Christmas, after making my first snowman (Junior) I thought he looked so cute that I want to make the Mummy snowman too! (or snow-woman?) Here is Junior before I got my beading box out :)

Junior Snowman

I used some left over green wool from the Sheldon turtle that I knitted for James the previous year.

Obviously Mummy Snowman used more wool and she had to have a more feminine wool colour, so I went with the pink wool that I had used on my disastrous jumper that I had spent a few months in the summer knitting for myself lol

Mummy snowman pre-bead box

I finally got my beading box out to finish off Mummy and Junior Snowman, but decided I couldn't think of anyone that would appreciate a knitted snowman as a gift, so I kept them for myself!! :) 

Mummy and Junior on display

I was so chuffed with them that I even made a miniature snowman for my desk at work. I had to kinda guess the number of stitches etc as junior was the smallest snowman in my knitting magazine! 

Mini snowman for my desk at work

I did more than just knit snowmen in the festive season of 2010! I also knitted some Christmassy coasters, which I gave to my parents...

Christmas coasters

I also knitted a mini stocking decoration for my tree :)

I also knitted a headband for Hayley, but I don't think I took a photo :( and a chunky wooley hat for Jo, which she loved :D Its not a very good picture as my camera on my phone is rubbish in the dark :(

Jo in her hat