Ripple Footstool Cover

Hello Everybody,


I was determined to have a 'Finished Object' Friday today, and here it is:

It's just a simple ?square of crochet to cover my Ikea footstool in the lounge. Do you remember that I said I'd bought a red rug for the lounge? Well, it's lovely but I don't really have a red colour scheme going on. My lounge is mainly black, grey and white but I had a few purple things dotted about, one of which was a purple granny blanket I'd crocheted for the footstool. However, it no longer matches the lounge so shall have to be repurposed. So, on a whim last week, I decided a new cover was in order. 

I used the Attic24 neat ripple blanket pattern. It's easy once you get into it and a good project to do in front of the TV as you don't really have to concentrate. I enjoyed it so much, that I think I'm going to embark on a big one for the sofa, but using slightly different shades and textures of red yarn. 

The yarn I used was mainly lying about in my stash, apart from the red acrylic (which isn't too nasty) that I picked up at the supermarket. From memory, the yarns I used were: (clockwise from top left) Red Heart DK (cheap stuff ?super saver), Adriafil Llama Bulky, Freedom Spirit, ? Wendy Mode Aran, Patons Pompero Aran.


If you want to see other people's finished objects this sunny(ish) Friday, then please visit the blog below:

Have yourselves a good weekend!


Thistle Girl x

It's Sew Easy!

Hello Everybody,


Yesterday morning, I made some quick "Thank You" cards to say thanks to my relatives for my Christmas gifts. 

They were easy to make and took about 10-15 minutes to make each one. As you can see, they are embroidered with cute little hearts. How did I make the cute little hearts? Well, I purchased a new and highly unnecessary device to add to my mounting collection of non-essential crafting kit.

It's a stitch piercer, made by Sew Easy. Basically you buy the handle, which comes with a basic running stitch piercer, and then you can buy lots of different heads depending on which pattern you want to create. You just run it along whatever you're piercing (in my case, a piece of normal card) and it makes the holes. You have to sit the card on top of a piece of foam matting (I just used a sheet of fun foam), otherwise it doesn't work. Then you simply use thread (I used standard embroidery floss) to complete your pattern. Simple!

As you can tell, I haven't quite worked out where the pattern correlates with the spikes (to start and finish neatly), but I'm working on it.

Does anyone else have one of these nifty devices? Please share your work, I'd love to see it!

Thistle Girl x

Gnome Sweet Gnome

Hello Everybody,


This is a short but somewhat overdue post about our local craft group's (Cannock Crafties!) Christmas "Secret Santa". All the excitement happened on December 14th and we planned it to coincide with our Christmas Meal at our usual meeting place. Thanks to Claire and her Elf-helper, we'd all been allocated swap partners a few weeks beforehand. Definitely an improved method on last year, where we pulled names out of a hat several times as we kept on drawing ourselves! 


Anyway, we soon began swapping our presents and the "Secret" Santas became less secret. I was lucky enough to get some lovely presents from my "Secret" Santa (Claire!) and I'd like to share them with you. The presents all came in a little brown paper bag, printed with gnomes.

The first pressie was this awesome gnome badge. I love gnomes (yes, really)! I have been wearing the badge on my coat ever since and get some strange looks at work.

Continuing with the theme, the next pressie was an amazing project bag made out of this fantastic gnome fabric. It's a little cylindrical bag and she made it all herself! I'm very impressed, think it will be a while before I'm creating something like that, but I can dream. I just love the fabric, there's so much detail.

Inside, the bag is beautifully lined by pretty spotty fabric. 

And, there are buttonholes! Aren't they fab?

The next pressie was this wonderful skein of Araucania Ranco Solid in a delightful purple-pink colour. She certainly got my colour scheme spot-on. This yarn is similar to the yarn I used to make my Baktus, except that was the 'Multy' variegated type. I'm very excited to make something with it, but haven't had any ideas yet.

In the meanwhile, I will stroke and fondle it.

There was one other gift, which I'm sorry to say I cannot share with you as it has gone! It was a packet of vegetarian chewy meerkats. Nom, nom!

Anyway, hope you all have Gnome-Envy! Any ideas for the perfect project for my new yarn will be much appreciated.

Thistle Girl x

All the Pretty Things

Hello Everybody,

Today I thought I'd quickly show you some of the pretty things seen around my house this Christmas. Some are gifts (from me for me and from others!) and some are just Christmas decorations. The decorations are all coming down later today, which is a little sad but I think it is time. Balthasar, my rooted Christmas tree, came down on Saturday as he had a bit of a bug infestation. I realised that I haven't even taken a photo of him this year (his 3rd year), which is a little sad. 

1. A little canvas bag, a gift from my Auntie, it's the perfect size for carrying lunch or a few bits and bobs (from Seasalt)


2. Another bag, a shopping bag, which has lots of pretty cupcakes on and was a gift from my cousins (from Paperchase)


3. A little angel candle, I think this was a gift from my cousins a couple of years ago (no idea where it's from)


4. A little wicker heart decoration from my Mum


5. Heart photo holder from my cousins (from New Look)


6. Super cute Russian Doll measuring cups from a friend (from Fred and Friends)


7. Herdy garlic pot, also very cute, from friends (from Herdy)


8. Snowflake window gel stickers, from the local garden centre


9. Heart glass jar, for holding a tea light or something, from my Mum (also from a local garden centre)


10. My new rug!!! It's red (I don't really do red, so this is a shock). It is a present to my lounge from me and I got it in the sale (£100 off!!!) (from Dunelm)


11. Welcome to the Beach House sign, another present to myself for my coastal room (don't ask, I live probably as far inland as you can get in England) (from Matalan)


Thistle Girl x

I sewed something!!!

Hello Everybody!


I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and New Year. Happy 2012! This is just a quick post to say that I made something, with my sewing machine. Yep, you heard correctly, I sewed something. Sunday (New Year's Day) was dull, wet and grey so I decided to get Sally out (yes, that's her new name!) and create. As I'm not particularly familiar (to say the least) with sewing, I thought I'd better start out with something simple. I found this pretty plastic bag tote on the Martha Stewart website, via Pinterest, and thought it looked fairly foolproof. Instead of using a tea towel, like she suggests, I used some pretty stripey (?stripy) fabric that I bought from Ikea a few months back.

I thought the stripes might make it easier to sew but, as you'll see, I used the fabric so that the stripes were horizontal, slightly defeating the object of helping me to sew in a straight line.

Anyway, it's not rocket-science. You just have to make a tube with a hem at the top and bottom, thread some elastic through the bottom bit and sew in a ribbon at the top for hanging.

It's by no means perfect, but was very simple and quick to make and would make a good gift. This one is all mine though!

Well, at least 2012 has got off to a good start in the world of crafting. I need to find another simple project for my next mission, any ideas?


Better get the bins in,


Thistle Girl x