My day out in Brighton…

I had a lovely time at the Creative Stitches and Hobbycraft Show at the Brighton Centre today.  I went last year and reported back so I thought I would do the same! 

There is a mixture of interests catered for including knitting, quilting, paper crafts, card making, general sewing and also miscellanous stalls like a bloke selling hanging baskets!  This year there were less fabric stalls, in fact I only saw 3: Stitch Witch, Eternal Maker and the most beautiful stall I ever saw from Dandelion Designs; they were 4 deep at this stall, all oohing and aahing over the vintage buttons, Scandinavian-esque stitchery and Union Jack Quilt kits. 

(beginning to regret not buying this kit…….)

So what did I buy? Well I bought lots of hab-dab stuff including invisible thread, a new blade for my rotary cutter, a new bias binder maker (which allows to add iron on tape to added) and a loop turner. 

A new cross stitch kit for Christmas, I was on my way out when I spotted this and just had to have it!

Some strips of pretty panels, not sure what I’ll do with this but it was too pretty to leave behind!  I could applique the panels to t-shirts for the girls or on  a bag maybe……

and then……. from The Eternal Maker the most lovely Echino linen!   Yummy yummy yummy! Echino Bonbon in brown.  I bought 2 metres intending to make a skirt for myself and it cost more than I usually spend on fabric (£16/m) but I HAD to have it!.  This stall had the best fabrics I’ve seen in the flesh for ages.  They have a shop and workshop based in Chichester which I have visited before and will be heading back there soon!

There was a stall run by the UK Hand Knitting Association which was running knitting workshops.  Wanting to capitalise my recent knitting adventure I had a little introduction to increasing and decreasing stitches and knitted myself a little kite shape.  The lady also gave me a set of knitting needles and a ball of acrylic yarn although not as nice as the cotton yarn and bamboo needles I got from the WI workshop it will do for practise!

After this I decided to go Fabricland where I could easily spend all day and much too much money!  I’ve bought from the website before but of course you have to pay postage but as I was in Brighton, well it would have been rude not to visit! 

I bought this cotton seersucker with a peach stripe which was £1.99/m!  So I bought 4m!  I intend to make a shirt for myself with this. 

 

This is a jersey mix which I intend to make a top based on one I bought from Dorothy Perkins. 

This is a polyester blend, which I don’t normally like but it will make a lovely skirt for me.  There might be enough for one of the girls as well!

So that was my haul from Brighton, I found the show at the Brighton Centre a little disappointing this year, mainly as there were much less fabric retailers this year.  Chatting to a stall holder apparently it costs too much for the fabric retailers as they have to have a large stall to hold the stock.  In fact all the fabric retailers had small stalls whereas the paper craft retailers had large stalls.  I think if you are interested in more than just 1 craft then it would be worthwhile but I don’t think I’ll bother next year, especially as the best stall there is one I can easily get to, living between Brighton and Chichester! 

These fabrics will have to wait for a little while as the next project is decorating Miss M’s bedroom….

Jam and Jerusalem

I recently joined a Women’s Institute group which has just been set up in my local town.  Now before you groan and assume its really boring and full of old women,( no offence to old women, I hopefully will be one for a  long time, but not just yet…) its a really cool and funky group.  We’re all aged between 30 and 45ish and there are a lot of crafters in the group already and some very stylish women, I feel very out of place sometimes!  Anyway this week we had a knitting workshop run by Caroline who owns the cutest little wool shop you’ve ever seen.  She divided us up into beginners and intermediate knitters and we set to.  My mother taught me to knit when I was a kid and although she was a fantastic knitter (I remember cable and fair isle featuring in her knitting) the yarn gene didn’t pass down to be me.  I spent 6 years knitting her a tea cosy, so long in fact that the kitchen was redecorated with a different colour so by the time it was finished it didn’t match!!  I remember knitting as being very labour intensive and I ended up with very inconsistent stitches and random stitches!  So I went to the beginners group!  We did some simple stitches including ribbing and here’s what I did!

How cute its that, look how consistent the stitches are?!  You can’t see terrible well but there's really neat ribbing at the top and shock horror, I ended with the same number of stitches as I started!!!!!   Is it wrong to be incredible proud of such a little piece of knitting! 

I showed to the girls and Miss M said ‘Oh that would fit Barbie!’  So I sewed the edges together and ta-da…….

Barbie has a new top! Or Skirt, multi functional garment!  Its a little snug going over her hips (tell me about it sister!) but it works!  Now I’m knitting something else…..  I can’t actually tell you what it is as I have no idea, I did think I would knit myself  a scarf but I don’t think I have enough yarn (might have to visit the shop and get some more) but at the moment I’m just enjoying sitting and knitting.  I really enjoy sewing but I don’t enjoy that I go off in private to do it whereas with knitting I can sit and watch TV and spend time with kids and still produce something.  I don’t think I’ll ever become a knitter more than a sewer but at the moment I’m enjoying experimenting. 

Water bottles

My kids currently take packed lunches to school every day so I made them some personalised lunch bags this year. Our school had a £1/2m building program this year to enlarge the school hall to allow hot dinners to be served, (all hail Jamie Oliver, we love you!).  This means the kids won’t be taking their lunch bags into school but I still want them to take their water bottles as they can drink them in class when they need to.  So (insert drumroll here) I made them water bottle holders!

It was based on this tutorial from Kathy at Pink Chalk Studios except I used wadding rather than Insul-Brite, this gave it a little more bulk than the original so my base disc didn’t fit quite as well as hers but I’m still pleased with it.  The girls have already used them for after school activities and I don’t have the carry the bottle, yipee! 

I lined the bottles with rip stop nylon as I did their lunch bags and I used different patterns to quilt the layers together.  I can’t believe how much fun it was just sewing line after line to quilt the purple fabric!  I tried using a more haphazard free motion quilting technique on the pink fabric with varying success.  I like the end product when other people have used it but I think I need a lot of practice as it was a little too haphazard!  I keep getting a little closer to the idea of actually making a proper quilt, maybe one of these days I’ll actually get there! 

I shall be linking up with all these lovely link parties this week and crossing another thing off my to-do list!

Book Review–you’re next–gregg hurwitz

Yet another book review!  Wow I’m storming through my reading list, although I think it might slow down soon!

You’re Next by Gregg Hurwitz was a fabulously exciting read.  I haven’t read any of his books before although it is a genre I’ve read a lot of previously Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Harlan Coben & Michael Connelly being authors I’ve previously enjoyed.

Without given too much away, the basis premise of the story is centred around Mike Wingate, abandoned as a young child to a foster home, without any knowledge or understanding of his history or the reasons for his abandonment.  After brushes with the law he reinvents himself through hard work and integrity working his way to becoming a successful property developer at the start of the book.  Suddenly his past comes back to haunt him and his family but without his understanding of why or who is after them.  We are then led on a roller coaster ride with baddies, corruption, assassins, violence and terror as Mike struggles to escape the threat but also neutralise and understand the origin.  His battle to understand his history and revisit his past is very well done. 

It very hard to talk about a thriller without giving the game away but all you need to know is if you like this genre then you will love this book.  When I get to the end of my current reading list I might search out some more of his novels.    I really didn’t want to put it down as I always wanted to know what happened next.  I could easily see this film being made into a movie, maybe with Colin Farrell as the lead! 

 

P.S. I promise I will do something crafty soon…….

Book report–Philipa Gregory–The White queen

So after reading lots of Philipa Gregory’s Tudor books it was time to move a little further back in history to the War of the Roses.

The White Queen refers to Elizabeth Woodville, a widow who’s family had been fighting on the side of the House of Lancaster, meets and fall in love with the rival King Edward IV of the House of York.  Such a change of heart and fortune for the whole family sets a train of consequences which echo down the generations of the English Royal Family.  The War of the Roses, or the Cousins War as it was known at the time, was an outright battle between two arms of the same family when King Henry VI was incapable of ruling.  There were arguments over which arm had the stronger claim to the throne and ultimately this led to warfare.  During the course of this book Edward became King, lost the throne, ran away in exile, returned and reclaimed his throne.   Many of the major players in the battles changed sides repeatedly depending on who was winning.   As ever with Ms Gregory’s books this is told from the point of view of the women involved, Elizabeth, her mother Jacquetta and latterly Elizabeth of York  (subsequently Queen Elizabeth I’s grandmother!).  Much is made of the charge made against Jacquetta of witchcraft, especially as her family had been linked with the legend of Melusine, a water sprite or mermaid in tales.  I found this aspect of the story a little tedious with much obviously fictionalised depictions of Elizabeth and Jacquetta casting spells to entrap King Edward, raise storms to defeat/delay opponents and to further the family’s position.  In my opinion there is enough intrigue, politics and betrayal in history without resorting to such fiction.  That aside, I enjoyed this novel, maybe not quite as much as the Tudor series.  I enjoy the fact of history through the eyes of women and as I read each of her novels I am eternally grateful not to have lived in such times.  Although we can look back at them now with academic eyes and for entertainment purposes these were not good times for women, property of the men in your family, you had no power other than your sexuality, fecundity and wits.  A women could be put aside for seemingly trivial matters by modern eyes with no defence or argument.  The ability to produce heirs, specifically male heirs is of the utmost importance to royal families especially in times of such upheaval and uncertainty.  Elizabeth and Edward actually produced 10 children, including male heirs to take the throne but due to Edward’s sudden death before the boys were old enough to take the throne, their uncle Richard III stole the throne from them and placed them in the Tower of London, declared his brother marriage as null and void and therefore made his nieces and nephews illegitimate and removed from the throne.  The fate of the Princes in the Tower has been a subject of much debate both at the time and since.  The White Queen has the younger prince Richard escaping to safety in Belgium and an imposter replacing him in the Tower.  He returned to England at the end of the book under the name Perkin Warbeck. 

The story of the Cousins War is not resolved in this books but moves onto The Red Queen which covers some of the same events but from the point of view of Lady Margaret Beaufort, a Lancastrian mother of Henry VII and grandmother of Henry VIII.  Elizabeth and Margaret are players in a dangerous game and they both conspire, form and break loyalties with each other in attempt to get their child on the throne.  I haven’t bought that book yet but I’m sure in later months I shall.  I think I’ll put it on my reading list but at the moment I’ve moved onto a more contemporary novel with a much more fast paced plot. 

Harry Potter Party Part Two

The previous post showed you wands, robes, sorting hat & horrible beans!  Next the lessons….

The first lesson we did was Divination, we bought some old tea cups from a charity shop and then painted some shapes on the bottom with glue and stuck tea leaves onto the glue.  We covered the patterns with more tea leaves which the kids had to cast a spell over Ostendo Sum Posterus (Latin for Reveal The Future!) and then tipped the tea leaves out.  We then used this manual for the kids to decode the images.  

This was a really calm activity to do as they were all sitting on the floor, looking up their shapes in the book and reading out loud.  It also took a lot less time than I planned so we said it was break-time and the kids could go play for a bit.  Off they ran upstairs and one bedroom was Ravenclaw dormitory and one was Gryffindor!

Next lesson was Potions which was probably my favourite activity. I made a Potions Handbook detailing a number of potions for them, all based on kitchen chemistry experiments like bicarb and vinegar.  We had set up a Potion cupboard with all the potions they needed and some bottles I’d made for Halloween.  I’ve been collecting glass bottles for ages!  They had to collect the potions required for each potion. 

The Volcano Potion – spell Erumpo

Wow!!!

How did you do that!?

The Potions lesson was finished with an exam where the kids had to make a Cultivatum Victus potion.  We had taken 2 plastic spoons and taped then together, putting food colouring paste in between, liquid didn’t work.  The food colouring was hidden from them and casting the spell Aqua Infectum they had to stir the spoon in a glass of water and if the colour changed they would pass!  Of course they all passed and I tried it with a spoon without food colouring and it didn’t work until they shouted the spell extra loud!

Next lesson was Charms aka Musical Statues, the kids had to cast spells (Petrificus Totalus or Immobilus) to freeze each other, they then counted to ten and were able to move again.  This got very noisy and chaotic but it gave us time to get the food sorted out. 

After a lot of debate about cakes in the shape of Hogwarts or Golden Snitch, Books, School Badge I got realistic about my cake making skills and reminded Miss M that in The Philosphers Stone Hagrid brught Harry a cake with misspelled icing. 

It doesn’t count as a Cake Wreck when its deliberately bad!

The last part of the party was the Exam with questions about the books such as which platform does the Hogwarts Express leave Kings Cross Station?  Of course they were all given help if they needed it especially as some of the girls didn’t know much about HP but Miss M stormed through her answers and was the first to finish will 100% which made her chuffed!

Their Party Bag to go home was full of Honeydukes Sweets.  I made up bags of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans (no nasty flavours in this lot though!), Sherbert Lemons and Chocolate Frogs. 

The best thing was the Chocolate Frogs, I managed to find frogs and I made the pentagram wizard collectable cards and laminated them!

I made ones with Severus Snape, Merlin, Helga Hufflepuff, Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, Salazar Slytherin and of course Albus Dumbledore.  Snape is my favourite and the Chocolate Frogs were the best thing I did for the whole party.  I got most of the information on the cards from Harry Potter Wiki which was a huge source of information, pictures and ideas.  As well as the sweets the kids took home their wands, robes, slice of cake and a certificate printed on parchment.   

In way of a Thank You letter I mocked up a Daily Prophet newspaper and printed on parchment paper again. 

So that was our Harry Potter party, yes it was a lot of work but boy did we have fun.  I had fun creating all these elements and they really did add to the overall effect of the party.  Speaking to the kids and their mums since its clear it was a great party and they all loved every minute of it and that's what's important. 

Sorry these posts have been so long and picture heavy but if it helps you to throw a similar party then I’m glad.  Good luck!

Resources

http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/html/harry_potter.html
http://harrypotter-birthday.com/
http://www.amazingmoms.com/htm/party_hrrypttr.htm
http://www.mugglenet.com/misc/rosmertas/index.shtml
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/features/crafts/potterparties
http://www.best-birthday-party-ever.com/harry-potter-party.html
http://marthashmartha.blogspot.com/2010/04/welcome-to-hogwarts.html
http://myharrypotterparty.blogspot.com/
http://www.britta.com/hogwarts/recipes.html
http://dirtandsunshine.com/harry-potter-party.html
http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/html/harry_potter_parties_3.html#
http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/html/harry_potter_parties_8.html#
http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/html/harry_potter_parties_15.html#
http://myharrypotterparty.blogspot.com/
http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/html/harry_potter_parties_10.htm
http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.jkrowling.com/

I shall be linking up with all these lovely link parties this week