Christmas craft fair

This is our stall at our favourite craft fair at The Old Chapel in Upminster.

This year I added 2 strings of fairy lights to brighten up the table and it really made it stand out,  there were lots of familiar faces there, and some new one to.   As usual we were raising funds for the local neonatal special care unit, for which they are always grateful.




This yr I'm determined to do more craft fairs so I've booked 8 so far, we are doing a new one at Great Garnetts farmers market which has been recommended by 2 friends, its the 2nd Saturday of each month except August and December so I'm hoping to quite a few of them.

Dementia lap cover and knitted twiddle mitt

Just before Christmas a work colleague asked if I could make a warm lap cover for his mum Hilda, 

 So I found some white quilted material in the local charity shop and started to sew, and I'm very glad to announce Hilda really loves her lap cover which keeps her warm whilst watching the TV in the evening

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 I also made one to show the local dementia society and they were very interested and asked if I could make a few over the next few months.

 This is one of the dementia mitts I've made for the local dementia charity so far I've donated 12 all decorated with buttons, beads and ribbons that I've brought from the local charity shops.

Snowman mitts

Over the last few weeks my mind has turned to thinking about Christmas, and with that I've been adding to our stock of Christmas knit wear and I've made some snowman mitts, they are all made from white double knit yarn with individual faces and different coloured hats.

Special care unit.

Way back in 2015 a friend had her baby 6 weeks early, and after 10 days in the special care unit on Christmas Eve they got the phone call to say they could bring the baby home, as you can imagine this was the best Christmas present ever, and after a frantic dash around the shops to get some bits, as they had ordered the pram and cot to be delivered at the end of January when the baby was due, off they went to collect her, and on Boxing Day they brought her round to visit.

As I was on Christmas holidays from work I decided to make a few teeny tiny hats to donate to our local special care unit, all the hats are made from doubled up 4 ply and double knit in super soft baby yarns, over the next few weeks I actually completed 60 hats in various sizes and colours and 12 small blankets.

I contacted the special care unit and arranged a day to deliver them.  Then a few weeks later I got a lovely letter from the ward head midwife thanking me for the donation.


Then I started to make hats, mitts and bottees in bigger sizes, and some shelf teddies and dollies and sold them at a craft fair with all the money raised going to the special care unit, we raised £56.00 in total and we even had people come over and give a donation when they heard where the money was going.

I have a bag of hats ready to go up to the unit again waiting to be washed, I've also made a few little jackets ready to go.

New fabrics, New designs

I went to a fabric sale recently, and couldn't resist adding this lovely fabrics to my stash -

Sweet aren't they?  I don't need an excuse usually to add a new fabric to my collection, and I couldnt resist these.  I've got plans and designs for them, so I'll post some pictures when they are underway.  We've got a couple of craft fairs booked for early Spring, so hopefully we will get to show our new designs then!

Quilts Away!

Now that the evenings are drawing in and the weather outside is getting colder, there is nothing I like more than sitting in front of the fire designing new quilts.  At our last craft fair we were asked for a boys quilt, although we have a lovely elephant one and a few playmats, I decided to get a few boyish - unisex fat quarters to add to my stash of materials and fat quarters, (like I needed an excuse!), and I decided to make a quilt based around a boats theme.

The boating fat quarter is the middle with white panels around and blue squares with spots and wheels to break up the white.  And I used a new skill, binding the edges to give them a really professional finish.

I'm really pleased with the way it turned out.  The corners were a bit of an issue but I quite pleased with the end product and hopefully it will be going to a new home soon to keep someones new bundle of joy warm.

Been Away For A While!

So, it's been a while since I last updated this blog.  We've had a full on summer - an uncle over to visit from Australia which was brilliant, a 60th wedding anniversary to plan and throw, and my husband went in hospital to have a hernia op which turned into a double hernia op and an appendix removal!

I've also been updating the shop - I've migrated from the previous site onto Etsy, so we'll see what happens there!  It's a massive community and some really special items are there.

So now we are back on the making trail!  A friend at work asked me to knit a little dress for her friends new baby, and as I've been thinking about making a few comforters I added one for the new baby, with her name appliquéd onto it.

 I made a small 6" x 6" comforter using teddy material for the front and pink spotty material for the back with an assortment of ribbons and materials for the edging pieces. I'm going to make a few more for our next craft fair at The Old Chapel Upminster in October, I'm thinking of making some 6"x 6" and 12"x 12" and 18" x 24" play mat size. These will all be made experimenting with my large (!!) selection of fat quarters, ribbons, assorted materials and either fleece or towelling for the backing.