Pretty little things

It’s strange how small accomplishments can often bring the greatest pleasure: a completed crossword, a neat pile of ironing, a tray of perfectly risen cakes. That’s why sometimes creating small but beautiful things rather than knitting an inch of your current major project is a good use of a precious hour. I’ve been on a bit of a jewellery-making binge recently (both knitted and non-knitted) and I’ve put some photos of a couple of the things I’ve made below.  I'll put more projects in my next post, but I thought I'd stick to a sea theme in this one.

Blue wave -silver beaded cuff

Seafoam and Pearls - knitted lace choker

A simple seafoam stitch choker with pearls.  The buttons at the back are made with larger pearls and seed beads and the tiny button loops are just so sweet.

Home help

The Bunkey loves to help around the house.  When I’m hanging the washing on the maidens to dry he follows behind me and carefully pulls it all off; he loves to come and peer into bowls of cake or scone mixes but as he also loves to try and get a sticky finger into the mixture, I’ve taken to giving him a big plastic bowl and wooden spoon so he can stir too.   Another task he enjoys is carefully sorting my embroidery threads (imagination will help you picture the kind of ‘sorting’ a 14 month old boy can do to a tin of brightly coloured cottons...)  But he does think he is helping and is so proud when I praise him for some particularly good ‘work’. 

Recently, I decided that it was about time that we made something together, so Alex helpfully obliged by making some lovely hand prints which we turned into the cushion pictured below.  I added a small amount of embroidery over the top just to give it a bit more texture.  2009 is going to be a year of make do and mend for me as it is the first year that I won’t be earning a wage. So the cushion is made out of an old tablecloth, the sofa it is sitting on has been recovered and then to salvage those covers recently re-dyed and the knitted cushion was made out of a ball of horrible old wool that has been hiding in my stash cupboard for a long time.  When the Monkey got home from work he thought I’d bought a new sofa!