Eclectic Home and Life: minions

September 18th

So a whole week whizzed by and I have not posted, it may take me a while to be back up to speed. That's not all that needs to pick up speed, I have not until this week crocheted in nearly two months, let's not even talk about knitting or other crafts. This is so unlike me. Do you ever stop things that normally give you pleasure and just haven't the inclination as normal? I think my 'craftiness' is luckily creeping back into my life and this week I have dabbled, but looking at what I have made, there is no finesse and everything is large and bulky, ummm.

What have I been up to this week then...

After a lovely comment from Jules on my last post, and thank you to everyone who commented, it really warmed my heart no end, thank you , thank you. (Last post) I began to think even more about why I began blogging and whether I should stop. She reminded me that I began blogging as I wanted to share my passion and Christmas traditions with my children so they would always have something to follow to carry on our family traditions if they so wished. Jules wrote that she was looking forward already to this years Christmas instalments. I post every day in December leading up to Christmas Eve, this year will be my third year in doing so. This got me thinking... and planning... and beginning to make...

Planning

Christmas blog planning

Sewing

Couldn't resist having a go

Oops, sewed the ribbon in the wrong place

I need to move the ribbon, the Scandinavian
influenced felt bird looks better in this orientation

Crochet

A good friend turns 21 + 19 later this week and absolutely loves Minions, so I had a look on line to remind myself what they looked like and made her a coffee cosy. There are in fact hundreds of patterns out there for Minion inspired makes including coffee cosies but I went off piste and made up my own.

Minion coffee cosy

And more crochet, perhaps the crojo is coming back...

After seeing others reading their latest Simply Crochet magazine, I used to be a subscriber but gave it up some months ago, I noticed someone showing some fair isle crochet which made me itch to see what it was all about. Off to the shops I trotted and bought said magazine. You can just spy the colour socks in the corner of my photograph. I dashed to my fairly large yarn stash but none of the colours there sang to me for socks and I am refusing to buy any more yarn until my hoard has been somewhat depleted. I did however have some lovely chunky 100% wool laying around, which although too thick for socks could make some funky chunky legwarmers. So hooking I began...

Again I made it up as I went along, but did use
the ribbing instructions from the magazine

A little wonky but looks ok on

Almost finished two

Excuse the filthy boots!

Fruit preserving

My dwarf pear tree produces an abundance of pears each and every year. It's wonderful to just pop out and pick one and eat, but we cannot eat them all. I give many away and make desserts with pears but this year I thought I would try drying them in the oven. Wow. What a success, already today I am making a second batch and my daughter has taken some for her break time snack.