Inspiration

A post by Isabelle this week made me think about how blogs and boards that I visit inspire me to try new things and discover new designers. She posted a few links of places that she visits and takes inspiration from. I followed a few of the links and got some inspiration too. That for me is one of the most interesting things about blogs - they link to other blogs, which you would probably never see unless you followed the links.
I enjoy reading Isabelle's blog as she sews some lovely dresses and I enjoy reading French crafting blogs. Karen's blog inspires me to stitch things that I wouldn't have in the past and her finishing ideas are great.

This week via Isabelle's blog, I found a blog called Molly Chicken which features a lot of sewing and stuffed toy making, especially using some fabulous Japanese patterns. The bears are particularly brilliant. I've made a few bears in the past and I quite fancy trying some of the patterns as I have a few pieces of mohair in my craft stash. I ended up on Ebay buying a Japanese craft magazine and a Japanese needlefelting design book largely because of the hedgehog designs that they have in them (I collect hedgehog items) .

Another place that I am being inspired by at present is Etsy . I love the idea of a place like Ebay but that actually seems to value hand crafted items. I bought some hand dyed sock yarn a couple of months ago from a seller and I was very inpressed by them and the yarn. There is such a variety of different things being sold. I love the prints this seller has and this seller has some gorgeous fabrics, some of which are currently flying across the oceans to my house.

Meanwhile, I'm still knitting away on a pair of socks which are very spring like in colour. I'd like to finish them before April is over but that might not happen.



I have already finished a pair of socks this month but they are rather smaller than the ones I normally knit (and they some with a hat and some mitts).





Of course I need knitting inspiration along with inspiration for the other crafts. A forum that I visit Crafty threads n yarns , provides a lot of inspiration and links to lots of stash enhancing shopping. Claire sent me the link to the forum and also supplies regular shopping inspiration too - we seem to be able to enable each other quite easily and share a few similar opinions lol.

Weekend update and a HD

Finally I've got round to posting after the weekend. I had a great time catching up with some stitching friends and I even managed to get a fair bit of stitching done.

The GTG was at Rach's house and she got a few presents for her soon to be born baby.



Kate came along and brought some of her lovely hand dyed fabrics and threads which we all looked at very closely



She also brought her lovely son who Joy made friends with.



There was lots of stitching, chatting and eating and special thanks must go to Rach's DH, who made us tea, set out lunch and didn't get too scared of a group of women descending on their house. He even joined Rach, Lindsay, Joy and myself in the local pub for dinner. All in all, it was a great weekend. It won't be too long until I see a lot of them again as a large group of Uk based stitchers are spending a weekend away together in just 7 weeks.

Whilst I was away, I spent quite a bit of time stitching, including several hours on the train coming back and so I managed to finish something that I bought fairly recently - The Peacock stitching chair by The Cat's whiskers. Joy had brought her finished chair to the GTG and it helped to get me moving on with it.
I did the finishing on it during yesterday and barring a little stupidness from me (I forgot the arms and had to pull it apart), it was fairly easy. I did attach a lot of the bits together with ladder stitch rather than glue as I'm not the best with glue. My only other modification was to use self adhesive ribbon to cover some raw edges at the drawer.







I really enjoy stitching it and the instructions for finishing are pretty good. There are quite a few other Cat's Whiskers designs that I like the look of but I won't be buying any for now as I want to finish a few other things first.

Green fingers and heather

The title of this post might make you think that my recent lack of post was due to gardening but its not, especially as I don't have a garden.
Chez Celtic stitcher is still on full on wedding preparation mode. I finished making the wedding favours the other night and the green tissue that they were made of turned my fingers completely green. It took a fair bit of scrubbing to get the green dye off.
The wedding is 7 weeks on Saturday and I still have quite a few things that I have promised to do. Tomorrow should hopefully have a delivery from a bead shop with a few bits and pieces to make the jewellery that me and my fellow bridesmaids are wearing plus a few crystals for the dresses.
So in the next 7 weeks I have to make
4 sets of bracelets,earings and necklaces for bridesmaids
4 bridesmaids dress bodices to bead
1 brides dress to bead
4 bags to make for bridesmaids
placecards for each guest
some extra wedding invites to make
Plus I have one hen night to attend, Thankfully one of the other bridesmaids is organising that. My sister is fairly calm at present considering how close the wedding is but I'm sure she will get a little overexcited as her big day gets closer.
I did have some buttonholes to make for the male members of the wedding party but I made them up this afternoon. Rather than carnations, which are worn by a lot of other grooms, its traditional to wear white heather at a Scottish wedding. The ribbon is black watch tartan, which the male wedding party members are wearing.


The groom, best man and the groom's father are all English so wearing a kilt is going to be a new experience for them. My dad hasn't worn a kilt before either as its only been in the past 20 years that wearing a kilt has become popular again.

I seem to have a lot of half finished things around at the moment. Work has been pretty tiring and although I've been off work since Friday, I don't seem to have much energy to do anything other than wedding stuff and the minimum amount of housework. I have a small pile of stitching and knitting stuff that needs finishing bits done to them but the pile has been mostly untouched apart from some knitted flowers and leaves which I made in a class at Harrogate which I made into brooches.



Tomorrow I'm having a day of sewing, stitching and papercrafting I think. Friday I'm off for a few days away to meet up with a few of the UK based stitchers to have a GTG. I can't wait.