Handmade Windsor chair

Today's is a guest post!
Actually, it's written by me, but it features something made by my husband.  He has been making a Windsor chair, which is at our dining room table and is really beautiful - here it is!



All of this chair is made of ash (Fraxinus), a wood traditionally used for furniture because of its strength, lightness and fine grain.



The seat is shaped using a bandsaw, then contoured with hand and power tools.  Drilling the holes for the angled legs and back spindles caused a little light swearing!



The back crest is made from a flat piece of wood, steamed and bent around a former.  Curving it like this makes the chair very comfy.  The upright back spindles are shaved from cleft green ash, giving them a lovely light appearance.



Mike's plan is to make these chairs to order, and the first ones should be available later this year (2016).  Do get in touch if you're interested!

Vicky xx

Linen and Liberty

Not a new combination, I expect, but one I think really works.  Liberty lawn is probably my favourite sort of fabric!



These are tiny notebooks with crispy laid paper hand stitched into a linen wrap-around cover, lined with Liberty lawn.  A leather tie winds around to keep the notebook closed.



Great for using up scraps of linen, whilst not eating up too much of your precious Liberty stash! Making one of these miniature books is a satisfying little project for an afternoon.



I used a variety of Essex linens and Liberty prints - can't decide on a favourite though! Will I be able to give these away, or will I have to keep them all??! One in each bag I think!

Ysolda's cadeautje

Happy New Year!
Before Christmas I was super-busy knitting four of these fantastic socks, from a pattern by Ysolda.  The word "cadeautje" translates from Dutch as (I think) "present" or "gift", which is exactly what these are perfect for.  I finished the last sock of the two pairs on Christmas Eve, and left them by the fire for the recipients to find on Christmas morning.  They went straight on and have been popular on our chilly floors ever since.



Then on Boxing Day, cast on for another pair! And when these are finished, I'll finally do a pair for myself.  I love the way the sole curves up at the toe, due to the clever way the stitches are picked up for the welt and then decreased into the toe cap.



As we've had some snow, I thought some pictures of these extra-cosy socks outdoors would be appropriate.



You do kind of need a good selection of needles for these.  I used double-pointed as well as a 45cm circular, and at some points used both the dpns and circular together.  If you are buying needles for the project, I would go for two 45cm circulars.  One set of 5 dpns is not enough for all the stitches of the adult sizes!



You can buy and download the pattern from Ysolda's website here.  Check back in a week or so for another post about MY slippers!

Coated cotton tote bag

Back to bags! I've made myself a new swimming bag, with coated cotton (vinyl cotton) from John Lewis.  I got this fabric back in March, but kept putting off cutting it up in case the bag didn't turn out how I imagined it.



However, all is well and I'm really pleased with this bag!  Inside there is a zipped pocket - tricky to do in the vinyl, so I used strips of Bondaweb to hold the opening quite flat while I stitched in the zip.  You can see my zipped pocket tutorial here.



In the picture above you can also see there's a vinyl facing above the cotton lining.  I'm hoping that will stop the bag soaking up too much water when I grab it from the locker with wet hands!



Somehow the bag looks smaller in these pictures than in real life. There's plenty of room for a big towel and all the other bits you need when you go swimming, but the bag is not too enormous to carry over your shoulder.  I need to write up how I made this one (before I forgot) so I can whip up some Christmas presents!

Vicky x

Flower garden tea cosy

I made another tea-cosy, this one for a friend who's a gardener.  Most of these colours are Aran-weight left-overs, perfect for creating a colourful bunch of flowers.



Tea cosy body, flowers and leaves are from two of Loani Prior's fabulous books - How Tea Cosies Changed The World and Really Wild Tea Cosies.



Felt bobbles finish off the bottom edge nicely (I didn't make these though).



Flowers made from a mixture of Noro scraps and Aran wool from Commodum in Ireland.  Felt balls in the middle finish them off nicely!



This is the third of Loani Prior's teacosies I've knitted, but the first I've blogged.  The first was this mad creation, made with A LOT of Noro wool - I absolutely love this one and it's always a talking point when people pop in for a cuppa!



The second (also not blogged) was 'Devilish', which I made for a small white teapot.  So funny this one.



I've got another of Loani's teacosies lined up to knit for a Christmas present, which will be number four.  I'm off to make a cup of tea!
xx

Pumpkin madness

This one's random - here's a giant tissue-paper-and-sticks pumpkin I made for Halloween!

It fitted on top of our little boat, so it could spookily drift around the lake. Wooo-oooo!!

Second trail tote

Following my birdy trail tote, here's one with a leather flower - a commission in orange spotty linen.  The pattern is by Noodlehead (and it's free! here)



This one's the same size as my blue birdy one (that's medium, which isn't in the pattern).  It has grey piping, and a grey strap, and leather details - an applique flower and tabs for the magnetic snap.

Inside, the lining is an Ikea furnishing fabric.



As before I used the suede-y back of the leather for the flower.  I tried to machine stitch it on but got lots of skipped stitches, so went back to hand sewing - need to work on this as machine stitching would be so much quicker.

The recipient was very pleased with her bag, so a success all round.  I've made lots of things lately that haven't got blogged, so there will be more posts very soon!

Vicky xx