Stitches and Thrills

At my place of work (the Dutch branch of Holland and Barrett) we are having a fundraiser for Make-A-Wish . The Make-A-Wish foundation grants wishes of seriously ill children. So that, for one day, the kids and their family can forget about the illness and enjoy themselves. My contribution to raising the money is selling these 6 crossstitch DIY sets I put together. My design is a pretzel with a heart. It was a design I started on for my friend, a big Pretzel lover. But her gift eventually became a bigger pretzel. ;-) I sold already a few, but there are still kits available! You will get black crossstitch fabric, embroidery thread, a needle, a 11cm hoop (that's about 4 1/4"), a design and a tutorial in both Dutch and English. How do you get your hands on a Pretzel Love crossstitch kit? A DIY set costs €12 (is about 13.40 USD or 10.25 GBP). The shipping's on me, so FREE SHIPPING! If you would like to order a kit give me a shout via the comment section, or ...

Our cat Dita turns out to be an avid plant and flower eater. So we did not have any bouquets in our house for a while now. And as spring is only crawling in with baby steps some floral decoration would be nice to brighten up our home. From a flower guide book I took these beautiful illustrations and gave them a decorative edge. Hello floral bunting! Hello spring! Bring the springtime in your home too! Book & Button Buntings available at AllFairness .

Having been at a Twin Peaks party a couple of weeks ago I realized that my life was missing a log pillow. (The hostess of the party had one!) So I was thrilled to find the free log crochet pattern on the Club Geluk website ! The pattern is in Dutch, but I will explain some adaptation I made, and as a bonus: how to make it into a pillow. I used 100 grams of light brown yarn (it was actually a variation yarn, but that worked well). 50 grams of beige and 50 grams of dark brown yarn. All yarn DK / light worsted (usual advice would be needle size 4). I used a crochet needle 3.5 mm to get a close firm stitch. The recommended 43 chain stitches (light brown yarn) cast on gave me a circle of 9 1/2 cm diameter. I closed the circle and knitted 55 rows to get a 39 cm tube. I did make a small change to the pattern in the 2 end circles of the log (beige yarn). As recommended I did cast on 8 stitches in a magic circle. And then increasing each round following in the pattern. However: I did...

A couple of years ago I made a pair of armwarmers out of socks with holes. This project will be today's DIY idea. It was a busy day at work, so it's a bit of a filler tutorial. ;-) When socks start to get holes you might try out to mend them at first. But sometimes the quality of the material is just not really up to being used that intensely. As a shop assistant I am on my feet all day and the soles of my socks sometimes wear very thin. And there's simply nothing left to mend. When this happened to a few pair of knee length socks (poor quality, but I fell for the stripes) I decided to make them into armwarmers. First you cut the sock, just above the ankle. If you have an overlock machine you can sew the edge with that. I don't have an overlocker, so I decided to use a zigzag on the cutted edge. On the yellow/black pair I sew a stretchy lace ribbon along with the zigzag. On this pair the cut edge was the hand side. On the black/white pair the top of th...

At the Etsy Craft Party in June we worked with 3 origami DIYs. I had promised to share them all 3 on this blog. But after the first one I went to Italy, then we got 2 cats...and now it is December. Still: the perfect time to make a Christmassy Paper Fröbel Star ! Here's how it is done: You need 4 strips of paper, each at least 25 times as long as it is wide. Mine were 1" (2.5 cm) wide and at least 25" (62.5 cm) long. Vouw 4 stroken in elkaar. Interlocking, dus bijvoorbeeld beide gele einden door de rode heen steken. Fold the 4 strips interlocking together. So both yellow ends are weaved in the red strip. Vouw de bovenste stroken 1 voor 1 dubbel over het vierkantje heen. Fold the upper strips 1 by 1 over the square. Steek de 4e strook onder de eerste door. Stick the 4th strip under de first one. Vouw een strook in een puntje. (Maakt niet uit met welke je begint.) Fold a strip into a point. (It doesn't matter with which you start.) Kl...

I'm ba-a-ack! Back on the blogtrain, that is. Last months I have been busy, and so often thought: oh, this is something I'd like to blog about. But somehow just the thought of sitting at the PC made me tired. So, maybe one day I will tell you about the trip to Terschelling, the sewing lessons, the Westknits KAL (knit-along). But not today. This month I will share on a daily base lovely DIY ideas, kits, patterns, recipes and inspirations that will make you want to jump out of your chair and get creative. Last weekend I started to hang up some Christmas decorations. Since we are a cat household already for many years I have mainly unbreakable ornaments. But I realized that our 2 new enthousiastic furry felines, Dita and Moogie, would most likely even tear those down. So,here is a video I found on making a Christmas tree that is not only cat safe, but actual cat fun! How To Make a Cat Proof Christmas Tree! How do you make a cat proof Christmas tree? … Here'...

Jersey used to be my "Fabric Enemy No.1". On the floor of my wardrobe there was an ever growing pile of t-shirts that needed revamping, but all previous attempts to sew knitted fabrics had failed miserably. Some people told me I would need an overlocker to sew jersey. So I when I came across Tilly And The Buttons' online workshop " Learn to sew jersey tops on a regular sewing machine " I decided to give it a go. In the additional video's Tilly explains all techniques in detail. (Thank you, Tilly!) And all questions in the forum are answered quickly. It was also nice to see everyone's shared results. The Agnes top pattern is so versatile: you just want to make more and more tops! A few tips I took from the course:   - A running foot might be very handy for my sewing machine if I want to sew more jersey. - The moment I was thinking: "yes yes, I know, Tilly, I have to check that my seam allowances are not folded" I noticed the ne...

Papieren diamantjes hanger. Hier is de eerste beschrijving van de Etsy #CraftParty 2015 in Leiden. Materiaal:  Papieren stroken . Voor een diamantje heb je een strook nodig waarvan de lengte 8x de breedte is. Dus bv als de strook 2.5 cm breed is, dan is de lengte minstens 20 cm. Of als de lengte 32 cm is (bv een atlas pagina), dan knip je hem op 1/8 dus 4 cm breed. Dun touw en een lange naald . Stokje / takje / grote sateprikker. Je kan ook een mobile maken door bv een oude borduurring te gebruiken. Paper diamond hanging decoration. Here's the first tutorial from the Etsy #Craftparty 2015 workshop Leiden! Material:  Paper strips : For 1 diamond  you need a paper strip of which the length 8 times the width. So if your width is 1 inch, than the length is at least 8 inch. Thin thread and a long needle. A stick or little branch. Or you can go circular with an old embroiderie ring. Draai de strook om en vouw een hoekje van 45 g...