Cat on the bed....

...and other stuff!

After months of only sleeping on flat surfaces, Tinkerbell has discovered the delights of soft furnishings.  She had spent more than the first year of her life living rough and not being fed very well.  She was full of fleas and worms and STARVING when I stole her at the beginning of August.  She has been free to go in and out but has chosen to stay here.  No one has come looking for her or put any lost cat posters up.  Unfortunately there was another cat there;  I tried to make friends and give it treats, but I haven't seen it for a while - I hope it found somewhere nice to live.    I made the crochet throw and quilt several years ago.

 

On Boxing Day I visited my Mum and Dad and Mum and I had a craft afternoon.  I punched us both out some gift tags and we had to make two the same and swap with each other and keep one ourselves.  Mine is on the left and mum's is on the right.

Mum made this super card for me from a flower soft kit.

pressy from mum (and dad)

Happy Christmas....

.... to those of you in America because it is now Boxing Day in England....

We made Santa at Knitting Club last week - he sits outside the pub and looks festive!!!!!

My annual greetings card

My alternative annual greetings card

A very special card for Alison -  to cover all eventualities

Bankfield Museum Tree

Tink has discovered how warm and cosy a scarf can be when the weather is cold - unfortunately I discovered how cold the weather is without the scarf!

Like my new coffee pot??

Cool pattern

Tink had put in a request to Santa Claws for a felt reindeer on a stick - she wasn't disappointed.

Christmas lunch - green tomato chutney with toasted vegan 'cheese' on top and salad

Mince pie for pudding

Lime biscuits for snack

A quick dash through the catflap and down to the end of the garden....... someone mentioned a snack!

And here is the one that got away - too slow Tinkerbell....

Evening meal - Aubergine surprise (the aubergine is hiding under roast parsnips, carrots and mushrooms) with polenta and tomato sauce

Tink had Chicken and Duck

Pudding was cornflake pie with dairy free ice cream.

Stellar Art, Trois

Just a little decoration I made for Alun out of a Stella box.

A collection of knitted goods on the tables ready for the craft fair to commence.

All my little knitted puds had already sold before I got there.

Free knitting pattern - tiny Christmas pudding

This is a free pattern - you are welcome to make for charity purposes - we sold them for £1 each for the local childrens hospice.



Size: 4cm or 1-1/2 inches tall

Ingredients
Double knitting yarn brown and white
size 4mm needles
green felt
3 seed beads
1 Ferrero Rocher chocolate (available in abundance in England at Christmas!!)
few inches of glittery thread

Recipe
Using brown (leave long tail for sewing up)
cast on 20 stitches
k1 p1 rib for 8 rows
change to white yarn
knit 2 rows
knit 1 row,
purl 1 row
start decreasing :  k1, k2 together along row until last stitch, k1
purl next row
K1, k2 tog along row
p1 row
cut off thread (leave enough to sew up, thread through stitches on needle)

k = knit
p= purl
tog = together

sewing up
Pull stitches on white tight, with right sides together sew up (or sew up on right side - have a look for sewing up tutorial if you have never done this before), stop when you get to the brown.  Start from the other end and sew up the brown.   Fasten off the end securely.

Using green felt cut out a tiny holly shape with 3 leaves (keep it all in one piece) - see photo.  Sew 3 red seed beads on and securely sew the whole thing to the top of the pudding.  Thread glittery thread through top of pudding and tie securely on the inside,  it needs to be long enough to hang on the tree.  Fill with one of the foil covered chocolates.

Hang on your tree.  Make sure you eat them all during the holiday period, they will not have a long enough date to last for more than a few months.  You can keep the knitted part and fill with more chocolates in the following years.

If you make one - send me a photo link.  If you have a problem with the instructions - send me a message and I will try and help.  Enjoy!

Knitting Natterers Coffee Morning

That will be tomorrow at the Blue Boar 11.30am until 3.30pm.  We have all been busy knitting for charity and the charity we are supporting this year is Martin House Childrens' Hospice.

Lots of little Christmas pudding tree decorations filled with a certain round shaped chocolate that seems to be on sale everywhere during the festive season!

Knitted (obviously) gadget holders - put your phone or camera or anything else in one of these.

These are the little puds before stuffing and adding holly.

Tissue holders - remember the things granny make for bazaars

close up

back

This is the pud I bought (from a charity stall) - they have used a card holly leaf with red glitter glue - I thought this would be SO appropriate to knit our charity event - so I blantantly copied it - well not quite..... check out the next photo

I cut out (with my tiny scissors) tiny felt holly leaves and sewed red seed beads on.

Taught my friend how to make this staircase necklace a couple of weeks ago...

...... look how fabulous it looks close up - I love the RED beads in the centre which are just showing through.