Stitched on wood

Hi all. Took a short break from knitting and card making and quickly cross stitched this lovely freebie from the newest issue of Cross Stitcher :) A keyring with a vintage rose design.

Always wondered what it would be like to cross stitch on other materials than canvas. Well, now I know :)

To tell the truth, I doubt it will be my favourite technique as stitching on a piece of perforated wood is... well, more rigid, the knots are harder to make and sometime you struggle to push the needle through as you stitch in 4 strands of cotton. But the overall effect is nice and it's worth aching a bit to have this nice design :)

I may present my mum with this stitched bit. She loves roses.
In the meantime, relaxed lazy knitting... 3 "eggs shells" waiting for ironing and stuffing...

and the next one is on the needles...

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Today a heavy winter snowfall hit the Great Britain again. Large areas of the UK are snowbound, schools are closed, streets are empty and people stay in. Basically, today is cancelled. I'm off work today and it's my bonus day to add to the whole school Easter holidays :) I have a feeling it's going to be a crafty day :D
This is what it looks like from my window today:

and the doorstep! poor budding daffs!

Seriously, it's 22nd March today - officially the calendar spring - is this weather some kind of a joke? If yes, then the Weather Gods must be having a laugh!
I do long for something sunny and warm and I bet most of us do so here's a cheery pic for you, with a supa cute ladybird :) just to keep you going through that cold weather.

Roll on Spring! And please, hurry up! ;)

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Welcome my new blog readers! :)

I'm designing...

... my own patterns for the knitted eggs/balls :) Well, at least I'm trying to. Thank you Arne and Carlos for the inspiration! Actually I've been thinking about it since I started knitting all 55 Christmas balls. I thought it would be a great idea (and satisfaction!) to have my own designs too! Easter seems like a perfect time to try my hand at it, with all that coloured yarns and cheery patterns. Why not?

My colleague (and to be precise, her mum) has presented me with this lovely book of hers - The complete book of Scandinavian Knitting by Sheila McGregor (Thank you ladies! x x x) It is a great source of Nordic patterns to use in your knitting, ranging from the simple ones to the more complex ones. I chose some of them to put on my future knittted eggs :)

This is what I recently have knitted - two new "egg shells" :) the one from the top is my first own design!

And this is what I'm currently working on:

Sounds like it's gonna be a knitting weekend for me!

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More Easter cards

I'm still in the card making mode :) having a play with my new scrapbooking papers, stamps and other toys :)

Finally I had a chance to use my lovely folky papers from GoScrap for the first time and this card has come out:

I'm hoping to make more folksy cards like this soon!

Another simple card with folky stamps (from Noolibird) and with a stamped jumper-patterned background (The Waltzing Mouse stamps).

 And a long card with an Inca stamp - Frolicking sheep :) Really like this image <3

All 3 cards together :)

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I've gone totally Martha Stewart crazy recently. I'm in love with her punches. Another gorgeous designs  have recently enlarged my MS collection:

The embossing / cutting Zig zag - been wanting this one for a long time, will look good with various folky designs. The pansies are so cute that I had to have them for this spring/summer season. Oh, and the famous collection of Martha Stewart snowflake punches every crafter desires to have. Can't have the Double Scandinavian Snowflake punch (sadly, to the disappointment of crafters, it's been discountinued and not on sale any more) but at least I can have the Himalayan snowflake instead. Will look fab on my future Nordic Christmas cards :)

10 Scandinavian knitted eggs

Yay! My 10 Nordic knitted eggs are now ready to be featured on my blog. The fruit of my knitting labours from the past 3-4 weeks. The patterns were designed by Arne & Carlos and published in a Norwegian Paskestrikk booklet. I found those eggs simply irresistible. I knew I would have to knit them! The white floral eggs and the jumper patterns on them captured my heart at first sight.

The eggs have been knitted with the Dalegarn Lerke yarn and it was quite a different knitting experience for me. The yarn is basically 50% cotton and 50% merino and it knits a bit different to Falk and Heilo yarns I'm used to. It's smooth in knitting (though sometimes it tends to split) with a "string-y" feel and gives nice smooth weave. I think it just perfectly matches the overall Easter'y style of these eggs.

I absolutely loved knitting those floral eggs with the white background. The white is so typical of the Scandinavian home interiors and it gives an impression of freshness and cleanliness. Perfect with tulips and other spring flowers. 

The blue-yellow-red-white designs will also look great on an Easter tree or an Easter table :)

My knitting basket has filled up with the knitted eggs now! And I still keep knitting them! 

And these are all my Easter knits so far:
Quite a cheery collection, eh? :)

Pleased with them how they turned out and I can't wait to see them hanging on my Easter tree :) (I need to somehow conjure one up soon!)

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One Sunday trip to an Aldi supemarket and this lovely sewing tin is mine! Sorta Tilda style. Couldn't resist not buying these gorgeous pink roses with a turquoise background. After all, we all crafters love to have our stash stored nicely and in style :) Supermarkets can be surprising sometimes :)

The content of the tin includes all essentials for sewing, even with some extra bits and bobs. Quite a decent bargain for the price of £2.99.

More crafty shopping. Recently I've been discovering and exploring the beauty of the Polish folk. For that reason I ordered some scrapbooking papers and stamps from GoScrap. I was really looking forward to that order. They came all the way from Poland :) I want to make some seasonal and birthday cards with a folksy look. Looking forward to it big time! 

I'm always on the lookout for some new folky stamps :) These are the silicone stamps inspired by the motifs from the Polish paper cut-outs. Google "wycinanki łowickie" (= Łowicz paper cut outs) and you will know what I mean :)

The online shop people were so nice that I also received some labels/tags for free. How kind! :)

Let the folky fun begin! :)
Back to my knitting now. It's so freezing cold tonight that I don't fancy anything else than this:

Would love to share my knitted stuff with the other crafters at Hand-made Monday tonight. Do join in! Great places to visit are waiting there.

Thanks for visiting my blog. Please feel free to comment and share your feelings. Pleasure to hear from you. Cheers.

Martha x

Mother's Day Cards

Time to celebrate Mother's Day. Took a break from making Easter cards to create these two earlier this weekend.
My mum celebrates her Mother's Day on the 26th May :) so she will have to wait for her card  until May but bf's mum and gran have celebrated today. The cards and flowers were well received.

I like to stamp the cards also inside for some hand-made stamped look :)

Both cards together :)

Hand-made Monday time! Do join in and have fun bloghopping around some lovely creative blogs.

Even more Nordic Spring cards :)

Yes, yes, yes, the cards again :) I still keep making them as it's great fun to mix and combine all those stamps, inks, punched shapes, papers, backgrounds and die cuts together and it's also a perfect opportunity to stretch and exercise your imagination and creativity (the sky is the limit, so they say) :) I usually make one or two cards after hours, in the evenings and then I end up with a few by the end of the week. Here are my recent Nordic Spring cards for this Easter season.

The "Norwegian sweater" style eggs on aperture cards - my idea for Easter 2013 and one of my favourite type of cards. I tried to keep them simple - the knitted pattern speaks for itself. Pastel colours are a must here! 

In the card below I had an opportunity to use my new polka dot embossing folder :)))) Been looking for one for a while!

All 4 apertures together :)

I've also made some pink/purplish cards with folky eggs, they have been inked and shaded with the blending chalks.

And side by side :)

A couple of aperture cards in yellow-green-orange colours:

And one with a cute yellow bunny :)

Voila! It has been a very crafty week! :)

Well-deserved Hand-made Monday blog fun!