Giveaway Winners!

A couple of weeks ago in my last blog post, we made an announcement that we were launching our first ever giveaway on Instagram on July 1st - we were super excited to be able to offer this giveaway to our followers, especially as we'd almost reached 4000 followers between us in just one year of being around on Instagram!

The giveaway ran until Sunday 10th July, then on Monday my sister and I added all the entries into a random number generator online, which chose the three winners for us! 

We announced the winners yesterday and their prizes have been posted! 

We've thoroughly enjoyed hosting our first giveaway, and we can't wait until our next one - we couldn't have done it without the help and support of Stylecraft though, so we want to say a big thank you to them too!!

Exciting News!!

Hello everyone!

Ellie and I have something very exciting that we've been working on for a while, and now we can tell you about it! 😆

To celebrate the fact that our two Instagrams have almost reached 4000 followers combined, we are proud to be launching our very first MEGA giveaway on Instagram! 👏

We've teamed up with the wonderful people at Stylecraft Yarns to offer THREE amazing prizes to THREE winners!

The 1st and 2nd prizes have been generously provided by Stylecraft themselves, and the 3rd prize has been created by my sister and I!

The giveaway launches on Friday July 1st and will remain open for entries until Sunday July 10th at 11pm (UK time).

A few rules will apply, nothing complicated though! All the details will be in our Instagram posts when the giveaway is launched on Friday! We're so excited!!

Stay tuned to both of our Instagram accounts - links are below! - to be the first to know when it launches!

Thank you so much to all our followers, we had no idea when we set up our accounts that just over a year later we would have almost 4000 followers between us! 😃

TTFN!! xx

Ellie's Instagram
Felicity's Instagram

New Etsy Shop Open for Business!

Hey everyone!

Being as I posted a really long post a couple of weeks back, this post will be a bit shorter so I don't bore you! 😂

It's been a long time coming, but finally my Etsy shop is up and running, open for business!  You can find it here: Crafting with Felicity

I had hoped to open an Etsy shop but didn't know when I'd be able to, but then a lovely lady in the USA who found me on Instagram asked if I could make her a custom crocheted blanket - I posted about the completed blanket here - which is what really prompted me to start making some other things so as I could open up a shop!

Blankets are my favourite thing to make, so there's bound to always be at least one ready-made blanket for sale!  But I also plan on accepting custom orders (there'll either be a custom-order listing in my shop, or you can click the 'Request Custom Order' button which is on all my listings and my shop homepage, too), just contact me and I'm sure we can work something out!

I also enjoy making some smaller things, too, like mandalas (these are like modern doilies: ideal for using as table centrepieces, underneath vases of fresh flowers, etc) in pretty colour combinations, and sets of coasters - the most recent set I've made is rainbow themed, so each coaster is a different shade of the rainbow and they're all tied in nicely together by having a contrasting border.

I'd love it if you went over to take a look 😊 and I'll also post a 'widget' here with a selection of the latest makes in my shop (this preview of my shop will auto-update so it's a true reflection of the things actually in my shop right now):

I'd love to thank everyone who has favourited my shop, or started following me on Etsy - any and all support is truly appreciated! 😘

I'll leave it there for now, my sister will be back next week with her post!

TTFN! xx

Our Cornish Holiday - May 2016 (Photo Heavy!)

Hello there everyone!

At the beginning of the month, I went on holiday with my family to East Cornwall. A few years ago we holidayed in West Cornwall but the weather wasn't the best, which did put us off going again! So we had a few holidays in our old favourite, the Isle of Wight, before we decided to try Cornwall again.

(I took over 400 photos and over 100 video clips, and I'm resisting sharing all of them with you! 😄 So this is just a selection of a few of my favourite images.)

This time we found a lodge to stay in on the East side, not far from the border of Devon. It was complete with some resident hens (one of which was extremely friendly and would come and knock her beak on the patio door, and would hop in if you weren't careful!)

The surrounding woods were full of birds and their beautiful songs filled the air all day, even after it had dropped dark in the evenings.

During our stay, we did a little sightseeing - for us this is usually finding some nice towns or villages to walk around and pop into their shops, rather than going to lots of tourist attractions. The first place we visited was Looe, a busy fishing port.

It was a beautiful day, and Looe was larger than we had thought, so that we didn't actually get to look around all of it before our car park ticket was expiring. We decided to try and get back to visit again further on in the week.

The next day was quite rainy, so we just did some food shopping and then went back to our lodge for a relaxing day in. My mum, sister and I all had our various crafts to get stuck into, and my mum also had a new jigsaw puzzle that she had brought with her to make a start on.

On the Tuesday, which turned out to be another hot day, my sister and I had a short walk in the woods around the lodge - there were lots of bluebells, and we were surrounded by loud birdsong - we wished that we were better at identifying birds by their song, as there were quite a few songs we didn't recognise so we weren't sure exactly which species of birds were singing their hearts out in the trees above us!

Later on we went to Fowey - I had recently seen this town featured on Countryfile, so it was nice to see it in person. It was a beautiful, historical harbour town, with some steep hills to descend from the car park! (and climb up again later!!)

We had lunch in a tearooms which is reputedly the oldest building in Fowey - it was built around 1430, during the reign of Henry VI! It was a lovely tearooms, complete with a resident black Labrador, Frank, who was so beautiful and well-behaved! He came and sat next to us while we tucked into our all-day breakfast, but never even tried to pinch any sausages or bacon! 😄 He just kept looking at us sorrowfully, but thankfully, as we read on a little card all about him, we weren't allowed to feed him anything at all (imagine how fat he'd get! 😉) so we tried not to feel too mean!!

Wednesday we woke up to lots of rain again, but we'd already decided to visit Polperro and hoped that the rain would die out as the day went on. Unfortunately it didn't stop raining until we came back to the car at the end of our visit, but it was interesting to see the fishing village that my mum remembered from a visit to Polperro about 40 years ago.

We followed the path next to the stream all the way down to the harbour...

The calling of the gulls filled the air during our entire visit - if it had been sunny, and maybe with the tide in, this little village would have been so beautiful! Hopefully we can visit again another year, and all being well, enjoy it with some lovely weather next time!

I loved this house on the edge of the harbour, called 'Studio Cottage', with its little ladder leading down into the harbour itself:

We walked down to the pebbly beach, and explored inside the cave - you can see from this photo just how rainy this day was! Thankfully we had brollies!!

Polperro is well-known for its smuggling history, and we thought we could see some evidence of the smuggling that used to go on, like steps hewn into the cliffs (but not seeming to lead anywhere...) And at the back of the cave in the photo above, it looked like there used to be a tunnel at the very back which has now been blocked off. I felt like I was one of the Famous Five! 😂

We walked back up to the car park, just as the day started to brighten up slightly. As spring was so late this year, everywhere we went (not just in Polperro) there were lots of trees full of blossoms! I thought this one looked very pretty with the stream in the background.

On Thursday, coming to the end of our holiday (all too soon for us!) we went for our return visit to Looe. This time we managed to get all the way through the town to the sandy beach at the far end. There were lots of rockpools which had me all reminiscent of childhood rockpooling! And we spotted this schooner (unfortunately only with furled sails) just off the shore, quite close to the beach.

On our way back to the car, again I couldn't resist another blossom photo, with the East Looe River in the background.

Then, Friday was the last day of our holiday, which also proved to be the sunniest and hottest! We had been keeping an eye on the weather forecasts for the week and wanted to re-visit Padstow on the best day. We visited Padstow on our first Cornish holiday, and loved it so much that we just had to go again this holiday. It certainly didn't disappoint!

We also bizarrely met some friends there, who live quite local to us at home - it was so weird that we happened to bump into each other on holiday!

And that's it! The end of our family holiday! We really enjoyed it - it went far too quickly, but as a friend said last week, that's how you know it was a good one!

My mum, sister and I all got loads of crafting done, of course, and we found a yarn warehouse not too far from where we were staying, so we often popped in there too, much to my dad's dismay! 😂

This is the blanket that I started the day we arrived on holiday, it took me exactly two weeks from start to finish and is throw-sized. The second photo is of the car-seat blanket and mandala I made to match. All three will be available to purchase from my Etsy shop very soon!

A photo posted by Felicity (@craftingwithfelicity) on May 21, 2016 at 10:36am PDT

A photo posted by Felicity (@craftingwithfelicity) on May 26, 2016 at 9:48am PDT

So, I hope you've enjoyed my re-cap post of our holiday, and hope I haven't bored you to death! My sister will be back next week with her next post! See you soon!!

TTFN! xx

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I love Cornwall!!!

Hey Everybody!!! Hope you're having a great Sunday! It's been so lovely to see some sun this afternoon here in the UK!

I'm so sorry this blog post is a couple of weeks late, we were having a lovely time down in beautiful Cornwall last week, so I thought I would leave my post until we got back again. We haven't really been to Cornwall very much, we went a couple of years ago to Perranporth, but then we've been visiting a few other places on the last few holidays. This year we decided to go again and try to visit a few places we haven't been to before. I do believe Cornwall is now one of my favourite places to go to now! It's sooo beautiful there, even though we did have some rainy days, we still had a really lovely relaxing holiday and I can't wait to go there again!!!

Anyway, today I thought I would show you the project I started on holiday. I'm really excited about it because I simply LOVE the colours in this one! I call it my 'Autumn Colours Cushion Cover', I know it's kind of the wrong time of year but I love these colours all year round to be honest.

This is the first photo I took of it on the Sunday morning as I was doing the first few rows.

A photo posted by Ellie-Jayne (@xxellie_jayne_craftsxx) on May 8, 2016 at 3:46am PDT

 
Then this was the first complete pattern repeat.

A photo posted by Ellie-Jayne (@xxellie_jayne_craftsxx) on May 9, 2016 at 2:50am PDT

 
And as of this afternoon, it is now three pattern repeats complete.

A photo posted by Ellie-Jayne (@xxellie_jayne_craftsxx) on May 22, 2016 at 10:41am PDT

 
Partway during the holiday I put it away to start another project, but this afternoon I suddenly felt like getting it back out and having another go at it and I am so pleased I did! It's been a lovely few hours, just hooking away and changing colours quite quickly. In fact, I'm going to go and do a few more now! ;oD

Speak to you all very soon my friends! Have a lovely week!

Much love,
Ellie Xoxoxoxo

First Custom Order Finished!

Hello everyone! Thank you so much for stopping by our blog today! Welcome to May the 1st!

In a way it feels like it's gone very quick since I last wrote my post two weeks ago, but I've actually been really ill last week with a flu-like virus that completely knocked me for six! I don't remember ever being that ill before. But I'm back now, and gradually feeling back to normal, just with a bad cough and easily feeling tired!

While I was ill I didn't feel like doing any crafting whatsoever, but this week I managed to find some of my cro-jo again! 😄 So I finished my first ever commissioned blanket for a lovely lady in America. I've spoken about it before but not shown you any pictures until now, I wanted to wait until it was complete before showing you, although if you follow me on Instagram you'll have seen its progress as I worked on it.

It's very similar to the large double-bed size blanket that I made for my parents Pearl Wedding Anniversary last September, on a slightly smaller scale but in the exact same colours as the original.

And here it is! 😊

A photo posted by Felicity (@craftingwithfelicity) on Apr 28, 2016 at 2:32am PDT

I'm very happy with how it's come out, I can't wait until my Etsy Shop opens in the next couple of weeks, because then I can list it for my customer and send it off to her in the USA!

This afternoon I'm busily working away on my next project, a crochet ripple blanket in the Lily Pond CAL colours, while watching the rugby! I've also been trying to find a nice sock knitting pattern - toe up magic loop - that I can have a go at. I'd like a pattern that's interesting and works well with self striping yarn, but that also has a really easy heel, as I always seem to struggle at the heel point. I'm wondering if I need to have a go at an afterthought heel?

What's your favourite go-go sock knitting pattern?

Anyway, that's all from me this afternoon! My sister Ellie will be back next Sunday as usual!

TTFN! xx

Crochet Flashback - C2C Blanket

Hi everybody,

Can you believe it's been two weeks since I last spoke to you?!!! Time is just flying by! Today I'm feeling all reminicent (!) so I wanted to show you a project that I finished a few months ago. It was my first ever C2C or Corner To Corner blanket. My Instagram followers will already be familiar with it as you all watched it's progress over a few months.

A photo posted by Ellie-Jayne (@xxellie_jayne_craftsxx) on Feb 8, 2016 at 9:48am PST

It turned out to be ALOT bigger than I anticipated because I just carried on going until I ran out of yarn. In the beginning I thought it would just be single bed size but in the end, it was double bed size! I loved making this blanket sooo much. It took me a bit to get to grips with the pattern but once it had "clicked", the rows started whizzing up!!!

A photo posted by Ellie-Jayne (@xxellie_jayne_craftsxx) on Feb 8, 2016 at 9:47am PST

It does have a sad story to it unfortunately. I'd been making it for a friend who was in hospital at the time and who we thought would soon be returning back home and I wanted to have this blanket ready for her home-coming but she very suddenly passed away before I could get it finished. After that, trying to get the blanket finished had a very bitter-sweet feeling to it and for a while I didn't really want to do anymore to it. Once it was finished though, I decided to give it to one of her closest friends. I'm so pleased it's gone to a good home, to someone who appreciates it very much.

A photo posted by Ellie-Jayne (@xxellie_jayne_craftsxx) on Feb 8, 2016 at 9:49am PST

Every stitch is a labour of love, it's a wonderful feeling to be able to give it to someone who appreciates all the time, effort and love we put into our creations! I'll definitely be doing another C2C blanket sometime soon, because the pattern is so lovely and relaxing to make, but not until I've finished some of my other current wips (who knows how long that will take!!! ;oD ).

Well, I hope you're all having a lovely Sunday! Thank you so much for dropping by! Speak to you all very soon my lovelies!!!
Much love,
Ellie
Xoxoxoxo

Boscobel House, Shropshire

Hello everyone!

Today's blog post is on more of a lifestyle theme, as I've been ill twice in the last three weeks and not been able to get much crafting done to show you!  I hope you all don't mind this kind of blog post, let me know in the comments if you do/don't and the reason why!  We really want to make this blog something that our readers will enjoy looking through, so honest feedback is really appreciated!

Last Sunday we took a day trip to Boscobel House in Shropshire.  My sister and I were both homeschooled and had many a day trip out to English Heritage and National Trust properties with my mum, aunt, and two homeschooled cousins (let's just say we were never short of history projects!) so returning to Boscobel House was very nostalgic for us!  I guess the fact that years later I'm willingly writing a blog post about our day trip to a historic house proves that my mum did a jolly good job of instilling a love of history in both me and my sister!

(Apologies in advance for some of the indoor photos being

slightly fuzzy, I didn't want to use flash and risk being told off! 😄)

 

Even after all the times we visited here years ago, I still learnt loads of new things on this visit.  One of the things that struck me the most was the origin of Boscobel's name.  It's derived from the Italian 'bosco bello', meaning 'beautiful wood', as the house was at one time surrounded by woods, one of the trees being the very oak that Charles hid in.  Having a deep love for the Italian language this really made an impression on me!

The other is that after Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, the five Penderel brothers - servants at Boscobel and White Ladies Priory, who risked their lives to protect Charles - were rewarded with a pension which is still paid to their descendants even today!

In we go!

Boscobel House and the Royal Oak Tree became famous as hiding places of King Charles II after he suffered defeat at the Battle of Worcester in 1651.  We visited the hunting lodge, farmyard, gardens and the descendant of the Royal Oak.  There was also the ruins of White Ladies Priory (another of Charles's hiding places) nearby but we didn't visit it this time.

I love the brickwork on these old buildings!

One of the many priest holes within the house

There are apparently several 'priest holes' throughout the house.  The Giffard family, who were the original owners of Boscobel House, were Catholics who refused to participate in the worship of the established Church of England.  This meant fines, imprisonment and discrimination for them, but for priests it could mean inhumane execution.  The house itself served as a secret place for the shelter of Catholic priests.  This secret purpose of the house was to play a key role in the history of the country!

This is the upper floor of the hunting lodge, where there is another priest hole, the one that Charles II is thought to have hidden in overnight.

This would have been very uncomfortable for him, as the hole is only 4 feet in height, whereas Charles was around 6 foot 2!  Although here my sister looks as though she's thinking about going in there herself!

Further along the upper floor is the Bower Room, which was used as a bedroom in the 19th century.  In the background, you can see a large traditional spinning wheel!  I loved how all the bedrooms had these pretty washstands and basins.

This was the Settling Room, where the cream was separated from the milk

After the cream had been skimmed from the milk in the Settling Room, it was turned into cheese or butter in the Scullery

I've always loved the 'butter pats' used for shaping the butter into the traditional brick shape!

You can see the wooden butter paddles - or 'pats' - on the wooden board to the left of this photo. The butter maker would hold one of these pats in each hand and work the butter into shape. Butter pats and moulds were washed in salted water to help prevent the butter from sticking to them.  The pats were thin, light and easy to hold.  One side was serrated, both to grip the butter and squeeze out any further water.  It was also used to make patterns on the finished butter.

I wish I could have seen what Boscobel was like when it was a thriving working farm.  That's one thing I wish you could even slightly experience with English Heritage or National Trust properties, but everything always seems so quiet.  Unless you happen to time your visit wrong and end up going round with a coach-load of schoolchildren! 😄

After we had seen the house and some of the gardens, we headed towards the fields where the Royal Oak is housed in some fencing.  I didn't take any photos of the tree, though, as it's rather bare at this time of year and is looking a bit battered from all the high winds and storms they've had in the area recently.  The oak that is there now is the daughter of the original Royal Oak, and there is actually a sapling growing nearby that they are going to nurture as the granddaughter of the original, once the daughter is eventually chopped down.

I also couldn't take any photos of the gardens, unfortunately, as the brickwork sections of the house are being repointed so lots of ugly scaffolding was everywhere and was in shot no matter where I stood!  Hopefully we can visit again in the summer or autumn when the work will be complete and there'll also be some leaves on the trees!

We headed back to the car after this, but we stopped to admire this gorgeous barn conversion just down the lane from Boscobel's car park - isn't it amazing?  It looks quite small in the photo, but it was huge, with floor to roof windows on the right-hand side.

We really enjoyed our return to Boscobel, and definitely need to visit some other properties that we used to visit as children!

So that's it from me today!  I hope you enjoyed my little tour of Boscobel House!  My sister is back next week with another blog post for you all!

TTFN! :o)

"You've Got How Many Projects?..."

Good morning everyone,
Hope you're having a lovely weekend!  The sun is out today and a lovely blue sky is beckoning me to come outside!

This week has been so busy, I'm not quite sure where the time has gone to be honest!  My Mum is now on Instagram too!  She's an amazing crafter, and loves making handmade bags in lots of beautiful fabrics! You can find her under @bizzydeezbagz.

Last week I started sorting through all my various projects that I have on the go, and was quite shocked to work out how many there are!!! So for the next few weeks I'm going to really try and get some of them finished... that's the plan anyway! Here is one of them that I would like to get finished first, it's about halfway there already.

A photo posted by Ellie-Jayne (@xxellie_jayne_craftsxx) on Apr 2, 2016 at 2:42pm PDT

So hopefully next time I speak to you, there will be a 'wooooohooooooo, it is FINISHED!' picture!!!

Anyway my lovelies, I have to go now and get ready, I'm so sorry it's a very short and sweet one today. Take care and speak to you again soon!
Ellie Xoxoxoxo

March comes in like a lion...

Hey everyone!


Thank you for checking out our blog today! I hope everyone is OK, and that you all got through Storm Katie alright at the beginning of the week! I thought of the saying 'March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb' - not very true this year!

Crafting-wise I've been fairly busy at the beginning of the week but lots of other things are happening all the time so I never seem to get as much done as I'd like to!  I also came down with a cold virus on Friday so I'm coughing and sneezing my head off, and not really feeling like doing much crafting at the moment!

I wanted to share a blanket that I've made for my aunt and uncle's anniversary this year - I first made starburst squares last year when I crocheted a king-size blanket for my parents 30th anniversary in September. That was the biggest blanket I've ever made; I'm not sure if I could ever make one that huge again to be honest! It was a big commitment of working on it for at least 2-3 hours every single day for 2 months straight. I did really love the effect of the starburst squares that made up the central panel on that blanket though, so when I decided to make a throw for my aunt and uncle's anniversary this year (as I'd never yet crocheted a blanket for my aunt), I decided I would have another go at the starburst squares.

And here it is!

A photo posted by Felicity (@craftingwithfelicity) on Mar 16, 2016 at 4:04am PDT

The colour scheme for this blanket was also found on Instagram, people said it reminded them of Black Forest Gateau!!  I showed it to my mum and asked her if she thought my aunt would like it, and Mum said that she really would as they were definitely my aunt's kind of colours.

I used a continuous joining method for this blanket - I love using continuous joining whenever I can, as you see the blanket growing before your eyes, and there are minimal ends to sew in later! Perfect!

For the border I did a simple picot edge, one of my favourite edgings when there's a lot going on in the blanket itself and you don't want anything too intricate for the border.

I used Stylecraft Special DK and a 4mm hook throughout. The shades I used were Cream, Parchment, Mocha, Pale Rose, Grape, Plum, and tone for the continuous join and border.

I'll actually be making another similar blanket as my first commission, it'll be like a smaller version of my parents' blanket - I've make sure to show you when it's finished!

Anyway, time for me to sign off now, my sister will be back next week. See you in a fortnight! :o)