I genuinely thought that when I started up my own SUPERCOOL crafting business I would have loads of time to knit and sew and craft. Why didn’t anyone warn me about admin and accounting and all of that kind of stuff?! As a result, since we started working on the business I’ve really not been making stuff. Until this month, when I realised that if I didn’t give into my creative urges soon I was going to start resenting work since that is ALL I SEEM TO DO these days.

‘Fetching’ – Ravelry link here, pattern available from knitty webzine here.

This is probably my favourite knitting pattern for quick gratification and I’ve made five pairs now. Such a speedy little knit, a gorgeous end result and practical too! These were knit in a lovely Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran so they’re supersoft and destined for my Christmas presents box.

‘Most Basic Kids sock’ – Ravelry link here, pattern available as a free Ravelry download here.

My first ever socks! I’ve knitted these in Artesano 4-ply 100% alpaca (which you can buy here from my shop) for Erica and she loves the single sock she’s got finished. My big mistake with these was my cast-on which was so tight that Erica couldn’t get her foot through it. I had to unpick it (alpaca! aaarrggh!) then use a stretchy cast-off which worked thank goodness. Admittedly, since Erica seems to have little square paws rather than feet she won’t get a lot of wear out of them as this yarn doesn’t really stretch much in these dimensions and the pattern is a tad on the neat side, but as a practice run I’m really thrilled with them. Not bad for a first effort, and I’m just turning the heel on the second sock now.

‘Honeypie’ – Ravelry link here, pattern available for $4 as a Ravelry download here.

This is going to be for Greer, and once I’ve finished it she is going to wear it every single day until it no longer fits. This is probably the most involved pattern I’ve worked with because – as yet – I can’t place the pattern and can’t memorise it. I’ve cheekily scaled it up a size so that it’ll fit Greer and I am panicking a little that I have Done It Wrong but time will tell I guess. The Rowan Wool cotton has been in my stash since I was pregnant with Nairn, but I never quite got round to knitting with it until now. Bad me.

I’m also working on Emil Babygrow from the MillaMia Bright Young Things pattern book (which you can buy here) for my lovely sister Stephanie who is enormously pregnant and due in 9 days time so I really must get my knitting skates on!

I’m really chuffed to have finally mastered the long-tail cast on which my Nana gave up trying to teach me about 10 years ago because I just didn’t get it. Luckily my awesomely patient friend has been encouraging me (because she hates my preferred cast-on) and finally, when she explained that I am essentially to knit with my thumb IT ALL MADE SENSE. So yes, perseverance is clearly the way ahead. I have also become a ‘picker’ rather than a ‘thrower’ in an attempt to increase my currently abysmal knitting speed. This is the first step to me learning continental-style, as then I’ll be able to throw a sock out in a couple of hours like one of the girls who comes to my knitting group. It’s terrifying and awe-inspiring to watch her.

So I’m desperate to know – what are you guys all working on just now? I’m aware of Amanda’s forays in dresses and skirts for adults, and Manda’s experiments with wool and tweed (in lilac no less) but I’m nosy as to what you guys are making for Christmas. Fill me in!

Admin note: The winners of the Johnson’s Baby Hamper contest are as follows.

#5 – Amy
#10 – Louiz
#17 – Susannah Leggatt
#26 – Fiona White
#29 – Fiona Bentley

Yesterday, the three of us trotted along to Busy Bees craft studio for Face Painting training in preparation for the shop opening. So. Much. FUN!

These were our models for the day:

I have to admit I hadn’t expected that – I thought we’d have been practicing on each other but this was so much easier since mistakes were easier to tidy up and objectively critique. The rapport with our trainer Elaine was absolutely brilliant and since the class was a nice small size (just 6 of us) there was a decent amount of chat too.

Here’s a snap of Jenny and Lisa-Marie practicing on their freaky models:

After we’d gone through the different brush techniques it was time to practice sponging (which has been my particular bugbear) and our arms were pressed into service. Using Grimas water-based face paints we were encouraged to sponge a base onto our arms and blend it with other shades and once we were a little more confident in that, it was time to practice on a real-life human! Here’s an action shot of Jenny painting Diane’s face and you can see her sponge blending on her arm too.

Diane’s finished facepaint

Lisa-Marie got to practice on Elaine and decided to go for a butterfly:

It was so much fun, seriously. If someone had told me a year ago that I’d be studying facepainting for work I’d never, ever have believed it and this is the start of so many exciting experiences. I can’t wait

Busy Bees can provide experienced face painters or face painting training based in the South Side of Glasgow. For more information call them on 0141 433 9506 or send an email

Anyway, one of the subjects we explored was business promotion and the topic of swaps came up – now I do enjoy a good swap and I like to think that I have organised some enjoyable ones but as an aside to getting to know other crafters better, it’s a superb way to drive new traffic to your blog and therefore your business. Here are my tips for a great swap.

Come up with an idea
If you’ve been around the crafting community for any length of time you’ll know that there are fashions and trends which are in vogue at any given time. To make a good swap, you want a theme that complements those trends whilst being a subject that inspires you. Try not to overegg the pudding as it were, go for an original twist on a popular concept.

Decide on the format for your swap
Are you going to have your swappers anonymous so that they receive a package with no idea who it’s from? Are you planning a direct swap where you pair up crafters and they can converse before sending their swap goodies? Are you having a more tiered swap where person a makes for person b who makes for person c ad finitum? Consider the pros and cons to each and go from there.

Set an achievable deadline by knowing your target audience
I couldn’t sign up to a swap with a two week deadline – I have four children, a husband, a business and various commitments that restrict my time – so knowing who is likely to join your swap is a great tool. Ask your blog readers/twitter followers/facebook friends for their opinion. I generally go for 4-6 weeks after sign-ups have finished to give participants a bit of headspace.

Make your participants send you a questionnaire that you can send onto their swap partner
It doesn’t need to be War and Peace, but a questionnaire will not only help you to allocate partners it’ll give your participants something to go on which is especially useful if they have a less than chatty partner to craft for. Generally my questionnaires ask for:
Name:
Address:
Blog/shop/twitter address:
Likes/Dislikes (including allergies!):

Give consideration to your participants and their crafts
Generally speaking, I try to match crafters from different disciplines rather than pairing a knitter with another knitter or a resin artist with another resin artist. Let’s be honest here, if I want to knit something for myself then I will but I’m not good at jewellery making and I’m less likely to make my own things. If in doubt, ask your participants to specify in their questionnaire which craft disciplines they’re most interested in receiving from.

Keep records
I particularly like gmail’s email system because of the way it stores emails and the ability to ‘star’ emails to find easily later. Keep a spreadsheet to remind you who you have partnered up because there will always be a participant who deletes their email!

Promote! Promote! Promote!

Social networking is your friend. Post about your swap on twitter, create a facebook page affiliated to your blog and post about it there, make sure you are regularly commenting on blogs you like because if you leave a well-considered and thoughtful comment you will get traffic back from that blog’s other readers. Join and participate on craft forums that appeal to your ethics – like everyone I enjoy Craftster but it’s so big that I feel intimidated posting there. My favourite UK-based craft forum is Crafteroo. If there are others that you enjoy tell me in the comments and I’ll add them here.

Share your swap
Make an image that your participants can post on their blog (“I am participating in Vonnie’s sleep swap!”) which can link back to you. Create a flickr group where participants can post photos of their given and received goodies. Encourage your participants to talk about the swap by doing it yourself – blog about it, tweet about it and mention it so often that you worry your sole topic of conversation is your swap. The internet as an entity has a short memory span, remind people about how awesome you – and by default your swap – are.

Enjoy it!
The day you have to allocate your swap participants you’ll wish you’d never bothered, that should be the only point where it feels like hard work

So I hope this is helpful to those of you who have considered your own swaps but not known how to go about it. I promise you, if I can organise one so can any of you. Good luck!

If you want to join in you’ll need to acquire this book which costs a tenner (inclusive of delivery) from Amazon with the first project being a skirt. You have until 20th March to finish the skirt and upload pictures to the flickr group.

If you fancy joining in, let me know! But please do also pop over to Amanda’s blog and let her know that you’re intrigued because we all know that comments are a blogger’s desire

For a wee injection of cute I need to share this awesome video of Nairn. Voila!

When I was at school some of the kids in my year would use pringles tubes as pencil cases and now I use the mini tubes for keeping marbles and rubber bands in. I reckon with a little bit of embellishing these could be quite cute for tweenagers to keep art supplies in or indeed for anyone who just needs a little bit of extra storage. Best of all, the materials are dead easy to come across.

This is the end product:

Before you start, give your tube a good rinse with the strongest smelling liquid soap you own. The pringles tube I used didn’t have a completely even top so I glued some cotton twill tape around the top. Sticky tape would do the same job if you don’t have twill tape.

Now there are two ways you could do this – either cover your tube in double sided sticky tape and wind the wool directly onto it, or do as I did and coat your tube with pva glue. Leave the end of the wool hanging so that you’ll cover it with your winding, then wind your wool onto the tube. Take care not to pull the wool too tightly because it’ll thin your strands out – you want them to stay thick so no writing shows through.

Continue to the bottom of the tube. If you’re using the PVA glue method, dip the end of your yarn into the PVA glue before smoothing it against the tube. The glue will dry clear but this way your end should be hidden securely. As you can see I ran out of my striped wool and had to finish it off with another ball but I think it still works.

Let me know if you try this out yourself – I’d love to see your versions!

Minor irritation – I didn’t stamp my name in a straight line.

Two sleepsuits, two baby vests and a vest top in the middle for Erica’s birthday.

As an aside, I am selling the unstencilled cotton tote bags in my Folksy shop if you’d like to get supplies in to try this yourself. I will make sure the tutorial is available by the end of the week too.

• This is my 90th post. 90 posts! NINETY! For my 100th post I’m going to have a very special giveaway featuring some handmade goodies so tune in. I anticipate the 100th post to arrive within the next four weeks.
• I have finally bitten the bullet and opened my very own Folksy shop. There’s only some owl stitch markers listed right now but I’ll expand that with time. I am very nervous about this and hope it pans out because I need to start recouping some of the money I spend on crafty things!
• For the fifth week in a row, Erica is too sick to go to nursery. I can’t even explain in words of more than two syllables just how frustrating this is for me. Is it selfish to crave some time on your own? I have one day a week where everyone is at work/school/nursery and I haven’t had that day for over a month and I resent losing that time. I don’t resent Erica because sure it’s not her fault, but I really needed today. Ah well.
• I decided against using the cookie dough. It probably would have been fine, but there were eggs in the mix and with Erica being ill with seemingly no reason I just didn’t want to risk it. I am quite annoyed at the waste, truth be told.
• You can now become a fan on Facebook! Click the link to go to our fan page on facebook – I promise you won’t be bombarded by updates etc.
• We also have a web presence on Twitter and Flickr
• You may have noticed at the bottom of each post now there are a row of little icons. Can I encourage you to explore what they do and how they work for both you and I? Any questions and I’ll do my best to answer them
• Finally, I was wondering why whenever I leave a comment on your blogs I have no avatar that shows up beside my details**. Turns out that there’s a very simple way to do this – just go to www.gravatar.com, register your email address and the picture you’d like associated with your comments et voila! If you already have a wordpress.com account then your gravatar should be linked as long as you’ve registered the email address you use to comment. I know there’s a fair few of you who comment here but don’t have a gravatar set so go go go!

Today is going to be a day in the car. I have to get Nairn to nursery, Erica to see her Doctor, take our growhouse back to a large nationwide DIY store after it blew away Wizard of Oz-style last week destroying all our seedlings (nearly a month’s worth of planting and the DIY store in question are refusing to replace our seeds, making out like they’re doing us a favour by replacing the growhouse. I am unimpressed to say the least!) then we have to get some food in and finally take the cats to the vet before I can sit down. Happy days!

**Edit to add – the ever-lovely Ryan tells me that the gravatar thing doesn’t work for every blog as the blog owner needs to enable that option. For the most part it should work though!

I’ve been working on a pattern designed byAmanda from Kitschy Coo – the pattern is for a Matinee Jacket that looks like this one from her shop and let me tell you, friends. I have even more renewed admiration for Amanda than I did before. This pattern is outstandingly put together, I had the shell and lining constructed within an hour (including winding two different colours of bobbins) which I think is pretty good going for a complete novice like me. The sole reason it’s not finished is because I cannot for the life of me master the buttonhole setting on my sewing machine! Tomorrow I have some quiet time so I will have it finished tomorrow. Whether I show it to you lot is another matter as I’ve added a “design feature” that I’m not 100% sure of!

Just a reminder too that in the last entry I have suggested a craft challenge. So far the flickr group has eight members so there’s plenty of room for another few of you to join in

Hope you’re all well and enjoying the spring holidays!