Crafternoons - Chatter, Craft and Company!

Hi everyone!

Today we had one of our (very irregular) Crafternoons - an opportunity for friends to come, share some afternoon tea, and have some quiet social time for craft or even learn a new one :) 

I had two projects on the go today. First, I finished off my little kangaroo and joey! This pattern was super cute and much easier on the ol' fingers than Captain America was :) 

Zara the cat was highly suspicious though...

I also finished another project - a scarf using this glorious merino mohair yarn that my mum bought for me in New Zealand last year. It's been waiting around for the perfect project, but since I am somewhat allergic to wool (not really allergic, but it makes me very itchy to have it on my skin), it was always going to be a gift for someone else.

I found (and was also linked to by the lovely Anneke of Crochet in Paternoster) this Starwirbel pattern for a cowl or capelet. I loved the stitch pattern, but wasn't confident enough in sizing to make a cowl. So, I adapted the pattern a bit and made long rows of stars! 

A lovely friend on Instagram said it reminded her of Monet, so I have named it my Impressionist Scarf :) It will keep my sister lovely and toasty warm in her early mornings and late nights at work! 

There were 10 of us at Crafternoons today, sitting around and chatting together while working on a variety of different crafts. We had cutting out for Days for Girls shields... 

...and cooking - these were delicious Strawberry Tarts from a recipe by Heston Blumenthal! 

There was also a fair bit of crochet, including: 

Thor's legs! 

A Corner-to-Corner blanket! 

A small mountain of granny squares! 

We had lots of fun, as much with the company and chatter (and delicious afternoon tea) as the relaxing time crafting. I'm looking forward to the next one - a Christmas Crafternoon in December! 

Do you crochet/craft with others? 

Captain Poprocks visits the Sydney Craft and Quilt Fair 2015

Hello everyone! 

This is going to be a post high in photos but low on text, as I am quite tired after our excursion this morning to the Sydney Craft and Quilt Fair! You can click on any of the photos to enlarge :) Apologies in advance for some odd angles; I was in the wheelchair today and manoeuvring around was quite difficult! 

The venue was lovely - the relatively new Sydney Exhibition Centre at Glebe Island. 

We tried out the knitting machine with the Machine Knitters Guild...

And saw some gorgeous embroidery at the Embroidery Guild...

And made some friends at the Doll Maker's Guild!

There were huge displays from the big sewing machine companies.

And we got to have a play with a free quilting machine.

I particularly wanted to see the 50 Years of Flower Power display put together by Prudence Mapstone. You can read all about the project on Prudence's project blog! I recognised quite a few names on the list of contributors, and was very excited to see one of Zooty Owl's Starflower Mandalas :) 

Next stop was the quilt exhibition. Wow. WOW! 

I really loved the signs around the exhibition asking us not to touch the quilts or eat/drink around them. They could have just put shouty signs up, but instead they were beautifully pieced, embroidered and quilted. This one was my favourite! 

Overall we had such a good time - in 3.5 hours we saw barely a third of what was on display! I absolutely recommend going to have a look if you're in Sydney this weekend :) 

Cross-Craftiness!

I blame the Fox Collection - if it wasn't for the most gorgeous cross-stitch in their last catalogue I would probably have done much more crochet this week! 

Instead, I have devised a system for myself. I need to get one road trip scarf made during the days at home, then in the evening I'm allowed to do something else - be that cross-stitch, working on Sophie, or another project.

It seems to be working for me! I have 12 scarves all ready to be tagged and bagged for my market stall in June! And one more half-way done :) I am really enjoying the Yarn Bee Aurora Borealis Yarn all the way from the USA - not only is it chunkier than my usual 8 ply and so works up faster, it's so soft and squishy. Why can't it be winter already so I can wear one! 

So now that I've done the "work" part of things, here is my new cross stitch :) It's called Winter Sparkle, and is based on a painting by Megan Duncanson. 

Terrifyingly, it has 92 different colours, and 24 A4 pages of pattern. It should keep me entertained for a good long time! 

Today I've also been playing with puffy paint to make the soles of my Crocodile Stitch Booties non-slip. As you can see, I probably should stick to crochet or cross-stitch - my drawing skills leave a lot to be desired! The way this paint works is that you draw on the fabric/material, leave it to dry for 5 hours and then use the hairdryer to make it puff up. I've already puffed the paint on the little yellow ones - the others will get the hairdryer after dinner tonight :) 

No progress to report on my Sophie's Universe this week - I promised my sister that we could do Week 5 together at our Crafternoons@Meadowbank gathering on Sunday! However, she has been catching up to the end of week 4...

And has even started teaching one of her workmates! I am wildly jealous of their Lunchtime Crochet Club!

I am very much looking forward to seeing how our three (very) different Sophie colour schemes work up as the CAL goes on :)