The weather here has been so dreary that we can’t help thinking of Noah’s Ark. Nutex’s Little Noah collection of fabric and patterns has been very popular over the last few weeks, so we can’t be the only ones! As the drizzle continues, we’ve decided to take 10% off the whole collection, and we’ve thrown in a few other animal themed goodies too.
And we’ve also discounted Stylecraft’s Wondersoft Merry Go Round. 100% premium self-striping acrylic available in both brights and pastels. Only £3.60 per 100g and just perfect for baby and toddler knitting patterns.
The cute animals in Edward’s Menagerie are made using simple crochet techniques and the step-by-step instructions enable a complete beginner to get hooking straight away. Each animal also has a universal pattern where you can change your hook and yarn to create four different sizes, making 160 different animal possibilities.
We’ve added lots of new knitting and crochet patterns to the website this week. Keep yourself warm this winter with some beautiful crochet blankets or a lovely knitted cardigan.
This year, for the first time, we are launcing Woolly Week! Instead of our yarn discounts lasting just one day, we’ve got lots of fun and goodies on offer from 18th – 24th March.
Whether your creative passion is knitting, crochet, felting or just careful curation of yarn and accessories, as well as great offers & freebies here are some more good reasons to come and visit us during Woolly Week
Amazing Selection of Yarns
Knitting Accessories
Crochet Accessories
Knitting & Crochet Patterns
Pattern Books
Felting Wool
Felting Equipment
Crochet Workshops
Vanessa Bee Designs
Yarn Clinic (selected days)
Coffee Shop
FREE Parking
Woolly Week Special Offer 10% OFF (in store only) Vanessa Bee Designs Bags, Mugs & Coasters
Just Arrived in time for Woolly Week In honour of Woolly Week we are delighted to introduce this fun range of wool themed fabrics from Timeless Treasures. This quirky fabric would be ideal to create a new knitting bag for yourself or a yarn enthusiast andcould also be used for patchwork, quilting and other crafts.
Purple boots is usually a name linked with Powertex and messy art but I do love a bit of yarn! I couldn’t help buying some of the beautiful new yarn that just hit the shop – Dreamcatcher.
Dreamcatcher is the first of the new yarns from Stylecraft for 2019. It is available in six shades and is a beautiful, DK weight mélange of colours in a roving style yarn with 10% wool. The colour change is phased so that the shades shift gradually, making it perfect for the trans-seasonal designs.
I have grabbed my hook and a virus shawl is well on the way. I love the way that there is a far wider variety of colour in the yarn than there first appears by looking at the side of the cake. I often add a plain stripe to my virus shawls but I am pretty sure this won’t need one as the contrast is so good. Watch this space for updates as my shawl develops.
We host regular charity workshops for Project Linus here at Tudor Rose Patchwork to help provide comfort blankets for babies, children and teenagers who are sick, disabled, distressed or disadvantaged. Our local co-ordinator Elaine has sent us this lovely update on our most recent session.
Hi Ladies, We had a very very successful and busy day on Friday 8th. Lots of people sewing and an enormous amount of people just calling in. I am overwhelmed at how successful this is becoming. Thank you so much for your help in making all this possible.
So some statistics for you :-
On the Friday we sewed labels on 82 Quilts and Blankets. I took home 5 tops that need, wadding, backing and quilting and gave away a big bag of small blankets for Caroline to join together and or add edging to, she also took 2 bags of knitting wool that had been donated just before she arrived! I suspect everyone else took home quilts and kits to make up over the coming months as my box of kits was nearly empty on the way home. Just as well as the car was stuffed to the hilt with the quilts and blankets.
Last week I delivered 179 quilts and blankets to the following places:-
Bedford Hospital, Brenda at the hospital wrote Thank you so much for the lovely quilts and blankets!! It was lovely to see you
I also went to Bedford Borough Council Social workers, Community Nurses and FACES a baby charity.
The next day I called into Luton Early help team and Luton North Family Support Team. I also visited Jenny Cox for the first time who is a Foster carer of long standing who has a network of other Foster Carers and people who do Rest-bite Care.
She wrote , it was so nice to finally meet you and many thanks for the goodies. We just visited our 1st ever foster child and cheered her up. She’s connected with 3 other parents at Franklin House in Dunstable ,a safe house , where they were all cooking together and they have been thrilled to receive coverlets. . We left a dad and his 2 girls wrapping dollies up and then the girls got in with them. Jenny has promised me some photos in due course which I will share with you at the next Project Linus day on 8th March at The Tudor Rose. She was busy telling me stories of some of the situation these children find themselves in and it is so nice to think that we can help her spread some love about, as a lot of these children come from very broken places.
After that I called into My Sewing basket in Dunstable where other ladies leave quilts and blankets, this time the Dunstable Quilt Group had left 22 quilts. In response to my thank you to Helen, she wrote Thank you for your email. I was surprised by the number of quilts which our members brought to our club’s last meeting and it is great that we are able to take them to a central collection point. I shall certainly pass on your thanks this week.
So I still have 28 quilts and blankets in my dining room ready for another delivery. Since taking over the group in June 2017 I have delivered 1526 quilts and blankets! with a total of 940 last year. I tend to use a scatter-gun approach and have delivered to 21 different places, just as well I enjoy driving!
Hope to see you all at the next Project Linus day.
Our next Project Linus day is on 8th March. Come and join us and work with the Project Linus team to help make wonderful charity quilts to help critically ill children. You can make a quilt of your own design, or you can head to the Project Linus website for free patterns. We also accept donations of knitted and crocheted blankets.
To participate in any of these days, the team making the quilts for Project Linus would appreciate a donation of £2.50 towards the materials used.
There will also be a raffle on each of our Linus days so bring along a spare pound or two if you would like to buy a ticket.
Linus days run from 10-4 but you are welcome to attend for half a day if this is the time you have spare.
A substance or influence with an apparently magical effect that brings great success or luck.
Origin: 1950’s. From the magic dust that enabled humans to fly in J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan
We’re so excited to be announcing our very first Crochet Along! We will be officially launching for The Festival Of Quilts at Birmingham NEC from 10th – 13th August (we’re on Stand E3), but you can sign-up online now ready to receive your first installment on 15th August. When you buy the bundle at the special price of £20.00 you will receive a free pattern every following 2 weeks for 10 weeks. The end result is an adorable baby blanket or throw, use it in the pram, pushchair or car seat.
The blanket is made in the beautiful, soft Peter Pan Pixie yarn. The patterns are aimed at beginners and build each week on the skills you learnt the week before. However, this is a simple pleasure for the more experienced crocheter.
The pattern is utterly flexible, you could change the colours, increase the size, change the yarn. Make it for a friend, a child, a teenager, an elderly aunt…
I mentioned I was crocheting mad – still am, nothing has changed there. I’ve lost count of the WIPs. There are presents for family and friends, tasks to encourage my mum back into crochet and of course, things that I just must do for me. And there’s a blanket CAL starting soon that I’ve got my eye on too. Never enough hours in the day. And I’m sure that’s the same for all of us.
My mum’s been unwell and needed to get her groove back. She tried to teach me to crochet when I was 8, then as a teenager. I was 43 before I asked her to show me again. I’ve come on leaps and bounds since then but she needed a helping hand. So I found us a lovely blanket of squares we could work on together and I’m pleased to say she’s enjoying herself again. And it’s been great that I could give her something back.
Since my last post, I attended the first beading class with our new tutor and that was a huge success. A lovely group of ladies just having a lovely time together, like minded but from so many different backgrounds and walks of life. I’m very much looking forward to our next class at the end of March. Sue Stallard proved to be a super tutor, our group is a mix of complete beginners, some of us with a bit of experience and a couple of ladies who have been beading for donkey’s years. I’ve already been shopping for our next two projects. It does help that I know what’s coming next and what we have in stock. Come and see our new beads and crystals all the way from Czechoslovakia.
I do enjoy sewing and quilting but as a busy mum I spend a great deal of time driving and waiting for children. The portability of crochet and beading just lend themselves to being picked up and put down. I sit in the back of the car sometimes, with my laptop on the seat next to me, watching the latest drama or documentary, a pile of wool around me, a pattern fastened on to the headrest in front of me and a flask of tea. It’s actually not a bad way to spend a few hours really, truth be told. However, roll on the longer nights, because beading to the illumination of a car light is quite hard work on the eyes.
At work, I’ve been working on a sample embroidery. It’s a stitched and stump-worked kit that we may stock in the future. But I have needed a magnifying lens and lights, as the piece and stitches were so tiny. And that was in broad daylight. Keep an eye out on our social media and website for the kits.
Nothing much has changed, the weather is still dismal and grey. Sad to say but I still haven’t finished my lovely big crocheted throw. Nearly there, 180 rows done, just the edging to do. Getting quite excited now the end is in sight. It has been quite nice spending a little time each evening on the sofa in front of the TV with my ever-growing blanket keeping me warm. Spent the day out with my son and 10 other 14 year olds over the weekend paint balling. Well they were paintballing, I sat in the car and crocheted, jumped out into the rain, fed them, sent them off again, jumped back in the car, crochet and repeat. They all had a brilliant time and were exhausted by 4 o’clock. I had a marvellous time being able to crochet without feeling guilty that I wasn’t doing housework/ironing/vacuuming etc etc.
I have however also been working on a couple of my many UFOs. Just a few…
Having finished this lovely little piece, I have rediscovered my love of handwork, I started this stumpwork piece in a class with Kathy Laurel Sage about 18 months ago and I completed it last week. Just waiting for a frame now. And of course, I’ll have to find a home for it. It has reminded me how much I enjoy cross stitch and embroidery. And goldwork… and tapestry… and jewellery making in its various guises.
I’ve joined a monthly group starting next month here at Tudor Rose Patchwork with our new tutor Sue Stallard and I’m very excited about the projects we’ll be doing in class. The samples for each class are lovely and I’ve had a wonderful day ordering in the beads and crystals we’ll need.
The shipment of Czech delicas arrived on Thursday. Huge amount of work involved getting them ready for you all but actually thrilled about new projects that are ahead of us. Not to mention a couple of UFOs too… along with a bracelet and a necklace that need attention.
Help! There’s just too much to do and not enough time. Maybe if I didn’t sleep, eat, work or have to do anything with the children. And I keep finding more to do. I belong to a couple of Facebook groups and every day there’s a new pattern I’d like to make or new products I’d like to try. A good job I don’t belong to any other social media. It’s just madness. How do you decide which project, piece you’re going to work on next? Do you try and finish something a section a week whilst working on several others at the same time or just wing it, work on what you feel like that day?
So the new year has started after a wonderful but very busy Christmas with family and friends. The weather is topsy turvy, sun shining brightly one day and frosty and cold the next. Heating on, heating off. Walk the dog, coat on, coat off. Ride the horses – lightweight macs to keep them dry in the rain or thick, heavy beat the freeze rugs. Just don’t know what to do or where we’re at.
Nothing changes for crafting for me though. I’m addicted to crochet just now. I’ve got UFOs at the sewing machine, UFOs in the jewellery-making and beading box, UFOs in the cross stitching bag. But nothing pulls me away from my yarn and crochet hooks. During 2016 I created 3 blankets which were given away as Christmas presents to family and special friends. I made a dress, lovely to wear during the hot summer, and even crocheted a bag – currently a UFO at the sewing machine…
My wonderful husband treated me to some marvellous yarn for Christmas. A 45% silk/55% mohair mix in a deep purple/maroon shade. I’ve chosen to use it for another throw. Two of last year’s blankets were crochetalong’s and the third was a very simple pattern. This time I’ve chosen something more complicated to push me. The first challenge being the chain of 177 stitches. Never worked a chain so long before. Found a tip online – create a chain in counts of five. Worked well. Got the right number of stitches first time.
I found that once I mastered the basics – a slip-knot and chain, a double crochet and a treble – anything is possible. However complicated a pattern, stitches are all built around these basics. So my new pattern with woven stitches, cables, arrows and celtic weave amongst others, are all just building on the basics. And I have to say I’m enjoying learning and pushing myself with this. I’m only on row 34 but loving every moment I am able to find half an hour in an evening to work on this. There has been a certain amount of frogging but fortunately not too much.
“Frogging” I hear you ask. What is frogging? I had to google it too. Quite simply, “to frog” is “to rip out stitches”. It is a play on words alluding to amphibians and their chorus of “ribbit, ribbit, ribbit”.
Whatever your craft, I hope you have a wonderful 2017.
balling. Well they were paintballing, I sat in the car and crocheted, jumped out into the rain, fed them, sent them off again, jumped back in the car, crochet and repeat. They all had a brilliant time and were exhausted by 4 o’clock. I had a marvellous time being able to crochet without feeling guilty that I wasn’t doing housework/ironing/vacuuming etc etc.
