7000 challenge

Summer craft challenge 2016 part 1

Image shows fruit punch in a glass in the background with a small amount of light turquoise crochet in the foreground
~ Making Stitches ~ 15 Comments

In my Sunday Sevens #39 10.7.16 post last weekend I mentioned that I’d set myself a craft challenge to do something crafty on every day of the school summer holidays. It’s for my benefit (to maintain a tiny bit of sanity restoring craft time) and for the benefit of those around me (hopefully I’ll be a slightly less grumpy Mum).

Last weekend we were staring down the barrel of 8 long weeks of school holiday. It’s my favourite time of year in that we no longer need to clock watch and get to so many activities. The flip side of the situation is that at times it can be like spinning plates trying to keep all 3 Little Postcards happy. All three have different ideas about how they would like to spend their holidays and the conflicting opinions can often lead to well, er conflict.

By promising myself a tiny window of crafting each day I have a little bit of sanctuary in among the warring factions and general chaos! Each day I have posted a daily #summercraftchallenge2016 photo on Instagram and I have even had fellow crafters saying they’ll join in too once their childrens’ schools break up for summer. If you are a crafter and fancy joining in please use the #summercraftchallenge2016 on your Instagram photos and we can all link together to share our creations.

Here’s my first seven days of the challenge:

Day 1 : Saturday 9th July

A visit from an old friend at the weekend gave us the perfect excuse to have a barbecue. Fruit punch and a new crochet project went hand in hand.

Day 2 : Sunday 10th July 

A shady spot at the Alameda Gardens park was lovely and cool on a very hot day.

Day 3 : Monday 11th July

This micro-second of bliss was shattered as I became the target of 3 water pistols…

Day 4 : Tuesday 12th July


A picnic lunch gave me the chance to make a few Attic 24 May Roses.

Day 4 : Wednesday 13th July

The first summer craft challenge project completed! A dinky wreath for our bedroom wall using my May Roses.  It measures just 13cm across.

Day 5 : Thursday 14th July


Al fresco crochet again, this time an amigurumi dinosaur which is for a soon-to-arrive little baby. Spot the deliberate mistake? A dropped stitch wasn’t noticed in the bright sun/sunglasses/camera combo. It was put right shortly before a water bomb hurled my way cut this crochet session short…

Day 7 : Friday 15th July


Learning from my previous poolside crochet mistakes I opted for an activity today which didn’t require too much concentration from me while I was supervising the Little Postcards in the pool. I hooked up quite a few little woolly hearts for this year’s Yarndale festival in Skipton recently and the ends needed darning in and buttons sewn on. These will be winging their way to my Instagram friend @bonnies_little_crafts who has set herself the challenge of creating and collecting 7000 wooly hearts to give to visitors to Yarndale this September. Check her out on Instagram and search the #woollyheartsforyarndale2016 tag if you fancy joining in, in a recent post she revealed that she has received more than 4,500 already!

So all in all, it’s not been a bad first seven days of the holiday. I wonder what next week holds in store… Thanks for stopping by 🙂

Sunday Sevens #21 6.3.16

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Happy Mothering Sunday to you, I hope that if you are a mother or grandmother you are being well looked after and appreciated. 

Welcome to the latest edition of the Postcard from Gibraltar Sunday Sevens. Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series created by Nat at the Threads & Bobbins blog. If you fancy joining in, pop over to Nat’s  blog to find out more. 

Sunday sunset  I’m afraid I have nothing profound to say about this photo other than I spotted the sunset & clouds during a brief glimpse out of the window so I grabbed my phone and dashed outside to try and get a picture. The shafts of sunshine reminded me of those sunburst stained glass windows you get on houses of a certain age who have dodged the uPVC treatment. 

A postcard (& hearts) received from Gibraltar  
 
You may remember a few weeks ago, whilst housebound caring for poorly children I set about using my sofa cuddle time wisely (apart from just cuddling up with my little patients). I decided to help a very lovely lady on Instagram attempt to collect 7000 hearts to give to visitors to her hometown of Skipton for the Yarndale 2016 festival of all things wooly in September. About a fortnight ago, I finally got around to posting off my little hearts and I’m pleased to say they reached their destination (along with a postcard from Gibraltar- naturally). I received this lovely photo collage on Instagram as a thank you :-). It really was a fun distraction from my nursing duties and so easy to make as they are tiny and take very little time at all to make. The pattern I used was the  Attic 24 Teeny Tiny Hearts pattern. To find out more about Bonnie’s Little Crafts 7000 heart challenge, have a look at her page on Instagram. 

A finished pair of curtains & valance 

 Well it was a struggle to make this sample at my home furnishing class this week. I found out to my cost the the fabric I chose and the use of a hot iron don’t mix. Not only does it make it shrink, it also makes it stretch at times – very bizarre! Anyway, after much pinning and remeasuring and repinning and measuring again I finally got there! I think they’re rather cute 🙂

Full circle skirt – complete!  I’m really very pleased with this one. I’m sure I’ll get loads of wear out of it in the hotter weather (the winter boots don’t quite work with it!). This was the most complicated skirt to prepare for on my dressmaking course but by far the easiest to sew. I’m thrilled – it doesn’t look homemade!! I’m now on the lookout for some more special fabric to make another longer one.

World Book Day 

  Can you tell who he went as??! 

(Clue: It was on a Wizard of Oz theme!)

The silver material wasn’t the easiest thing to sew and the planning time taken up with this meant that my other little character ended up in an improved shop bought outfit (which I’m pleased to say he loved – he wore it until bedtime!). Thankfully my biggest character had chosen a book from the 21st Century so his clothing came directly from his own wardrobe – phew!! World Book Day really is a great event, and (most of) the children I saw arriving at school seemed to really enjoy it. That said I’m so glad it only comes around once a year!

 Bunny
 I haven’t shared any photos of Bunny for a while, so here he is. Somehow he gets  taken out of his run of an evening and I find him hopping about my bed (he’s always got a young/not-so-young man looking after him at the time). He seems to love having a wider space to explore. If he nibbles my blanket I won’t be happy though!

Mother’s Day  I am one lucky Mummy, I shall be taking full advantage of this special day and try to get a bit of crochet time fitted in between being looked after by my boys. The sun is shining and we’re off to the park!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a good week!

Sunday Sevens #16 31.1.16

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Earthquake excitement  We awoke on Monday morning to hear that there had been an earthquake in the Straits of Gibraltar in the early hours of the morning. It turned out that there were several in actual fact (last I heard there had been 160 aftershocks!). Despite being up several times in the night to tend to a poorly 4 year old the whole drama passed me and the rest of the Postcard household by! Friends described their beds shaking and the rush to make sure their kids were moved away from windows, social media in Gib was humming with the excitement of it all, we didn’t notice a thing!!

Whoops spoke too soon 

 Last week I crocheted the last row of my Cosy stripe blanket and then began sewing my ends in. On Tuesday I had a few quiet moments out on the balcony and thought I’d begin my border… I looked on the Attic 24 blog for the instructions only to discover that when I’d transcribed the order of the coloured rows into my notebook (way back in 2014 – I’m not a fast worker ;-)!) I’d missed off the last 15 colours – that means another 30, yes 30, rows!!! It’ll be a while before I get to crack on with that border after all!!

#7000 challenge 

 One of my Instagram friends @bonnies_little_crafts has set herself the rather grand goal of making and collecting 7000 little crocheted hearts in time for the Yarndale yarn festival in September. Her intention is to give visitors to the festival a heart each as a welcome gift to her home town of Skipton. In previous years I have sent woolly offerings to Lucy at Attic 24 (one of the founders of the festival) for exhibition displays, so although I have failed to attend myself, a little bit of me has made it over to the Yorkshire based festival of woolliness in past years. One day I would love to go, as I have seen all the lovely pictures posted by crafty bloggers who have been already, and it looks amazing. As I have spent a large chunk of this week sitting on the sofa with poorly children I thought I’d hook up a few to send off to Skipton. If you want to have a go at making some little hearts to support the #7000 challenge, look up @bonnies_little_crafts on Instagram for more details.

Instagram photo challenge 

 I have really enjoyed taking part in the #30daysofcraftiness photo challenge this month. It has forced me to think a bit more about the photos I take and encouraged me to take photos I wouldn’t ordinarily capture. The photo above is for day 28 and the title is ‘quote’. I didn’t want to just use a Google image of an inspirational quote or cat picture (ref: The Lego Movie) so had a go at making my own. And it’s true – I get grumpy when I haven’t been near a crochet hook or needle or paintbrush for a while, to me crafts truly are my therapy!

Stormy night 

 On Friday night we had a belter of a thunderstorm. The rain and thunder had been forecast, so it wasn’t a surprise but the intensity and noise was really quite unsettling. Living in an old building with original wooden sash windows which are a little past their best, we almost felt like the roof was coming in on us. The windows and floors were rattling with the noise and the brightness of the lightening was off the scale. Thankfully it was late in the evening so our two youngest were tucked up in bed and oblivious to the storm. As the storm had taken out our TV signal, No 1 son sat up with me colouring. It was a nice way to spend quite a dramatic hour or so!

Calm after the storm 

 Looking at this, it seems hard to believe that less than 12 hours before the lightening was splitting the sky and the thunder was rattling the chimney pots! What a beautiful way to start the weekend – hello Saturday!

Med Steps in the sunshine! 

 After 6 days of poorly children, we are all healthy again (touch wood) and I managed to escape to do the Med Steps yesterday afternoon. It was hard work because it had been over a week since my last trip up AND it was warm. The sun made it absolutely glorious though, the butterflies were out, the gorse bushes were flowering and just look at the colour of that sea! I also had a first – I saw a Barbary Partridge for the first time. He was too quick for me to photograph though so you’ll just have to make do with this picture 🙂 .
Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series which was created by Natalie at Threads & Bobbins.