Using Every Last Scrap Matters

Cast your mind back to January 2024.  

I'd finally completed a crochet project of epic proportions and celebrated by prancing round the garden in the snow!  You can read all about it here.

The Leaves and Lace Blanket pattern by Haafner Linssen

After crocheting 27 hexagon motifs and 18 half hexagons of Scheepjes XL cotton/acrylic yarn, then joining them all together, I was left with these little nubbins of each colour.

Such a colourful bowl of leftovers deserved to be made into something.  

I consulted this book at my local library and pored over the beautiful crochet patterns.

After settling on the Hexagon Daisy Bathmat (pictured right) from Susan Pinner's enticingly colourful book, I proceeded to inadvertently ignore the pattern and go my own sweet way.  

My hexagon motifs don't quite look like the ones in Susan's bathmat.

Undeterred, I ploughed on regardless and made even more motifs.  I crocheted in spare moments between other projects, even crocheting in the car whilst waiting for something or someone.

To even out their wibbly edges, I dampened the hexagons and pinned them into shape.

When I'd made as many motifs as the leftovers would allow, I arranged them into a pleasing pattern.

The irony of wanting to use up as much leftover yarn as possible is having to buy more yarn to finish a project meant to be made entirely from leftovers!  

So I found myself back at my favourite yarn shop purchasing more Scheepjes XL to join the motifs together.  I chose this vibrant peridot shade to coordinate with our bathroom flooring. 

I started this project on 21st January 2024 and crocheted with great enthusiasm and enjoyment, probably working on it most days over the course of  the following month.  The end was in sight as one motif was crocheted to its neighbour and the individual components began to resemble a bathmat.

Then I hit a snag.  And all progress stopped.  And I didn't touch it... for... a... whole... year.

Just like that, I'd fallen out of love with it.

....______________...

Fast forward to March 2025, I began to crochet a blanket for my niece.   

But knew in my heart I should really finish the bathmat first.

I finally took time to examine the sticking point - a red motif with one side which I hadn't been able to join up to the one next to it.  I realised I'd made a mistake.  As is usually the case, the solution was quick and  simple and I unravelled the red row and re-made the motif, correctly this time, enabling it to match up to its neighbour.

After that I was on a roll.  In just under two weeks, all the hexagons were joined together.

Pinning out the dampened mat again helped smooth out its wiggly edges.

Just as my bathmat was reaching completion, we decided to change the flooring in the bathroom!  

The flooring on the left had been in place since 2008 when we extended our home, and it was time for a re-fresh.  We both loved the citrus vinyl chosen by our daughters all those years ago when they got their very own bathroom in the extension.  It's a small room with plain white walls so we chose to update it with an equally colourful replacement!  

I hope the girls will love it when they come home to visit.

Here's my use-every-scrap bathmat in situ.

Fabulous new flooring from For The Floor And More

A Delightful Shop and a Delightful Workshop

I love any excuse to visit Jane Keenan's shop!

It's a hidden gem, tucked away in the quaint and quiet village of Maud, nestled in the Buchan countryside, a pleasant half hour drive north of my Aberdeenshire home.

It's packed with gifts, jewellery and homewares.  

If I need to buy a present, I know exactly where to go.

Jane trained as a textile designer and her screen printed artworks grace her lampshades and cushions making the shop colourful and joyous.  Framed screen prints also adorn the walls.

Fragrance abounds in the hand poured candles and diffusers Jane makes, along with the hand creams she creates, all beautifully packaged with her graphic signature branding.

As if this wasn't enough to hasten your visit, the shop is also a stockist for Frenchic Paint, an environmentally friendly chalk and mineral paint, ideal for upcycling furniture with minimal prep.  Ideal for a beginner like me!

With a studio upstairs, the shop is also an ideal venue for classes and workshops.  

Earlier this month, I attended a very pleasant morning of painting and decoupage along with five other ladies, each of us decorating a three drawer, desk-top unit.  We began by sanding the existing surface to provide a key for the paint which can be applied directly with no need for undercoat.

Choosing a paint colour was fun!  I went for the rich, deep blue green, Steel Teal.

Several coats were required to give good coverage.  Luckily the paint dried pretty quickly.

The only photo I have of Jane herself!

In between coats, we all choose a coordinating decoupage paper from the gorgeous array on offer.

Jane's easy-to-use templates allowed me to accurately cut my drawer fronts from the multicoloured dotty tissue paper I'd picked.

Once the drawer fronts received a lick of neutral surface coat, I applied the decoupage paper with Mod Podge, a versatile adhesive, sealant and varnish.  I also painted my drawer handles with Plum Pudding paint.

To speed up drying, the drawer fronts enjoyed a wee toast in front of the heater!

Then all that remained was to varnish the outer cabinet and touch up any bits I'd missed.

Here's the final reveal of my completed cabinet -

And a photo op of all the finished cabinets produced that day.  Aren't they lovely?

This certainly won't be my last time using Frenchic Paint, or trying decoupage, thanks to Jane's encouragement and her very enjoyable and welcoming workshop.

I'm thrilled with my little cabinet and can't wait to fill it up!

Find out more, and visit Jane Keenan Design for yourself or browse her online shop.

Getting ahead in 2025 - and a visit to Porto

It's unlike me to have only one project on the go.  A flurry of finishing towards the end of 2024 meant my works in progress consisted of only one virtually-completed shawl.  

Time to cast on something new.

At home with us for Christmas, my daughter, Maddy, was in daily touch with her close friend, Emily, who was due to give birth very soon.  Not to just one baby, but to twins!  

I suggested I might knit a hat - or two. 

Baby Hat With Top Knot by Julia Taylor

Emily was very clear what she wanted for her yet-to-be-born baby girls - nothing identical and no pink!  Though this top knot hat is cute, the only other colour I had in the same wool was - you guessed it - pink!  Back to the stash.

Berry Baby Hat by Michele Sabatier

My other go-to pattern for new parents is the Berry Baby Hat.  I knitted two of these over the course of a couple of evenings using similar, but not the same, wool.  It's a good hat for tiny heads as the rolled brim can be adjusted as the baby's head grows.

With empty needles once more, and a holiday to Porto in prospect, I needed a portable travel project so I cast on another hat I've made many times before.

Tchaikovsky Hat by Helen Stewart

I knit most of the hat on the plane to and from our five day mini-break but Geoff captured me here on our final day, at a lovely cafe overlooking Porto, with my knitting just out of sight behind my right shoulder.  By the time I got home, I just had the decrease section to go.

This is a craft blog, not a travel one, but here's a snapshot of our trip to tantalise you.

Whilst Geoff and our pal, Dave, toured the Douro wine region for the day, my good friend, Caroline, and I toured the art district and visited a yarn shop!

It was hard to capture the beauty of the window display at Ovelha Negra but I took this close-up of the lichen clad branches with their woolly 'blossoms'.

Inside was a wonderful array of Portuguese and European yarns, covering every surface with colour.  It was all very inviting.

Sample garments showed off all the gorgeous yarns.  I loved the tiny jumper!

After a good look round, we met the owner, Joana, who made us feel very welcome.

The shop's own brand Portuguese wool had attracted me to visit in the first place and I chose this vibrant coral shade.  Ovelha Negro Victoria is produced with merino wool from Alentejo, towards the south of the country.  Portugal has a long history of wool production and merino sheep originated in the Iberian Peninsula.

With cabin-only luggage, I had to be restrained with my purchases but some complimentary Isager mohair silk made its way into my bag, as well as this skein of cheerful red Piopardo from Portuguese brand, Rosarios 4.  

Once home, I couldn't wait to cast on my souvenir yarn.  This colour work hat pattern proved the perfect project for my ruby red Piopardo yarn and I found the cream contrast wool in my stash.  It's Baa Ram Ewe Titus in the colour White Rose, now sadly discontinued.

Hellekindset Hat by Lanja Khon-Engheim

A week after landing back in the UK, all hats were complete.  They're both going to be gifts.  

You won't be surprised to hear I've cast on something new.  

However, after finishing five hats in a month, I'm not inclined to knit any head wear for a while!

Foot note : While in Porto, a good friend's daughter had a baby boy so the first hat I mentioned in this post will be going to baby Jake.

Woolly Christmas Trees

The Meldrum Church Christmas Tree Project runs throughout December and is now in its fourth year.  Our village church is decorated with trees contributed by local community groups, raising awareness, appealing for volunteers or just showing we exist! 

The first year my local knitting group, The Naughty Knitters, contributed a tree was 2022 - and it was made entirely from pompoms!  

My lovely late father-in-law made this tree, with its broom handle trunk and dowling branches, ages ago for me when I used to help out at Sunday School. 

 

After liberating it from the attic, and covering it in gold tinsel, I hung every pompom the knit group had made on it and added some fairy lights.  Voila - our very simple, but effective, first tree!

We'd more time to prepare for Christmas 2023 and the knit group started knitting these mini Santa hats well ahead of time.  They're designed to fit over a Fererro Rocher chocolate making cute, edible Christmas ornaments.  Small amounts of leftover wool in red, green and white were knitted up.  By the end of November we had collectively knitted over 100!  Some required a little finessing so I attached hanging loops, sewed on jingly bells and glued on tiny pompoms as required. 

Over the years I'd accumulated a lot of metal knitting needles, mostly unwanted craft supplies folks thought I could use or some, just one half of a pair.  The talented supportive spouse of one of our members (a retired engineer) fashioned them into a Christmas tree for our display.  Hanging up all our tiny knitted hats was very satisfying.

Ethmay helping to hang the hats!

We'd always intended to give the hats to Susan, our knit group member who fundraises tirelessly for the cancer unit at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.  

With Fererro Rocher generously donated by Oldmeldrum COOP, Susan was able to fill the hats and sell them at Meldrum Primary's Christmas Fair.  So far she's raised £67!

How to top that?  Well, during the latter half of 2024, the knit group decided to knit hats using any shade of green wool to decorate this year's tree.  Here's my contribution - three adult hats and two for kids.

As a group, we managed to use up a lot of  leftover green wool and knit a total of  64 hats and nine pairs of mittens.  We are not primarily charity knitters and fit this knitting in between our other personal knitting projects.  There's no obligation to take part - but everyone does!

This time the hats were attached to a traditional tree using clothes pegs I'd sprayed with silver paint.  Adding white lights enhanced the tree without detracting from the hats.  

It's our intention, after Christmas, to donate the adult hats to a charity for the homeless and the kid's hats and mittens to a local group which supports families in need.

Such is the enthusiasm of The Naughty Knitters, I've already received suggestions for next year's tree!

The 12 strong Oldmeldrum Naughty Knitters meet every Wednesday morning at Lochter.