Totally Useless at keeping up!

Now for all the crafting. I'm beginning to feel the pressure a bit, and last Saturday I took the decision to do some crafting instead of writing about it. I'm also struggling to take pictures because the sun has been MIA for a week or two now so there's never any decent light! But hey ho, we can pretend the grainy, amber hue is some kind of vintage effect.

First things first, the "Old stitches, New tricks" competition! Thank you for the lovely feedback. Unfortunately my little basket was nowhere near the winners in terms of skill, scale or time invested. I did get a special mention on the blog though which I was pleased enough with! I hope you looked at the other entries, they were great.

I'm a week or more late on my TUSAL update, so here is my jar:

You'll see that I did cheat and put the ends from the basket in there as well (well it was kind of cross-stitch...) I can't show you the finished Doctor Who sampler as it's away being framed and I somehow neglected to take a photograph beforehand. Noah's ark is getting there (slowly) though:

That roof was a weekend's work. I'm dreading starting on the boat itself. Not going to make it by Christmas I don't think.

I've also been working on some snowflakes:

They've been quite fun to make and I feel like I'm almost getting to grips with crochet, at long last! I'm making one each for a group of friends so still quite a way to go, but they aren't slow to make. They are quite handy on the train, I can make one in a couple of days' commuting.

Finally, I made some crafty friends last Saturday! Kate of Beak Up Crafts had arranged a get-together in Leeds of people who like to make things. She wrote about it here. It was great fun; I don't think I would have been brave enough to go if it had been any further away but I'm glad I did. Everyone there was from such different backgrounds in the 'day job' but people were very open and we ended up having some quite personal discussions. I'm looking forward to joining them again for some 'crafternoons' in the new year.