New Year craft resolutions

Finish what I start?
Not always as easily said as done. I like instant gratification and random inspiration, so I'm easily distracted.
Tidy my raw materials?
The yarn is in two wicker picnic baskets now. The sewing stuff is in my découpaged sewing box. However, the felt, ribbons and fabric scraps would be better off anywhere but the torn carrier bag that my OH got when he bought a coat in Florence last year... The jewellery findings are housed, as ever, in a wooden box that first contained Chinese bowls and spoons. I got it as a Christmas present about 25 years ago and later painted it red.
Learn how to crochet granny squares?
Ummm, I believe this was my resolution last year!

Next year's Christmas card designs

Merry Christmas - I know it's nearly New Year, but I'm planning ahead - this is next year's Christmas card! A coastal Christmas tree made of seaweed with whitish stones for lights/baubles and an odd fronded sponge-like plant/animal for a star on the top. Made in minutes on Deal beach on Christmas Day.

My OH was v keen to make our own cards this year but a last-minute trip shortly before Christmas knocked that on the head (along with a generously decorated Christmas tree and a wreath for the door - I got as far as buying the foam ring...)

Will they be finished by Christmas?

Currently racing to finish knitting a snood and a scarf for Christmas - they're presents. Last year I was casting off on Christmas morning - not recommended!

I had also started knitting garter-stitch dishcloths but the green string (Conran Shop) was v hard on the hands to work with so they're abandoned.

Somewhat more successful is the jingle-bell jewellery: I've made a few pairs of these earrings (photo courtesy of That's Not My Age) cos they take about a minute each. I also made jingle-bell rings for my friend's two daughters.

I've grown an aubergine!

It may be small but it's glossy and darkest purple. And tonight, it gets eaten, along with... one or two ripe red tomatoes. I haven't managed to get them to turn red naturally for years without resorting to windowsills, brown paper bags and bananas.

Gorgeous gooseberries

Who knew that gooseberries ever turned ruby-red and wine-dark? And sweet?! Not me, until the gooseberry bush had a bumper crop this year. I say bumper crop; last year there were about five berries... Perhaps being dug up and replanted was the TLC it needed, and I'm sure the weather helped. (This bowlful is just one picking.) And this lot made a gorgeous gooseberry fool with crème fraîche and a dash of elderflower cordial.

Rhubarb, rhubarb, or a freezer-clearing cocktail

Excavating the long-forgotten contents of the freezer is rarely a glamourous task... There are always loads of individual peas tucked into inaccessible corners. But this time it was different. I found some poached rhubarb from God knows when, cooked with vanilla, my taste buds told me, and decided to make a cocktail. One measure of gin, a few drops of lavender bitters and the liquidised rhubarb. Yum yum yum!

Lovely lavender

You can almost hear the bees buzzing. No, it's not Provence, but a field near Sevenoaks, Kent. I wish my own two lavender bushes had been as prolific with the flowers, although apparently 2013's lavender harvest is a bumper one. Good job I've still got loads of dried lavender from previous years. Now shall I make another 'fuck off, moths' lavender bag?

I finally found a sewing box!

It's a classic wooden concertina-drawer type, exactly the type I didn't want to pay John Lewis's prices to acquire. But I found this one in a local vintage shop (Trash or Treasure in Maidstone) for just a tenner.
Everything that was in the black and pink spotted cardboard box that previously held my sewing stuff fits in, plus the buttons that were in a plastic box. And my fabric scissors.
For that price I could overlook the coffee cup and fading on one side, because I had plans...

Some weeks earlier I 'came across' (ie, rummaged through the rubbish to find) some old sewing patterns outside a shop in Canterbury (The Sewing Shop). None of them had all its components so I couldn't actually use them to make the garments illustrated. However, I knew they would come in handy so I parked them on a shelf...

And patterns and sewing box came together. I've never tried decoupage before - does it show? I just cut random shapes and stuck them in an overlappingly random fashion all over the top of the box with PVA glue from Cowling & Wilcox, the handy art supplies shop across the road from work. I just need to trim the edges. Oh, and run a scalpel along the edge of the lids - because I've stuck them down!

This year's elderflower champagne...

I've blogged before on how to make elderflower champagne. The fact that I'm still drinking my way through this year's vintage reveals that it's not as delicious as last year's. It just tastes a bit... tasteless. But a little experimentation has revealed that adding a little elderflower cordial improves it no end. Just as well; I've got litres of the stuff.

How to customise shoes: add fabric heels

I think this project – giving a pair of shoes an update with new fabric-covered heels – was inspired by Gok Wan on TV a while ago...

Make a template for the heel shape (which is very different to how you might imagine it, I promise) by sticking on layers of sticky tape.

When you've got a thick layer, draw a line around the edges of the heels.

Now peel off the sticky tape, and cut around the line.

On your fabric, draw around the sticky-tape shape and cut out. Stick it on the heel with fabric glue.

Spring is bursting forth...

Spoils from a Saturday stroll along the Kent coast...
...stunted pussy willow

...and blossom from the hedge - blackthorn? The figure at the front is a sumo wrestler made by me in pottery class about 20 years ago

Getting around to finishing craft projects...

I've been planning it since last October, I actually started sewing it last November, and I finished it this February: my red velvet skirtain. I'm calling it a skirtain because the fabric is an offcut from the bottom of a cotton velvet curtain from Ikea.
I put the zip in by hand because I haven't (yet) mastered the zipper foot on my machine, then had to unpick the whole of that seam because the two edges of the waistband didn't quite meet. When I say 'didn't quite meet' I mean one side was about two inches above the other. Not quite sure how that happened...maybe because I've worked on it in many little chunks of time? I did contemplate bodging it by folding one side of the waistband down...but then had a word with myself, unpicked it and sewed it up properly. It has a press stud because that's easier than a buttonhole!
I've worn it and I love it...and here it is!