Only five more sleeps...

And I can't wait until Christmas! I'm feeling unusually prepared this year, having bought all my presents in time and not feeling the pinch for a change. Well, ok, I do actually have just one more to buy but I'm worried I haven't left myself quite enough time to get it all together! Decorations went up late last week which is pretty early for my mom who normally likes to leave it as close to Christmas Eve as possible, so the house is looking twinkly and festive :) we started making preparations for food this weekend gone so there's a lovely waft of boozy, fruity mincemeat carrying around the house too.
I've got a couple of photos to share after painstakingly rolling dozens of tiny little white icing snowballs to decorate my mom's traditional Christmas cake with yesterday so here is the finished result and I love it! Unfortunately the tiny slice of carrot used for their noses seems to have melted away a bit of the surrounding icing but I'll be biased and say it adds to the homemade charm :)

Enjoy the rest of the snow and happy last-minute Christmas shopping!
Miss Cooksey x

These two little cheeky chappies enjoy a snowball fight whilst our backs are turned...

Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...

 With everything blanketed in snow, my crochet hook's been kept busy over the last week and it's got me feeling festive. So to celebrate, I've crafted my first Christmas cards for sale on Folksy - so excited to finally see my online shop up and running! Alongside these I've also been crocheting Christmas tree ornaments (the first of which should hopefully be listed on Folksy tomorrow night), crafted from ordinary wooden curtain rings, a selection of brightly coloured yarns and fine ribbons for added finesse :)

I wrapped up warm and used the cold weather to dress up the trees and bushes with my festive gear and spent ages taking photos and the results are too cute not to share...

Keep warm! Miss Cooksey x

This is my first crochet covered button and I'm so proud of it even though it's so tiny, I can't wait to make lots more using different techniques and yarns...

 These cute little stockings can't go without a mention to the Little Cotton Rabbits blog, which is full of quick and easy mini knits. These have been part of an ongoing project stemming back at least two years ago now - the plan is to eventually have 25 of these to hang across the mantlepiece during Advent.

 I couldn't resist dressing this bush up; the orange berries looked amazing next to the frost-covered branches!

 My handmade cards are currently for sale online on my Folksy shop in packs of 4 and I'm currently working on designs for Valentine's Day

Lastly, my crochet Christmas ornaments. Made from wooden curtain rings, these are so original and I can't wait for these to join my cards online very soon!

                            

Time flies...

So it's now my third week at House of Fraser in the city centre and although I'm absolutely shattered every night, the fact that I've finally doing something that puts a smile on my face makes the exhaustion totally worth it. Oh, and did I mention pay day is two weeks away? Plus the graffiti on the backs of train seats in and out of town can usually be depended on to provide some entertainment; yesterday's 'TOSS ME OFF I AM 14 OK' stands out as a fine example. Immaturity aside, my body clock's finally adjusted to being rudely awoken at seven (yes, that is early) and I'm actually rediscovering routine again - wahey!
So I'm updating my blog at last and I have lots to show! I taught myself to crochet last week and pretty much haven't stopped since. It's actually a lot easier and faster than knitting once you get used to holding only one needle in your right and holding the yarn in your left, or maybe that's because I'm right-handed. Whatever, blabbing. Anyway I've started two crochet projects (let's conveniently forget I've got a backlog of about a million other craft projects for a second), the first being crocheted poppies in aid of Remembrance Sunday for November 14. I've designed the pattern myself and I'm actually quite proud of how sweet they're turning out :) it takes about 10 minutes to crochet one so I should hopefully raise quite a bit for the British Legion once I'm crocheted-out. All they need are green stems and they're ready to adorn your lepels and bags :)
Please excuse the crud quality of the photos by the way, I've lost count of how many batteries I've popped in and out tonight to try and stop my camera from acting up but no such joy. Enjoy all the same...

My second project is a crochet bed throw made up of granny sqaures, for which I've crafted a few already to try and determine possible colours, patterns, yarns etc using inspiration (aka spying on other people's work) on trusty Google images. So far, so good. Here's the blanket so far - you might want to stretch your imagination here a little, even I'm struggling to picture a blanket in my mind's eye yet...

So for now I'm somewhere in between making poppies up to my eyeballs, working and oh yes, my social life! Mustn't forget that now... 

Have a lovely week!

Miss Cooksey x

If you go down to the woods today...

I am finally the proud owner of one very cute pink teddy bear! Cue me looking slightly demented with my first ever knitted toy. Not bad for a first try if you ask me :)) Ok, so he might not have eyes and my mom is convinced his nose should be black instead of a weirdy kind of ginger but I can't wait to pop a big pink bow around his neck and present him to my best friend on her 21st birthday! Hoping to find him a nice pair of eyes tomorrow when in Birmingham so fingers crossed! As for the black nose, my mom probably has a point as usual so it's subject to change.

    Knitted a load of icord flowers this week also and tried out several different techniques on them all but I think the original (photographed in a previous post) is the best so far. Managed to get my hands on some glitter in the kids section of Tesco - 3 for 2 wahey! Slightly embarrassing that I'm 20 years old but whatever.

    I need to get a move-on with the jams and chutneys I plan to make with the cooking apples gathered on Sunday. My brother, Baz, used some yesterday in his A Level Food Tech lesson during a jam making practical with strawberries and the finished result is delicious, if not a little dangerous as I haven't done any physical jerks in over a week!

    Finally, I start my new job tomorrow in the city centre and I'm so excited to get started. Full-time work is going to take a bit of getting used to after two years at university, though I'm sure I'll adjust :) especially when fancy clothes and money are involved, I'll take like a duck to water...

And now, off up the road to my friend Rach's for a catch up with her and Rosie but I must be a good girl and come home early-ish - I'm a working woman now! We stayed up chatting and gossiping until 6am last week, can't be  making that a regular occurrence!

Loves, Miss Cooksey x

An Apple a Day

After a day out shopping with a friend, my brother returned home with a brand new pair of much needed jeans, two tops and (unusually) a huge bag of cooking apples. It turned out that on his walk back home from the train station he passed a house with a bright red bucket stood outside filled to the top, a cardboard note perched on the apples reading, 'Lovely cooking apples, please take some'. Taking one of the little plastic bags also placed in the bucket, my brother thoughtfully filled it to take home with him. The homegrown lovlies made a delicious apple crumble after our yummy Sunday dinner this afternoon! We returned earlier and the bucket still remained near full, so we each took another bag to make preserves and chutneys to enjoy over the upcoming winter. So I guess I want to say a very big thank you to the nice people down the road for leaving their apples out for others to enjoy, I think I'll send them a card and a jar of preserve as a note of appreciation :)
    Other than that, I've spent my weekend knitting up my first teddy for my friend's 21st birthday and I'm pleased to say it's turning out so well! I'm off to buy toy stuffing tomorrow and all things going to plan, I'll have one reverse stocking stitched pink teddy sitting on my bed with me soon... I'm about to continue with some more icord flowers tonight and listen to some more of 'Eat, Pray, Love' which I have on CD at the moment, well worth a listen if you get a chance. Finally, I ordered a copy of '100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet' last night from Amazon after a recommendation on another blog I've just started to follow and I'm excited for it to arrive! 
Miss Cooksey x

F is for Family...

Whilst clearing out my wardrobe yesterday I stumbled upon my first piece of cross stitch on a scrap piece of aida. I'd completely forgotten it had ever existed, let alone been hidden for over ten years (which makes me feel a lot older than I actually am!)

Probably not the most accurate family portraits but possibly one of the funniest :)

Flower Power!

Went on a small shopping spree yesterday with my mom on our local high street in search of crafty inspiration. We rooted through the charity shops and I found some lovely little lampshades that would look great reupholstered and jazzed up a bit, so I think I'll get my mitts on them once I've finished my growing backlog of craft projects! Other than the lampshades, we popped in to a haberdashery and found a gorgeous pink and blue rose vintage fabric so naturally I had to have it! Also found a lovely thick evenweave fabric which should look beautiful once I've put my needle and thread to it. Managed to get my hands on a rainbow of felt squares too! I just have to decide what to do with them all now...

I've started knitting a range of different flowers which i'm going to make into brooches to sell online and (hopefully) in some local shops. Finished my first one using a simple i-cord for the petals (2.75mm double pointed needles) and garter stitch for the yellow centre (3mm needles). Here's a picture to show you :)