It's Finished!

The Church Kneeler I was making for my Husband is finished and I am really pleased with how it came out. He is so keen to use it that he has found he can put his feet up on it when he comes in from work, it will be nice to see it put to its proper use on Sunday though. Even though I am getting a little feeling back into my hands, I still found lacing the canvas across the back of the pad very difficult and it took me a couple of days to get it right. I was glad that I had some experience of canvas work when finishing this piece of work because the instructions that came with the kit were very sparse and I am sure that without that knowledge I would have been struggling to know what to do. I have two more kneelers to make but I am going to leave those for a while and try to go back to making cards.

LOTV Giveaway

In case you have not heard, those nice people over at LOTV are giving away a stamp to two lucky winners every day for 5 days to celebrate that there are only 5 more days until the new Christmas stamps are released on 6th September. You can also see the DT's sneek peeks on the 'Ideas to Inspire' Blog

Church Kneeler

I have been having some treatment and physio for my hands and I am getting some feeling back into them thankfully. It has meant many trips to the Hospital but I will do anything to get better.

I had to find something to do with my time as daytime TV is appalling and I remembered I had bought a Church Kneeler kit when a local needlework shop closed a few years ago. It is worked over a large size canvas with 3 strands of  Tapestry Wool so I thought I should be able to do it even without being able to feel the needle properly. Here is what I have done so far.

The instructions called for this to be worked in Half Cross Stitch but I have used Tent stitch which looks the same but is much harder wearing. The difference is that in Tent stitch the wool on the wrong side of the work is taken on the long diagonal to the next hole. The oblong center is the top of the kneeler and the 'wings' are the sides. The bottom will be hessian and it will be formed around a pad of dense foam rubber.

Although I love needlework, I hope that I will soon be able to get back to making cards etc. Christmas is getting closer and I don't want to send out shop bought cards if I can help it.

Why I Have Not Been Crafting

I wanted to put this into words because I thought it might help me get it straight in my head as much as anything else. I have not been able to do much crafting lately, especially not anything that involves fine work, and I am suffering from withdrawal symptoms.

I woke up one morning in early May to find my hands and feet swollen and numb. I have chronic arthritis in most of my joints and have experienced swelling before but never numbness to this extent. The same day I received news that my Brother had been admitted to Hospital and was in a bad way so I ignored my problem hoping it would resolve on its own.

The swelling and numbness resolved a bit over the next few days only to be replaced by constant pins and needles, tinnitus in one ear and a persistent headache. Because of having my Brother convalescing with us, my friends Communion Dress to rescue and a 100th Birthday card to make it was not until mid July that I finally went to see my Doctor.

He sent me for blood tests and an X-Ray which led to me having a CT Scan and then 2 MRI scans. It transpired that apart from Arthritis having eaten away at more of my spine, I also have a Chiari Malformation. This is a condition where the brain is being compressed in the skull and is being pushed into the cavity where the spinal cord meets the brain. So now I have to see a Neurologist and a Neurosurgeon to see what happens next. One of the treatments for this condition is surgery where bone is removed at the base of the skull and the top of the spine to relieve the pressure. I think this sounds worse than it is, at least that is what I hope.

So, at the moment, I am relearning how to use my hands without being able to feel properly and believe me it is not easy. Life is so frustrating when your hands don't work properly and when nothing feels the way it should. I hope this does not go on too much longer, I have Christmas cards to make!

New Promarker Nibs

Letraset have just launched the Promarker Ultra-fine Nib attachment and all I can say is 'At Last!'. I love my Promarkers and my only problem with them has been that at times I have needed a fine nib. I have some Tria markers which have a choice of 3 nibs including an Ultra-fine and so I knew what to expect as to the size of the line which is ideal for detail work. The Nib attachment comes complete with its own cap and is sold in a pack of 3. Once you clip it into place over the existing fine nib it takes just a few seconds for the ink to flow through. All single Promarkers bought through Letraset will automatically come with a free Ultra-fine Nib and if you buy 5 single Promarkers you get the 6th one free!

Information I had gathered from other users was that the Nibs can be changed from one pen to another so that it is not necessary to buy one Nib for every pen in your collection. I was anxious to try out putting the nibs on and taking them off of the pen again as I had heard that this could be difficult. Well I am very happy to report that I had no problems and I have Arthritis in my hands and wrists. The Nibs also cleaned well after use but I don't think I would recommend changing Nibs between colour groups or from the darkest to the lightest within a colour group so maybe 2 per colour group would be ideal. I don't like the idea of having to clean the Nibs all the time so I would rather get one for each pen, but that is just me. So if like me you are a Promarker person, give these Nibs a try, they are well worth it in my humble opinion.

Blog Award

I want to thank Elke at Elke's Creative Corner for giving me this award and for saying some very nice things about my work on her blog, she is very kind.

So apparently I now have to disclose 7 facts about myself, oh well, here goes.

1.  I have been doing paper crafting for about 15 years although I have been doing other crafting things for much longer.

2. Apart from paper crafting I also enjoy embroidery and I trained at the Royal School of Needlework   which is located in Hampton Court Palace

3. I used to do a lot of dressmaking and even made my own Wedding Dress. I made most of my Daughters dresses until she was old enough to worry about 'Labels'. I once made 15 Bridesmaid Dresses and 5 pageboy outfits for the same Wedding.

4. I hate cooking unless it is something fancy.

5. I used to breed and show Fancy Rats

6. My Husband and I share our home with a small menagerie of animals, we have a Springer Spaniel, a Maine Coon cat, Fancy Rats, Chinchillas, a Budgie, a Tortoise, Tropical Fish, Chickens and Ducks.

7. What else can I tell you that might be interesting. Oh yes, I used to be a Police Officer!

and now the best bit is that I get to pass the blog award on to 7 other people, so here is my list

Karen at Krafty Karens Blogspot.
Becky at Becky's Craft Adventures
Wendy at Purple Crazy Crafting
Linda at Linda's Cards and Scrapbook Pages
Lez at Hungry Heffy Crafts
Charlie-Louise at Crafty Little Moos
and last but not least
Lesley at Crafty Love n Hugs

All these people have fab blogs and I hope you will hop over to their sites and have a look at their work.

100th Birthday

I was very honored when a friend from church asked me to make a Birthday card for her mother who was going to be celebrating her 100th Birthday. I have not been doing much crafting lately because of poor health but how often do you get the opportunity to make a 100th Birthday card! I suggested a Bookatrix card and my friend was very taken with that idea. She picked out a patterned paper and the colour of the flowers and left the rest to me.

The base layer is Silver Miri card. the next one is the flowered paper my friend choose, the third is a pale lavender glitter card and the last layer is a patterned vellum. The first and third layer have a rope effect peel off along the edge and the second layer has a plain peel off along the edge. I made a flower spray out of the flowers and mounted it on an oval of silver miri cut with a Spellbinders Die. I then separated a large crystal gem swirl and fixed one half to each side of the flower spray. I  also used single lavender gems in the corners of the first two layers and a lavender ribbon down the center.

On the other side I put the above poem, I found the original on the web and changed the words a bit to make it suitable for the occasion. I printed it onto velum and fixed it onto the velum layer and edged with these corners that I had in my stash for some time.

I added this extra 'booklet' under the verse for my friend to write on. I edged it with the same rope peel off and the peel off at the top came from the same set as the ones around the verse. This extra booklet also added the weight needed to balance the card.

I made a box for the card to go into and I also made a stand for the card to be displayed on. I edged the stand with the same peel offs as the card to make it match and I added a sentiment above the flowers. My friend was really pleased with the finished card which made my day. Her Mother had a wonderful Birthday and got her card from the Queen but it was not as individual as the one I had made for her lol.