Catching up

Again its been ages since my last blog post. My editors are keeping me very busy and finding time to write is tricky, heck finding time for a cup of tea is tricky at the mo, but it'll all be wroth it as there as some lovely patterns coming out over the next few months.

Before this issue of inside crochet leave the shops its time to tell you the story of my ice cream patterns that are in this issue.

 A long, long time ago I was asked by Craftseller magazine to design these ice cream patterns for the magazines relaunch. I really wanted to get a proper Mr Whipy look to these ice creams so I started with my then recently discovered spiral pattern.

 Vanilla has beads embroidered to look like sprinkles and a chocolate flake and a cherry on top.

 Raspberry ripple my favorite flavor - yum :)

finally chocolate with chocolate sauce. Many thanks to Inside crochet magazine for letting me use these photos.

For whatever reason these patterns were never published in Craftseller magazine and so after a year I got them back and offered them to inside crochet. I loved these patterns so much I didn't want then to be  forgotten about. I was really please when Inside crochet snapped them up and they look stunning on the pages of this months magazine.

In other news this month we've had the tour de France in Yorkshire and the second stage started in my lovely York. I unfortunately had to work but I was following along with the footage on telly and I got out before hand to see York all dolled up for the race.

Cliffords tower was looking lovely with all the yellow bunting around it.

 View from the shop I work in on the day before the race. The crowds starting to fill York in preparation for the race.

 A very rare view of the shambles when it isn't teaming with tourists.

The excitement of the race was all around York and I talked to people from all around the world happy to be in York to see the boys on bikes go by. I was very proud to be from Yorkshire and I think we did a great job.

On a completely different matter I can finally share a card I made for a friend who has just bought his first home.

I wanted an old fashioned American sampler but with a clever geeky twist.

This is what I came up with (shamelessly stolen for futurama). I used graph paper to work out a chart and then stitch on 14 count aida. The frame is strips of card, colour using spectrum noir pens to look like wood.
It was nice to do a bit of cross stitch for a change :)

Thats all for now but hopefully I'll get another post up this weekend as I have to tell you all about this months Craftseller and my amigurumi picnic xxx 

I'm linking in with handmade monday blog hop