Knitting, Jam and Sewing Shoes!

I'm loving all the bunting and beach-hut beauty that's popping up all around blogland at the moment.  There's a particularly clever tutorial by Quilt Routes that I love (part 2) for a beach hut picture.  The method could be adapted to any type of landscape.  I wish I had the time to give it a whirl.  And Rags to Bags has combined bunting and beach huts in this cheerful cushion.

I'm not so satisfied with my own efforts recently though.  This is one of my long-term UFOs.  I've decided to knit a simpler pattern from the same pattern book. Although I'm not sure about the neck shape or the wide rib, I will stick to the pattern because trying to modify it will only end in tears!  I haven't un-run what I started the first time (can't face the defeat!) and probably won't until I run out of yarn and there's no choice.

I was given some cherries last week and needed to use them quickly, before they went too soft, so I boiled up a pan of jam.  It was acutally two saucepans of jam (because my mother was away and I couldn't borrow her skillet). The result was too runny, which I wouldn't normally have minded, but as I agreed to give some to the donator of the cherries, decided to give it another boil when I got the correct pan.

As you've probably twigged by now, the resulting jam is now too thick.  I will send a jar to the donator but with apologies for ruining a perfectly lovely box of cherries.

A friend of mine had a birthday at the beginning of this month and although I'd started this, I only finished a couple of days ago (and I didn't even make the bag - I had it in my stash!).  It would have been quicker if I had made the bag because I'd have sewn on the shoes by machine before making it up, but had to do it by hand since it wouldn't go under the machine.  She has a big love of shoes so I combined that with my effort to be eco-friendly and came up with the idea for this tote bag covered in shoes.  I hope she won't be embarrassed to use it when out shopping and that it helps indirectly in the reduction of plastic bag use.  It 's going to contain a scrummy choccie bar too.  I'd love to get this for a present myself so I hope she likes it!!



The other side!