Tutorial- Knitted Cowl

Hi

Today's post is again from my Student Makes series- creating on a budget!

I am shortly going to be heading way up north (and by north I mean miles and miles, practically scotland). Therefore I figured I needed to invest in some winter woolies.

Anyway back to the point. I decided to knit myself up a cowl and want to share with you how I did it because it is a great accessory and didn't cost much...

*I am a very basic knitter so please take my feeble instructions with a pinch of salt!*

Supplies: 
100g  DK cream/ivory/white wool
100g DK flecked wool (any colour- it doesn't have to be flecked either, a solid would look good too).
4.5mm needles.

Approx. cost:
£3.00 for wool
Knitting needles already to hand.

A cowl, simply put, is a scarf where both ends are joined together to make a loop. In my opinion far easier to tuck into a coat and with none of that annoyance that comes with dangly and unwinding scarfs.

The cowl is knit with two strands of yarn at all times. Just hold your cream and coloured yarns together and pretend they are one. MAKE SURE the needle goes under both when you are knitting. The cream and coloured held together will create this lovely flecked, natural effect.

1. Cast on 36 stitches.

2. The whole cowl is done in garter stitch. Knit every row. This creates that lovely wavy pattern. It's also very easy to sit in front of the tv with. Nothing too complicated over here!

3. Keep knitting until you reached the desired length. At this stage it looks like a scarf I know but you will join up the ends eventually. A good way to check the length is to wrap the cowl around your neck. It shouldn't be too tight. Loose enough to pull over your head but snug enough to keep your neck warm.

4. When you are happy with the length cast off. Grab a darning needle and using ladder stitch (or something similar) sew the casted-on end and the casted-off ends together to create a loop. Sew in any loose yarns.

5. Turn your cowl inside out so the stitching up is on the inside.

6. To wear,grab each side of your cowl, give it a few twists and pop on over your head.

NB: this could be knitted on circular needles to save the sewing up. I am not skilled enough for this! 

Enjoy!

Golden September afternoon

I love this time of year when Summer is drawing to a close, when the lazy mellow days turn into the frantic busy ones as school starts up again. When there is a bite in the air and an expectancy for new things. Mostly I love those september afternoons when even after a day of rain the sun dips and bleeds across the sky.

My desk faces the west and each evening I enjoy an hour or so where my walls are striped in purple, the shadows lengthen and the darkness starts to seep into the room. September is a truly magical month.

Tutorial- Instagram wall art

Hi friends

Today's post is part of my student makes series.

If you are a regular around here you will know that Instagram is a favourite of mine.
I love the photo sharing, I love the filters but I don't love having my pictures stuck on my phone.

I wanted to display them in some way but knew that they weren't the best quality to print out big. Therefore I printed them small and made a quick wall display...

Supplies needed: 
Instagram photos (As many as you like)
2 pieces of white A3 mount board or similar

Approx. Cost:
£4.00 to get 64 instagram photos (incl. postage)
£1.50 for 2 pieces of mount board.

1.To get my instagrams to a good size to print I started by creating some mini collages. I used pic monkey for this and simply used a four square grid and plugged my photos in.

I saved each collage I made into a separate folder.

2.To keep costs down I always order my photos online. The photos are great quality. There are some good deals out there if you keep your eyes peeled. I use photobox. I think I am right in saying that if you are a new customer they will give you free prints.

I uploaded each collage to the photo box site and selected the 4x6 prints. It is really important that you select the button scale to fit. It will centre the collage in the middle, so you will have some white space, but it does mean that your instagrams will be nice and square!

Because there are four instagrams on one photo as it were, the cost is very little. I think I only ordered 16 photos but that came to 64 instagrams. Bargain!

3. Once the photos arrived I trimmed them to their respective size, leaving a white border on each.

I wanted something clean and simple to display them on so picked up two A3 sheets of mount board. mount board is thicker than card but quite light so brilliant for taking to uni. It was also cheap!

4. I arranged the instagram photos into a grid. This is totally down to preference. I like this graphic way of displaying them but arranged in clusters could look really nice as well.

5. Once I was happy with the design I carefully glued each down with a dab of pritt-stick, making sure each photo was flush with the next. I wanted my design to run from one page to the next so made sure the photos all lined up.

6. Because I am a scrapper and because I can't bear not to include some pretty paper I added a strip to each page! I then added a simple caption to each side.

Simple and easy and cheap! The mount board is sturdy enough to stand up against a bookshelf but light enough to be blue tacked to a wall!

Enjoy!

The Student Makes- creating on a budget

Hi

Drum roll please, I am excited to start a new little blogging series....

I thought it would be fun to share four or so tutorials over the course of the next few weeks which can be made on a budget.

One of the things I have been battling with before I head off to uni is how to decorate and create things for my new place with a small amount of money. Crafting can be expensive but compared to buying things new it is comparatively cheap.

I thought it would be fun to share a few of the things I have made with very few resources in the hope that it may give you some inspiration! Maybe you don't have extra pennies to spend on craft stuff, maybe you know someone heading off to college or starting a new home who would appreciate a handmade item. Or maybe you just want a quick tutorial!

If so stop by tomorrow for my first tutorial with some instagram magic!

Captured

I tiptoed down the corridor, and pushed the camera lens around the door frame,
Over the strumming of the guitar I adjusted the focus and clicked the shutter.
He looked up puzzled.
By that point I had gone!

The best way to capture brothers when they really don't want to pose! Go figure!

Thursday is Operation Speak Out. I'd LOVE you to join me for some epic commenting around the internet!

Oh man how I love this month!
Summer is lovely but I crave those crisp days, amazing colours and crunch that comes with Autumn.
I love the wooly tights, the layering up and those amazing evenings.

September is also my birthday so a whole lot of excitement there!

I'm going to keep my goals simple this month..

-Finish my quilt
-write up some ideas for a quick tutorial series for the blog
-Prepare for uni ( forms, photos, prayer )
-Sort out my wardrobe.
-Go and see a show in London with the boy.

What are your goals/plans for this month?

Storytelling Sunday- The story of the games list

We are a a family who like playing games.

Monopoly, cluedo?  I hear you ask.

Oh yes and thirty others. We do games in a big way in the beach household. We research new games, visit games shops and pick up games in charity shops. 

There are the new games, the old favourites, the games that are dust covered, the ones that have been played so often the box is falling apart.

Our evenings in the holiday are often spent around a games board. The big debate comes before this though; what game shall we play? Naturally we have our own favourites. There are some games that two of us love but the other three hate, games that are played often because we all enjoy them, games that seldom come out because certain people raise such a stink about them!

Our method for choosing used to be done by vote; everyone picks one game and then you list all the games chosen in order of preference. This worked pretty well until we were playing the same games over and over again because they were the only ones getting the average vote.

Around nine months ago the middle brother and my Dad came up with a new solution. How about we made it our mission over the course of a year to play every game we had. Every game that was in the house we would play. No arguing, no voting. Everyone would get to play their favourite game but everyone would also have to play their least favourite. 

So, the middle brother wrote the now infamous games list. Beside each game was a number, 33 in total! When the time comes to choose a game, the brother whips out his phone and uses random number generator to decide what we will play next. The choice cannot be disputed; the phone has decided!

We have ticked off quite a few games in this time. Besides each game is a little note of who won and at the bottom is a tally recording our game wins to date. (You wouldn't have guessed the boys are sports fans would you?) So far my total is...one. one game won. Not great really!

It is a funny little tradition in our house. A way for us to have great family time. Many a laugh is shared around the games table and many the argument too!  The summer is coming to a close and for a while that crumpled list will go away until we all come together again- probably at Christmas!

This story was told in conjunction with Sian's Storytelling Sunday!