An Enchantment of Flower Fairies

 

 The Song of the Apple Blossom Fairies
By Cicely Mary Barker

Up in the tree we see you, blossom-babies,
All pink and white;
We think there must be fairies to protect you,
From frost and blight,
Until, some windy day, in drifts of petals,
You take your flight.

You'll fly away! But if we wait with patience,
Someday we'll find
Here, in your place, full-grown and ripe, the apples
You left behind-
A goodly gift indeed from blossom-babies,
To human-kind!

Here as promised are some fairies. I have slightly adapted my mermaid design into a fairy one, and have been busy making fairies all week. 

Apparently the group name for fairies is a herd (definitely not going to use that) or a frolic (quite like that name). But I have decided to invent my own collective noun, An Enchantment of Fairies. Perhaps it will catch on.

The Song of the Forget-Me-Not Fairy By Cicely Mary Parker     So small, so blue, in grassy places
My flowers raise
Their tiny faces.
By streams my bigger sisters grow,
And smile in gardens,
In a row.
I've never seen a garden plot;
But though I'm small
Forget me not!
It may not be clear from the photos, but these fairies, and the mermaids from last week, are really tiny, about 6-7cm. Even taking these photos has been really tricky. The slightest breeze and the fairy has gone flying from the tree, or I have found the right flower, but in a dark dank corner of the garden.

I have tried to decorate the fairy dresses according to some of Cicely Mary Barker's Flower Fairy Poems, but I do not have all the flowers I have embroidered in my garden. So today I am setting off with my camera, and a little bag of fairy folk, in search of the flowers of some of the fairies I have not photographed yet. So if you see a strange women crawling round the bushes, that will probably be me ...   

The pattern is now available on ravelry. Just click on the link in my sidebar.

The Song of the Daisy Fairy
By Cicely Mary Parker

Come to me and play with me,
I'm the babies' flower;
Make a necklace gay with me,
Spend the whole long day with me,
Till the sunset hour.

I must say Good-night, you know,
Till tomorrow's playtime;
Close my petals tight, you know,
Shut the read and white, you know,
Sleeping till the daytime.

  

A small selection of my fairies and mermaids are available to buy in my Etsy Shop.

Little Mermaids

I have a craft fair coming up in May, and have realised that I need to make a few new things for my table.  Usually it is my little knits that sell best, and as this is not just a craft fair, but a family fun day, this will probably be the case again. So keeping with my seaside theme, I have been knitting these little creatures all week. 

Frankie would like the little mermaids to have bras, but I am insisting they are just baby mermaids, and so don't need clothes. Really it is because although I am dipping a toe into the pool of cuteness, I don't want to completely dive into Disnification.

I am thinking that I might make a few fairies, or just little dolls. Though they would also need clothes I guess. So watch this space! I can't quite decide whether to put the mermaid on ravelry as a pattern. It is such a little knit, but perhaps if there were a few other options, it would make a nice pattern. It is quite fun deciding on hair colours and styles.
 

A small selection of my fairies and mermaids are available to buy in my Etsy Shop.

Confessions of a Secret Technophobe

Are you a secret technophobe? I know you are sitting at a computer, reading my blog, so you must be techie to some extent. I also know that I have been running my blog for over a year now, so you would probably say "of course you are not technophobic!", but I am, I just try to keep quiet about it.

I am fine once I get used to a way of doing something, but new versions of software etc. can completely throw me. It is partly an age thing. After all the most sophisticated thing I had as a child was probably an EtchaSketch. But I will call out to hubby (who is older than me) if I am stuck, and he is more than happy to click around in a programme that he is not familiar with and explore. I like to know exactly what I am doing before I begin. I think I put off blogging for about a year, as I thought I would have to know everything before I started. But it does seem the best way to learn is to just get on and do it, and probably make a few mistakes along the way.

It is not just computers, I am just the same with household appliances. I have still not made a cup of coffee from hubby's new coffeemaker that he got at Christmas. I love some of the functions of our new telly now (but when we got it was so upset by its size that I would sit upstairs watching the old portable one). And do not remind me of the trauma of adjusting to a new car!

What has brought this to mind is that I have been trying to branch Ginx Craft out. I have created a Ginx Craft facebook page, thinking this might be a good way to separate my crafty self from my other facebook self. There is a link to it at the top of this page. I would love it if you want to pop in there and have a look. But even this hasn't quite worked as I intended, as anything I link to my new page still seems to come up in the newsfeed too, but I am working on this.  I have also opened a Pinterest account. I've not got very far with this, as I have just pinned a lot of my own pictures.  But early days.

So I would love it if anyone has any tips on how they link their blog to other social media, and how useful they have found this? 

Or just tell me in what ways you are a secret technophobe.

Little Seaside Bags

Firstly thank you for all the kind comments on my spiral shell pattern. 

 And now another mysterious set of little bags.

Inside them are some sets of my beach creatures. They could be used as an educational toy, but are also very decorative. A little reminder of happy days at the seaside.

The bags are hand dyed. (You may remember my recent tie dying project which I was being a bit secretive about.) They are a heavy duty natural cotton, with a silk pull cord. Each one contains an individual set of hand-knitted and embroidered beach creatures: a spiral shell, scallop shell and starfish.

The sets are for sale in my Etsy shop. (Apologies that I keep plugging my shop, but I am really trying to make a go of it.) As I have made quite a mixture of colours, you can request a specific set, or just leave it to chance. I will try to accommodate any colour requests.

Set A

Set B

Set C

Also I just thought I would mention that I have set up a Ginx Craft Facebook page, so if you are a Facebook user you can follow me there. You just have to like the page. It is at https://www.facebook.com/GinxCraft  and there is an icon to link there in my sidebar on the right. I am still getting to grips with the technology, but I will link all my blog posts there. At the moment I have just put on some of my favourite photos, as it was looking a bit empty.

Troll Makeover

On our recent holiday we found this sad little creature washed up on the beach.  How long had she been in the sea? What adventures had she been through? Little One decided to adopt her, but she definitely needed a bit of a makeover.

It is amazing what can be done with a bit of pink fluff, some glue and an indeliable pen.  And a bit of pink wool for her new outfit. Her name is Dune.

Now she is ready to meet the other little trolls, and be part of the gang.  But she will always retain the marks of her adventures. (Can you see her smooth hands, feet and ears?)

And the bigger trolls. (Some of these trolls are nearly as old as me, which is why they are so wise.)  I just love trolls.

Shells

I've been busy on one of my little knits, that I know may provoke the question "why?" Not sure what the answer is. 

I made several attempts to design a spiral shell last year and each time I failed. Eventually I put the idea aside. I had designed a collection of small seaside knits, and a spiral shell seemed to be the main thing missing. So the idea has been niggling away in the back of my mind.

I have spent quite a lot of time looking at various shells in textbooks and online. There are so many different types, but I wanted my shell to be definitely conical and not a flat spiral. So I think you might call this a turret or auger shell, depending on which part of the world you live in. I would love to try and knit a conch shell, but I'm not sure knitting lends itself to all those spikes.

My shells are knitted with two doublepointed needles and short rows, and the shaping makes the knitting fall into a natural spiral. The knitting of the shell is not too tricky, although some people may hate the way I have written the pattern. 155 rows may seem a bit much to produce a tiny shell, but as you are decreasing all the time it does not take as long as you might think. I can knock off a complete shell in an evening. The wool is ordinary 4ply sock wool, and I am now slightly fixated on finding realistic shell shades in multi-coloured sock wool. Well it's a hobby! To find the pattern CLICK HERE!

There is one long seam, and I found it easiest to sew and stuff as you go. And then sewing it into a spiral is done with tiny stitches. The pattern has detailed photographs and instructions explaining how to do this.

Just a reminder of my other sea creature patterns. My recent trip to the seaside gave me the chance take some new photographs, on a real beach.

But if this all seems like too much work then keep an eye on my ETSY SHOP, as I still have a few sets of sea creatures for sale there

Sand Dollars, if you were wondering.

Scallop Shell

Starfish

Beach Life

I am back from my holiday in North Devon with a camera full of photographs, and not very much crafting done. So many photos that I don't quite know which to pick. It was cold much of the time, but we did have some lovely walks on the glorious beaches.

Running around a beach can be really exhillarating.

Who needs to go abroad?

The last comment is mainly for my children, who spent a lot of the week moaning that their friends apparently all go much more exotic and exciting places.

And as for crafting I have had a really good week. I am almost at the point of posting a new pattern on ravelry. I so want to put it on, but haven't quite got the right photos yet. It is so tempting just to think "that will do", but I am going to try and get it all as perfect as possible, so that will probably be another week.

My monarch butterfly toy sets on Etsy have sold out. My first online product sales. (OK, there were only two.) But it has made me think that selling online is probably the way to go, and I am busy making another set.

Also on Craftsy one of my patterns got into the Craftsy Trending Patterns Charts, which really boosted sales for a short while. Very exciting for a day or two, but then a bit sad as I slowly dropped down and out of the chart. I have not really considered the power of advertising before ...