You can't stop the crafting, nobody can stop the crafting ...

Last weekend I felt so nesty that I stayed home and finished off a couple of long standing craft projects that had been hanging around, for years.

And here they are in their full glory:

Leo's sampler
This little puppy started life in 2003 when my friend Tina had her son Jhai. It was going to be for him, but someone beat me to it and did a Noah's Ark or something. Ange and I used to stitch away like old crones back in those days, and were going to call ourselves the Moir Street Crones Club. This was way before craft was cool, and I don't think you'll see many people admit they actually like cross stitch yet. Let me be the first. Anyway, along came Leo Firestone, so he is the lucky recipient of this piece of superb work. It's beside the point that it took me five years on and off, and that I had to get Ange to do the French knots because I'm hopeless.

The Bayeux Tapestry didn't take this long

"And the dish ran away with Elton John ... "

Sweeney's Jersey
This is the first jersey I ever knat purl on. Before this glorious article, the only knitting I had done was in 1985 when my best pal Lisa Robson and I did a 24 hour knitathon for that year's telethon. Needless to say, starting at 8pm on a Saturday night and knitting peggy squares for 24 hours, our eyes were practically bleeding by the end of it. We didn't actually make it to 8pm - I think I lasted till 6pm and nearly fell asleep in the bowl of pudding Mrs Robson had put on my lap.

This jersey is from a series of 1970s patterns called "Your Growing Child" that were given to me and Ange by our aunty Vonnie, well before Sweeney was born. I decided to make it the biggest size so that I had plenty of time to finish it. Good things take time. The Postie's mum did the neckband, and Bramwell made the crocheted loops for the buttons, and many many people helped along the way with advice from casting on to sewing up and everything in between. A triumph.

But that's not all!

Ange made this little cardi for Sweeney but he grew too fast to fit it, and she gave it to me sans buttons. So I put buttons on it and it now awaits his Tiny-ness' arrival.

Yet again, Rona Bramwell (aka Granwell) has outdone herself with this little number - a hedgehog-buttoned jacket and beanie combo. I tell ya, Tiny will be the best dressed kid on the block.