The craft fayre unfortuntely was a bit naff-it was held in a community centre in two rooms and I don't think it was well organised or well advertised as very few people showed up.  I had 120 decorations-managed to sell about 20...just about covered the cost of the table and some of my materials but nothing else!  Only one person wanted a tarot reading as well but it went well-good learning experience even if it was a massive let down :-(

On the plus side, I have lots of beautiful decorations that'll be making their way into this year's Yule gifts....

Now I'm desperately trying to make some presents for family for Yule-rapidly running out of time!

And...I'm back!

Well, not back to my usual crochet prolificy yet-the cast came off nearly two months ago and I STILL haven't been given a physio appointment!  Thankfully, a friend has had a bunch of physio on her wrist so she came me some strengthening exercises so it's a lot better but still not completely back to normal.

I've been crocheting hard, making lots of beautiful christmass tree decorations to sell at my very first Craft Fayre-a friend of mine who makes divine Vegan cakes is sharing a stall with me so I'm making lots of little decorations and we'll both be offering Tarot readings as well.  We did a Halloween event as Tarot readers (my first ever despite reading for ten years) which was nervewracking but amazing and gave me a lot of confidence.

I'm making a range of things to sell-the fayre is next Saturday (eeek!) but so far I have about 40 items ready to go.  These include-

The patterns are from these two sites-
http://amjaylou.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/crochet-christmas-tree-decoration.html

http://belladia.typepad.com/bella_dia/2008/02/sweet-heart-cro.html

They're both wonderfully simple and beautiful and hopefully will prove popular...
I figure whatever I can't sell will go on the Tangled Web's page or in as little Yule gifts

I'm way behind on my crochet plans this Christmas-I have no money to speak of (there's been a number of big problems with the Jobcentre which has made things quite desperate at times) and I usually make quite a bit of the gifts-this year I'm not sure what'll happen as I'm running out of time and my wrist can't manage much.  Keep your fingers crossed for a successful Fayre on Saturday!

Hope you're all well xxxx

Reasons to be cheerful

I'll admit that this week it's been tough to come up with the positive.  Myf hasn't been very well (I had to leave work early today to go and collect her from school which caused all kinds of problems as there was no one to cover me-managed to get it sorted but it took over 2 hours to be able to get to my daughter which was awful)  She's fine, tired and probably growing again, that tends to leave her vulnerable to bugs.

So, back to being cheerful!

The awful flooding going on has had me very worried for my family-spoke to Mum today who reassured me that she and Dad are fine (the Thames river is well reinforced where they are)  My heart goes out to everyone affected but I hope I'm not being selfish in saying that I'm so glad that my family are safe and well.
I often moan about the hill I live on but it's at times like this, with the winds howling and the rains swelling the rivers to bursting, that I'm so grateful to live up a hill!

Despite her not feeling well, Myf has been wonderful in the mornings-I've had TWO cups of tea in bed this week!

I finished off the poncho the other day-sadly, with all the bad weather, photos are pretty dreadful!  I've worked up a flower as well to attach to the neck tie (as usual, I've way overdone the length of the cord and the size of the flower!).  This is a belated Yule gift for a dear friend who is coming to visit this weekend.

The other gift I've been making has been a rune pendant for her birthday (it's her 30th).  Runes are used in divination but they are also associated with different points of the year, a little similar to a star sign-my friend is a rune reader and we have spent many evenings reading runes and tarot together :-) so I felt making a pendant with her birth rune, 'Berkano', would make a lovely gift.

I wanted to use my wood burning pen, but despite tearing the house apart looking, I've had no luck!  So instead, I've used a small chisel to carve the rune and a little woodstain to bring it out...

Crafting always makes me happy :-D

Lastly, there's this photo of Artemis that Myf took-Arti loves boxes!

I'm having a lot of fun with this new book-I tried out a few of the more intricate squares yesterday that I think look gorgeous!

I also finished off a couple of Granny Squares as well

I'm taking the next couple of days to make a couple of baby blankets-both for boys so I'm going to use one of the simpler motifs in the book as a base.


It's a beautiful day outside today-we've had so much rain recently that it's great to have a properly cold, clear day.  I may even take the camera outside when I go to pick Myf up from school :-)

Hopefully going blood doning today-haven't been able to go for a while so we'll see if my iron levels are up for it!


Happy Monday everyone-hope you have a lovely day.

Total number of squares to make-126 (63/63)
Brown edged granny squares-34 made.  31 to go!
Special Square Motifs-9 made.  54 to go!

Total number of square made so far-43 made.  83 to go!

Taking a walk down memory lane

Phew!  I'm mostly done where Christmas is concerned-I've been crocheting every spare second I get and today, amid piles of wrapping paper, all my family presents are finished, wrapped and posted, all Myf's stocking stuffers are wrapped and about 90% of my Christmas card list is done :-)  I will of course share what I've made but I want to avoid spoilers so it'll have to wait until after Christmas...

I'm finishing up a scarf for a local friend and I'm making a crocheted neck warmer for my Dad and I need to get Myf's main presents wrapped and at some point tidy this mess of a house up!

For my nieces crocheted presents, I wanted to go with something close to my heart.  My paternal grandmother died when I was very young, only around 6 years old and I have no real concrete memory of her.  I know she loved to sew and knit and when I was really tiny, she made three little bags-one for me and one for each of my sisters.

I had it safely tucked away for years as it's all I have from her but I came across it recently during a house sort out and realised that it wasn't knitted as I'd previously thought but crocheted!  And now that I have joined my sisters ranks in the crochet army, I wanted to attempt to figure out how she made them and replicate it to pass on to our next generation.  Turns out it was a very simple granny style she used that was easy to do, so with a couple of personal tweaks, here is what I came up with

I thought using buttons to make the initials would be cute-Myf didn't want any on hers but I'm so tempted to make myself an updated version of my Nanny bag (with buttons!) to carry around.  I've had so much fun making these-I think Nanny would love the fact that three of her grandchildren are avid crocheters-that's the best heirloom I could have :-)

Birthday presents for Mum

I was racking my brain trying to come up with an idea for Mum's birthday present and I turned to the copy of 'Cute and Easy Crochet' on my shelf.  It had a very simple pattern for a circular cushion cover and, as I happened to have a small circular cushion laying around, I decided to give it a go!  The pattern was basically a stripy circle, very easy to do and when I'd got it to the size I wanted, I thought it would be nice to add some embellishment to the front.  So I turned to my very much loved 'Crochet Bouquet' book for some compound leaves and simple flowers.  The leaves were perfect but halfway through making the flowers, I decided the shape was wrong so I improvised a more circular look.  Stitched everything on and crocheted the cushion pad in (it's non removable once it's done) and then thought hmmm...hope Mum's mind doesn't go to the same place that mine does!

They do NOT look like booby flowers, ok!?!

On the reverse...

Hope she likes it!

Myf has been working incredibly hard this weekend on presents for her 'Moogie' as well.  She has a few crafty books all her own and she wanted to knit her a little purse.  Unfortunately, the instructions were a little confusing and I can't knit at all (Myf used to know how but it's been a few years) so instead I crocheted a small strip for her and she stitched it together, added a button and then went to her new jewellery making book that an auntie gave her for her birthday.  She chose to make a bracelet with wire wrapped beads-aside from cutting the wire for her and making the fastening, she made the rest entirely herself.  She then made a silver one for me and a little one for herself that I'm going to take photos of to put up tomorrow as they're wonderful!

Back to another book to look at some card making techniques and she chose one involving stitching with wool-

And we're done!  Still got to finish up another project that despite its small size is taking forever!  My poor sister must be bursting with the suspense...:-( Sorry darling, I promise it'll be finished soon!

Having fun with crayons...

One of my lovely little nieces just had her third birthday and I couldn't think of a thing to crochet for her-I'm not very good at crochet toys and I wanted to make something a bit different this time!
Myf and I came across this on Facebook and decided to give it a go :-D.  We have a lot of crayons around...

And after much peeling away of paper and breaking them into pieces, we were ready to put them into the oven!  Ten minutes or so later...

They need a little stir with a toothpick to get the colours all swirled together-I think Myf enjoyed that part the most!

Once they'd hardened and cooled, it was easy to pop them out and voila!  Chunky crayons, perfect for little hands to scribble and scrawl with.

A little cellaphane wrapping, some purple sparkly ribbon and done!  We added a colouring book for her as well and hopefully she loves her present.  My other littlest niece has her birthday in a few days and we have another set ready to go :-D

Having a Hoot

Hello everyone!  Sorry for the long absence-I've been back in London staying with my parents with Myf for a holiday but I've finally made it back home so it's time to catch up!
Remember the little giveaway last post?  Well, I decided to make these little owls from this post here.  Aren't they cute?  It's a lovely pattern but there were a couple of issues with it-she mentions a couple of times 'pulling on the yarn tail' to close the circle hole but the pattern starts off with a chain of 4 and I haven't been able to close the little hole you get that way so I think she means starting off with a magic circle.  Also, in the third round, she tells you to put 3dc into each space around when she actually means 3dc in space, skip the next space, continue around so that you have 14 groups of 3dc around.  Does that make sense?  Anyway, those are pretty minor problems with it and overall I really like the pattern so please do give it a try!

So the lucky ladies received a little owl each and have said they really like them :-)  My sisters were a little late on the comments for the giveaway but I made them one each anyway because I'm lovely :-D And of course I had to make one for me and a couple for my gorgeous Myf.  Only trouble was, their little ones got very excited over the owls and this caused a bit of a problem so naturally I offered to make a special one for each of my nieces and nephew!  One of the nicest days of my holiday was being able to meet up with my lovely sisters for a family picnic with our parents and our children!  I got to give them their little owls in person :-)  Wasn't able to take a photo of the owls as I had a little mishap with my camera...it's fine now but I dropped it into a pond!  Anyway, here are some photos, hope you like them!

Apparently, the collective name for Owls is a 'Parliament'.  Isn't that cool?

The little one in the photo above is one I made with crochet thread for use as a key ring for my spare key.  I'm planning some more as soon as I have some spare time!

Yarndale and Attic24!

A few weeks ago my beautiful biggest sister called me to tell me about Attic24 and her Yarndale project.  Fact is, I've been reading her blog for a while now-stumbled across it when learning about joining granny squares and it 's one of my favourite places to go for inspiration and  a colour boost.
I really wish Yarndale was closer because it sounds awesome-Attic24 has been asking crochet crafters to make granny triangles to use as bunting for the big day and in the years to come.  So I went and had a look-one of the things I love about this blog is that Lucy makes such beautiful, easy to follow, photo tutorials.  She's written up a gorgeous photo tutorial for these triangles and has said any yarn, any colours, just have fun!

I have quite a few bits of wool that I don't really use as I stick with acrylic yarns for blanket making so this was a great opportunity to use up some of those bits.  I've made nine triangles and last night I attempted to 'block' (for the first time!) with steam.  I think I need more blocking practise but aside from being a little curly at the edges, I think they've turned out well!

While being blocked...

Afterwards...

So I'll be bundling this up to send to her-anyone else want to join in?  She's extended the deadline until August so there's time!  And they're super easy to make :-)

In other news, I finally managed to post the two SIBOL blanket donations after I realised they were a little smaller than requested on her blog-they both only measured about 32" and they needed to be 36-37" so I needed to spend more time adding more to the border.

I managed to get them up to 35" before sending-Mrs Twins kindly emailed me yesterday morning to let me know they'd arrived safely with some lovely comments *blushes*  Cant' wait to see where they end up!

'Sweet Memories' Blanket

Finally!

I've been working on this for a few months now-with work and some of the other projects, this has been sitting on the back burner and it's so nice to have it done :-)

Remember the 'Sweet Dreams' blanket?  And the smaller version I made for Myf?  Well, I wanted to make another one for SIBOL to send along with the 'Autumn Glory' blanket.  One of the squares on the original Sweet Dreams blanket came out looking a bit like a wrapped sweet-the square design is based on the amazing Debi Y and can be found here.  By changing the colours frequently, it came out looking like a sweet and I thought it would look good to make a blanket with alternating 'wrapped sweets' and loose sweets.

The 'wrapped sweets' squares are a bit fiddly which is why it took so long to complete. I finished the squares up yesterday and laid them out and then discovered a slight problem....

See the second row?  The square in the centre?  That's 'supposed' to be seaside rock.  I swear, it wasn't until I had this laid out that I saw it looks more like something else...

As you can probably guess, I removed it from the layout and made another wrapped sweet square to replace it.  I crocheted it together yesterday and finished off the border today and I think it looks lovely!  No inappropriate motifs to be found anywhere...

From the top left hand corner, the loose sweets are as follows:
Gobstoppers, Peardrops, Strawberry Bootlace, Toffee Blocks (with hammer), Barley Sugar, Lollipops, Licorice Allsorts, Everton Mints, Peppermint Creams, Parma Violets, Gingerbread Man, Licorice Sticks.

What do you think?

Baby Blanket

The last granny square baby blanket I made for my friend Cat was shown to her boyfriend's sister who is also expecting and she loved it so much she wanted one for herself!  So shades of pink for her as she's expecting a little girl and I cut down the size drastically as the last one was insanely big :-)

It's 8 squares by 8 squares with about 1-2 inches of border-doesn't it look pretty?  She doesn't have a name for the baby yet so didn't want an initial over the top but hopefully baby girl will stay warm and snug in it.

A little extra...

Hello everyone!  Hope you are having a lovely Wednesday :-)  Ostara is here and the light and dark are in harmony-from now, the day has dominion over the night so it's a time to reflect on balance, on growing strength, nurturing the seeds of new life.  Myf is excited as her sister's 4th birthday is on Friday-being a big sister is so important to her but sometimes she struggles with the balance of it.

In my last post, I showed you a finished baby blanket which really is more of a toddler/young child's size!  They're coming to pick it up on Friday and they love the photos I've sent them but I thought I would surprise them with an extra blanket that's a better size for a newborn!  I'm been wanting to have a go at a 'ripple blanket' for ages and now seemed like the time to try :-)  This lovely lady makes quite a few of these beautiful blankets and I've been admiring them for so long.  She shares the pattern she uses-it comes from this site here.

I had some variegated blue/green yarn left over that I couldn't think of a use for so the bulk of the blanket uses that up-I finished it off with two row stripes in each new shade.  I need to practise the pattern so I can make it lie flat properly but I'm really pleased with it, especially for a first try!  And it worked up so quickly, only took a couple of days.

It measures about 35" point to point and it should be much better for the little one when he arrives.  Looking forward to seeing whether they like the extra surprise :-)

Baby Blanket

Good morning everyone!

Once again, the cold Welsh winds are blowing but there is some sunshine at least :-)  I've been working on a special blanket for my friend who is expecting a baby in May and I was very inspired by this beautiful piece made by the lovely Gillian.  I love the bright colours and how the white edging gives it a fresh feel.  So I decided I would try my own version in this style.

My friend Cat loves blues/greens-you may remember last year she wanted me to make her a special blanket to commemorate her Mum who has passed away.  They've also already chosen the baby's name and wondered whether I could put the initial on the blanket too.

So I made a LOT of little squares...168!

I thought it would look really nice to do the initial in green squares and use blues/aquamarine shades for the surrounding squares.  I made about 35 squares for the J, using a few diagonal squares for the curves. However, the effect was a bit too subtle so I decided to try making an edging over the top...

I used the same method as I do for joining squares-which is a bit tricky on the surface!  It does stand out a bit more though so worth the extra effort.  I also tried doing a chain stitch method in the border from this blog here.

It's ended up being a LOT bigger than I planned-it measures approximately 36" by 45" so they should get years of use out of it!  I'm pleased with how it looks, hopefully they will be too!

Now, I'm finishing up a few squares for SIBOL and then I'm going to figure out how to do some repair work on my sofa!

Helping a friend...

Hello lovelies, hope the weather is treating you kindly!  We've had some Arctic winds here and a little snow over the last week-almost made me wonder whether I'd dreamt the Spring!  But thankfully it's starting to warm up a little :-)

It's amazing to me that I've been crocheting for over 2 years now.  I still feel very much like a beginner-perhaps because I don't stray far from my comfort zone (Granny Squares Hooray!) but I was reminded recently that I'm not really a beginner any more-I should really think of myself as 'intermediate'.

A lady I know through a close friend recently got in touch about some problems she's having with a crochet project.  She's been crocheting for about a year and when she started, she wanted to make a baby blanket for her nephew.  Well, she's been working on this blanket for so long, having to frog it and restart it over and over again that the baby is now nearly a year old and what was once a labour of love is now a massive burden.
So she asked me whether I would mind finishing it for her (btw she suffers from EDH and her joints get REALLY painful after too much crocheting) and she brought round what she'd done along with all the yarn.
This is the pattern she was using...
It's described as an easy pattern and I suppose she's right.  However, it's done almost entirely in single crochet so it takes FOREVER to make even a few inches of depth, let alone enough for a cot blanket.  Plus, it is a 'self bordering' pattern and the way it's done is to alternate using single crochet and half double crochet for the first and last 5 stitches of each row.  This tends to play merry hell with the width.  The main part of the pattern goes for a 'crinkle' effect by putting 1sc, ch2, 1sc into each space which takes even longer and the amount of yarn it uses is insane!
While it is a very easy pattern to follow, I think it needs some revision-a beginner trying to make a blanket from this would get disheartened very quickly!

So, the first thing I noticed it that instead of putting 1sc, ch2, 1sc into each space, she was putting 1sc into a space, chaining 2 and putting the next 1sc into the next space so it wasn't looking right at all.  So I started from scratch and quickly discovered that it would take weeks of crocheting to get it to the right length plus for some unknown reason, it kept getting wider and wider!

I spoke to her and asked whether she'd mine if I played with the pattern a bit.  She was fine with that so instead of using single crochet, I opted for using double crochet shell stitches and changed the alternating rows to just dc stitches.  The result was a blanket that didn't take more than a week to complete and has a lovely ripple effect.

Here's some photos for you so you can see what I'm rambling on about :-)

This is a little sampler of the pattern I made to show my friend what it should look like.

This is what my friend had done so far-this had taken many frustrating months and still was less than 1/3 along...

This is what I came up with-it measures approx 30" by 37" so it should fit a standard cot bed.  Hopefully she likes it :-)

TA DA!!!! Sweet Dreams Blanket

It's finished!!

I'm so excited to take it to my friend in town today-I only started putting it together on Tuesday, laying all the squares out and shuffling them around, crocheting them together and seeing it unfold :-)

The top panel has 'SWEET' written across it in silver/grey chain stitch and the bottom of course says 'DREAMS'.

I pondered the border for ages.  I was originally planning to use a variegated yarn that came in free with another shade I wanted and has been hanging around waiting-it has hues of blues, purples and greens that I thought would work well with the pinks and greens on the outer edge of the blanket.  Myf wasn't too sure and once I had it laid out, I could see what she meant!  So I started with a very pale lilac and moved to a 'parma violet' shade and finished with a dark, almost plum, shade for the last round, putting 2dc, ch2, 2dc into each space and 2dc, ch2, 2dc, ch3, 2dc, ch2, 2dc into the corners and making a pretty zig-zag effect :-)  I still haven't found where that pattern comes from, I'm SURE it's from Attic24 somewhere but I can't find it!

Are you ready?  TA-DA!!!!

Isn't it gorgeous?  It's been the most creative fun to make :-)

I know I should wait and take better photos to do it justice but I really want to give it to her today (and if I don't today, the next chance will be Tuesday and that's too long ;-P)

What do you think of it?

So Very Excited!!!

The 'Sweet Dreams' Blanket is very nearly finished:  I'm putting the last round of the border on it now, it looks so beautiful and we may be able to actually give it to our friend tomorrow!
Myf has had so much fun suggesting sweetie ideas and as she wants a little lap blanket with this theme so I let her use the camera to pick out the sweet squares she wanted in hers.  She also spent time writing a list as well so very soon I can start making hers!

I can't wait to show you how gorgeous this blanket is-but for now, I'll share with you the other reason for my glee.  I caught sight of this in the shops at the beginning of January and even though it was very inexpensive (£15), we're on a really tight budget so I've been saving up to treat myself :-)

Isn't it wonderful?

It's meant for children's toys (and Myf would like one too of course!) but as soon as I saw it, I thought what a fabulous storage space it would make for all my yarn...
Well most of it anyway!  I prefer to work with balls of yarn so I still have a few bags with fresh skeins in that I need to spend time winding...

It's so nice to be able to tell at a glance what colours I have :-)  I've been moving some bits around and we had a viewing on the house today so I've been cleaning quite manically and now I have a beautiful living room with a crafty area that makes me smile :-D

I'll be back very soon with photos of the newest blanket!  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend :-)