Dad's birthday

Lots of posting at the moment-I have some catching up to do!

My Dad's birthday was a few days ago and Myf and I made a couple of special items.  I got hold of a wooden blank keyring to embellish with some pyrography-here's some before and after shots!
(when I have some disposable funds, I'm thinking of upgrading my pyrography pen-it's very basic and I can't do more than thick lines with it)

Myf has been doing a little cross stitching at school and decided she wanted to make her Grumpy a bookmark.  I tried to find some mesh material for her but it was a bit on the pricey side so instead we bought a mesh style baby blanket from a pound shop, cut it down and hemmed it (my hemming skills are a bit pants!) and Myf made up her own design!  She worked really hard on it and it's beautiful.

I was positive I'd taken a close up pic but this is the only one I have :-(  Myf has been making a couple of other bookmarks so next post, I'll be showcasing her crafty-ness!

We also had to do some improvising on the birthday cards as we apparently have no card in the house aside from the recycling so we cut up some cereal boxes, liberally glued some colourful scraps of paper over them and Myf practised some calligraphy-

Dad really liked his presents and hopefully had a great birthday!

Crochet food...

Myf loves to play restaurants and kitchens, even as a big girl of 9!  She asked me to make her some fake food for her kitchen so I gave it a try...

The pictures are a bit rubbish (I need to work on my angles!) but I made a burger, pizza, some cookies (including a little 'Oreo' one that you can take the top of off like in the advert...), fried egg and bacon, a very wonky cake and some bread/toast.  Myf is very sweet and likes them a lot but I am a very lucky girl and my lovely sister Thea got me this book-

for my birthday!  It got opened a little early-but now my birthday has passed, I'm looking forward to trying out some of the patterns!  Especially the sushi...

Happy Birthday Big Sis!

My lovely sister Jess is now 2 years older than me!  Happy birthday Jess :-)

I sent her a little starter kit for pyrography (wood burning) which I think she'll be amazing at and I also finally finished a little crocheted bunting banner I've been working on for ages....the pattern is from this lovely blog and I'm planning to do a couple more as Christmas banners,  The blog has many really beautiful crochet ideas so you should have a look!

Here's the little banner for Jess-

Her home is nicknamed 'Tea Towers' and hopefully her new banner will find a nice spot to hang in :-)

Hope you're having a fantastic birthday Jess xx

Teddy bear waistcoats and blankets :-)

My little niece turned 6 last week and her mum asked me to make a granny square teddy bear waistcoat!  Along with it, I also made a crochet crown but sadly I have no pictures as I couldn't find my camera phone anywhere!  I have now invested in a little digital camera so here are a couple of pictures of teddy bear waistcoats that Myf insisted on once she saw what I was making her cousin :-)

The one on the left was the practise one I made so I could figure out the size and how to put it together.  The one on the right has buttons and edging and looks pretty snazzy :-)

My last post showed a blanket I'd made for my friend Catrina-her boyfriend's aunt has seen them and really wants three which is very exciting so I'm working on those too.  The wool store where I get a lot of my stash asked me to make a little lap blanket/baby blanket to display there-it may drum up some interest and give me some idea of whether there's any chance of doing this semi-professionally.

I've been working on a couple of other projects as well but I'll save that for another post!

Blanket for Cat

I mentioned previously that my friend Mandy died last year after a struggle with cancer and that her daughter had contacted me to ask whether I would make a special blanket for her with 'Mum' written across it.  So here's the finished piece:

It's made entirely with 'Squircles'- from this wonderful pattern.  Cat specifically requested blues/greens with pink so we discussed having a big pink heart in the centre.  

I hoping that the word 'Mum' is visible enough-as so many things do, it looks better in real life :-)

I admit to shedding quite a few tears over this one-Mandy was far too young to leave so soon.

Cat is coming over on Saturday to pick it up-hopefully she'll like it.

I've just finished two special little blankets for two special little girls.  My dear friend Jem has two gorgeous daughters who love their 'aunty Liz' and as the youngest has just moved into her very own bedroom and into her first proper bed (she's only just turned 2), I wanted to make her and her big sister something to snuggle in :-)

Sapphire's was the first one I finished-she's a gentle little soul so she has quite gentle shades in hers-

Isn't it sweet?
It's also the first blanket I've made without using the standard Granny Square :-)


Now Romanie is a very strong willed little girl who loves hot pink so I stuck mainly with contrasts for her blankets but I did learn how to make a heart square-very tricky as I had a lot of problems with the pattern and ended up having to figure it out as I went round...but they worked out nicely and hers is beautiful as well :-)

a little close up of one of the heart squares

Both the girls absolutely loved their little blankets and hopefully will snuggle up in them for many years to come.

I've been posting photos on my Facebook page of all the blankets I've made to see whether making blankets as a business venture would be viable and I've had a lot of positive feedback already :-)  I've just received a message from a friend who lost her mother early this year to cancer and she's asked me to make her a special one with her mum's name on it.  So that will be the next project!  Watch this space...

Rainbow Blanket and Blanket of Fours!

Ooh, the posting settings have changed a bit!  Well, it has been a little while since I posted......I've not been idle though craft-wise.  I've been working on two very special, top secret, projects for my beautiful sisters.

And surprise, surprise, I made them blankets!  Not very inventive I know but a great deal of thought went into their inception and creation and I'm thrilled with the results :-)

Thea's came first-simply because I already knew what I wanted to do for hers.  A blanket inspired by rainbows with a pink-and-white border.

Sadly, my pictures don't do the colours justice-they're very, very bright!  But my sister has two gorgeous little girls who I'm sure like their colours loud :-)

I like this slightly out-of-focus photo as the colours blend together.  I have very bad eyesight so when I looked at the blanket without my glasses on, it looked really beautiful.


Now, Jess's blanket took a lot more thinking!  I didn't have a concrete theme but I decided to go with her favourite colours (blue and purple) along with green as I'm not sure what her other half likes colour-wise.  These colours are the dominate ones, along with some contrasting/accentuating combinations.  For Jessica's blanket, I also wanted to expand my square knowledge and learnt how to make lots of different motifs!

I grouped the squares into fours, crocheted them together and bordered them in white, then crocheted them into fours and did another white border, then crocheted each strip together and put a massive border around it...

For the border (on both blankets), I struggled with the joins but then I came across this tutorial which explains how to use what she calls 'flat border cluster' in really easy to follows photos and directions, so simple, even I could do it!


I posted them both on the same day-and despite the fact they were going to opposite parts of England, they both arrived within a day of each other to the complete surprise of my gorgeous sisters who seem to really like them :-)
They're hopefully both big enough for each family to snuggle up in on cold days and it gives me a huge amount of delight to think of my loved ones cuddled up in my blankets XD






Many of the square motifs came from this web page and I barely scratched the surface :-)  I also used a couple of the free patterns that this lovely lady shares on her blog.


So that's it for these blankets!  They were a lot of fun to make and while I'm a bit sad to see them go, I'm so happy that they have families of their own :-)